Matilda, or the Barbadoes Girl, a Tale for tre. young people, by the Author of the Clergy- p. 67. man's Widow, &c. &c Philadelphia, M. CAREY and SON, 12mo. pp. 175.

The name of Mrs. Hoffland will become deservedly dear to the rising generation. Indeed there are many adults who might peruse, with great profit, her interesting little stories, which are not less marked with tenderness than with morality. Her Son of a Genius, 'Sister,' &c. which we have read with pleasure, warrant us in indulging a favourable opinion of a volume, at which we have only had time to glance.

ART. 15. QUARTERLY REPORT OF DISEASES TREATED AT THE PUBLIC DISPENSARY, NEW-YORK, DURING THE MONTHS OF JANUARY, FEBRUARY, AND MARCH, 1817.

AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE

AND

CRITICAL REVIEW,

No. III.....VOL. I.

JULY, 1817.

ART. 1. Harold the Dauntless, a Poem in six Cantos, by the Author of the Bridal of Triermain. New-York, James Eastburn & Co. 12mo. pp. 144.

IN

N days of yore, it used to be expect- marks of literature, hailed as the overed, that whoever undertook to write flowing of Helicon,-is more than we for the amusement or edification of the can patiently bear. It is evidence of public, should produce either rhyme a deeper corrosion of taste than we had or reason,' but modern genius disdains supposed to exist.

such pedantic restraints, and modern To be overcome, by surprise, by liberality easily dispenses with the ob- such bandits' as Scott and Byron, is servance of so fastidious a requisition. an impeachment of no man's firmness,The very essence of sublimity, indeed, but to surrender one's judgment, at the in its most fashionable acceptation, summons of every foot-pad of Parnasconsists in being absolutely incompre- sus, is sheer dastardy. We shall be bold hensible; and the most admired amble enough, at any rate, to take the field, of a crop' Pegasus, is like the forc'd occasionally, in the cause of common gait of a shuffling nag.' Atheism is sense.

made the succedaneum of sentiment, The poem before us, we are told, is from truculence has usurped the honours of the pen of the author of the 'Bridal of Trichivalry, and Arcady' is deserted for ermain.' That was an avowed imitaBotany-Bay. All this we would en- tion,-this is an apparent one. As far as deavour to endure with resignation, in likeness is a merit, the work is entitled the confident belief, that the erratic to praise; not that it is an exact similitude meteors, whose sudden glare has daz- of Scott, or Byron, or Southey, or Colezled our sight and bewildered our un- ridge, but that it bears strong features derstandings, will soon recede beyond the of family resemblance to the whole frasphere of our vision, and that the ele- ternity. The fault, therefore, if the ments of the moral and intellectual picture fail to give pleasure, is less in world will, ultimately, regain their the copy than in the original. It is in equilibrium, when these disturbing this light that we shall regard it. We causes shall have ceased to exert their shall attempt, then, to ascertain what the malignant influence; but to be told, original really is,-for we are led to as we lately have been, from a quarter suspect, from the strong coincidences of high pretension, that Pope, Swift, in the prominent traits of the heroes of and Addison,' were mere poetasters to Scott and Byron, etc. that they are only the master-spirits of our time,-to see copyists, and that they have drawn the deluge of balderdash that threatens from the same model ;-and we are inthe submersion of all the ancient land- clined to think, after having investiga VOL. I. NO. !!!.

Y

ted the subject, that the reader will cursions, a party of marauders had, in his agree with us in assigning to GODWIN, absence, surprised his castle, burned it to the honour, if honour it be, of having invented the character from which, William of Deloraine,'' Marmion, ( Bertram,' 'The Giaour,' The Corsair,' 'Childe Harold,' and, derivatively, Harold the Dauntless,' were all taken. In Godwin's famous novel of St. Leon, we meet with a sketch of the character of Bethlem Gabor, delineated with a strength of outline and a vividness of colouring, to the effect of which poetry cannot add, and which imitation can never attain. We shall not apologize for extracting so eloquent a description as the following,

and children, and every living creature withthe ground, and savagely murdered his wife in the walls. The same stroke that rendered him childless, made him also a beggar. He had been regarded for his proceedings as an adherent of the Turkish standard, but he had plete independence. The adversity that had always tenaciously maintained the most comnow fallen upon him was too great. He would not become a pensioner of the Sultan ; despair had taken fast possession of his heart. ed, and wandered a solitary outcase upon the He disbanded the body of men he had form. face of his country. For some time he seemed to have a savage complacenct, in conceiving that the evil he had suffered was past all and disguises with which vulgar souls are remedy, and in spurning at those palliations accustomed to assuage their wo. Yet the energy of his nature would not suffer him to rest: he wandered an outcast; but every day engendered some new thought or passion: and it appeared probable that he would not yet quit the stage of existence till he had left behind him the remembrances of a terrible and desolating revenge.

Bethlem Gabor was the lineal representative of one of the most illustrious houses in Hungary. His vocation, like that of the majority of the Hungarian nobility, had been arms; but, in the midst of a fraternity, all of whom were warlike, he stood conspicuous and alone. His courage, though cool and It may seem strange that such a man as I deliberate, almost mounted to a degree of have described should be the individual I sedesperate rashness; and the fertility of his lected out of the whole Hungarian nation to invention and the variety of his stratagems make my friend. It may seem that bis quadid not fall short of his courage. The cele- litics were better adapted to repel than at-rity of his measures was equally distin- tract. My choice would not appear strange, guished; distance was no bar to him and he if the reader could have conversed with him, had no sooner conceived a project, however as I did. He was hideous to the sight; and arduous, than it was executed. He had form- he never addressed himself to speak, that I ed under his own eye a band of men like did not feel my very heart shudder within. himself, impetuous, yet deliberate, swift in me. Seldom did he allow himself to open execution, silent in march, invincible to his thoughts; but, when he did, Great God! hardship, contemners of fatigue, and difficul- what supernatural eloquence seemed to inties, of hunger and thirst. When introduced spire and enshroud him! Not that upon such to me, he was upwards of fifty years of age. occasions he was copious and Ciceronian, He was more than six feet in stature; and but that every muscle and every limb seemyet he was built as if he had been a colossus, ed to live, and to quiver with the thoughts destined to sustain the weight of the starry he expressed. The hearer could not refuse heavens. His voice was like thunder; and to venerate, as well as fear him. I never he never uttered a word, but it seemed to pitied him; Bethlem Gabor's was a soul that shake his manly chest. His head and chin soared to a sightless distance above the were clothed with a thick and shaggy hair, in sphere of pity; I can scarcely say I sympacolour a dead black. He had suffered con- thized with him; but, when I listened to his siderable mutilation in the services through complaints, rather let me say his invectives, which he had passed; of one of his hands I was astonished, overwhelmed and motionthree fingers were gone; the sight of his right less. The secret of the effects be thus proeye was extinguished, and the cheek half shot duced, lay in his own way of feeling the inaway, while the same explosion had burned cidents he described. Look at him, when he his complexion into a colour that was univer- sat alone, wrapped in meditation, you would sally dun or black. His nose was scarred, say, That man is of iron; though adversity and his lips were thick and large. Bethlem pour her fiercest darts upon him, he is invulGabor, though universally respected for the nerable; he is of too colossal a structure to honour and magnanimity of a soldier, was be accessible to human feelings and human not less remarkable for habits of reserve and affections. Listen to his narrative, or rataciturnity. But these habits misfortune had ther to the bursts of passion, which with him caused to become more deeply engrafted in supplied the place and performed the funchis nature. During one of his military ex- tions of narrative, you would soon confess

your mistake. While he spoke, he ceased to of a melancholy, not that contracted, but be a man, and became something more ama- that swelled the soul, of a melancholy that zing. When he alluded to what he had en looked down upon the world with indignadured, you did not compassionate him, for tion, and that relieved its secret load with you felt that he was a creature of another curses and execrations. We frequently connature; but you confessed, that never man tinued whole nights in the participation of seemed to have suffered so much, or to sa- these bitter joys; and were surprised, still at your with such bitterness the cup of wo. He our serious board, by the light of the mordid not love his wife or his children as any row's sun. other man would do; he probably never If ever on the face of the earth there lived dandled or fondled them; his love was a misanthrope, Bethlem Gabor was the man. speechless; and disdaining the common Never for a moment did he forget or forgive the modes of exhibition, it might sometimes be sanguinary catastrophe of his family, and for mistaken for indifference. But it brooded his own misfortunes he seemed to have vowover and clung round his heart; and, when ed vengeance against the whole human race. it was disturbed, when the strong ties of do- He almost hated the very face of man; and, mestic charity were by the merciless hand of when expressions of cheerfulness, peace and war snapped asunder, you then saw its vo- contentment discovered themselves in his luminous folds spread and convulsed before presence, I could see, by the hideous working you, gigantic and immeasurable. He cursed of his features, that his spirit experienced their murderers, he cursed mankind, he rose intolerable agonies. To him such expresup in fierce defiance of eternal Providence; sions were tones horribly discordant; all was and your blood curdled within you as he uproar and havoc within his own bosom, spoke. Such was Bethlem Gabor: I could and the gaiety of other men inspired him not help admiring him; his greatness ex- with sentiments of invincible antipathy. He cited my wonder and my reverence; and never saw a festive board without an incliwhile his manners awed and overwhelmed nation to overturn it; or a father encircled me, I felt an inexplicable attachment to his with a smiling family, without feeling his person still increasing in my bosom. soul thrill with suggestions of murder. SomeOn his part, my kindness and partiality thing, I know not what, withheld his hand; appeared scarcely less pleasing to Bethlem it might be some remaining atom of huGabor, than his character and discourse manity; it might be-for his whole characwere fascinating to me. He had found him- ter was contemplative and close-it might be self without a confidant or a friend. His wife that he regarded that as a pitiful and impoand his children in a certain degree under- tent revenge, which should cause him the stood him; and, though he had an atmos- next hour to be locked up as a madman, or phere of repulsion beyond which no mortal put to death as a criminal. Horrible as was ever penetrated, they came to the edge of his personal aspect, and wild and savage as that, and rested there; they trembled invo- was his mind, yet, as I have already said, I lantarily at his aspect, but at the same time felt myself attached to him. I knew that all they adored and they loved him. The rest the social propensities that animated him, of the world viewed him from a more fear- were the offspring of love, were the sentiful distance; respected him, but dared not, ments of a lioness bereaved of her young; even in fancy, be familiar with him. When, and I found an undescribable and exhaustless therefore, he lost his family, he lost his all. pleasure in examining the sublime desolation He roamed the earth in solitude, and all men of a mighty soul. made room for him as he passed. I was the

first who, since the fatal event that had made Such is the portrait crayoned by the him childless and a beggar, had courted his dark pencil of Godwin, some feature society, and invited his communications. of which frowns under the beaver of had dared to take the lion by the paw, and There every ruffian hero in every ballad epic seat myself next him in his den. was a similarity in our fortunes that secretly of the day. The scene, the costume, endeared him to me. We had each, by the and the condition may be changed,malice of a hostile destiny, though in a very the form is one, and the impression is different manner, been deprived of our fami- the same. "Harold the Dauntless," lies; we were each of us alone. Fated each

to be hereafter for ever alone, we blended is altogether a less interesting and less ourselves the one with the other, as perfectly amiable bravo than Bethlem Gabor. as we could. Often over our gloomy bow! He is inhuman in his hate, implacable we mingled groans, and sweetened our in his revenge, and, equally, a brute draught as we drank it with maledictions. In in physical force and intellectual imquainted with the delights of melancholy, becility. But we will give the reader

the school of Bethlem Gabor I became ac