meets the outward eye, is far from being beauti-| ful, and may be manufactured thus: The ninth is the Armenian language, ornamented, and in smaller characters than any of Take quant. suff. of English commas, scatter the other specimens. It recounts the dispersion them about the page ad lib. add a sprinkling of of the Armenians by the barbarians, and the semicolons, and inverted interrogation points, hospitable reception given them by the Russians, the semicolons to be placed horizontally, and with their present prosperous condition under the flanked by a dash bent secun. art., these, with a Emperor Nicholas, who is styled their "Second crescent or two to the lineal inch, and about forty Providence." "Under his sceptre," continues full stops to the line chart. stult. will have a dish the writer, "the Armenians enjoy various priviof Turkish, which will go down any where out of the dominions of the Sultan. leges and prerogatives, superb churches, populous bishopricks, courts of justice, with judges There is, however, much in the language that elected by the people, schools, printing presses is elegant and imaginative in sentiment, as will and other institutions protected by the governappear from the following beautiful extract which ment. The devotion of the Armenians for the we take from the autograph as it stands in the august sovereign of the Russians, is without French translation. bounds." "Imitez ces arbres fruitiers, et comme eux, don- Doubtless the writer was aware, that his pronez des fruits à qui vous jette des pierres. A l'ex-duction would pass under the review of the emample des montagnes, donnez de l'or à celui dont peror or his chief officers, and this may account la cruauté déchire votre sein; et prenez pour for the adulatory style in which the emperor is modèle de douceur et de patience, ces coquilles alluded to, and for the exaggerated professions of qui donnent leurs perles à celui qui les brise." devotion to his service. The sixth specimen is in Turkish, with a triple border of blue and red. The portion translated is a prayer in which all Christians might join. "Lord! may thy mercy be my guide, conduct me in the way which leads to peace. Divine wisdom! I know not my own wants, do thou bestow upon me that which seemeth good to thee." The next is a specimen of the Moldavian language, said to be a derivation from the Latin. Its characters are, many of them, very similar to our Roman letters, others are like the Greek, and the whole seems to be merely a modification of the first specimen in the collection, the Slavenski. It professes to give a short explanation of the names and divisions of the Moldavian and Wal The next is a specimen of the Mongolian lan-lachian nations. guage, and is written vertically; in some of the The eleventh specimen is in Chinese running words there are spaces of more than an inch hand (!) but approximating nearly to the charmarked by black lines, and the whole, at a acters used in printing. The passage which little distance, looks like the dollars and cents is from Confucius, is well worth attention, not lines of a ledger, with short lines diverging downwards from each line-for about half an inch at an angle of forty-five degrees. The paragraph translated is as follows: "We must in this life overcome our destructive passions, and endeavor, according to the religion of the Grand Lama, to shun the three Sins, in order that the soul may pass (transmigrate) to the holy habitation of the Divinity." only from the consideration that it was written at least five hundred years before the Christian Era, but also from its intrinsic merit. Dsy-tou asks his master in what heroism consists; and Confucius, being probably ignorant of what certain modern wiseacres have called abstract nouns, enquires of Dsy-tou, whether he means the heroism of the people of the south or the north, or Dsy-tou's own proper heroism, but receiving no The Moguls, like the inhabitants of Thibet, answer, proceeds to say: "The heroes of the Burmah, Anan, Siam and the greater part of the south make heroism consist in greatness of soul Chinese and Japanese, consider the metempsycho- and moderation. Professing these virtues, they sis or transmigration of souls, as one of the most teach how to bear injuries without seeking to important articles of their faith, even the soul of revenge them, and have arrived at the highest Grand Lama being supposed to pass into his suc-degree of wisdom. The great men of the north cessor. This article of faith has prevailed in the think that virtue consists in physical force. They East for more than three thousand years, and it pass their life under arms, and they harness and is evident from the literature of Europe, that face death without a fear. But can any thing among more enlightened nations, it has not been be higher than the heroism of those who seek to without supporters. live in peace with the whole human race! Are they forgotten in a well-ordered empire ?-they complain not of their lot. Live they under a cruel government?-They remain faithful to virtue, and for her cheerfully die." The eighth is a beautifully written specimen of the Georgian language, giving an account of certain incursions into Georgia by the Ossetes in the year 448 (probably about A. D. 1225.) "A SONG IN THE NIGHT." Isaiah xxx: 29. The twelfth is in the Manchew language. The characters in form are similar to the Chinese, and like them are also written up and down the page. The passage is the farewell of a Corean deputy to the Russian mission house at Pekin, and is written in the usual inflated style of oriental comWritten on being asked by an aged lady, who was very plimentary composition. The next is a Calmuck extract from a chroni-deaf, whether she had heard music in the room below, during the preceding evening-saying she often seemed to cle containing some historical details of the progress of the Calmuck division of the great Mo-hear sweet music while lying awake at night. ravian family. A further account of the Calmucks is contained in the next specimen, in the ordinary writing of Thibet, which states that there are three principal tribes wandering on the banks of the Wolga, numbering about 25,000 “ waggons" or families, and 100,000 men. A paragraph in the literary language of Thibet follows next in order. It gives some curious particulars of the religion of the Lama of Thibet. "The communion which his followers receive from his hands delivers from all diseases, and drives off destructive passions, and the soul passes into the invisible spirit of God. The learned Lamaic clergy believe that their religion will, in time, be extended over the whole earth. All the followers of the Lama have the doors of their houses facing to the south." The sketch, slight as it is, affords much material for useful reflection, which it might not be amiss to improve; but it is time to close. Mr. Vattemare has the honor of possessing, in these autographs, a treasure as unique as it is valuable. They are, however, but a sample of the immense literary wealth of Asia and the east of Europe. These countries, for centuries, remarkable chiefly for their valuable natural productions, and the unprogressive character of their inhabitants, have begun to excite that attention, which no countries more deserve, or can better repay. It is gratifying to know that the late Sultan took infinite pains to introduce Mr. Vattemare's system into his dominions; indeed no monarch in Christendom is said to have done more for his people than Mahmoud. There are mines of rarest literary wealth in Turkey, which will one day, we trust, be brought to light, for the good of the world, and, throughout the East, many valuable manuscripts might be found, which the barbarity of former ages failed to destroy. These would be hailed with enthusiasm by the literati of Europe, who would gladly give whole libraries in exchange for one relic of ages gone by, Boston. It was no sound of earthly music For that ear is sealed by Heaven, With which this fair world abounds. Yet, though not by day 'tis given thee In the silent 'mid-night watches. Music comes, thy heart to cheer; Music, far more sweet than earthly While around thee all are sleeping, Heavenly harps for thee are ringing "At even-tide there shall be light :" Still let thine aged heart be strong, MATILDA F. DANA EDMUND KEAN. Kean is original; but he copies from himself. which might shed upon the modern world some His rapid descents from the hyper-tragic to the rays of that sacred light, which once gilded with infra colloquial, though sometimes productive of its glory the cradle of the human race-the birth-great effect, are often unreasonable. To see him place of civilization-the holy land, where the act, is like reading Shakspeare by flashes of lig`i Saviour lived and died. ning.-[Coleridge. MARGINALIA.* BY EDGAR A. POE. room for their manner, which being thus left out of question, was a capital manner, indeed,—a model of manners, with a richly marginalic air. The circumscription of space, too, in these pencillings, has in it something more of advanIn getting my books, I have been always solicitous of an ample margin; this not so much tage than inconvenience. It compels us (whatever diffuseness of idea we may clandestinely through any love of the thing in itself, however agreeable, as for the facility it affords me of pen-ism, (here I leave out of view the concluding entertain,) into Montesquieu-ism, into Tacituscilling suggested thoughts, agreements and differences of opinion, or brief critical comments in portion of the "Annals,")-or even into Cargeneral. Where what I have to note is too much lyle-ism-a thing which, I have been told, is not to be confounded with your ordinary affectation and bad grammar. I say "bad grammar," through sheer obstinacy, because the grammathat I should not. But then grammar is not rians (who should know better) insist upon it what these grammarians will have it; and, being merely the analysis of language, with the result of this analysis, must be good or bad just as the analyst is sage or silly-just as he is a Horne to be included within the narrow limits of a margin, I commit it to a slip of paper, and deposit it between the leaves; taking care to secure it by an imperceptible portion of gum tragacanth paste. All this may be whim; it may be not only a very hackneyed, but a very idle practice ;—yet I persist in it still; and it affords me pleasure; which is profit, in despite of Mr. Bentham with Mr. Mill on his back. Tooke or a Cobbett. But to our sheep. During a rainy afternoon, not long ago, being in a mood too listless for continuous study, I sought relief from ennui in This making of notes, however, is by no means the making of mere memoranda—a custom which has its disadvantages, beyond doubt. "Ce que dipping here and there, at random, among the je mets sur papier," says Bernardin de St. Pierre, "je remets de ma mémoire, et par consequence je volumes of my library-no very large one, cerl'oublie ;”—and, in fact, if you wish to forget anyter myself, not a little recherché. tainly, but sufficiently miscellaneous; and, I flatthing on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered. Perhaps it was what the Germans call the "brain-scattering" humor of the moment; but, But the purely marginal jottings, done with no while the picturesqueness of the numerous peneye to the Memorandum Book, have a distinct cil-scratches arrested my attention, their heltercomplexion, and not only a distinct purpose, but skelter-iness of commentary amused me. I found none at all; this it is which imparts to them a myself at length, forming a wish that it had been value. They have a rank somewhat above the some other hand than my own which had so bechance and desultory comments of literary chitdevilled the books, and fancying that, in such chat-for these latter are not unfrequently "talk case, I might have derived no inconsiderable for talk's sake," hurried out of the mouth; while pleasure from turning them over. From this the the marginalia are deliberately pencilled, because transition-thought, (as Mr. Lyell, or Mr. Murchithe mind of the reader wishes to unburthen itself of a thought; however flippant-however silly-natural enough :-there might be something even son, or Mr. Featherstonhaugh would have it,) was however trivial—still a thought indeed, not mere in my scribblings which, for the mere sake of ly a thing that might have been a thought in time, scribbling, would have interest for others. and under more favorable circumstances. In the marginalia, too, we talk only to ourselves; we therefore talk freshly-boldly-originally-with abandonnement—without conceit―much after the exceedingly frail fabric of intelligibility in which fashion of Jeremy Taylor, and Sir Thomas the context was imbedded. With all appliances Browne, and Sir William Temple and the anato boot, with the printed pages at their back, the tomical Burton, and that most logical analogist, commentaries were too often like Dodona's oraButler, and some other people of the old day, cles-or those of Lycophron Tenebrosus-or the who were too full of their matter to have any essays of the pedant's pupils, in Quintillian, * Some years since Mr. Poe wrote for several of the which were "necessarily excellent, since even he Northern magazines a series of critical brevities under the (the pedant) found it impossible to comprehend title of "Marginalia." They attracted great attention at them:"--what then, would become of it--this that time and since, as characteristic of the author, and we context-if transferred ?-if translated? Would are sure that our readers will be gratified at his resuming it not rather be traduit (traduced) which is the them in the Messenger. By way of introduction, we republish the original preface from the Democratic Review. French synonyme, or overzezet (turned topsy[Ed. Mess. turvy) which is the Dutch one? The main difficulty respected the mode of transferring the notes from the volumes-the context from the text-without detriment to that VOL. XV-28 I concluded, at length, to put extensive faith | reference to music-it is the dependence upon in the acumen and imagination of the reader :- modulated expression-which gives to this branch this as a general rule. But, in some instances, of letters a character altogether unique, and sepwhere even faith would not remove mountains, arates it, in great measure and in a manner not there seemed no safer plan than so to re-model the sufficiently considered, from ordinary literature; note as to convey at least the ghost of a concep-rendering it independent of merely ordinary protion as to what it was all about. Where, for prieties; allowing it, and in fact demanding for such conception, the text itself was absolutely it, a wide latitude of Law; absolutely insisting necessary, I could quote it; where the title of upon a certain wild license and indefinitiveness— the book commented upon was indispensable, I an indefinitiveness recognized by every musician could name it. In short, like a novel-hero di- who is not a mere fiddler, as an important point lemma'd, I made up my mind "to be guided by in the philosophy of his science-as the soul, incircumstances," in default of more satisfactory deed, of the sensations derivable from its pracrules of conduct. tice-sensations which bewilder while they enthral—and which would not so enthral if they did not so bewilder. As for the multitudinous opinion expressed in the subjoined farrago-as for my present assent to all, or dissent from any portion of it-as to The sentiments deducible from the conception the possibility of my having, in some instances, of sweet sound simply, are out of the reach of altered my mind-or as to the impossibility of analysis-although referable, possibly, in their my not having altered it often-these are points last result, to that merely mathematical recogniupon which I say nothing, because upon these tion of equality which seems to be the root of all there can be nothing cleverly said. It may be Beauty. Our impressions of harmony and me!as well to observe, however, that just as the good-ody in conjunction, are more readily analyzed; ness of your true pun is in the direct ratio of but one thing is certain-that the sentimental its intolerability, so is nonsense the essential pleasure derivable from music, is nearly in the sense of the Marginal Note. ratio of its indefinitiveness. Give to music any undue decision-imbue it with any very determi I do not believe that the whole world of Poe-nate tone-and you deprive it, at once, of its ethetry can produce a more intensely energetic pas-trinsic and essential character. You dispel its real, its ideal, and, I sincerely believe, of its insage, of equal length, than the following, from Mrs. Browning's "Drama of Exile." The pic-of the mystic in which its whole nature is bound dream-like luxury :-you dissolve the atmosphere turesque vigor of the lines italicized is much more than Homeric : On a mountain peak A Lion couched, part raised upon his paws up :-you exhaust it of its breath of fäery. It then becomes a tangible and easily appreciable thing-a conception of the earth, earthy. It will not, to be sure, lose all its power to please, but all that I consider the distinctiveness of that power. And to the over-cultivated talent, or to the unimaginative apprehension, this deprivation of its most delicate nare will be, not unfrequently, a recommendation. A determinateness of expression is sought-and sometimes by composers who should know better-is sought as a beauty, rather than rejected as a blemish. Thus we have, even from high authorities, attempts at absolute imitation in musical sounds. Who can forget, or cease to regret, the many errors of this kind into which some great minds have fallen, simply through over-estimating the triumphs of skill. Who can help lamenting the Battles of Pragues! What man of taste is not ready to laugh, or to There are few cases in which mere popularity weep, over their "guns, drums, trumpets, blunshould be considered a proper test of merit; but derbusses and thunder?" "Vocal music," says the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the L'Abbaté Gravina, "ought to imitate the natural few. In speaking of song-writing, I mean, of language of the human feelings and passions, course, the composition of brief poems with an rather than the warblings of Canary birds, which eye to their adaptation for music in the vulgar our singers, now-a-days, affect so vastly to mimie In this ultimate destination of the song with their quaverings and boasted cadences." proper, lies its essence-its genius. It is the strict This is true only so far as the "rather" is con Were dashed against his eyes, and roared so fierce- sense. - The cerned. If any music must imitate any thing, | nothing else, Morris is immortal. It is quite imit were, undoubtedly, better that the imitation possible to put down such things by sneers. should be limited as Gravina suggests. That indefinitiveness which is, at least, one of the essentials of true music, must, of course, be kept in view by the song-writer; while, by the critic, it should always be considered in his estimate of the song. It is, in the author, a consciousness-sometimes merely an instinctive appreciation, of this necessity for the indefinite, which imparts to all songs, rightly conceived, that free, affluent, and hearty manner, little scrupulous about niceties of phrase, which cannot be better expressed than by the hackneyed French word abandonnement, and which is so strikingly exemplified in both the serious and joyous ballads and carols of our old English progenitors. Wherever verse has been found most strictly married to music, this feature prevails. It is thus the essence of all antique song. It is the soul of Homer. It is the spirit of Anacreon. It is even the genius of Eschylus. Coming down to our own times, it is the vital principle in De Béranger. Wanting this quality, no song-writer was ever truly popular, and, for the reasons assigned, no song-writer need ever expect to be so. These views properly understood, it will be seen how baseless are the ordinary objections to songs proper, on the score of "conceit," (to use Johnson's word,) or of hyperbole, or on various other grounds tenable enough in respect to poetry not designed for music. The "conceit," for example, which some envious rivals of Morris have so much objected to— Her heart and morning broke together affectation of contemning them is of no availunless to render manifest the envy of those who affect the contempt. As mere poems, there are several of Morris's compositions equal, if not superior, to either of those just mentioned, but as songs I much doubt whether these latter have ever been surpassed. In quiet grace and unaffected tenderness, I know no American poem which excels the following: Where Hudson's wave o'er silvery sands A nymph of mountain birth. The snow-flake that the cliff receives- Morn's early beam--eve's balmy breeze- But Ida's dearer far than these To this fond breast of mine. My heart is on the hills; the shades I bless the star-crowned Highlands where Oh, for a falcon's wing to bear To bear me to my home. A capital book, generally speaking;* but Mr. Grattan has a bad habit-that of loitering in the this "conceit" is merely in keeping with the es-road-of dallying and toying with his subjects, sential spirit of the song proper. To all reason- as a kitten with a mouse-instead of grasping it able persons it will be sufficient to say that the firmly at once and eating it up without more ado. fervid, hearty, free-spoken songs of Cowley and He takes up too much time in the ante-room. of Donne-more especially of Cunningham, of He has never done with his introductions. OcHarrington and of Carew-abound in precisely casionally, one introduction is but the vestibule to similar things; and that they are to be met with, another; so that by the time he arrives at his plentifully, in the polished pages of Moore and main incidents there is nothing more to tell. of Béranger, who introduce them with thought He seems afflicted with that curious yet common and retain them after mature deliberation. perversity observed in garrulous old womenMorris is, very decidedly, our best writer of the desire of tantalizing by circumlocution. Mr. songs-and, in saying this, I mean to assign him G's circumlocution, however, is by no means like a high rank as poet. For my own part, I would that which Albany Fonblanque describes as “a much rather have written the best song of a na- style of about and about and all the way round tion than its noblest epic. One or two of Hoff- to nothing and nonsense."..... If the greasyman's songs have merit—but they are sad echoes looking lithograph here given as a frontispiece, of Moore, and even if this were not so (every be meant for Mr. Grattan, then is Mr. Grattan body knows that it is so) they are totally deficient like nobody else:-for the fact is, I never yet in the real song-essence. "Woodman Spare that knew an individual with a wire wig, or the counTree" and "By the Lake where droops the Wil- tenance of an under-done apple dumpling... low" are compositions of which any poet, living or dead, might justly be proud. By these, if by "Highways and By-ways." .... |