that the unknown agents are on hand and ready | questions about his family and pursuits are anto make further communications. swered correctly, but, I believe, this gentleman The question may then be asked either by one did not extend his inquiries into the spiritual of the ladies, or any visitor. Will the spirits world. converse with such or such an individual? The A farmer-looking personage-brown and weathanswer to this is by no means certain. The un-er-stained, from Indiana, after being rebuffed for seen rappers appear to be quite capricious in two or three times, at last succeeded in obtaintheir tastes. They sometimes give a flat nega-ing an interview. Can I converse with my detive. Often they yield a conditional consent, ceased son? Yes. With my daughter? Yes. saying that they will converse with the persons Are their spirits present? Yes. Can I speak at some other time-perhaps at a later period of to them directly? Yes. Do you know me? that session. I have noticed no principle in the No answer. Soon the signal was given for the selection of the favored individuals. The most alphabet. The words were spelled out. "They intelligent person in the room is as likely to be are always with you." Are you happy? Yes. accepted as any other. Nor can he flatter him- Are you happy together? No direct reply, but self that he will be heard in preference to any a succession of rhythmical knocks were heard, gaping fanatic who happens to be present. I which the old man recognized as a favorite tune see that at the reunion, about which so much has which his son and daughter had been in the habit been said in the newspapers, at the house of of playing together on the piano and violin. He Rev. Dr. Griswold, a decided partiality was was greatly agitated, and no further questions shown to Dr. Francis and Mr. Fenimore Coop- were then asked. er. At other times, no answer at all is vouch- On another occasion, a highly intelligent lady, safed to those who are most inclined to swallow who had been drawn by the general current of the pretensions. Often when apparently the la- curiosity into a visit to the ghost-seers, was receivdies seem most desirous to make a favorable im-ed with very considerable empressement. On her pression, they are mocked with an astringent si- solicitation of a interview, the knocks were lence. Perhaps this is an element in the com- emphatical, and as far as one could understand plot. erroneous. this "dead language," seemed particularly corSupposing, then, the preliminaries to be ar- dial. Wishing to step out of the usual routine ranged, and an acceptable interlocutor on the of family questions, she fixed on Jean Jacques "inquiry bench," the question is usually asked, Rousseau as the spirit she would evoke. Can I with a view to identifying the pretended ghost, converse with him? was the first question, of What was your age when you left the body? course conceding the name. Yes. Was he an This question is often followed by raps, showing American? No answer. A German? No the correct number of years; as often, by silence; answer. A Frenchman? Yes. Did he live in and not unfrequently, by an answer altogether the present century? No answer. In the last? Another method is to write down Yes. Does he now retain the views which he several figures, including the right one, at which cherished on earth? He does not. Does he the spirit knocks, on its being touched with the think as he did of the family relation? No. pencil. In most cases that I have seen, the an- Will he tell the number of his names? Three swers are given correctly by this method. Simi- distinct raps. Will he rap the letters in his last lar questions are then put, and the replies, though name? After several confused knocks, no one often wide of the mark, are frequently so cor- being able to count the number, eight knocks rect as to excite as much astonishment in the were given. Will he rap the letters in his first company, as when Madame McAllister disap- name? Wrong answer. Will he rap the letters pears from the table at the pistol-shot of her hus- in his three names? Wrong answer. band. Another mode is for the spirits to call for the alphabet, which is slowly repeated by the officiating hierophant, and a knock is heard at each letter of which the answer is composed. Such is the usual modus operandi, and if you choose, I will give you some instances of its application which I have witnessed myself. The lady discontinued the conversation with the firmest conviction that all she had witnessed was clearly the result of accident or deceptiou. Others drew the opposite inference from the same facts. Minds will differ. A German gentleman present then took up the thread of inquiry, proposing his questions in the A gentleman from Charleston, S. C., names French language. They related to his family several cities, inquiring which of them is his res-abroad, or deceased, and were all answered coridence. Knock at Charleston. How many rectly. weeks since I left there? Knocks the number. At another time, a literary gentleman of this Am I thinking of father? mother? brother? city proposed to converse with the poet Goethe. wife? Knocks at the relative in his mind. Other This was found to be no easy matter. At length, the answer came, that no one could converse | inquirers. I perceive that Prof. Agassiz is now with him directly, but that questions concerning treating the question in a course of lectures at him would be replied to. The following dia-Boston. The controversy could scarely be in logue then commenced. Will you rap the num- better hands. Agassiz looks at the question in a ber of tens in his age? Eight raps. The num- purely scientific point of view, expressly disber of tens since he died? Two. Was he an claiming any desire to influence opinion in reAmerican? No answer. Was he a French-gard to the interpretation of the Scriptures, or man? Yes. The question was then varied and any of the delicate topics of current controversy. put in writing, the interlocutor being requested Dr. Smyth considers it as a theologian and as a to knock, when the right word was touched with citizen of the South. But this does not seem to the pencil. Is he an Englishman? An Italian? damage his candor or impartiality. He makes A German? A Frenchman? Yes. Does he out a strong case on his side of the question, retain his old opinions? No. Was he a great which of course, is a public intellectual benefit. author? Yes. Was he a great poet? No. The truth will be elicited from the best efforts of Was he thought to be a great poet while on the advocates on both sides. earth? Yes. Was the world deceived about him? No answer. It was evident that the in- Among the reprints, I notice The Pillars of quirer had fallen in with one who was no friend Hercules, a loose, disjointed, rambling, pedantic of Goethe. Swedenborg would have perhaps book of travels in Spain and Morocco, by a memsaid that it was one of those envious, scampy, ber of the British Parliament, D. Urquhart, Esq. imps, who love to detract from merit, and who could not forgive Goethe his world-wide reputation or his French tastes. I have given you what I think is a tolerably fair view of the average character of the questions and answers. Thus far, no important reply has been given to any question. No new knowledge has been communicated. No facts have been disclosed, which were not already in the mind of the inquirer when the question was put. In this respect, the performance does not equal the achievements of many clairvoyants. The language, when a sentence is spelled, is precisely such as might be expected from the intellectual calibre of the lady mystatoques. The raps often take the form of musical airs, but without exception, they are the familiar tunes of Rochester and its vicinity, with no echo of blessed harps. Still, you find something more in the phenomena, taken as a whole, than can be well explained on the theory of a voluntary humbug. This may yet prove to be the case, but at present, the mystery is so complete, as to make one wary of affirming or denying aught in relation to it. The believers that it is the work of departed spirits of course, are few. The most important work of this month is Dr. Smyth's admirable Treatise on the Unity of the Human Races, published by Putuam. The eminent Charleston divine handles the interesting topic of discussion, with a rich display of erudition such as few men can command in this country, and with a keenness of perception and power of argument which must make him a formidable antagonist. Nothing heretofore written on the subject appears to have escaped his notice, and on this account, if on no other, his volume will be a text book of standard authority, with all future It has been lashed without mercy by his political opponents, who wield the critical pen, in England, but you may take my word for it, leaving out its plethora of Greek and Latin, it has humor, sarcasm, droll anecdotes, lively description and curious information enough to make it well worth reading. After you have been provoked, in the worst way, with its ill-assorted crevasses of strange learning, and its numerous high-horsical pomposities, your good-nature is restored by some happy hit, or sprightly narrative, and you think the fusty old pedant is the most entertaining writer in the world. The life of Andrew Combe promises to be an agreeable piece of biography, I have dipped into it here and there and find it far less stupid than most of the popular productions of that literal, downright, unmitigated Scoth prosaist, George Combe. C. A. Bristed has written a pamphlet of considerable piquancy, scourging the modern radicalisms all and singular, over the shoulders of the head school master of New-England, Horace Mann, of Massachusetts. Harpers' New Monthly Magazine has taken the "reading public" by storm. It cannot fail to be a most readable production, as the abundant materials of which it is composed, if merely thrown up into the air, like a bag of feathers, would come down in most delightful shapes. The first number has been sold to the amount of some 20,000 copies, and large orders await the appearance of the second, which I am told will be a decided improvement on its predecessor. One of its features, that of giving copious extracts from the best new English works in ad vance of their regular publication, I think, is most excellent. They are like samples of good wine, which create a taste for the real article, and allay the appetite till a full supply can be obtained. Harper & Brothers will speedily issue Leigh Hunt's Autobiography, the most delicious book of the season, as aromatic and flavorous as the dish of ripe strawberries, which with the thermometer at 90° tempts me to let you off today with a short letter. KATHLEEN, OR THE FELON'S TRYSTE. Sister, we must part to-night! Bring with thee too, that book of prayer, Sister, ere we breathe farewell, J. M. C. EDITOR'S TABLE. During the last month, we have received the painful intelligence of the death of two distinguished poets of England; and to these has recently been added the name of Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood, one of our sweetest American poetesses. William Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount, in Westmoreland, on the 23rd of April, in his eighty-first yearhaving thus, as it were, outlived his generation, and heard with his mortal ears the impartial verdict of posterity. His high reputation was neither acquired early, nor without a struggle with that English public, so famous for worshipping false gods in Literature, and neglecting its real men of genius. With his merit unacknowledged, his genius chilled by neglect, his warm inspirations frozen in their fount by the sneers of the Edinburg Review, which then dictated without appeal in Letters, William Wordsworth, whose name will pass to future times as the great Philosophical Poet, struggled on through fifteen years of neglect and indifference from that public, which has since done all but worship him. He was twenty-three when his first poem was published. It bore the title of "An Evening Walk-an Epistle in Verse, addressed to a young Lady of the North of Eng. land, by W. Wordsworth, B. A., of St. John's College, Cambridge." In the same year 1793, appeared "Descriptive Sketches in Verse"-of a tour in Switzerland and Italy. These fell almost still-born from the press, but Coleridge has recorded in his Biographia Libraria his own impression of them in the following words: "During the last year of my residence at Cambridge, 1794, I became acquainted with Mr. Wordsworth's first publication, entitled 'Descriptive Sketches;' and 'seldom if ever was the emergence of an original poetic genius above the Literary horizon more evidently announced." A few appreciative admirers, however, could do nothing for the poor "Sketches," and they fell dead. They were followed by "Lyrical Ballads," and in 1807, by an edition of his poeins, in two volumes, which Byron, then nineteen, reviewed in the "Monthly Literary Recreations." His pompously rounded would-be-critical sentences remind us strongly of Mr. Arthur Pendennis and his critiques in Thackeray's last new novel. These volumes added much to the reputation of Wordsworth. He was at last beginning to be known and appreciated. His "Lyrical Ballads" had become favorites with the public, and a new work from their author was looked for with curiosity by the general reader, and with impatience by his admirers, embracing in their number every cultivated intellect, and every admirer of simplicity and nature. While the public mind was in this state of favorable regard toward the new poet, his "Excursion," undeniably the greatest of his poems, was given to the world. In vain did the Edinburg Review fulminate and threaten, exclaim, "This will never do!" and boast of having "crushed the Excursion"-Lord Jeffreys for once found his goosequill powerless. The public were determined to read and judge for themselves. The Excursion raised the poet's reputation still higher with his admirers. Then came in succession, "Peter Bell," the "Waggoner," the "White Doe of Rylston," and those beautiful Sonnets which appeared under the title of the "River Duddon.” From the appearance of this latter volume dates Wordsworth's fixed fame as a poet. From this time forth it was never called in question, and his subsequent works, "Yarrow Revisited," "Tinturn Abbey," "Laodamia,” "Yarrow Unvisited," &c., sustained, rather than added the person of Frances Sargent Osgood, whose songs and to his reputation. In 1835, Wordsworth received a pension of £300, and on the death of Southey, he was appointed poet-laureate-an office which Jonson, Davenant and Dryden had held before him. His only production, as poet-laureate, is his Ode on her Majesty's visit to his old alma mater. The incident of the pension and his appointment by the Queen soon after, gave rise to the following verses by that most eccentric of poets, Robert Browning. They have more bad feeling than poetry "Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat- Rags-were they purple, his heart had been proud! Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watched from their He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! lyrics have so long been favorites with the public. Her first poems appeared in the "Juvenile Miscellany," under the nom de plume of " Florence," and in 189 a volume of her works, called " A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England," was published by a house in London, whither she had gone with her husband. For several years Mrs. Osgood has edited different magazines and annuals with great taste and elegance-her pen turning indifferently to poetry or prose. Mrs. Osgood in the light gay sparkling lyric or song, which has of late years become so common, has few rivals. Mrs. Welby is perhaps her equal, but not her superior. The perpetual gaiety which pervades these writings, and the tender, delicate sentiment, which runs through all of them, is delightfully refreshing when the mind has been overburdened, and asks for relaxation. As an example of this manner, we refer to the little song"I have something sweet to tell you," and as a proof of this lady's warm and poetical imagination, to the "Magic Flute," a poem which appeared some time since in one of the Northern magazines. Mrs. Osgood is the most feminine of American poetesses. It is not our practice to refer to the Prospectuses of Schools or Colleges in the editorial department of the Messenger, inasmuch as such reference in general savors too much of the "Puff direct" to be much to our taste. But we hope it will not be considered foreign to the scope of our Magazine to ask attention to a "Prospectus of a Law School to be conducted by Benj. F. Porter," in Charleston, S. C. It is perhaps enough for us to announce the fact that such a school is to be commenced, for surely nothing that we can say can add to the claims It is unnecessary here to do more than allude to the Judge Porter already possesses upon the Southern pubmerits of William Wordsworth. The impartial voice of lic. A distinguished jurist, he has also acquired an envia his own generation has declared him to be a noble and ble literary reputation; and we congratulate the young true poet-with a heart to sympathize with nature in all men of the South, who are about to enter upon the study her moods of shine or storm, "thunder or sunshine," agi- of the Law, on the advantage they have in being able to tation or rest, and an intellect expanded, acute and vigo-choose so excellent a Preceptor. The school opens in rous, to interpret in "noble words," his "noble feelings of November next. the heart." NOTICES OF NEW WORKS. His greatest poem, the "Excursion," is not only a noble work in point of thought and matter, but the diction is terse, flowing, meditative, dramatic, embracing in a word all the moods of the language moulded by a master hand. His "Lyrical Ballads" will, however, be always the favorites of the great mass of readers. "Lucy Gray" and the "Waterfall and Eglantine" are types of these charming productions, which linger in the heart like some long-WANDERING SKETCHES of People and Things in South treasured memory of happy childhood. The power to write these Lyrics," says all that need be said for Wordsworth's heart and head. Nearly at the same moment with Wordsworth, died William Lisle Bowles, the contemporary of all the great pocts of the last generation. He had reached his eightyeighth year, at his death. America, Polynesia, California, and other places, visit The title of this book is so fair and full an index to its conHis first work, entitled "Fourteen Sonnets," was much tents, that perhaps a mere reprint of it would suffice for a admired by Coleridge, who "made more than forty trans- criticism. But Dr. Wood has acquitted himselfso very credcriptions, as the best presents he could offer to those who itably and agreeably in his unpretending narrative, that we had won his regard,"-his finances "not permitting him cannot forbear giving our readers an extract or two, that to purchase copies." Of his succeeding publications, may furnish them with some insight into its merits. We few now remember anything—his "Coombe Ellen," "St. dip into the book at random. From the one which we select Michael's Mount," and "Spirit of Discovery," have pass-first, it would seem that a taste for gaudy trappings and ed away. He is chiefly remembered by his controversy useless parades was quite as common in South America with Lord Byron, and by the witticism on his "Spirit of as in " these United States." Discovery," in the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. To these names, famous in another land, and now gone from the abodes of men, an addition has been made in "Among the most interesting street incidents at Rio Janeiro are the religious processions frequently occurring. In these processions images as large as life, and gaudily Certainly the manners of the ladies seem at least to be fraught with quite as much, if not more, kindness of heart. costumed, representing different saints, are elevated upon | Fifth avenue. them." "In the procession which I was fortunate to witness, I was glad to see that a fair representation of races was among the sacred images; for one of glittering ebony color, and wooly head, particularly attracted the attention and claimed the veneration of the surrounding throng of negroes." "It was evident that the principles of tetotalism had not reached this part of our globe, viz. Callao, for the wine and Italia seemed to be as necessary a part of the breakfast of the ladies as they were of that of the sterner sex; and I found that no matter how often I offered a mint julep to a lady, it was freely accepted, and feeling some apprehension for the consequences, I substituted wine for brandy in mixing them, as I felt bound in gallantry to of fer as long as they were not declined. It was with some mortification that I learned that it is considered an act of rudeness to refuse any thing offered at table, and that my "Whilst pursuing our walks through some of the by- to those to whom it was extended. This conventional officious gallantry might in truth have been a persecution streets, we came upon a house, the entrance to which was hung with black velvet trimmed with silver lace-there courtesy of offering and accepting delicacies at table is in frequent exercise. A lady will take up some choice mor was death within; before the door was a group of persons with large wax candles, three or four feet long, one of sel, on the end of a fork, from her plate, and present it to which they offered to every passer by. As the honor any gentleman whom she may wish to compliment, and done the deceased is in proportion to the number of these the gentleman acknowledges the honor done him by a candles borne lighted in a funeral procession, it is indeco-speedy return of the civility. This custom appears to be rous for a passer by to refuse to take a candle and join ladies as well as gentlemen lit their cigars, and puffed an equivalent for that of hob-knobbing. After breakfast, the mourners. The candles become the perquisite of the church in which the funeral ceremonies are performed, away with the air and gusto of old smokers." and, as but little of them is consumed, they form no small contribution." "The body is borne to the grave in a hearse richly cov ered with black velvet, trimmed with gold or silver lace. In the burial of a child, the coffin is gaily covered with blue or crimson satin, decorated with gold or silver fringes, and the church bells ring a merry peal of rejoicing, that the little one has left without drinking the full cup of the miseries of human life." Our next extract seems to justify the vain-glorious epithet of the universal Yankee nation, to which we lay such frequent claim. "But it is time to give up our gossip about Callao, and look for something of greater interest; and for our purpose we have running to Lima, the "eld line" and the opposition line of omnibusses." What an amalgamation of manners and customs is going on in the world, and leveling all peculiarities! in a little while we shall have The incident last narrated is poetic and pleasing. To no such thing as "foreign parts." Mint juleps are part our taste, flowers are more fitting than tears at the of a Peruvian pic-nic; and now an omnibus carries us funereal ceremonies of early childhood. Not the least where a little while past we traveled on horseback and admirable of the sayings of the ancients, which have de-armed against banditti!” scended to us, is, "Those whom the Gods love die young;" a sentiment full of pith and consolation. In the next extract we find the "Italia" spoken of; a spirit procured from the grape by distillation and not fermentation, whereby the genuine flavor of the fruit is retained. We say this with authority, for we have tasted thereof; and have often wondered why our merchants should not have added this to their "stocks of choice liquors." With these extracts we consign the book to the good taste of our readers; feeling assured that they will be gratified with a perusal of its contents. LIFE OF JEAN PAUL FREDERIC RICHTER. Compiled from various sources. Together with his Autobiography. Translated by Eliza Buckminster Lee. Complete in one volume. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 200 Broadway. 1850. Of those who quaffed the waters of the German Casdistinctive strains have been all unheard by the majority taly during the last century, there was one, whose wild, "The landing (at Callao) is at a very excellent mole of stone, enclosed by an iron railing, and here we have before us an animated, busy, and characteristic scene. The fine wheat of Chili lies heaped up in large piles; and as an evidence of the dryness of the climate, and the general absence of rain, it remains thus exposed to the weather of mankind; and that one, a man of the rarest gifts of from one end of the year to the other. There are also iron nature, who preached a lofty philosophy without ever vessels of quicksilver used in the mines, for separating the having aimed at a system, and uttered the sublimest poprcious metals; large square blocks of salt quarried frometry without having ever written a verse. Such was Jean the mines of Sechura; and pyramidal earthen jars of Italia, Paul. We call him a philosopher, for surely he saw bean alcoholic spirit, manufactured at Pisco, a little to the neath the surface of things and dared to renounce all consouthward, and much esteemed as a choice spirit. Nu-ventionalities, while he told to his fellow mortals what he merous carts made of raw hides, and droves of diminutive felt and comprehended: we call him a poet, for his wridonkeys are busily employed in transporting the various goods to their places of destination." The miscellaneous character of the goods thus "stored" in open air, would seem to have proved a fair index to the habits of the consumers. Our author, who does not content himself with mere out door experiences, gives us an insight into a dejuner a la fourchette, which was doubtless in its way as elegant an affair as any similar effort in the tings are informed with the divine spirit beyond those of many who have sang more tuneful measures. More than all this, Jean Paul was an earnest man, with the cheerful creed, expressed, in one of his letters, that this world is "no vale of tears but rather a vale of joy"—overflowing with the genuine kindliness of a pure heart-and so steadfast in friendships that, as he said of Jacobi, “death assuredly did not sever" the attachments he had formed with his friends. |