Mr.-," it sung, "I am sure you are a poet, and therefore you must write in my Album." Alas, how could I doubt? Had such a voice assured me that I was Apollo himself I should have believed it. To drop the metaphor, which is not convenient, I

In this age of reviews, when every author who puts forth his book, and every painter who exhibits his picture, is sure of the grati- took the book which was locked, as well it fication of reading his character wherever might where there was so much to steal, and he goes, it appears peculiarly hard that a began seriously to be daunted by its costly very important description of work, which appearance of red morocco and emblazoned unites the beauties of them both, should be Cupids. I felt that it was only meant to realtogether neglected. I mean those excel-ceive first-rate treasures, and submitted that lent establishments for the encouragement of it was hard to expose my first attempt to literature and the fine arts called Ladies' such a dangerous comparison. The appeal, Albums, the rapid increase of which has however, was in vain. My beauty assured done such visible wonders for the benefit of me that I need fear no comparison there, polite society. How many of the choice and gave me, as a reward for my labours, the geniuses of the age are here indebted for enviable privilege of turning over as many their first inspiration! How many, but for leaves as I pleased. I will not deny that this, had been compelled to remain on their this examination gave me a good heart, for I perch for want of a fair field to try their thought it was not impossible, after all, that wings, and how greedily will posterity scram- I might maintain my credit respectably ble after gilt-edged books with golden clasps enough; not that the articles were indifferto trace the germ of the great works which ent, but rather that the perusal of them lighthave descended to them! Alas! had oured me up with unwonted fire.

grandmothers-but it cannot be helped, and It would be difficult when staring upon every happy undertaking like the invention the noonday to say which ray is the most of Albums may cause us to lament that the beautiful or the most dazzling; and if I inworld has gone on so long without it. All stance a few of my brother contributors I that we can do is to perpetuate our blessings must not be understood as doing it with any for our children, and with this view I can view of settling their claims to superiority. do no less than encourage my fair friends in I merely go upon the judgment of my pretty their new pursuit by reviewing all the Al- friend, who seemed anxious to direct my atbums which fall in my way. I do this with tention to the lucubrations of a young genthe greater satisfaction as it is partly in pay- tleman who screened himself from fame unment of a debt of gratitude, seeing that it der the pathetic name of Alphonso. I rathwas in them that I myself commenced flut- er suspect he was her lover, for she describtering my wings, and I feel that, like the ed him very affectionately as a melancholy lark, whatever height I may soar I shall still youth, who had an opinion that geniuses were look with an eye of affection to the nest from not long-lived, and had made his will the which I sprang. Most fortunately does it moment after he had composed his first stanhappen, that I have not soared too far to za. I do not wonder that the piece made describe it with becoming exactness, for, if him low-spirited. It ran as follows:

the truth must be confessed, the secret of

my ability was only communicated to me last week, and the admiring reader is gazing on my first adventurous flight.

My nest-blessings on it! It was the prettiest nest that ever was made, and the bird that fostered me was a bird of Paradise. Its eyes were as blue as the heavens, and its voice was sweet as any within them. "Dear

When I am dead and wafted o'er the billow,

To wail thine absence as the death-watch ticks, I'll plant the spirit of a weeping willow

To shade my ghost, and kiss the limpid Styx.

There will I strike my visionary chord,
Intones of pityif they may but sound,
And mourn my body was not placed on board
To sink the bark and let my soul be drowned.
Poor Alphonso! I doubt very much if his

66

THE NEW-YORK LITERARY GAZETTE, AND

plan would have succeeded, for his mistress hinted that he had been so long and so deeply in love that he was not much more substantial than a ghost as it was. To complete the interesting picture, she gave me to understand that she was sure he was a genius and wrote well, for it was generally suspected that he was a little beside himself. Indeed, what I afterwards saw seemed to bear her out in this surmise, for his sentiments were occasionally inclining to be watery, just as though they had slipped through the crack in his head, and his numbers were apt to ramble with a true maniac unsteadiness; but, as he wrote upon nothing that was not either dying or dead, the latter circumstance a Stygian willow wreath. There was no was considered a great merit, as he imitated doing without such a dear contributor as this, and, indeed, her performances were the last kick to perfection.

as to which of her two heroes should be sacrificed. It no doubt requires much deliberation, and I hope and trust that she will not decide hastily. I inquired after the suicide yesterday, and found that he was still living.

It was quite a relief to turn from this intense study to a series of flower-drawings by a gentle young lady who had not been prevailed upon to exhibit without great solicitation. She was, however, one of my favourite's long string of bosom friends and confidants. The sweetest sympathizer in all her cares, and unhappily attached to Alphonso, who had doomed her, like himself to

In the next page to Alphonso and the interesting to a degree. It was pleasingly ghost of the willow-tree, my admiration was melancholy to behold them. Her roses excited by a remarkably fine spashy dashy were as pale as if they had been in love drawing, so boldly touched that I had some themselves, and the butterflies which flutterdifficulty in penetrating the mystery of what ed about them, were one and all, dying of it meant. I was told, however, by my pret- consumptions. There was no positive colty companion, that it was an assemblage of ouring or touching-softness was her pecudesolate rocks and rolling clouds, with the liar characteristic, and any appearance of ocean far beneath and a rude grave in the vigour would have been rejected as absoluteforeground, bearing the initials of the artist, ly indelicate. I was told that the bouquets and intended as an illustration of some sui- were for the most part fashioned for the indicidal stanzas by the same hand. This star cation of some tender sentiment, or the exit appeared had likewise been shining a hibition of some beloved face which was little too near the moon, though it was affect- formed by the outline of the flowers; and, broken heart's-ease, and ed in a different manner. Alphonso was a after a diligent search, I found Alphonso gentle being, and was satisfied to fade away peeping through a like a dying daisy, but the suicide man was the fair artist, hard by, in a flower of lovea determined misanthrope of the Byron lies-bleeding. There was an affecting simschool, and kept his friends in a turmoil lest plicity in these conceits which perfectly he should wring his own neck-a blood that atoned for the projectress's want of poetical would have laughed Charon's boat to scorn talent. She had no particular knack at oriand swam the Styx as lief as look at it. He ginality, though she was thought to select had met with two or three disappointments with great taste. She had copied all the

performances of Hafiz and several privately circulated pieces, which were supposed to be the production of Lord Byron himself. I ventured to differ upon some of these, but my young friend satisfied me of their genuineness, by assuring me that they had been transcribed from an Album somewhere near Mont Blane.

in love, and had been choused out of happiness till he very properly learnt to despise it. Every thing he drew or wrote had a smack of bitterness, and was particularly fine for a bold indication of what is called free-thinking, but making designs for his grave, which were usually in cross roads, and his numerous epitaphs, of which I counted about After this, I was introduced to some witty twenty, were, out of sight, his most congenial occupation. Most willingly would I treat conceits by a middle aged rubicund roue, the reader with some of the former, but I who cocked his hat and his eye, and set up ticed for a wag. He practised chiefly in the Anahave not yet been long enough apprenticed to my new avocation to be much of a hand creontic line, and would have been excel

at engraving, and the suicide's style is very
difficult to copy. I will give one of the
epitaphs, however, and welcome.

Ay, call me back to life again,

And wash with tears my peaceful tomb-
I cannot hear the hateful strain,

And, if I could, I would not come.

lent had he not sometimes been "a little too
bad." His rhymes likewise were apt, oc-
casionally, to be faulty, and he was in the
habit of taking great poetical licences to
His style, therefore,
bring them to bear.
was pronounced to be ungraceful, and my
lady of the Album wished the odious crea-
ture would leave her book alone. Before I
had time to become better acquainted with
him, she laughed and blushed, and slapped

There is something very striking in this ob-
stinate determination expressed in such sul-
len brevity, and I could perceive a pensive
irresolution in the eye of my young friend, it together, with a vow that I should not pro-

Now here it may be alleged that the inversion of the first line is not elegant, and As the tone of feeling and temper of mind the necessity of snapping your fingers at are greatly modified and affected by early the word "that," in the second, is decidedly education and society, so it has been observin bad taste. "Ours," in the third line, is ed, that the "start" in life generally gives a strained, with poetical violence, into a dis- colour to a man's career, to its conclusionsyllable: the sense of the fourth is not quite till the "poor play is over." That life is a apparent, and the rhyme of "world" and "poor" play, might admit of a cavil, per"behold" is unusual. Altogether, this stan- chance; but the influence ascribed to what za is a very fair specimen of the faults and is termed the "start" on the complexion of beauties of its author. a man's pilgrimage through it, seems to be

tive harvest is not ever the result of an in

From hence I wandered through a great pretty generally conceded. And that it many pages of excellent riddles, with which may possess all the influential importance it I will not treat my reader, lest he should stop is accredited for, I do not deny or dispute; to puzzle them out. Numerous copies of but I would incline to say, that the precise Madonnas and children, of which the only hue it may communicate to the eventual defect was a trifling inclination to squint, it tenor of a man's conduct and views, reflecbeing very difficult to make the eyes match. tions and feelings to a man's character, it Wondrous landscapes, by little persons of is difficult, a priori, to deduce from the apfour years old, who never learnt to draw. parent mark and likelihood displayed in his Autographs of John Brown and William debut on the world's stage. An unproducWilliams, and many other celebrated gentlemen whom I did not know, but of whose auspicious seed-time. A lowering morning families I had often heard talk. Fac-similes can be followed by a brilliant or a steady of the hand-writing of Bonaparte, imitated day. Causes do not always produce uniform from specimens from recollection. Striking effects, or the results we anticipate, and in likenesses of notorious characters, cut out moral things least so. In the moral world, in coloured paper from imagination. In the same cause will be followed by very opshort, my progress was like a ramble through posite effects, as applied to different indivisome newly discovered country, where eve- duals. Thus the world is not unfrequently ry thing is rare and riveting, and thrown in the graceful confusion in which nature delights.

wrong in the conclusions it inclines to draw, not unseldom precipitate in the opinion it is so fond of pronouncing, when it forms its judgment of youth's maturer character from the apparent, but often fallacious promise of

When I had come to a close, my pretty friend resumed her coaxing look, and be- its spring-time. Nor is the world to be acsought me to take up my pen, for she was cused of being too lenient, too flatteringly quite sure that I should not be eclipsed; and prophetic, on seeing a young man, when moreover, that I should not be severely crit-launching into life, bend before the gale of icised. Her friends had the keenest eyes in its temptings, to a dangerous course. It is the world for talent, and could spy it in every not always the ship that rocks and heels thing they saw; and, if her father chose to most, on first essaying her future element, call them madmen and fools, it was a com- that worst balances herself in "the after fort to think that no one agreed with him. days of battle and nights of danger." It is The command, therefore, was cheerfully not the plodding and persevering, because obeyed, and I joined the throng of geniuses, cold and unimpassioned boy, who keeps his by filling the title-page with the following uncompromising way, is at the head of his appropriate dedication.

This little book, with all the prize

Its varied page imparts;

I dedicate to gentle eyes

And sympathizing hearts:

Then all who bring their smile or tear

May fearless drop the gem,

For common sense shall ne'er come here
To praise them or condemn.

form, and seems to surpass his compeers, that always proves the better scholar, the greater genius, or the more valuable man. When we see warm-tempered, high-spirited, open-hearted youth, running full tilt at pleasure, at the outset in life; indiscreetly, nay, recklessly and imprudently plunging amid the dazzling, motley, good-and-evil-chequered scenes, which a first entrance on the

stage of society presents, it is not to be in- unresisting down its glittering, deceptious ferred that the consequences on after charac- current, remains the captive of its conjuter always are, and must be injurious. It rings, even to the exclusion of every more is hasty to prejudge-illiberal to bar hope of youth's matured worth and value of character, that it has rushed into some of those extremes which so many allurements combine

important pursuit, the annihilation of the influence of each more serious consideration, the disregard of warning reflection. It has not been ill said, that "it is difficult to

to tempt into, on the foot being first placed place an old head on young shoulders." in the arena of the world at large. Allow- The very generosity and warmth of the virance must always be made for the ebullition tues of a young and uncontaminated mind, of youthful passions and feelings. Loosed contribute to array in brighter colours, and from the thraldom, as youth is apt to view it, to facilitate its enrolment beneath the banof tutors and school-restraint,--often unwise- ners of Pleasure, (the pursuits so denominaly, because often injudiciously imposed, - ted,) to impel a deeper draught at that inthe spirits warm and buoyant, and the kind- toxicating fount. But it does not necessaly opinion of men and things glowing in all rily follow, that Pleasure's seductions will its unsophisticated freshness, where is the continue to blind to the unsatisfactory superwonder, that freedom and novelty, and the ficiality, to say the least, of her mere purvaried objects to excite and to fascinate the suits; that all prospective evidence on othyoung and inexperienced mind which an en- er true and solid foundations is blighted, betrance, uncontrolled, on life is pregnant cause youth, at the outset, has been unable with, should produce their full effect that to repel her blandishments, -for a space has

the novice should be swept away by the flood of his own new and exciting sensations -should be unable, despite of precept, to resist the contagion of surrounding example? It will be evident that I glance to where life is entered on under certain fortuitous advantages. As there are various grades in society, so must the circumstances vary under which "the start" in life is made; but in all, it is accompanied with temptations

bent before the temptress. I hate to hear the raven-croak of evil anticipation, some are so fond of, directed towards a young man of otherwise high hopes, even when I behold him evincing exclusive devotion to Pleasure's shrine-affording countenance to its ill-omened bodings. I ever incline to trust more to the predominance of the intrinsic worth, and the brighter side of human nature, than to fear the preponderance of

to be resisted, and dangers to be surmount- its weaker, or the backslidings of its darker ed. Those, however, who spring from a propensities. For a time he may bow the more advanced step in its ladder, have warmest of her votaries, but it is not a contemptation placed before them in a greater sequence that an indulgence in every folly, variety of forms-displayed under more be- even to an extreme, must prove inimical to guiling aspects; and appearing to have less the eventual formatiou of his character. It necessity in one sense, to be coy to, or to may; but it may have an effect very oppo

shun Pleasure's embraces, present more facility to a subjugation beneath her yoke. It needs not to be told, that once within the vortex of Fashion and Dissipation, in any of their forms, it is no task of ease to escape from their intoxicating whirl-to shake off the spell they bind with. Where, then, is the wonder, that, once within its influence,

site. Much is dependent on the head and heart. To many, the results could not but prove injurious. With not a few it has but given a truer, a better and a richer colouring to after life. This may appear rather obscure, but will be understood. It may seem paradoxical, or be viewed as deducing an effect inconsistent on the one side, or colour

youth finds it difficult to emancipate from ed to higher importance than is warrantable the gilded thrall? Pleasure's stream is rap- on the other, than a man's mere acquaintid and impatient, and hurries the adventu- ance with, or impetuous career in extravarer on it away; allowing no time to exam-gance, dash, riot, and revel, would seem to ine or discern the ills and dangers that be- authorize. But the influence ascribed to set it, nor leisure to weigh the truth or false- the "start", must be kept in view-the hood, the solidity or emptiness, of the charms stamp and complexion first impressions in it affects so liberally to be decked with-the life are allowed to communicate to its after delights it would be understood to lavish career, must be looked to. An intimacy with so generous a hand. Youth sees those with life, in the form I am viewing it, will around floating down it, the gayest in seem- either render a man's temper and habits, ing, and apparently in the conviction of perceptions and feelings, better and clearer theirs being the best and brightest road to than they were,-will purify them, or it will enjoyment. Its promise to the eye of inex- blunt, deaden, and weaken them. The perience becomes invested with an almost weak head may become perverted, and the irresistibly captivating appearance; and bad heart take a darker tinge, under the inthe plunge once made, once borne away fluence of the selfishness and corrupt motives on its tide 'no wonder youth floats for a time and feelings which flourish in, and can be so well acquired by an intimacy with what, its Pleasure's fairest gifts-the emptiness of her

mask on, seems so fair, so gay, and so open -the world of fashion and dissipation-the empire of pleasure. But in it, though there may be further means and appliances to pervert the weak, or confirm the bad, not in it only, with reference to society at large, can the former be assailed, and the latter stimulated. With much that is contemptible, and much that is dissolute, and much that is depraved, mixed up in the disposition of the circle a man must join to see and essay "life" in the form I speak of, there is more commingled of high and honourable feeling, of generous purpose, and liberal thought. But unfortunately, wherever, as there, folly and evil, in all their ramifications, are luxuriant, there is ever reason to dread for the weak head and the evil-disposed heart; for weakness and wickedness possess mutual attraction, and give mutual encouragement and support. But to leave weakness and wickedness to their fate. The danger to be

brightest hours; will teach him to feel that what he follows, and has learnt to term "enjoyment," is but its falsest shadow, cloying alike upon the taste, as dissatisfying upon reflection, and that, in its chase, he is sacrificing all that is truly valuable and justly gratifying in aim and acquirement. The rightly-constituted heart soon learns to sigh for friends very different from the mere boon-companion of the convivial hour; to yearn for ties and attachments, warmer, purer, and sincerer, than those it meets with in the round of feather-like and deceitful fashion and folly. When a man begins so to think and feel,to examine how far such a career has been conducive to his real happiness or interests, disenthralment from the spells of a systematic life of pleasure lingers on the threshold, and requires but small encouragement to enter. His understanding, cleared from the mist which a precipitate rush into Pleasure's false but dazzling path had imposed, he

chiefly dreaded from an inveiglement into will turn with contrasted ardour (and conPleasure's toils at starting in life is this-is viction to other pursuits, that he has the most extensive under this point of view. knowledge of the tinsel superficiality and

Many, seduced to taste its waters, prolong their draught, and possessing insufficient firmness of purpose and strength of mind to shake off their enervating effects, and retreat, even when, in satiety, they begin to pall upon the sense, like one overcome by some noxious exhalation, succumb the passive slaves of an existence denuded of all the better, the more substantial, and worthy ends and aims which a man, in his relations to society, can propose to himself for his own true happiness, and what is indeed in most intimate connexion with, and directly and indirectly conducive thereto, the welfare and happiness of those around him.

Here the bias communicated-the weakness originated, in an unrestrained pursuit of pleasure, on first entering on life, proves the deepest misfortune. The wretch has learnt to rightly appreciate the bubble he bas too long pursued with all-eager assidui

eye-cheating surface-glare of its promise,that he knows the hollow heartlessness that burrows beneath all its gilded and gaudy exterior. The ordeal, too, if I may so speak, he may be considered to have passed through will be accompanied with its advantages. It can give much experience of men and things, can purify and soften down little asperities, and correct many little faults of exterior, not intrinsic, perhaps, but best absent; can temper without blunting, and refine without weakening the sentiments and feelings. The advantages are not few to be derived from such an insight into "life," where no embarrassment, no identification with its follies, ensue from a temporary intimacy therewith. "Knowledge of men and things exercise the relations of the sentient being: and as these relations are increased, so, generally, are his moral preceptions, ties, and obligations." I will but far

ty: it has burst in his grasp, and he is sick ther add, in this view of the subject, that a of the vain and unsatisfying chase. He seemingly inauspicious "start" may form would now fondly secede from his career of but the medicine, not the poison, in regard folly; but, alas! habits of business, applica- to the eventful formation of a man's charaction, thought, and all the concurring advan-ter; which may body out the better, and tages he possessed at the "start," to enable clearer, and more richly-defined from his inhim to shine in the part his station in socie- troduction to, and temporary expatiation, ty entitled him to play, have deserted him.

It is too familiar an illustration for the subject-but he is like the mouse in the trap; be got easily in, but he cannot get out again. He has entangled himself in the labyrinth, and his wish for disentanglement is opposed, by his want of energy on the one hand, and of a clue to assist him on the other. But the sound head and heart will seldom entail

amid scenes where,

-in Folly's cup still laughs the bubble joy.

From the tone and tenor of the preceding remarks, it will not be unreasonable to infer, I think, that I can be no staid, starched, illiberal-judging professor of morality, who will not make allowance for, nor in any degree overlook those venial errors,-those errors which youth, in the hey-day of the

so piteous a result. They will soon teach blood, will rush into. I am indeed none their possessor the worthlessness of mere such. I have known life, and I know how