son Samuel had been deceived by the weeping rogue in green, was not comparable to ours, when we read the Letters." From that production we should derive the idea, that all the rascality and folly of the world were included in the United States, that Mr. Perceval and Mr. Canning had never governed Great Britain, that Peter Plymley had written no letters, that there was no country called Ireland, and that no English politicians had been in the habit of "touching the political Aceldama, and signing the devil's bond for cursing to-morrow what they have blest to-day." We are sorry, we repeat, that Sydney Smith's weakness should have led him to publish so rash a pamphlet; and we are grieved, that, in a moment of petulance, he sold his bonds at a loss. A little patience, and he might have made, to say the least, a better bargain. The peculiar description of American debt, which was held by him, has risen much of late, and we trust that it will soon be good for its nominal value. However, if he should chance to doubt his "Tunis three per cents," and desire to make a durable investment in securities of undoubted worth, and yet not wish to make another trial of Pennsylvania, we can conscientiously advise him to purchase, among other very valuable and unblemished American stocks, those which go under the name of Massachusetts Fives and New York Sixes.

ART. VI.A Selection from the Writings of Henry R. Cleveland. With a Memoir by GEORGE S. HILLARD. Printed for Private Distribution. 1844. PP. li. & 384.

16mo.

THOUGH this beautiful volume is not printed for general circulation, we shall not violate any private confidence by giving some account of its contents in these pages. Mr. Cleveland was an occasional contributor to our Journal, and his papers were always welcomed by readers of taste; this circumstance gives us, in some degree, a right to avail ourselves of the present opportunity to record, in a periodical which his writings adorned, our impressions of his life and literary character.

All who read the present volume, it is believed, will agree in thinking, that it contains the evidence of greater and more varied abilities than even Mr. Cleveland's friends gave him credit for during his life. His attainments as a scholar and his talents as a writer formed only a small part of the bright assemblage of qualities which attracted their respect and won their affection. His various knowledge and his elegant tastes were blended with such amiability of temper, so much warmth and tenderness of feeling, such integrity of purpose, and such constant adherence to the right, that he made, on the minds of those most intimate with him, the impression, not merely or chiefly of a man of talent, a scholar, and an able writer or speaker, but of an accomplished gentleman, in the best sense of the term, a warm and faithful friend, a lively, interesting, and urbane companion, a man not only of worldly honor, but of a character moulded by self-discipline into the fair proportions of Christian excellence. Those who were acquainted with him from his childhood know, that he was not framed for great bodily health and strength, that he had a delicacy of organization, which, if it did not betoken a short life, was still accompanied by no small portion of the irritability of temperament, which requires great and painful vigilance in keeping guard over the little acts of daily intercourse, not to degenerate into a wearisome peevishness of temper. They will remember, too, what noble and generous impulses chased these slight clouds away by their golden light; what steady kindness and affection, scarcely ever interrupted by this, his only besetting weakness, marked his demeanour towards all around him. But they only can know how much of a sense of duty, of submission to moral and religious principle, of struggle to suppress the rebellious murmurings of a diseased and irritable constitution, went to form the serene, balanced, and beautiful character which all who knew him admired and loved in the latter years of his life.

And now that he has departed, we look back with unmingled joy upon his life and character. We feel the inestimable value of those principles, which enabled him to combat against the incessant attacks of constitutional, and therefore hopeless, ill health,-which, whatever the moralists may say to the contrary, is the most dangerous enemy a man is ever summoned to contend against, and to mould the elements of his moral and intellectual being into a char

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acter of such solid strength and exquisite proportions, that the strongest and most felicitously endowed may be proud and happy to emulate it. But while his moral and social excellences form a delightful image, and one ever to be cherished in the memory, his intellectual powers, displayed as they are in still remaining monuments, naturally assume a prominence which they never seemed to have before; they separate themselves, as it were, from the rest of his character, and attract our attention to them on their own account. His writings, too, being scattered in separate publications, and divided from each other by considerable intervals of time, produced a broken and comparatively feeble impression. We are, therefore, much gratified that the present collection has been made; and, intimate as were our relations with the writer, the variety and extent of his acquirements, the beauty and vigor of his mind, and his command of so rich and elegant a style as this volume proves him to have possessed, have almost taken us by surprise. He has written on many and widely different subjects, and always with good sense, clearness, and force; not seldom with beauty and eloquence; sometimes with a loftiness of thought and imagery, which indicate a degree of power that no feebler term than genius can properly express. It was but justice, then, to Mr. Cleveland's memory, that this collection should be printed; it is a memorial that his friends will look upon with pleasure and pride; and when his daughter, bereft of him too early to understand her infinite loss, grows to maturity, she will have the inexpressible delight of contemplating in it the strength, grace, and beauty of her father's intellectual endowments, though his outward form and features may have faded entirely from her recollection.

The memoir, prefixed to the collection of Mr. Cleveland's writings, from the elegant pen of Mr. Hillard, is all that the friends of the deceased can desire. The history of the short, but not uneventful life, is told with good taste, simplicity, and feeling. Though a warm and intimate friend, and though he writes in the affectionate tone which this sacred relation naturally inspires, he has been betrayed into no excess of eulogy, into no over-coloring of the picture of Mr. Cleveland's virtues, into no exaggerated estimate of his talents. He has collected from the best sources the facts in the life of his friend, and wrought them into a narrative of

high interest, closing the biography with an exquisitely drawn character, in which he has analyzed with skill and power the traits and qualities of which that character was composed. The whole is executed in a manner worthy of the taste and talents of the writer, and of the memory of the lamented subject.

Henry Russell Cleveland was born in Lancaster, October 3, 1808. He was prepared for the University in a private school in his native town, under the instruction of those distinguished scholars, Mr. Sparks, Mr. George B. Emerson, and the late Mr. Solomon P. Miles. He entered the University at Cambridge in 1823. Though very young, he displayed from the beginning the force of the good principles which had been carefully inculcated upon him during his childhood. He was never enticed into the vices and follies, for which the comparative independence and the leisure of college life hold out opportunities irresistible to the virtue of many. He showed no strong tendency to any one department of intellectual exertion; but excellent capacities for all. The prescribed duties of the college he performed with conscientious care and punctuality. He held a very respectable rank in his class; was fond of elegant literature, which he cultivated beyond the requirements of the college course; and gave much time to moral and political science, for which he showed a taste beyond his years. His associates remember, particularly, the thoroughness and delight with which he studied voluntarily Montesquieu's profound work, the "Esprit des Lois," at a time when most of them, older and less boyish to outward appearance than he, would have preferred the last new poem or novel, as a relaxation from their college studies. But he was most distinguished as a writer. He showed, from the beginning, an uncommon felicity in composition, and in this department, it is believed, he was not inferior to any in his class. He was graduated in 1827, and, immediately after, engaged in a high school in Geneseo, New York, which, in conjunction with two of his classmates, he had agreed to conduct for two years. The responsibilities of the situation, and the discipline of teaching, had the happiest effect upon his character and powers; and the society of that region, which, being made up chiefly of the families of wealthy landed gentry, is refined and agreeable to a remarkable degree, and distinguished

for a boundless and elegant hospitality, which he who has participated in can never forget, this society, into which Mr. Cleveland was frankly welcomed as a most acceptable member, had a benign influence in moulding his manners, and strengthening the kindly feelings of his heart. But a violent fever compelled him to leave Geneseo before the expiration of the stipulated time, and he returned to Cambridge in the spring of 1829, greatly enfeebled by the severe action of the disease upon a highly susceptible frame. But his time had been usefully and industriously spent; for, besides performing the duties of teacher and disciplinarian with exemplary ability, he had read with critical care many of the old English authors, particularly Chaucer, for whose quaint, vigorous, racy genius, and genial humor he cherished a singular fondness; and had laboriously studied the Latin literature, especially the works of Livy and Cicero, a love for whom was one of his predominating tastes to the end of his life. Indeed, to the influence of his Latin studies, and the stately and sounding periods of Cicero and Virgil, may be partly traced the excellences and faults of his own style, which had a natural tendency to a rhythmical pomp and solemn march of expression, in his more elaborate compositions.

Mr. Cleveland passed the winter of 1830-31 in the island of Cuba, which he visited for the recovery of his health; in the spring, he embarked for England, where he remained two months, and in August passed over to Paris. He established himself quietly in the French capital, and engaged at once in a course of French and Latin study. During his residence in Paris, he became connected with the American Legation, in the capacity of private secretary to Mr. Rives, the American minister. After a year spent in this way, he set out on a tour through Switzerland and Italy, visiting the principal cities, and studying with zeal and enthusiasm the literature and arts of that classic land. He returned to Paris in the following December, and resumed his former studies during the winter; and in May, 1833, returned to America, greatly benefited in health by his travels, and with a mind in which were laid up the accumulated treasures of knowledge and taste. In August, he became attached to the college in Cambridge, as a proctor, and occupied himself diligently as a student and private teacher. He also