church members than any part of the British Empire at home or abroad, and fully as many, or even more, than the non-slaveholding states themselves. Agents were sent from London to the United States, for the especial purpose of prying into this matter. Finding the true state of the case, they let it sleep. But the interest of the South requires that it shonld not sleep. Let those who would wage war, in the name of religion, against Southern institutions, and who are coutinually crying out against the sin and evil of slavery, be put to the blush, by the records of the christian churches.

Whatever the people of the Northern States or England may think, or imagine, the East India Company's agents are well apprised of another fact, known only to a portion of the South, and to them, which is, that the South, neither has nor will have, for ages to come, any thing to fear from the slaves themselves. The utmost efforts of the anti-slavery societies, can only produce neighborhood disturbances, which would soon be put down, as they always have been. The negroes out-numbered the whites, more than ten to one, in Jamaica, and more than twenty-five to one in Demerara; yet the disturbances in those colonies were of short duration. The East India Company never expected to break up the system of associated labor in the West Indies after that manner, nor did it expect to accomplish that object in the United States, by Thompson and the other agents it sent to America. It was too wise to entertain such an expectation for a moment. The agents, it sent to the West Indies, through its political school in London, were, for the purpose of ripening and promoting the scheme of kindling irritations between the West India colonies and the British people at home. So, also, Thompson and the other agents, it has sent through the same incendiary political school in London to the United States, were for the purpose of kindling irritations between the Northern and the Southern States of the Union. The West India planters had nothing seriously to apprehend from their negroes, excepting a few neighborhood disturbances. It was the action of the British people at home, which constituted their danger. So, also, the South, neither has, nor ever has had, any thing seriously to fear from its slave population, ovei and above an occasional disturbance, which could be put

down in a day. If the South have any thing to fear, it is from the action of the Northern States, and the intrigues of the English, and not from its slaves. The South has been overrun by hostile armies promising protection, liberty and lands to its slaves, yet so strong is the tie of reciprocal benefits binding master and slave, that it could not be broken, except in a few instances, constituting exceptions to the general rule. A perseverance in hostile action by the people of the Northern States to Southern institutions will, however, lead, if not arrested, to a dissolution of the Union. Herein lies the true danger of the South, but it is a danger which equally threatens the North. The agents of the East India Company are so well acquainted with our institutions as to know, that a dissolution of the Union would not free a single slave. But they have good reason to believe, that after the dissolution of the Federal Government, the irritations of the Northern and Southern States leading to it, would bring on wars, in which both parties, being so nearly balanced, would weaken each other so much, as ultimately to fall a prey, like the Mogul Empire, to British power. At any rate, the East India Company would reap the advantages of any suspension in the agricultural labor of the South, by whatsoever means it may be caused. Could a correct knowledge of the basis upon which the incendiary politics of the East India Company is founded, be diffused among the people of the North and the South, there would be some ground to hope, that those irritations it has kindled between States of the same great republican family, would give place to better feelings. Certainly the North should let the South alone, but the misfortune is, that urged and goaded by the agents of the East India Company, through the company's political schools, called anti-slavery societies, it will not let the South alone, unless the machinations of that company be brought to public notice and counteracted. Great Britain has abolished slavery in the West Indies. Yet, the political school of the East India Company, called the anti-slavery society, established for the ostensible purpose of bringing about that effect, is not abolished. The object of its creation is accomplished in the passage of the West India Emancipation Bill; yet it still continues in greater activity than ever. The whole object and intent of the London Anti-Slavery Society,

can be for no other pnrpose than to inflame the people of the Northern States, by false representations and other means, against the system of slavery, so as to induce them, by some rash act, to drive the South to disunion and non-intercourse with the North. Indeed, the East India Company, its founder, no longer makes a secret of its machinations against the Southern institutions of America. If the world be too small to afford a market for the products of the East, and similar products of our Southern States; if British power in India must fall, or our glorious Union be dissolved, (since Great Britain is forcing upon us the question of disunion or abolition,) the sooner the issue is brought on the better. The question of abolition we will never discuss or entertain; but the question which shall stand or fall, the ill-got power of Britain in India, or our holy Union, cemented by the blood of our fathers, is the one which America should always be ready to debate, either at home or on the Ganges, with sword and with cannon.

ART. VIII.-1. Voices of the Night: By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW: Sixth edition: Cambridge: John Owen. 1841.

2. Ballads and other Poems: By HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. New York: Harpers. 1841.

There is not a maudlin simmerer of sentimentalities, nor a putter-together of paragraphs, on the broad continent, who has not contributed his quota of regret and wonderment that this magnificent nation is comparatively destitute of a poetical literature; and, so often have the changes been rung upon this threadbare theme, that there is no touch of its melody, which has not become part and parcel of the national faith. Not a poetaster exists among us, from Morris to the obscurest "Florella or "Julian" of a country newspaper, who knows not, by heart, the extremely humiliating fact, that the American people have no enthusiasm for poetry, and are completely destitute of a just admiration for the "higher efforts of genius,"--that is, their own supernatural effusions! In vain the classic McHenry threshes the air with his inspired heroics, a Benjamin talks down the

modest echoes with his feebly-halting stanzas. The hearts of the cruel and cold-blooded democracy are untouched! The transcendant genius of these harmonious sons of light, is unacknowledged, notwithstanding that, in "Brother Jonathan," of thirty thousand weekly circulation, and "New World," of an indefinite number, their refulgence is reflected, as in a mirror shattered into ten thousand fragments. Yet, "Brother Jonathan" still remains blindly insensible to their unheardof excellencies, and in the "New World" is there still no appreciation of their sublime scintillations. Like the starshowers, those brilliant wonderments,-for which even the philosophic brain of a Lardner has yet failed satisfactorily to account, they make a great deal of most exquisite noise, -in the newspapers; while very few mortal eyes have ever been made acquainted with their miraculous splendor. "We have, as yet, no literature !"-cries some snarling dealer in dull diatribes, from the chip-basket of an editorial sanctum : We have no poetry!" reëchoes some concoctor of prophesied milleniums, in the musty columns of a smallbeer periodical, "devoted to literature and the fine arts,with monthly plates of the latest Parisian fashions!" and so flies the tale, upon its rapid course, until we know not whether, in a century or two, it will not begin actually to be believed, that this magnificent country, in which the dreams of all the children of inspiration, whose thoughts beacon the sea of time, meet with a glorious fruition, and spring, like Wisdom from the brain of Jove, full armed, to light and life, is, in sad reality, without poetry,-without a literature! There is, in serious truth, some danger, that the swarming myriads of insect-men, who have many perceptions but are totally incapable of an idea,—whose lives are but a dusky color, tinted into a momentary flash of glory, as they drop through the golden-sunshine,-shall so overcloud with their numbers the intellectual horizon, that the glory of this age, and of this bright world of neverdying thought and poetry and enthusiasm, and all that is beautiful and divine, shall be hidden, for generations to come, from the gaze of men and we cannot help confessing, that, if they are to represent us, we are, indeed, without poetry, without a literature !

What is literature? and, more especially, what is poetry? It is the investing with the attributes of beauty and novelty

those events or actions which are, in themselves, merely common-place. It is the endowing the ordinary actions and concerns of humanity with an interest and a purpose, which reach into the skies, and proclaim themselves the offspring of "universal goodness." The prowess of Ulysses required to be robed wih the coloring of poetry, ere it became immortal; and the wild and tumultuous history of the ages preceding Shakspeare,--selfish and common-place in themselves,— afforded him but the frame-work whereon to weave his gorgeous dreams and celestial aspirations. In past times, the poetry of the world existed apart from the real interests and concerns of life; and the province of the imagination became distinct and individualized, as it capriciously invested this or that hero or event with its immortal drapery. Thus it was, that poetry existed as an art,--a sublime science of the soul,--whose disciples, far removed from the realities of actual life, surrounded themselves with a world of beauty, above the reach of common men, and only admired and worshipped at a distance. It dwelt apart in books, and became tangible and palpable, from the fact that it was isolated from the common existence of mankind.

But, when Republican America was spoken into existence, poetry descended into the hearts of men, and became a part of the life and breath of all. It was no longer an art: it was a feeling,-an impulse,-which animated alike all bosoms, and led to deeds which were, of themselves, immortal. Poetry was no longer to be written, and sealed up in precious tomes; it was to be lived and acted. A new era, in that hour, dawned upon the intellectual, as well as the moral, world. All men were heroes, inspired, in very fact, with those high purposes with which it had before been the province of poetry to invest her occasional favorites. Gather together all the noble scenes painted by poetry and imagination throughout all time, and see if they will form a picture comparable with the simple grandeur of that assemblage of gray-headed men who adopted the Declaration of Independence, and pledged their lives upon the altar of human freedom. Look to the verse of Homer and Virgil, and point us to him who, born of the poet's wildest dream, may stand beside the Father of his Country. Look abroad upon the development of practical liberty, as exhibited in the brief history of our glorious land, and tell us where, in written VOL. I.NO. 2.

25