Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. It should be so built that it could n' break daown: Is only jest T' make that place uz strong uz the rest." And the wedges flew from between their lips, Do! I tell you, I rather guess She was a wonder, and nothing less! where were they? Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year Take it. You 're welcome. No extra charge.) FIRST OF NOVEMBER, the Earthquake-day. That there was n't a chance for one to start. The parson was working his Sunday's text, What do you think the parson found, I always thought cold victual nice; I care not much for gold or land; I only ask that Fortune send I would, perhaps, be Plenipo, One good-sized diamond in a pin, Some, not so large, in rings, A ruby, and a pearl, or so, My dame should dress in cheap attire; Some shawls of true Cashmere, - Suits me; I do not care; Of pictures I should like to own Titians and Raphaels three or four, (A landscape, — foreground golden dirt, - Some little luxury there Of red morocco's gilded gleam, Busts, cameos, gems, such things as these, One Stradivarius, I confess, Thus humble let me live and die, Nor long for Midas' golden touch, Too grateful for the blessing lent **BILL AND JOE. Come, dear old comrade, you and I When you were Bill and I was Joe. You've won the great world's envied prize, In big brave letters, fair to see You've sung mankind a deathless strain, The chaffing young folks stare and say, How Bill forgets his hour of pride, Ah! pensive scholar, what is fame? A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust, A few swift years, and who can show The weary idol takes his stand, 'Tis poor old Joe's "God bless you, Bill!" And shall we breathe in happier spheres BRANTZ MAYER Was born in Baltimore, Maryland, September 27, 1809. His father, Christian Mayer, was a native of Ulm, in Würtemburg; his mother was a lady Brants Mayer. of Pennsylvania. He was educated at St. Mary's College, and privately by the late Michael Powers. He then went to India, visiting Java, Sumatra, and China; returned in 1828; studied law, travelled throughout Europe, and practised his profession in America, taking a part in politics till 1841, when he received the appointment of Secretary of Legation at Mexico. There he resided till 1843, when he resigned. Since that time, he has practised law at his native city, edited the Baltimore American for a portion of the time, written numerous articles for the press, daily, monthly, and quarterly, all of which have appeared anonymously. His acknowledged publications are observations and speculations on Mexico, deduced from his residence there, and historical memoirs. His Mexico as it was and as it is, was published in 1844, and his Mexico In 1844, he also published A Memoir, and the Journal of Charles Carroll of Carrollton during his Mssion to Canada with Chase and Franklin in 1776, in 8vo. In 1851, he delivered the Anniversary Discourse before the Maryland Historical Society, which he published with the title, Tah-gah-jute; or Logan and Captain Michael Cresap. It is a vindication of a worthy backwoodsman and captain of the Revolution from the imputation of cruelty in the alleged "speech" of Logan, handed down by Jefferson. Logan is made out a passionate drunken savage, passing through various scenes of personal revenge, and ending his career in a melée induced by himself, under the idea that in a fit of intoxication he had murdered his wife. Colonel Cresap, on the other han, appears not only entirely disconnected with the attack on Logan's family, but becomes of interest as a well tried, courageous pioneer of the western civilization-a type of his class, and well worthy a chapter in the historical narrative of America. The history of the speech is somewhat of a curiosity. It was not spoken at all, but was a simple message, communicated in an interview with a single person, an emissary from the British camp, by whom it was reported on his return. This discourse, expanded, was published by Mr. Munsell, in 1867. In 1854, Mr. Mayer published Captain Canot, or Twenty Years of an African Slaver, a book which, from its variety of adventure, and a certain story-telling faculty in its pages, may easily be mistaken, as it has been, for a work of pure invention. But such is not the case. Captain Canot, whose name is slightly altered, is an actual personage, who supplied the author with the facts which he has woven into his exciting narrative. The force of the book consists in its cool, matterof-fact account of the wild life of the Slave Trader on the western coast of Africa; the rationale of whose iniquitous proceedings is unblushingly avowed, and given with a fond and picturesque detail usually reserved for topics for which the civilized world has greater respect and sympathy As a picture of a peculiar state of life it has a verisimilitude, united with a romantic interest worthy the pages of De Foe. The Maryland Historical Society, with which several of the literary labors of Mr. Mayer have been identified, of which he was president several years, and to which he has been a liberal benefactor, was founded on the 27th February, 1844, at a meeting called by him. It became possessed of a valuable building, the Athenæum, four years later, in conjunction with the Baltimore Library Company, by a voluntary subscription of citizens; and recently in 1854, the Library Company having ceded its collection of books and rights in the property to the Historical Society, the latter is now in the enjoyment of one of the most valuable endowments of the kind. This building was erected under the direction of the architect Robert Cary Long, a gentleman of taste and energy in his profession, and a cultivator of literature. He came to New York in He came to New York in 1848, where he was fast establishing himself in general estimation, when he was suddenly cut off at the outset of what promised to be an active career, by the cholera in July, 1849. He was about publishing a work on architecture, had delivered an ingenious paper before the New York Historical Society on Aztec Architecture, and written a series of Essays on topics growing out of his profession, entitled Architectonics, in the Literary World. He was a man of active mind, intent on the practical employment of his talents, while his amiable qualities endeared him to his friends in society. On the completion of the Athenæum, the Inaugural Discourse was delivered by Mr. Mayer, who took for his subject Commerce, Literature, and Art. The joint library in 1854 numbered about fourteen thousand volumes. The collection of MSS., of which a catalogue has been issued, is peculiarly valuable and well arranged. The Maryland State MSS. are numerous, including the "Gilmor Papers," presented to the Society by Robert Gilmor, embracing the Early and Revolutionary Period. The "Peabody Index,” prepared by Henry Stevens at the expense of George Peabody, the banker in London, is a catalogue in eleven costly volumes of 1729 documents, in the State Paper office in London, of the Colonial Period. The Library has also a collection of Coins and Medals, and a Gallery of Art, which is a nucleus for the exhibitions in the city. **The later works of Mr. Mayer are: Observations on Mexican History and Archæology, published by the Smithsonian Institution, 1856; Mexican Antiquities, 1858; and Memoir of Jared Sparks, 1867. Since March, 1863, he has been in the Pay Department of the U. S. Army, and in 1873 he was on duty at San Francisco. LITERARY INFLUENCES IN AMERICA. It was remarked by Mr. Legaré,- one of the purest scholars given by America to the world-in advising a young friend, at the outset of his life, that, "nothing is more perilous in America than to be too long learning, or to get the name of bookish. Great, indeed, is the experience contained in this short paragraph! It is a sentence which nearly banishes a man from the fields of wealth, for it of thought and action. The "bookish" man cannot seems to deny the possibility of the concurrent lives be the "business" man! And such, indeed, has been the prevailing tone of public sentiment for the last thirty or forty years, since it became the parental habit to cast our children into the stream of trade to buffet their way to fortune, as soon as they were able either to make their labor pay, or to relieve their parents from a part of the expense of maintenance. Early taught that the duty of life is incompatible with the pursuits of a student, the young man whose school years gave promise of renown, speedily finds himself engaged in the mechanical pursuit of a business upon which his bread depends, and either quits for ever the book he loved, or steals to it in night and secrecy, as Numa did to the tangled crypt when he wooed Fgeria! In the old world there are two classes to which Literature can always directly appeal,-government, and the aristocracy. That which is elegant, entertaining, tasteful, remotely useful, or merely designed for embellishment, may call successfully on men who enjoy money and leisure, and are ever eager in the pursuit of new pleasures. This is particularly the case with individuals whose revenues are the mere alluvium of wealth,-the deposit of the golden tide flowing in with regularity,—but not with those whose fortunes are won from the world in a struggle of enterprise. Such men do not enjoy the refreshing occupation of necessary labor, and consequently, they crave the excitement of the intellect and the senses. Out of this want, in Europe, has sprung the Opera,—that magnificent and refined luxury of extreme wealth-that sublime assemblage of all that is exquisite in dress, decoration, declamation, melody, picture, motion, art,-that marriage of music and harmonious thought, which depends, for its perfect success, on the rarest organ of the human frame. The patrons of the Opera have the time and the money to bestow as rewards for their gratification; and yet, I am still captious enough to be discontented with a patronage, springing, in a majority of cases, from a desire for sensual relaxation, and not offered as a fair recompense in the barter that continually occurs in this world between talent and money. I would level the mind of the mass up to such an appreciative position, that, at last, it would regard Literature and Art as wants, not as pastimes,—as the substantial food, and not the frail confectionery of life. And what is the result, in our country, of this unprotective sentiment towards Literature? The answer is found in the fact that nearly all our young men whose literary tastes and abilities force them to use the pen, are driven to the daily press, where they sell their minds, by retail, in paragraphs;where they print their crudities without sufficient thought or correction;-where the iron tongue of the engine is for ever bellowing for novelty;-where the daily morsel of opinion must be coined into phrases for daily bread, and where the idea, which an intelligent editor should expand into a volume, must be condensed into an aphoristic sentence. Public speaking and talk, are also the speediest mediums of plausible conveyance of opinion in a Republic. The value of talk from the pulpit, the bar, the senate, and the street corner, is inappreciable in America. There is no need of its cultivation among us, for fluency seems to be a national gift. From the slow dropping chat of the provoking button-holder, to the prolonged and rotund tumidities of the stump orator-everything can be achieved by a harangue. It is a fearful facility of speech! Men of genius talk the results of their own experience and reflection. Men of talent talk the results of other men's minds: and thus, in a country where there are few habitual students,-where there are few professed authors,-where all are mere writers, where there is, in fact, scarcely the seedling germ of a national literature, we are in danger of becoming mere telegraphs of opinion, as ignorant of the full meaning of the truths we convey as are the senseless wires of the electric words which thrill and sparkle through their iron veins ! It is not surprising, then, that the mass of American reading consists of newspapers and novels;that nearly all our good books are imported and reprinted; that, with a capacity for research and composition quite equal to that of England, our men become editors instead of authors. No man but a well paid parson, or a millionaire, can indulge in the expensive delights of amateur authorship. Thus it is that Sue is more read than Scott. Thus it is that the intense literature of the weekly newspapers is so prosperous, and that the laborer, who longs to mingle cheaply the luxuries of wealth, health, and knowledge, purchases, on his way homeward, with his pay in his pocket, on Saturday night, a lottery ticket, a Sunday newspaper, and a dose of quack physic, so that he has the chance of winning a fortune by Monday, whilst he is purifying his | body and amusing his mind, without losing a day from his customary toil! In this way we trace downward from the merchant and the literary man to the mechanic, the prevailing notion in our country of necessary devotion to labor as to a dreary task, without respite or relaxation. This is the expansive illustration of Mr. Legaré's idea, that no man must get, in America, the repute of being "bookish." And yet, what would become of the world without these derided 'bookish" men?-these recorders of history-these developers of science-these philosophers-these writers of fiction-these thousand scholars who are continually adding by almost imperceptible contributions to the knowledge and wealth of the world! Some there are, who, in their day and generation, indeed appear to be utterly useless;-men who seem to be literary idlers, and yet, whose works tell upon the world in the course of ages. Such was the character of the occupations of Atticus, in Rome, and of Horace Walpole, in England. Without Atticus,the elegant scholar, who stood aloof from the noisy eontests of politics and cultivated letters,-we should never have had the delicious correspondence addressed to him by Cicero. Without the vanity, selfishness, avarice, and dilettantism of Walpole, we should never have enjoyed that exquisite mosaicwork of history, wit, anecdote, character and incident, which he has left us in the letters addressed to his various friends. Too idle for a sustained work, too gossiping for the serious strain that would have excluded the malice, scandal, and small talk of his compositions, he adopted the easy chat of familiar epistles, and converted his correspondence into an intellectual curiosity shop whose relics are now becoming of inestimable value to a posterity which is greedy for details. No character is to be found in history that unites in itself so many various and interesting objects as that of the friend of Atticus. Cicero was a student, a scholar, a devoted friend of art, and, withal, an eminent "man of business." He was at home in the . Tusculum and the Senate. It was supposed, in his day, that a statesman should be an accomplished man. It was the prevailing sentiment, that polish did not impair strength. It was believed that the highest graces of oratory-the most effective wisdom of speech,the conscientious advice of patriotic oratory, could only be expected from a zealous student who had exhausted the experience of the world without the dread of being bookish." It was the opinion that cultivation and business moved hand in hand,-and that Cicero could criticise the texture of a papyrus, the grain and chiselling of a statue, or the art of a picture, as well as the foreign and domestic relations of Rome. Taste, architecture, morals, poetry, oratory, gems, rare manuscripts, curious collections, government, popular favor, all, in turn, engaged his attention, and, for all, he displayed a remarkable aptitude. No man thought he was less a "business man" because he filled his dwelling with groups of eloquent marble; because he bought and read the rarest books; because he chose to mingle only with the best and most intellectual society; because he shunned the de:nagogue and never used his arts even to suppress crime! Cicero would have been Cicero had he never been consul. Place gave nothing to him but the chance to save his country. It can bestow no fame; for fame is won by the qualities that should win place; whilst place is too often won by the tricks that should condemn the practicer. It were well, both on the score of accomplishment and of personal biography, that our own statesmen would recollect the history of a man whose books and orations will endear him to a posterity which will scarcely know that he was a ruler in Rome! SAMUEL TYLER. SAMUEL TYLER was born 22d October, 1809, in Prince George's County, Maryland. His father, Grafton Tyler, is a tobacco planter and farmer, and resides on the plantation where Samuel was born, and where his ancestors have dwelt for several generations. Samuel received his early education at a school in the neighborhood, and subsequently at the seminary of Dr. Carnahan at George Town, in the District of Columbia. The Doctor, soon afterwards, was elected President of Princeton College in New Jersey, and the Rev. James M'Vern became his successor. The Latin and Greek languages and their literatures were the studies which were at once the pleasure and the business of this instructor's life. Inspired with his teacher's enthusiasm, the young Tyler became a pupil worthy of his master. So fascinated was he with Greek literature, that for the last year he remained at this school he devoted fourteen hours out of every twenty-four to the study, until the Greek forms of expression became as familiar as those of his native tongue. He also wrote the article on Brougham's Natural In 1844 Mr. Tyler published the first, and in 1846 the second edition of his Discourse of the Baconian Philosophy. This work has received the approbation of eminent thinkers and men of science in America, and has been signalized by the approbation of Sir William Hamilton. A convention of delegates elected by the people of Maryland, assembled in 1850 to frame a new Constitution for the state. The subject of reforming the laws was a matter that engaged much of the consideration of the body. Amongst other things, it was proposed to incorporate in the new constitution a provision abolishing what is called special pleading in actions at law. This induced Mr. Tyler to address to the convention, of which he was not a member, a written defence of the importance of retaining special pleading in law procedure; and also showing that all law procedure should be simplified. This view of the subject of law reform finally prevailed, and a provision was incorporated in the new constitution requiring the Legislature to elect three commissioners to simplify the pleadings and practice in all the Courts of the State. Mr. Tyler was elected one of these commissioners. In the division of the work amongst himself and his colleagues it was assigned to him to prepare the first report, which should embrace a general discussion of the subject of law reform, and also present a simplified system of special pleading for all the courts of law in the state. When the report was published, its profound discussion on the relative merits of the Common Law and the Civil Law won the approbation of many of the first lawyers of the county. In 1827 Mr. Tyler passed a short time at Middlebury College, Vermont. Returning to Maryland, he entered himself as a student of law in the office in Frederick City of John Nelson, since Attorney-General of the United States, and also a distinguished member of the Baltimore bar. The Frederick bar had, for many years, been distinguished for its learning and ability; and therefore Frederick City was considered the best law school in Maryland. Cases were tried in the Frederick Court after the most technical rules of practice, as much so as at any time in Westminster Hall. The late Chief-Justice of the United States, Mr. Taney, built up his professional charac-gress of Philosophy in the Past and in the Future; ter at the Frederick bar, and stepped from it to the first place at the bar of Baltimore city. Mr. Tyler was admitted to the bar in 1831, and has continued to reside, in the prosecution of his profession, in Frederick city, as affording more leisure for the indulgence of his literary pursuits than a large city, where the practice of his profession would be likely to engross his whole time. An article on "Balfour's Inquiry into the Doctrine of Universal Salvation," in the Princeton Review for July, 1836, was the beginning of Mr. Tyler's authorship. In the Princeton Review for July, 1840, he published an article on the Baconian Philosophy; and in the same journal for July, 1841, an article on Leuhart the mathematician. In the Princeton Review for April, 1843, Mr. Tyler published an article on Psychology, followed by other papers; in July of the same year, on the Influence of the Baconian Philosophy; in October, 1844, on Agricultural Chemistry, in review of Liebig; July, 1845, on the Connexion between Philosophy and Revelation; July, 1846, on Bush on the Soul; and in the number for July, 1852, an article on Humboldt's Cosmos. Mr. Tyler is the author of the article on Whately's Logic in the number of the American Quarterly Review published immediately before that journal was merged in the New York Review. In 1848 Mr. Tyler published in New York Burns as a Poet and as a Man; in 1858, The Pro also a Memoir of Roger Brooke Taney, LL. D. ; in 1871, an edition of Stephen on Pleading; and in 1873, a dissertation on The Theory of the Beautiful. Since 1867, he has held the professorship of law in Columbian University, Washington, D. C. GEORGE BURGESS. THE author of a new poetical version of the Book of Psalms, and Bishop of the Diocese of Maine, was born at Providence, Rhode Island, October 31, 1809. Upon being graduated at Brown University in 1826, he became a tutor in that institution, and subsequently continued his studies at the Universities of Bonn, Gottingen, and Berlin. After entering the ministry, he was rector of Christ Church, Hartford, from 1834 to 1847, when he was consecrated to the episcopate. In 1840, he published The Book of Psalms, translated into English Verse, an animated and He is also the author of successful version. Pages from the Ecclesiastical History of New England; The Last Enemy, Conquering and Conquered, two academic poems, and several published Sermons. ** The Bishop Burgess died on a return voyage from the West Indies, April 23, 1866. American Metrical Psalter was published by him in 1864, and was followed three years later by a |