This was spoken

66

At page 123, we read thus, by Ojeda while at some little distance from, and while the crowd stood, a solid mass, between him and his rival." Here the sentence is to be tortured into grammar only by placing in a parenthesis the words and while the crowd stood a solid mass between him and." But how easily might it have been written that " Ojeda said this while the crowd stood, a solid mass, between himself and his rival, whose position was at some little distance from his own."

Women, who are
In this equiv-

Again, at page 59, Vol. I., very foolish, are apt to be very cruel."

ocal sentence, Mr. S., no doubt, intended to assert that very foolish women are apt to be very cruel. His words, as they stand, however, convey a really serious charge of stupidity against the gentle sex at large. These faulty constructions, occurring at every page, not only offend the eye of the critic, and lessen the authority of the writer, but have an exceedingly large influence in marring the beauty of sentiment, by rendering abortive all vigour of thought.

In another point of view Mr. S. has committed certain blunders, or fallen into certain inadvertences, which it might be as well to remedy in a second edition. The whole account of the hurricane is, we think, monstrously at war with all the dicta of common sense, as well as all the known principles of natural philosophy. The writer discourses of the storm as he would of a wild beast; and the reader cannot get over the idea that Mr. S. actually supposes it to be something which possesses an existence independent of that atmosphere of which it is merely a quality or condition.

At page 161 of the same volume, we find these

words, "And how natural, in an age so fanciful, to believe that the stars and starry groups beheld in the new world, for the first time by the native of the old, were especially assigned for its government and protection!" Now if by the old world be meant the East, and by the new world the West, we are quite at a loss to know what are the stars seen in the one, which cannot be equally seen in the other.

Some singular instances of bad taste (instances of a different character from those above noted) are also observable in the Damsel of Darien," but we cannot now attempt to indicate them in detail. There is a ludicrous example, however, which it will not do to pass by, and which occurs at page 105 of the first volume. "It was a pile of the oyster," says Mr. S., "which yielded the precious pearls of the South, and the artist had judiciously painted some with their lips parted, and showing within the large precious fruit in the attainment of which Spanish cupidity had already proved itself capable of every peril as well as of every crime. The intention of the artist was of much more merit than his execution. At once true and poetical, no comment could have been more severe upon the national character than that conveyed in this slight design." Now we can have no doubt in the world that the artist was a clever fellow in his way, but it is really difficult to conceive what kind of poetical beauty that can be which Mr. Simms is so happy as to discover in the countenance of a gaping oyster.

AN ADDRESS, DELIVERED BEFORE THE GOETHEAN AND DIAGNOTHIAN SOCIETIES OF MARSHALL COllege, at THEIR ANNUAL CELEBRATION, SEPTEMBER 24, 1839. BY JOSEPH O. CHANDLER.

[Text: Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, December, 1839.]

We have read this Address thoughtfully, and with great pleasure. It assuredly does its accomplished author much credit, and we cannot be surprised at the intense interest with which, as we learn, it was listened to by the institutions before whom it was delivered. Addresses, in general, are very ordinary matters, and we dislike to say anything about them, because we seldom have anything more to say than a few brief words of utter condemnation. The leading features of this branch of letters, at the present day, may be summed up in petto, stale wisdom, overdone sentiment, schoolboy classicalities, bad English, worse Latin, and wholesale rhodomontade. Mr. Chandler has given us a good Address, and done an original thing.

Originality is indeed, we think, one of the distinguishing traits of Mr. C.'s mind, and the essay now before us evinces the faculty in a high degree. He has deviated widely from the usual track upon occasions like the present; and, at the same time, he has deviated with judgment, and given token of the true spirit of independence. He addresses two associations supposed to be deeply imbued with classical partialities. He does not blindly humour these partialities; but boldly confronts, and, just so far as the truth warrants, condemns them. His design is to show the vast superior

ity which modern intellect and its results maintain over the boasted civilization and proudest mental efforts of even the golden Heathen ages maintain by the means and through the inspiration of the light of revelation through the elevated knowledge of a futurity of existence — and through the glowing and burning hopes to which that knowledge of futurity gives rise. This is just such a turn as the man of genius might be led to give to a discourse upon an occasion of the kind, and such as only the man of genius would have given.

Mr. Chandler has not merely well conceived the tenor of his Address, but very ably sustained its execution throughout. If there is, indeed, any one point of his argument with which we could find fault, it is where he yields, in too great measure we think, the palm of eloquence to the ancients, thus weakening his own position. He has not, perhaps, sufficiently borne in mind the distinction between eloquence abstractedly considered, and its positive effects. We might safely grant that the effects of the oratory of Demosthenes were vaster than those produced by the eloquence of any modern, and yet not controvert the idea that the eloquence itself of the modern was equal or superior to that of the Greek. And this we firmly believe is the case. The circumstances of the audience make the important difference in the reception of the oration. The Greeks were a highly excitable and an unread race. They had no printed books. Viva voce exhortations carried with them, to their quick apprehensions and passions, all that gigantic force which the new possesses. These exhortations had, analogically speaking, much of that vivid interest which the first fable has upon the dawning intellect of the child an interest which is worn away by the frequent perusal of similar things—the

frequent inception of similar fancies. The suggestions, the arguments, if any, the incitements of the ancient rhetorician, were, when compared with those of the modern, absolutely novel, and therefore possessed an immense adventitious force - a force which should be taken into consideration in a comparative estimate of the eloquence of the two eras. But the truth is, that even in regard to any given Philippic, and any given modern effort of note, we have few means of rigid comparison. Demosthenes appealed to the passions of a populace; the modern orator struggles to sway the intellect of a deliberative assembly. The finest Philippic of the Greek would have been hooted at in the British House of Commons, but it may well be doubted whether one of Brougham's admirable efforts would not have had its weight, even in Athens.