sumption by one of the characters of the favorable position in the intrigue of a foreign Count; while a serious element is introduced in the female revenge of a West Indian, who had been betrayed in her youth by the millionaire of the piece.

JOHN W. GOULD, a brother of the preceding, was born at Litchfield, Conn., Nov. 14, 1814. He was a very successful writer of tales and sketches of the sea; his fine talents having been directed to that department of literature by one or more long voyages undertaken for the benefit of his health. He died of consumption, at sea, in the twenty-fourth year of his age, Oct. 1, 1838.

His writings were originally published in detached numbers of the New York Mirror and the Knickerbocker Magazine in the years 1834-5; and after his death, in 1838, were collected in a handsome volume, containing also a biographical sketch and his private journal of the This volume was Voyage on which he died. issued by his brothers for private circulation only. The tales and sketches of the volume, under the title of Forecastle Yarns, were published by the New World press in 1843, and in a new edition by Stringer & Townsend, New York, 1854.

An unfinished story found among his papers after his death, will convey a correct impression of Mr. Gould's descriptive powers. The fraginent is entitled

MAN OVERBOARD.

"Cut

46

No, sir!" was the chill reply.

The ship now remained stationary, with her light aloft; but I could perceive nothing more for some minutes; they have given me up for lost.

That I could see the ship, those on board well knew, provided I had gained the buoy: but their object was to discover me, and now several bluelights were burned at once on various parts of the rigging. How plainly could I see her rolling in the swell!-at one moment engulfed, and in the next rising clear above the wave, her bright masts and white sails glancing, the mirror of hope, in this fearful illumination; while I, covered with the breaking surge, was tossed wildly about, now on the crest, now in the trough of the sea.

"There he is, Sir! right abeam!" shouted twenty voices, as I rose upon a wave.

"Man the braces!" was the quick, clear, and joyous reply of the trumpet: while, to cheer the forlorn heart of the drowning seaman, the martial tones of the bugle rung out, "Boarders, away!" and the shrill call of the boatswain piped, "Haul taut and belay!" and the noble ship, blazing with light, fell off before the wind.

A new danger now awaited me; for the immense hull of the sloop-of-war came plunging around, bearing directly down upon me; while her increased proximity enabled me to discern all the minutiae of the ship, and even to recognise the face of the first lieutenant, as, trumpet in hand, he stood on the forecastle.

Nearer yet she came, while I could move only as the wave tossed me; and now, the end of her flyingjib-boom is almost over my head!

"Hard a-port!" hailed the trumpet at this critical moment; "round in weather main-braces; right the helm!"

The spray from the bows of the ship, as she came up, dashed over me, and the increased swell buried me for an instant under a mountain-wave; emerging from which, there lay my ship, hove-to, not her length to windward!

"Garnet," hailed the lieutenant from the leegangway, "are you there, my lad?"

Ay, ay, Sir!" I shouted in reply; though I doubted whether, in the storm, the response could reach him; but the thunder-toned cheering which, despite the discipline of a man-of-war, now rung from the decks and rigging, put that fear at rest,

and my heart bounded with rapture in the joyous hope of a speedy rescue.

"All ready" hailed the lieutenant again: "heave!" and four ropes, with small floats attached, were thrown from the ship and fell around me. None, however, actually touched me; and for this reason the experiment failed; for I could not move my unwieldy grating, and dared not leave it; as by so doing, I might in that fearful swell miss the rope, be unable to regain my present position, and drown between the two chances of escape.

I was so near to the ship that I could recognise the faces of the crew on her illuminated deck, and hear the officers as they told me where the ropes lay; but the fearful alternative I have mentioned, caused me to hesitate, until I, being so much lighter than the vessel, found myself fast drifting to leeward. I then resolved to make the attempt, but as I measured the distance of the nearest float with my eye, my resolution again faltered, and the precious and final opportunity was lost! Now, too, the storm which, as if in compassion, had temporarily lulled, roared again in full fury; and the safety of the ship required that she should be put upon her

course.

ASA GREENE.

ASA GREENE was a physician of New England, who came to New York about 1830, and finally established himself as a bookseller in Beekman street. He was the author of The Travels of ExBarber Fribbleton, a satire on Fidler and other scribbling English tourists; The Life and Adventures of Dr. Dodimus Duckworth, A.N.Q., to which is added the History of a Steam Doctor, a semimock-heroic biography of a spoiled child, who grows up to be an awkward clown, but is gradually rounded off into a country practitioner of repute. The incidents of the story are slight, and the whole is in the style of the broadest farce, but possesses genuine humor. This appeared in 1833. In 1834 he published The Perils of Pearl Street, including a Taste of the Dangers of Wall Street, by a Late Merchant, a narrative of the fortunes or misfortunes of a country lad, who comes to New York in search of wealth, obtains a clerkship, next becomes a dealer on his own account, fails, and after a few desperate shifts, settles down as a professor of book-keeping, and, by the venture of the volume before us, of book-making.

The Perils of Pearl street is in a quieter tone than Dodimus Duckworth, but shares in its humor. Peter Funks and drumming, shinning and speculations, with the skin-flint operations of boarding-house keepers, are its chief topics. Greene was also the author of another volume, A Glance at New York, which bears his imprint as publisher in 1837, and was for some time editor of the Evening Transcript, a pleasant daily paper of New York. He was found dead in his store one morning in the year 1837.

PETER FUNK.

The firm of Smirk, Quirk & Co. affected a great parade and bustle in the way of business. They employed a large number of clerks, whom they boarded at the different hotels, for the convenience of drumming; besides each member of the firm boarding in like manner, and for a similar purpose. They had an immense pile of large boxes, such as

are used for packing dry-goods, constantly before their door, blocking up the side-walk so that it was nearly impossible to pass. They advertised largely in several of the daily papers, and made many persons believe, what they boasted themselves, that they sold more dry-goods than any house in the city.

But those who were behind the curtain, knew better. They knew there was a great deal of vain boast and empty show. They knew that Peter Funk was much employed about the premises, and putting the best possible face upon every thing.

By the by, speaking of PETER FUNK, I must give a short history of that distinguished personage. When, or where, he was born, I cannot pretend to say. Neither do I know who were his parents, or what was his bringing up. He might have been the child of thirty-six fathers for aught I know; and instead of being brought up, have, as the vulgar saying is, come up himself.

One thing is certain, he has been known among merchants time out of mind; and though he is des pised and hated by some, he is much employed and cherished by others. He is a little, bustling, active, smiling, bowing, scraping, quizzical fellow, in a pow dered wig, London-brown coat, drab kerseyшere breeches, and black silk stockings.

This is the standing portrait of Peter Funk,-if a being, who changes his figure every day, every hour, and perhaps every minute, may be said to have any sort of fixed or regular form. The truth is, Peter Funk is a very Proteus; and those who behold him in one shape to-day, may, if they will watch his transformations, behold him in a hundred different forms on the morrow. Indeed there is no calculating, from his present appearance, in what shape he will be likely to figure next. He changes at will, to suit the wishes of his employers.

He has no

His mind is as flexible as his person. scruples of conscience. He is ready to be employed in all manner of deceit and deviltry; and he cares not who his employers are, if they only give him plenty of business. In short, he is the most active, industrious, accommodating, dishonest, unprincipled, convenient little varlet that ever lived.

Besides all the various qualities I have mentioned, Peter Funk seems to be endowed with ubiquity-or at least with the faculty of being present in more places than one at the same time. If it were not so, how could he serve so many masters at once? How could he be seen in one part of Pearl street buying goods at auction; in another part, standing at the door with a quill behind each ear; and in a third, figuring in the shape of a box of goods, or cooped up on the shelf, making ashow of merchandise where all was emptiness behind?

With this account of Peter Funk, my readers have perhaps, by this time, gathered some idea of his character. If not, I must inform them that he is the very imp of deception; that his sole occupation is to deceive; and that he is only employed for that pur pose. Indeed, such being his known character in the mercantile community, his name is sometimes used figuratively to signify any thing which is employed for the purpose of deception-or as the sharp ones say, to gull the flats.

Such being the various and accommodating cha racter of Peter Funk, it is not at all surprising that his services should be in great demand. Accordingly he is very much employed in Pearl street, sometimes under one name, and sometimes under another-for I should have mentioned, as a part of his character, that he is exceedingly apt to change names, and has as many aliases as the most expert rogue in Bridewell or the Court of Sessions. Sometimes he takes

the name of John Smith, sometimes James Smith, and sometimes simply Mr. Smith. At other times he is called Roger Brown, Simon White, Bob Johnson, or Tommy Thompson. In short, he has an endless variety of names, under which he passes before the world for so many different persons. The initiated only know, and every body else is gulled.

Peter Funk is a great hand at auctions. He is constantly present, bidding up the goods as though he was determined to buy everything before him. He is well known for bidding higher than any body else; or at all events running up an article to the very highest notch, though he finally lets the opposing bidder take it, merely, as he says, to accommodate him-or, not particularly wanting the article himself, he professes to have bid upon it solely because he thought it a great pity so fine a piece of goods should go so very far beneath its value.

It is no uncommon thing to see the little fellow attending an auction in his powdered wig, his brown coat, his drab kerseys, as fat as a pig, as sleek as a mole, and smiling with the most happy countenance, as if he were about to make his fortune. It is no uncommon thing, to see him standing near the auctioneer, and exclaiming, as he keeps bobbing his head in token of bidding-"A superb piece of goods! a fine piece of goods! great pity it should go so cheap-I don't want it, but I'll give another twenty-five cents, rather than it should go for nothing." The opposite bidder is probably some novice from the country-some honest Johnny Raw, who is shrewd enough in what he understands, but has never in his life heard of Peter Funk. Seeing 80 very knowing and respectable a looking man, bidding upon the piece of goods and praising it ap at every nod, he naturally thinks it must be a great bargain, and he is determined to have it, let it cost what it will. The result is, that he gives fifty per cent. more for the article than it is worth, and the auctioneer and Peter Funk are ready to burst with laughter at the prodigious gull they have made of the poor countryman.

By thus running up goods, Peter is of great service to the auctioneers, though he never pays them a cent of money. Indeed it is not his intention to purchase, nor is it that of the auctioneer that he should. Goods nevertheless are frequently struck off to him; and then the salesman cries out the name of Mr. Smith, Mr. Johnson, or some other among the hundred aliases of Peter Funk, as the purchaser. But the goods, on such occasions, are always taken back by the auctioneer, agreeably to a secret understanding between him and Peter.

In a word, Peter Funk is the great under-bidder at all the auctions, and might with no little propriety be styled the under-bidder general. But this sort of characters are both unlawful and unpopular-not to say odious-and hence it becomes necessary for Peter Funk, alias the under-bidder, to have so many aliases to his name, in order that he may not be detected in the underhanded practice of underbidding.

To avoid detection, however, he sometimes resorts to other tricks, among which one is, to act the part of a ventriloquist, and appear to be several different persons, bidding in different places. He has the knack of changing his voice at will, and counterfeiting that of sundry well-known persons; so that goods are sometimes knocked off to gentlemen who have never opened their mouths.

But a very common trick of Peter's, is, to conceal himself in the cellar, from whence, through a convenient hole near the auctioneer, his voice is heard bidding for goods; and nobody, but those in the secret, know from whence the sound pro

ceeds. cellar.

This is acting the part of Peter Funk in the

But Peter, for the most part, is fond of being seen in some shape or other; and it matters little what, so that he can aid his employers in carrying on a system of deception. He will figure in the shape of a box, bale, or package of goods; he will appear in twenty different places, at the same time, on the shelf of a jobber-sometimes representing a specimen of English, French, or other goods-but being a mere shadow, and nothing else-a phantasma-a show without the substance. In this manner it was, that he often figured in the service of Smirk, Quirk & Co.; and while people were astonished at the prodigious quantity of goods they had in their store, two thirds at least of the show was owing to Peter Funk.

WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER.

WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER, one of the leading writers of the West, was born at Philadelphia in 1808. His father was a native of Ireland, who emigrated to this country after the failure of the Rebellion of 1798, in which he had taken a prominent part on the popular side.

After his death his widow, removed in 1816 to Ohio, and settled at Cincinnati, where the son became a printer. As with many others of the same craft, the setting of type was after a while exchanged for the production of "copy." Mr. Gallagher became editor of a literary periodical, the Cincinnati Mirror, which he continued for some time, contributing to its pages from his own pen a number of prose tales and poems, which attracted much attention. enterprise, as is usually the case with pioneer literary efforts, was pecuniarily unsuccessful. During a portion of its career, Mr. Gallagher also edited the Western Literary Journal, published at Cincinnati, a work which closed a brief existence in 1836. He has since been connected with the Hesperian, a publication of a similar character, and of a similarly brief duration.

The

The first production of Mr. Gallagher which attracted general public attention was a poem published anonymously in one of the periodicals, entitled The Wreck of the Hornet. This was reprinted in the first collection of his poems, published in a thin volume in 1835, entitled Errato. The chief poem of this collection is the Penitent, a Metrical Tale.

A second part of Errato appeared in the fall of 1835. It opens with The Conqueror, a poem of six hundred and sixty lines on Napoleon. The third and concluding number of the series appeared in 1837, and contained a narrative poem entitled Cadwallen, the incidents of which are drawn from the Indian conflicts of our frontier history.

The chief portions of Errato are occupied by a number of poems of description and reflection, with a few lyrical pieces interspersed, all of which possess melody, and have won a favorable reception throughout the country.

In 1841 Mr. Gallagher edited a volume entitled Selections from the Poetical Literature of the West, a work peculiarly appropriate for one who had done so much by his labors in behalf of literature, as well as his own contributions to the common stock, to foster and honor the necessarily arduous pursuit of literature in a new country.

AUGUST.

Dust on thy mantle! dust,

Bright Summer, on thy livery of green!

A tarnish, as of rust,

Dims thy late brilliant sheen:

And thy young glories-leaf, and bud, and flowerChange cometh over them with every hour.

Thee hath the August sun

Looked on with hot, and fierce, and brassy face:
And still and lazily run,

Scarce whispering in their pace,
The half-dried rivulets, that lately sent
A shout of gladness up, as on they went.
Flame-like, the long mid-day-

With not so much of sweet air as hath stirred
The down upon the spray,
Where rests the panting bird,

Dozing away the hot and tedious noon,
With fitful twitter, sadly out of tune.

Seeds in the sultry air,

And gossamer web-work on the sleeping trees! E'en the tall pines, that rear

Their plumes to catch the breeze,

The slightest breeze from the unfreshening west, Partake the general languor, and deep rest.

A soul as dauntless 'mid the storm
Of daily life, a heart as warm
And pure as breast e'er wore.
What then?-Thou art as true a MAN
As moves the human mass among;
As much a part of the Great Plan
That with Creation's dawa began,

As any of the throng.

Who is thine enemy?-the high

In station, or in wealth the chief? The great, who coldly pass thee by, With proud step, and averted eyel Nay! nurse not such belief.

If true unto thyself thou wast,

What were the proud one's scorn to thee?
A feather, which thou mightest cast
Aside, as idly as the blast

The light leaf from the tree.
No:-uncurbed passions-low desires --
Absence of noble self-respect-
Death, in the breast's consuming fires,
To that high nature which aspires
For ever, till thus checked:
These are thine enemies-thy worst:
They chain thee to thy lowly lot—
Thy labor and thy life accurst.

Oh, stand erect! and from them burst!
And longer suffer not!

Thou art thyself thine enemy!

The great!-what better they than thon f As theirs, is not thy will as free! Has God with equal favors thee

Neglected to endow?

True, wealth thou hast not: it is but dust!
Nor place: uncertain as the wind!
But that thou hast, which, with thy crust
And water, may despise the lust

Of both-a noble mind.
With this, and passions under ban,

True faith, and holy trust in God,
Thou art the peer of any man.
Look up, then-that thy little span
Of life may be well trod!

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

Is of a Quaker family, established, in spite of old Puritan persecutions, on the banks of the Merrimack, where, at the homestead in the neighborhood of Haverhill, Massachusetts, the poet was born in 1808. Until his eighteenth year he lived at home, working on the farm, writing occasional verses for the Haverhill Gazette, and turning his hand to a little shoemaking, one of the industrial resources with which the New England farmer sometimes ekes out the family subsistence.* Then came two years of town academy learning, when

In a genial article on Mr. Whittier from the pen of Mr. W. S. Thayer in the North American Review for July, 1854, to which we are under obligations for several facts in the present notice, there is this explanation of the shoemaking incident:"Indeed, upon the strength of this, the gentle craft of leather have laid an especial claim to him as one of their own poets: but we are afraid that mankind would go barefooted If St. Crispin had never had a more devoted disciple. It is characteristic of the thrift of New England farmers to provide extra occupation for a rainy day, and during the winter season, or when the weather is too inclement for out-of-door work, the farmer and his sons turn an honest penny by giving their attention to some employment equally remunerative. For this purpose they have near the farm-house a small shed stocked with the appropriate implements of labor. But from what we know of Whittier's life, it could not have been long before he violated the Horatian precept which forbids the shoemaker to go beyond his last."

he became editor, in 1829, at Boston, of the American Manufacture, a newspaper in the tariff interest. In 1830 he became editor of the paper which had been conducted by Brainard at Hartford, and when the "Remains" of that poet were published in 1882, he wrote the prefatory memoir. In 1831 appeared, in a small octavo volume, at Hartford, his Legends of New England, which represents a taste early formed by him of the quaint Indian and colonial superstitions of the country, and which his friend Brainard had delicately touched in several of his best poems. The Supernaturalism of New England, which he published in 1847, may be considered a sequel to this volume. There was an early poem published by Whittier, Moll Pitcher, a tale of a witch of Nahant, which may be classed with these productions, rather poetical essays in prose and verse on a favorite subject than, strictly speaking, poetical creations.

Kindred in growth to these, was his Indian story, Mogg Megone, which appeared in 1836, and has its name from a leader among the Saco Indians in the war of 1677. It is a spirited version, mostly in the octosyllabic measure, of Indian affairs and character from the old narratives, with a lady's story of wrong and penitence, which introduces the rites of the Roman Church in connexion with the Indians. The Bridal of Pennacook is another Indian poem, with the skeleton of a story out of Morton's New England's Canaan, which is made the vehicle for some of the author's finest ballad writings and descriptions of nature. Another reproduction of this old period is the Leaves from Margaret Smith's Journal, written in the antique style brought into vogue by the clever Lady Willoughby's Diary. The fair journalist, with a taste for nature, poetry, and character, and fully sensitive to the religious influences of the spot, visits New England in 1678, and writes her account of the manners and influences of the time to her cousin in England, a gentleman to

ties; though the unnecessary tediousness of its form will remain a permanent objection to it.

Returning to the order of our narrative, from these exhibitions of Whittier's early tastes, we find him, after a few years spent at home in farming, and representing his town in the state legislature, engaged in the proceedings of the American Anti-Slavery Society, of which he was elected a secretary in 1836, and in defence of its principles editing the Pennsylvania Freeman in Philadelphia. The Voices of Freedom, which form a section of his poems in the octavo edition of his writings, afford the best specimens of these numerous effusions. The importance attached to them by the abolition party has probably thrown into the shade some of the finer qualities of his mind.

In 1840 Mr. Whittier took up his residence in Amesbury, Ma-sachusetts, where his late productions have been written, and whence he forwards his contributions to the National Era at Washington; collecting from time to time his articles in books.

In 1850 appeared his volume, Old Portraits and Modern Sketches, a series of prose essays on Bunyan, Baxter, Ellwood, Nayler, Andrew Marvell, the Quaker John Roberts, for the ancients; and the Americans, Leggett, the abolition writer Rogers, and the poet Dinsmore for the moderns. In the same year he published Songs of Labor and other Poems, in which he seeks to dignify and render interesting the mechanic arts by the associations of history and fancy. The Chapel of the Hermits, and other Poems, was published in 1853. The chief poem commemorates an incident in the lives of Rousseau and St. Pierre, when they were visiting a hermitage, and while waiting for the monks, Rousseau-as the anecdote is recorded in the "Studies of Nature," -proposed some devotional exercises. Whittier illustrates by this his Quaker argument for the spiritual independence of the soul, which will find its own nutriment for itself.

Mr. Whittier has written too frequently on occasional topics of local or passing interest, to claim for all his verses the higher qualities of poetry. Many of them are purely didactic, and serve the purposes of forcible newspaper leaders. In others he has risen readily to genuine eloquence, or tempered his poetic fire by the simplicity of true pathos. Like most masters of energetic expression, he relies upon the strong Saxon elements of the language, the use of which is noticeable in his poems.