66 President. THE SOUTHERN MATRON. Vice-Presidents. MRS. WILLIAM F. RITCHIE, to secure the title" to Mt. Vernon and ef- The following officers were chosen, after ficiently aid us to raise the funds necessary unanimously voting the Southern Matron" to pay for it-thus making the day not dis- to be their President: tant when it may become the Mecca of the liberty loving spirits of the world! Their prompt and affirmative "response," will brighten hope-strengthen confidence-and secure the more speedy completion of that efficient organization, with which to commence the winter's exertions. Deeming it most appropriate that the daughters of his native state-should conduct this enterprise in his honor, we respectfully renew the "invitation" to the Richmond State Committee and to the other invited ladies to unite with us, and form the "Central Committee of the Union"-and to assume at once the duties and responsibilities which circumstances of a patriotic nature, have hitherto compelled us to endeavour to fulfil alone-however unworthily! Virginians all eyes are turned to youhundreds are awaiting your action to commence their efforts with renewed vigor, and we would that you were apprised to its full extent of the importance attached elsewhere to your position and influence on this ubject! Your.sisters in the State beside you, alive to the beauty of this act by woman-have outshipped all others in their practical zeal-shewing they are not RipVan-Winkles! Where will you be? MRS. BENJAMIN B. MINOR, MRS. JOHN B. FLOYD, of Washington Secretary. MRS. A. M. MEAD. Treasurer. May we not with proud confidence point to the van-for the spirit of the Old Dominion can neither be asleep nor departed? the Editor of the Messenger should resume the Many kind solicitations having been made that Shall it not soon be heard, from the seainterrupted narrative of his European travel, he hore to the mountains, in such tones as offers to the readers of the magazine in this num-hall reach and electrify patriotic hearts ber some account of a summer visit to the Gerrom Maine to Texas-sending us, by one man Springs, and will follow it up from month to irresistible impulse, so far foward in the month with notes of a long ramble through Northpath of "success" that "this cause" will ern Germany. Switzerland and Italy, until the no longer need our humble and feeble pen-same shall have been exhausted. The editor is permitting this we say farewell" to that aware that the track is a beaten one and that the orbearing and generous public, to whom we interest of these sketches must therefore depend now tender our most grateful thanks. Very Respectfully, Yours, A SOUTHERN MATRON. altogether upon the manner in which they are given--a consideration which tight deter him from publishing them bat for the requess of friends in different sections of the country. He cannot doubt the sincerity of these partial corrosOn the reception of the above letter the pondents, though many of them are as unknown ladies of Richmond held a meeting in order to him as the imaginary individuals who demand to respond to the invitation to form the Mt. the repetition of a performance at the box-office Vernon Central Committee of the Union. of the theatre. He deems it proper to add that but for a temporary loss of all his papers on the | She wrote only from a sense of duty and with a return voyage to the United States, these notes ever-present and vivid recognition of the resp would have been resumed at an earlier period. sibility of the vocation of author. But she i gone. We shall have no more creations like Ro It being the wish of the patriotic ladies compos-chester and Paul-and it will be long ere there ing the "Central Mount Vernon Association" that comes forward another woman who can draw the Messenger should be the vehicle of their such. Monthly Reports and addresses to the Southern States of the Union, we cheerfully give place in The sale of Mr. Ingraham's great library i this number to the earnest exposition of their Philadelphia was the event most talked of in lite aims, bearing the signature of the officers of the rary circles, during the past month. It was not Association, and the letter of the "Southern we confess, without a sad feeling that we saw the Matron" in advocacy of the general plan. We announcement of this sale and read over the need not add a word in behalf of an organization established for purposes so sacred. known as Mr. Randolph of this city, who has returned with more than one thousand volumes of the collec tion, which may be seen by the curious at his store, No. 121 Main Street. Pinkerton's Great Atlas, Anderson's British Poets, the Publications of the Camden Society, the Mirror of Parliament and choice editions of Richardson, Walpole, Pope, Addison. &c., with notes and autographs, are among Mr. Randolph's purchases. somewhat ill-arranged catalogue, for we had in times past enjoyed the society of the accomplish ed collector, as he sat amid his bibliographical The death of Charlotte Bronte Nichol, better treasures discoursing of their value with the en"Currer Bell," under which name her thusiasm of Dibdin. That they should be scattered works were given to the world, has taken from to the four winds, torn from the pleasant comthe literature of England one of its brightest or-panionship of that cosy little apartment with the naments, and will awaken profound sorrow wher-iris windows, seemed almost like the separation ever the language of her country is read among of families and the breaking up of dear domestic men. Only three novels of this gifted writer are associations. There was scarcely a volume in the ours, but these are of such rare and wonderful library that was not illustrated by some rare parexcellence as to demand a place by the side of trait or some characteristic autograph of the auther the first works in the whole range of fiction. Ge-inserted by the hand of Mr. Ingraham. Many had nius like the king in the ancient mythology trans-belonged to famous lovers and writers of booksmutes all it touches into gold, and it was genius Sir Walter Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Moore of a high order which, rejecting the usual means and others. The sale was largely attended by bookby which heroes and heroines are rendered at-sellers and book-collectors, and among them by tractive, enlisted universal sympathy with the plain, blunt, rough but honest natures of the lovers in Jane Eyre, Shirley, and Villette. That her characters was not lovable, was due to the fact that little of the dew and sunshine of life fell upon the path of the author. She belonged to that class of poets who learn in suffering what they teach in song." She wrote of the world as she saw it from underneath the shadow of the deepest domestic affliction, and in the dreary solitude of her home in the north of Eng The editor of the Richmond Dispatch has a land. Hence the pictures she gives us are rarely pleasant way of sending out paragraphs now and peaceful or sylvan, they are the storm scenes of then that strongly remind us of the felicitous the gallery of modern romance-the sky piled up style of Leigh Hunt. But a few days ago he with masses of ominous vapour or the rifted commented sportively on the happy restoration clouds flying across the face of the moon. But to robust health of the poet Willis, expressing his the passion which lights up the foreground is almisgivings that the melancholy account of that ways of the intensest and most glowing kind, and gentleman's condition a year ago, as published in no other woman of her age has given evidence of the Home Journal, was slightly intensified for the such power in its delineation, not excepting that naughty purpose of enjoying the sympathy of the Circean muse of French literature, Madame Du-public. In speaking of the moribund editorials devant. The juxtaposition of these two names is of the Journal, the Dispatch says: referable only to the degree of steely strength which belonged to the two women; unquestionaably Charlotte Bronte was as different as possible in all things else from the author of Indiana, We well recollect that. among other emanations at this time, of that productive intellect which seemed to bud and blossom and put forth flowers and foliage with the most astonishing rapidity. the balmy atmosphere and genial sun of Paradise pervaded and inspired it, was a most touching| and plaintive description of the condition and thoughts of a consumptive, as he approaches the last of earth. The gifted author did not seek to conceal from himself or others the consciousness that he was the victim of an incurable malady, but he spoke of it with such Christian philosophy, such sweet resignation, nay with such placid cheerfulness, that death seemed quite disrobed of its terrors, and the dark valley became lighted up with a calm effulgence, its gloomiest recesses disclosed prim-rose paths, its thick atmosphere was redolent with the Rose of Sharon and the Balm of Gilead; its fiery serpent became a holy cross, dropping mercy and compassion on broken hearts; its cold Jordan a narrow stream, whose waters retreat when the feet of the children of Israel touch its shore, and permit them to pass dry shod to Canaan. There, reader, thank us for rescuing this shining pebble of poetry from the Lethe that flows over a penny paper. The following graceful bit of verse we find in the Spirit of Jefferson, a paper published at Charlestown in this State. From the allusion to the eagle of Harper's Ferry, which once figured on the floor of the House of Representives in an eloquent speech, and the locality mentioned in the last stanza, we ascribe it to the pen poetical of Henry Bedinger, our Minister to the Court of Denmark ONE OF MY FRIENDS. BY THE EXILE-NOT OF ERIN." One of my friends is very fair, The locks upon her lovely brow We dream of Heaven, and all its brightness. Her voice is like the song of birds When spring puts forth her fairest flowers: And sweetly flow her graceful words As flows a brook through summer bowers. Over her mild, angelic face, And her sweet form's surpassing grace Excels the poet's wildest dreaming. Look on her soft and snowy hand, Remark each straight Patrician finger: And, as upon a fairy's wand, Your eye would there forever linger. Like the young fawn's, her tiny foot Touches the earth with fairy motion: Among our exchanges, there is a monthly entitled the Opal, the material of which is contributed by the Patients of the State Lunatic Asylum of New York, a committee of whom conduct the editorial department. Like the gem after which it is named this magazine is now clear and now cloudy, the vagaries of mental aberration sometimes manifesting themselves painfully in the various articles of prose and verse. In metaphysies it rarely becomes more comprehensible than Mr. Emerson, though there is an occasional touch of nature in the lighter efforts that will find a response in the universal heart. We think our readers will agree with us that more absurd things than the following are often written by persons entirely compos mentis: THE PRETTY PICTURES. WRITTEN FOR MY LITTLE GIRL TO SPEAK I am a little peasant girl; No rich and handsome things have we- And yet, this morning, when I woke, I saw, to my surprise, The first was of a lake so clear, | certain merit, inasmuch as the lines between right and wrong, vice and virtue cannot be made too plain for th great mass of readers. It is an encouraging sign of the AT SCHOOL., times that works of truth and piety are so much relished. "Robert Graham" comes to us in a handsome dnodeciva With woods encircled round, The second is a quiet stream, Tall trees and shrubs are on the brink, The next a little hamlet seems, The last is a vast waterfall, Which a broad lake supplies; Masses of water tumble down, And clouds of spray arise. These pictures all will fade away- But mother says she thinks I'll have Who gives them to me, do you ask? The giver I have never seen, Notices of New Works. ROBERT GRAHAM: A Sequel to Linda. By Caroline Miss Charlotte Yonge, the author of this work, m won for herself, by several previous novels of decide popularity, as wide a circle of admirers as any other lady writer of the day. The "Heir of Redcliffe" excited a sensation among the lovers of fiction which is without a parallel for the tears, copious and briny, the came during its perusal to all eyes. Perhaps the never was a volume that called for so constant an e ployment of the mouchoir or which passed from the hands of the overwhelmed reader in such a condition of dampness. "The Castle-Builders" makes no such larg draughts on the lachrymal ducts, yet among a certain clas of readers-the Episcopalians-it is likely to prove t edifying and pleasant affair. The design of it seems to to show the importance of the rite of confirmation, and the sister-heroines are conducted along that beautif valley of domestic life that lies between the world and the church, the shining heights of Fashion and the Delec table Mountains. The end of their pilgrimage is the altur, not however as all young ladies like to be led to t for the Solemnization of Matrimony, but for taking upen themselves the vows aforetime given by their sponsors baptism. They are confirmed, not married:-have wo a right to say of that other ceremony-cela viendra? Me Yonge must determine. THE ODOKERTY PAPERS. By the late WILLIAM MA- Dr. Maginn was the prince of those wits and good lelows who made Blackwood so brilliant in the fine days of its youth, and it was the Doctor's fun that tempered brated as the Noctes Ambrosiana have become world f the philosophy of those nights at Ambrose's, which cele nous. A man of great learning, exuberant fancy and an almost fatal facility of composition, he wasted upot the bagatelles of magazine literature those fine powerThis is one of Mrs. Hentz's picturesque and entertain. that might have added to the real wealth of libraries ing stories, and as far as we have read, seems to be simi- The papers now first collected by Dr. Shelton Mackenze lar to, and perhaps as interesting, as her other works, the are full of epigram and humour, but have a strong sinac titles of a number of which are given in the title page, of whiskey punch which the Doctor loved not wisel. copied above. We have read "Linda," "Rena," and but too well. Let us not judge harshly, however, uf "Eoline," and M. Hentz is certainly a most agreeable man who has given as much delight to the reading worl tale teller for tho› who seeks pure recreation. Her sto-as any other of his generation. ries require no effort of the mind-they are plain, direct. picturesque, and if not very profound, still full of good sense at bottom. We are disposed to quarrel sometimes with the affluent merits and attractions of her heroes and heroines, and to suspect that her "villians," 10 speak in the romance vernacular are perhaps a little too satanic; but even this mode of treatment possesses a We regret to be constrained for want of room to deri several book notices designed for this number nutil sex. month. Our friends, the publishers, will receive ou thanks for their continued favors and the a surance tha we are not insensible to them. PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT THREE DOLLARS PER ANNUM-JNO. R. THOMPSON, EDITOR. VOL. XXI. RICHMOND, JUNE, 1855. Review of Owen Meredith's Poems. NO. 6. seem to us to fail, because we have reason to suspect a blight as well as unripeness in the fruit, from which we may not venture to anticipate, at any time hereafter, the flavor and fragrance of genuine poetry. We have been eagerly awaiting the appearance of the volume of poems reviewed in the following article, (which we take from the London ExamiWe find matter in the volume before us ner, for some months.) The author, who comes before the public under the domino of "Owen which encourages us to entertain much less Meredith," has been a contributor to the Messen- than the usual misgiving. It is evidently ger and some of his carliest inspirations were the work of a young mind, but it seems to published in its pages. We had the satisfaction us not less evidently the work of one who last Fall of looking over the proof sheets of Cly-is poet-born-born, we are disposed to think, temnestra and its companion poems in Paris with strength enough to battle through all where the poet now resides. Genius is with him those imitative, infectious, and other disorday achieve something in song eminently worthy ders, to which the fancy is at all times subof the distinguished name which at present he ject, but especially in youth. There are diskeeps from the public eye. There is a wonderful orders of this kind that disfigure where they beauty, we think, about Good Night in the Porch-do not kill. Many a young gentleman breaks the heart-tragedy is spoken in words of startling out incontinently into high poetic fever, beeloquence, the more effective perhaps from their comes pitted over with words, and runs into sad simplicity. Changes, too, is a bit of very dreadful phrases caught of some other pertruthful plaintiveness. It was copied, some weeks son whose disease was, by a great deal, less since, in the New York Albion and has gone the an inheritance, yet we are confident that he will one rounds of the American press, wherever a lover malignant. Such a hapless poet perishes, or of poetry is to be found armed with the editorial remains scarred for the remainder of his scissors.-[ED. SOU. LIT MESS. Clytemnestra, The Earl's Return, The Artist, and other Poems. By Owen Meredith, Chapman & Hall. life. But of the writer whom this volume introduces to the world, Mr. Owen Meredith, we are inclined to think and hope more favorably. We err greatly if he be not found to have strength enough to take all the fevers incident to poetry in the right way; If one may prophesy with safety of the and however flushed he may seem here and day, by watching the tokens that accompa- there in certain pages of the book, the end ny the dawn, we may predict satisfactory of it all will only be, through whatever inciissue for the rich poetical promise which in dental courses of Keats, Tennyson, Shelley, this volume breaks over the flat waste of Browning, or what not, to leave him strengthcontemporary verse. Few are the poets we ened or purified in his own individuality. have now living amongst us, and they belong to the passing generation. The younger And prominently we would put forth the singers who claim the generation now matu-fact, as no small ground of promise, that this ring for their audience, appear to us to have writer in his youth has evidently entered failed hitherto to make their claims indispu- deeply not alone into subtle enjoyment of the table. Not that we think they fail because genius of such modern poets as we have their fruit is unripe and crude. Every true named, but not less into the strength and poet's in his youth, is so; the mind being of freshness of those writers in whom the youth small worth that has the fancy and the judg- and strength of poetry itself were best disment prematurely balanced, and that ends played, and that his fancy would seem to where it should almost begin. They fail, or have been first fired by Eschylus and Homer. VOL. XXI-42 |