made by the mirror of Greece. It was considered a high effort of genius, when an ancient artist so depicted fruit that birds mistook the imitation for reality; and in the mental fruits that grew on the banks of the Tiber, there was a striking resemblance to the rhetoric, the philosophy, and the poetry of Grecce. Rome, from a few huts, inhabited by barbarians, became an imperial power, taking in the deserts of Gaul, the forests of Germany, the sands of Numidia, and the clifts of Albion, and passing over the Pyrenees and the heights of the Caucasus. The downfall of this power was not effected by literature, for it was among the last offices which literature performed, to scourge, as with a whip of scorpions, the growing vices of the empire. The empire fell by its own weight; and it was the voice of its own ruins, at the twilight hour, which admonished Gibbon that the sun, which had set forever, needed an historian to record his race. But when Rome was overwhelmed by barbarians, her literature was eventually transferred to Spain, to France, and Switzerland. It was subsequently revived on the soil where it had first taken root, and free governments arose in time from its influence.

stars takes its position in the world of nature. Among the bonds which are to hold together a constellation so imposing, the chain of a common language and literature will prove one of the strongest, and we believe that Virginia will be prompt to create a multitude of its firmest and brightest links.

To these views might be added some remarks on the aids which morals and religion have received from literature: but such a discussion would lead to an article as long as that which we are about to close. But we cannot consent to conclude before observing, that should any reader suppose that the writer arrogates to himself any literary pretensions, he would entertain a suspicion altogether unfounded. The title of a man of letters would be a misnomer indeed, applied to an individual whose professional studies are vastly more than a match both for his bodily and mental powers. But the writer has volunteered in this cause, because his client has often been unjustly arraigned, and occasionally by some of his own sacred vocation. An Athenian orator once undertook to appear for a female, but his pleas could make no impression on her obdurate judges; he became dumb, however, and simply

eloquence prevailed to her acquittal. The writer deems
himself to be engaged in studies, that will end in re-
sults far more important than any that will ever be
found on the milky way of science, or on those paths
of literature that wind around all the mental beauty,
with which the imagination in all ages has been redo-
lent. We think it is Coleridge who remarks, that he
relinquished the dreams of Plato for the realities of
Paul-and, may we not add, for the songs of the patri-
archs-for the raptures of the prophets-for the me-
lody of Hebrew bards, and harps chorded by celestial
choirs? *
B.

* Our author has struck the vein with a master's hand. Can

not we prevail upon him to prosecute his labors, to open up the mine of literature, to develope more of its treasures, and to animate other laborers in the same goodly work?

Literary men may accomplish much for the preser-pointed to the assemblage of her charms, and his silent vation of liberty, though devoted for the most part to peaceful employments. Some of them, it is true, have obeyed the summons, when called to the defence of their country. This may be affirmed of the Greek tragedians, of the Welsh bards, of the writers of Spain in the Moorish wars, and of some of the Polish poets in the aggressions of Russia. But, for the most part, their attention has been directed to whatever can soften the manners-refine the taste-subdue the passions, and augment our social pleasures. When Napoleon was subjugating continental Europe, the scholars of France and Germany were in retirement. Chateaubriand was in America; the Baroness De Stael was a prisoner at Copet, on the Lake of Geneva; Cuvier was silently enlarging the empire of man over the birds of the air, and over the shells of the sea; Goethe and Schiller were waiting anxiously for the flowering of the olive tree of peace, that the nations might partake in its shade, of the mental repast which they had provided. The pursuit of letters is necessary to counterpoise the fierce passions of men, and the value of poets cannot be calculated on the score of attaching a peaceful peasantry to their homes. Had Burns fulfilled his intention of emigrating to the West Indies Child of the Eagle Chief! why lingerest thou here? before enriching his country with his works, then No lov'd one is with thee-no warrior is near. Cuba or Hispaniola might have gained all that Scot-Like a bird from its flock, that is soaring alone, land would have lost. He would have left a blank on With plumage unsullied, o'er mountains its own, the face of his country, that is now filled up with all Thou wand'rest dejected, all lonely dost roam, the humor-the tenderness-the rural contentment-Heart-broken to answer-"I'm an exile at home!" and the moral sublimity of Scotland. And why may not men arise, who shall endear to Virginians their native state, a land which the writer loves:

"Although no son of thine!

Yet I have climbed thy mountains, not alone,
And made the wonders of thy vallies mine."

We have adopted a form of government unparalleled by any nation in the history of man. The defects which are visible in the republics of Greece, of Carthage and Rome, of Italy, Holland and Switzerland, have been avoided, whilst their excellencies have been combined in our confederacy. It was owing to the light and intelligence of the people, that our states have met together as harmoniously as a galaxy of

Ed. So. Lit. Messenger.

CHON-NE-LAR,

THE CREEK MAIDEN-WHO REFUSED TO EMIGRATE.
By Henry Thompson, A. M.

And wretched, forsaken! I would be forgiven,
And repose in the earth decreed us by heaven,
And part not forever from the home I revere;
But roam till I perish o'er the graves that are here.
For a brother now sleeps in this hallowed spot!
A son of the forest! O awaken him not!
O awaken him not-nor his lov'd one despoil,
Or thy blood, E-sta-hat-ke, will crimson the soil.
For the Creek is abroad! ah! yet unsubdued,
And the eye of the eagle is still on his brood.
By yon lake, now thine own, from which we are wean'd,
Our fathers in council, have often convened;

* White man-pronounced East-tu-hat-ke.
VOL. IV.-87

engaged to their satisfaction in the midst of a plat of towering grass, we threw ourselves down to our own

But the torchlight is out-and the war-song is o'er!
To the voice of Ma-na-wa* we listen no more.
But the whoop, and the yell, and the games of the hill, repose. I was scarcely conscious of having slept at all,
Are lingering too sadly in memory still!

But the young bird I lov'd, from his eyrie hath flown,
And left his Chon-ne-lar, to wander alone!
Never more to return to the land of his birth,
Nor to tread the green haunts of this beauteous earth;
Nor come with the Wampum,† affection arrayed,
To lean on his rifle-when Chon-ne-lar is laid
With her dead, by the stream, where the waters will curl
Their murmuring eddies o'er the desolate girl,
Who wanders dejected in the land of the Creek,
'Mid a language discordant, her tongue cannot speak!
But 'tis well! she is here in her own native place,
And forsaken, will perish-the last of her race!

Head Chief-pronounced Min-nor-way.

A worked belt: a maiden's gift to her warrior lover.

THE GRAVE IN THE FOREST.*

By the author of "Atalantis," &c.

"We had ridden about twenty-three miles, having left the Indian hovel where we slept, by daylight, and our path for the better part of this route had lain over a single horse-track, and through a dense forest which had never been dishonored by the axe of the pioneer. The day began to grow exceedingly sultry towards noon, and my father proposed that we should ride some few hundred yards into the wood, where the trees were loftier, and the underwood less dense and tangled. Among some of the long vistas which gleamed upon us continually on either hand, we did not doubt that we should find a pleasant breeze stirring, which we could not hope for, where the trees were small, and the shrubbery thick, and almost matted together by the rank growth of that fertile region. A little hill, on the right hand, particularly invited our attention. It was covered with pines of the largest size, and so closely set that the mingling branches at the top almost entirely excluded the sun; this probably being the reason of the deficient undergrowth below. Little glimmerings of his light alone appeared, dispersed and fleeting among the far recesses, giving a most spiritual aspect to the spot, and inviting the fancy to that sport which it so much loves, among vistas seemingly interminable. The cool shadow wooed us, and we were glad to break through the bushes which environed our path, and ride quickly up the gradual ascent into its shelter. Once there, the heat no longer oppressed us, but the stillness of the scene, its moral desolateness, and the constant whisper of the breeze, as it fitfully rested upon the tops of the pines, which yielded and bent beneath its passing pressure, induced that desire for repose which the previous heat and our fatigue rendered eminently grateful. We let our horses free to crop the tender herbage, not caring to fasten an animal that seems quite as conscious, when in strange places, of his dependance upon his master, as the latter can possibly be upon him; and seeing them

From "Southern Passages and Pictures," a volume in preparation by the author of "Atalantis," devoted to the illustration of traits, scenes, and traditions of the south.

when my father awakened me with an intimation that it was time to renew our journey. We had rested full two hours, and the wigwam of a Choctaw half breed, fully twenty miles off, was our destined resting place for the night, and the only one within possible reach.

"You have slept soundly," said my father, after I had risen-" more so, I think, than if you had known where you had made your couch."

I turned, at these words, and discovered, for the first The shape of it was still perfect, though a pine tree time, that my place of rest was the hillock of a grave. had grown up at the foot, one of the roots of which ran out of the mould, and partially along upon the surface of the grave.

"An Indian's-some Choctaw chief, perhaps," was my remark.

"No! a christian's. The Indians seldom make individual graves so conspicuous, unless they bury in the tumulus of the tribe-they are more apt to conceal the burial place than ostentatiously to reveal it. I am not satisfied that any of the American tumuli belong to the to themselves. But this grave is that of a white man ancestors of the present race. They certainly do not and a christian. While you slept, I drew up the stake which was at the head of it, and partially concealed beneath the long grass. It lies at your feet. It was once a cross. The arms of the cross are wanting, but hatchet to receive, and where the nail has fastened it. you may see where the groove has been made with a The nail has been eaten out with rust, and the cross has fallen down in consequence. But the groove and hole are there; and there is yet other evidence. Lookthere is not a letter upon the head of the stake. It your eyes are younger than mine--look, and see if seems to me that there is, or was. Can you make it

out ?"

"It is either an M or an H, but which? The two columns are there necessary to both letters, but the connecting strokes are too imperfect for detection."

"It matters not-we should know nothing, even if we knew all; and yet our desire to know is natural enough. But if we knew the name of the inmate, it would not content us; we should be for asking more questions. His family, his fortunes? Where was he born—whither was he journeying—by what means did he come to his end? Your own blood may have circled in his heart, for all we shall ever know of the matter."

tions which a very natural curiosity would ask, with"True, sir, yet these are only a few of the ques out even hoping for reply. Was he young or oldhappy or miserable-did he long for life, in the moment when it was taken from him-was he prepared for death when he found it inevitable? What, next, is the feeling of his connections in his absence—was his fate ever known to them? Perhaps, even now, there is a fond mother, or a devoted wife, that looks for him day by day, and still wonders that he does not come."

"Perhaps these are inquiries which may be made every day in tracing out the histories of our western pioneers. And yet the probable fortunes of the sleeper here, may be conjectured from his place of burial. He was a discontent, or he would not have been here;

Such

was her fate? I turned hastily from the scene and the subject. I feared lest I should find for her, a destiny even more dreadful than that which my imagination had traced out for him."

From MS." Personal and Literary Memorials."

most certainly, one of those restless, impatient mortals, | alone, nor without commiseration when he died. This something like myself, who are forever blazing trees conviction secure, my fancy proceeded to other proofs in and making tracks for their neighbors. He has dis-tracing out this history. There must have been one trusted the world-wronged it, perhaps; or-which is who strove for his recovery-who brought him the coolworse, and however strange you may think it, far more ing draught, and the sedative medicine-who cheered common-has been wronged by it, in its ignorance of his him by accents of comfort through the long and weary claims or its recklessness of his rights, and been driven night of grief and sickness! I felt assured too, that by it into exile. When you grow a little older in the this fond attendant must have been a woman. world, you will meet with this history at every step. | duties are seldom well done by men. I fancied that I It is, perhaps, no unfitting termination to the fortunes beheld her as she smoothed down his pillow, and bathed of such an one, that way-farers should find his body by his head with an officious zeal that brought a smile the roadside, and scooping out for him a shallow grave, into the patient's eye, and a pleasure to his heart, even have laid him in it, and hurried away from the spot, though he may have felt all the while, how utterly unaseeking solitudes yet wilder, and a destiny quite as sad." vailing was all such attendance to save. Then came As these words were spoken, my father led the way the crisis-the parting agony; and the shriek which anto the horses, his manner evidently indicating a desire nounced her desolation, seemed almost to sound within to escape from the subject. But I was young and had my ears. The next movement of my fancy brought with no such dread of it. The evils of life were the convic-it a terror. Where was she-the survivor? What tions of his experience; to me, they were, as yet, only topics for imagination; and, long after my father had ceased to speak of this little incident, I was revolving it in my mind in connection with a thousand fancies not the less sweet, because they were unavoidably serious. In this manner I strove to search out, and to trace the probable history of the occupant of that lonely grave in the unbroken forests. Who were his friends and parents? Doubtlessly, there was a time when he had been blessed with the love of both. Childhood had surely brought with it many sweet fellowships. Did they cease to be sacred-had the pledges of either been violated? From his playmates in boyhood he had sport and sympathy. How melancholy was the thought that manhood had preserved no testimonies of youth-Death takes not his abode, alone, where crowds Gather for many purposes-where pride that neither friends, nor playmates, nor parents, may Erects his habitation, and the rout have been beside him in the las tsad agony! There Of spirits, schooled against austerity, was something terrible in this conviction, and I strove to Meet in licentious revel;-but even here, drive it from my mind. Could it be, that, when the Where the deer stalks in safety, and the wild, earth seemed to reel beneath him-when the skies grew Unrifled of its rich virginity, suddenly dark, and the light began to fade; and the impatient death, whom he could baffle no longer, grappled with him in all his terrors, and hurled him, stiffen-And the small mound of turf that now extends, ing as he fell, to the unfeeling earth-could it be that there were none of all those whom he had known in boyhood, to compose his distorted frame-to smooth his agonized features, and wrap him decently in the concealing pall for his final slumber? Were they strange men, whom he had never before seen or known, to whom his cruel 'fortunes surrendered this sacred office? Was it

a passing way-farer like himself, who happened at nightfall upon his insensible body, lying across the road; and who with a bald humanity, gave it a shallow grave by the wayside; thinking of his own probable need while he did so, and otherwise, utterly unmoved by any feeling for his brother? This was the suggestion of my father, and according to his experience it was doubtlessly true. Such is the every-day history of thousands who wander off into the solitude, far away from man, and too frequently, perhaps, seeking to escape from God. But I could not bring myself to believe, that such was the case in the present instance. There had been some care manifested in preparing the rude memorial of the sleeper, by which we knew that friends must have buried him-that friends must have been with him in his last moments. The rude cross, and the imperfect initial were proofs of this. He was neither

THE SAME SUBJECT.

[The reflections above written forced themselves frequently upon me in after-days, when more various wanderings had led my footsteps to other graves, and were at length embodied in the verses which follow.]

Is ruled by sov'reign nature as at first-
Here Death hath built his melancholy shrine,

Defacing the plane surface at our feet,
Hath proof that he hath claim'd his sacrifice,
And, monarch of all time and every place,
Hath made life render up his trembling staff,
And, like some outlaw, reckless of accompt,
Hath eased him of his burden.

Shall we ask

She answers not. Her voice like thine is still,
In these wild solitudes! What deeper shade,
Conceals the grief it never may subdue?
Her fate-if such it be--is worse than thine-
To live beyond the loved-outliving all
Those choice plants of affection, which the eyes,
That brighten'd while they watch'd them, wet with tears,
And, train'd too well, forebore not flowing still,
Though all had wither'd they had cherish'd long.

She did not perish when she saw thee die,
Else had they made her grave where thou art laid,
And that were merciful. No flower is here
Which she has planted; and the weeds have grown,
Untended, like thy fortunes, thorny and wild,
Meet emblem of thy fate. Methinks,

If there was nothing sweet to bless thy days,-
If youth had no enjoyment-childhood no friend,-
Manhood no home-the love of country nought,
To make a venerated shrine a charm,
More sweet to age than all the joys of youth-
If but affliction clung to thee through all,-
It had not been a misplaced charity,

Of her, or the sad seasons, to have left
One flower above thy grave, poor desolate!

AN ADDRESS

There is something handsome in the two neighbor institutions, Randolph Macon' and 'Hampden Sidney,' looking so neighborly. The President of the one, addressing by invitation the young men of the other, and they providing the reading rooms of both institutions, and the reading public, their common patron, with so neat an edition of the address.

We hope this mutual confidence and good feeling will long continue. Most heartily also do we wish success to the patriotic work of the formation of an American literature, whether that be an independent literature, elaborated out of pure American materials-or merely a general and generous literature in | America-the offspring of an American literati, honorable and eminent in the sight of all lands.

But absolutely, it is right humiliating that as yet in the Old Dominion, the literary shepherd of our youth has to goad the popular patriotism, by telling them of the ridiculousness of "an edifice of brick and mortar, put together in the coarsest manner, and covering an area of a few feet-a fragmentary collection of shattered apparatus, a few old volumes, received by donation, as a library, a few varieties of limestone and quartz rock, as a cabinet of minerals, and then a faculty gathered fortuitously from the walks of business or of ordinary professional life," and all this "constituting the beau ideal of a college." Tell it not in Europe, publish

Delivered before the Franklin Literary Society of Randolph it not in the streets of foreign cities, &c.

Macon College, Virginia, June 19th, 1838, by D. L. Carroll, D. D., President of Hampden Sidney College. Such is the title page of a pamphlet of very neat exterior, just thrown upon our table. On the second page we are apprised of the subject matter of the address, thus-"In what more appropriate way can I occupy your time, on this occasion, than by pointing out to you some things in our condition, as a nation, which show that we are yet to have a literature of our own; and then specifying some of the duties of educated men on this subject?"

The circumstances instanced are these:

1st. The intellectual character of the men who founded this nation, and the influence of the institutions which they

established.

But every thing like a national literature is the work of time. Perhaps we are a little too young yet as a nation. Cur warriors, patriots, statesmen, and divines, are not mean in the comparison with those of any other age or clime. But "distance lends enchantment to the view" of human characters, as well as of mountains. Our emigrant forefathers are worthy enough of immortal verse, but they are men as it were of yesterday. Our institutions are excellent, but without the sanctity of age. Our nation's birth was subsequent to that of gun-powder, of course we have no walled towns, and the story of a siege is not likely to be laid in this land. American states came into being under the light of christianity-of course, we have no old heathen temples among us, tumbling into ruins. Our architecture is

2d. The bold and diversified natural scenery of our land. all the creation of ordinary, social necessity, and rather 3d. The vast physical resources of this nation.

of hurry than otherwise; of course, we have no huge

4th. The increased interest now taken in the cause of castles, pillars, or pyramids, or such like; and our little popular education.

5th. The peculiar excitability of American mind, and its susceptibility of being turned to account in the formation of an American literature.

displays of architecture in its various orders, Corinthian, Ionie, Doric, Gothic, &c., are rather small scale displays of pedantic servility, than any thing magnificent and original. Our history is all the story of a noon

The duties of educated men at such a time are deline-day scene; there are not many lights and shades about ated under the following heads.

First-To give impulse and direction to the movement of American mind on this subject.

it; no obscurity, unless it be the work of slanderous riexisting|valry of inventive disputation. It does not extend back into the dark ages. It has no mythology worthy of the

Second-To cherish enlarged and liberal views respecting name-no ruins to form the starting place of conjecture; the literary institutions of our country.

of course, poets pine and starve here, even if like fairies,

Third--By their own acquisitions and example to elevate they demanded nothing but superstitious and wondering the standard of intellectual excellence-and

attention. We are in the light of the Baconian era.

Lastly-To bring the influence of the Bible to bear on This is an age of utility—ours is a nation of business, the formation of our literature.

(if we can overlook the broad blots of mere idleness Dr. Carroll is one of our fine writers, and although the and vice.) The unclassic western maxim, "go ahead," address before us, bears but few marks of deep research, is gilded on the head of the flag-staff of this people.' or hard thinking, it is nevertheless a happy and well- These are fundamental facts that must lie at the fountimed contribution to the great cause it espouses-the ad-dation of our literature; and the simple superstructure vancement of a literary ambition in our American youth. I must go up upon them-the absolutely peculiar monu