strange power in their hands; and they | for a glance at their union, with reference were thereupon authorized to call a con- to the period of its formation. vention, “if there should appear to them an At that period, the Mississippi was our absolute necessity of amending any article western boundary; the British provinces of the constitution, explaining such as lay adjacent to us on the north, the Ad might be thought not clearly expressed, lantic on the east, and we fell far short of or adding such as were necessary for the the Gulf of Mexico on the south. So preservation of the rights and happiness of that as to territorial extent, the relation of the people.” The language of the Geor- a single State to the Union was according gia constitution was to the purpose that to the ratio of its own area to the contents no change should be made therein, “ with of this outline. And I hold it demon out petitions from a majority of the coun. strable that, in fair construction, such ties, the petition from each county to be relation was to be permanent. There was signed by a majority of the voters." When no power vested anywhere to alter it-an all this should be done, a convention might all-important truth, if truth it be; and I be called.

shall not forget to speak of it hereafter, Let these three cases go for what they when I have more room and time. are worth; and now for three more in a There were other relations springing out different style.

of that. Relative consequence was one. The constitution of Delaware, after de- The States could not be enlarged. IL claring that certain specified parts of it then, the Union might be, and this at the “ought never to be violated,” (meaning pleasure of its government, what was to allered,) “on any pretense whatever, protect the individual States from sinking, added as follows: “No other part of this by and by, to comparative insignificance, constitution shall be altered, changed, or while federal power would be growing to diminished, without the consent of five excess at their cost ? parts in seven of the Assembly, and seven On the other hand, this power was in members of the Legislative Council." In some respects dependent on State action. Maryland, it was decreed that there should The personal organization of the federal be no change of the constitution, “unless system was placed completely at the a bill” for the purpose “should pass the mercy of the States in the matter of elesGeneral Assembly, and be published at torships. Had it been foreseen that the least three months before a new election, conservative views and measures of the and should be confirmed by the General early patriots, in this respect, were soon Assembly after a new election of dele- to be abandoned, and universal suffrage gates, in the first session after such new introduced, it is not unlikely that precaur election." In South Carolina, it was re- tions might have been taken to preserve solved “ that no part of the constitution that system in some measure from the should be altered without a notice of consequences. But as things now stand, ninety days being previously given; nor the State electorships determine every should any part of it be changed without thing. The head and members are in one the consent of a majority of the members boat, and the members have the helm, of the Senate and House of Representa- In regard to patronage, the Union govtives.”

ernment was formed upon nearly one Let these also go for what they are model with the primary States. The worth.

chief executive and lower house of ConThe eight remaining States have left us gress were to be elected by the people, no record of what they thought upon the and the Senate by the State legislatures. subject. I infer that, in their opinion, the Most other officers were to be appointed less there was said about it the better. by the President and Senate. So that Such was doubtless the general tone of the influence growing out of the patronage the public mind. There had been enough of appointments was fairly distributed of revolution to make rest desirable ; between the federal and State governenough of confusion and trouble to endearments, each taking share according to the the prospect of repose.

affects the general standing and reputation abroad, I do not see that there was any. of the bench, affects also, incidentally, the thing in its structure calculated to work consideration in which the State itself is injuriously or unharmoniously upon the held. And in this respect, again, the welfare of the States, as such. And aluniformity of the federal and State con- though that question has had practice to stitutions brought the national and local give it countenance, I hope to show that governments into circumstances of sym- it has countenance from nothing in the pathy and common advantage.

Constitution, so that the harmony of the In short, except the question of the federal and State systems was at first right of the head government to aggran- complete. dize itself by territorial acquisitions from

SONNET.

The weary sun his parting ray hath shed.
Stealthy and still the dews of twilight fall
On blossomed shrub, and tree, and flowery bed,
That yield their odors to the silent call.
The field-flowers shut their soft, submissive leaves ;
Trembling, in tears, they hang the heavy head,
While

up the balmy breath of incense heaves,
Along the affluent air luxurious spread.
So, when the sun of hope hath sunken low,
And drooping life of grief oppressive tells,
All outward beauty bowed with weight of woe,
Inly, a stronger aspiration swells.
Where night and tears and heaviness have been,
Rise richer odors from the soul within.

KAVANAGH.*

The custom of announcing a book long smoothly and monotonously. The whole before its appearance, is better for the is strongly imitative. Richter, Dickens, publisher than for the author. It for- and Lamartine are, by turns, brought to wards the sale of a popular writer's book, our remembrance; the former being evibut is often detrimental to its success, dently the master, and Quintus Fixlein since when disappointment ensues, it is the favorite model. apt to be in near proportion to the over- Like Richter, our author would express excited anticipation.

beauty and sublimity, poetry and moralOf Mr. Longfellow's former prose ity, from the common elements of life ; works, “ Outre Mer" was the most ex- but turning up the soil he presents its tensively circulated and read. The Ro- loose aspect without reaching the deeper mance of “Hyperion," if not a failure, at object of his need. He cannot, with a least sufficiently testified that in such at- falcon swoop, having perceived the gem tempts he is less felicitous than in his from afar, lift it from the surrounding vocation of poet. The appearance of rubbish, but with considerable bustle “Kavanagh," nevertheless, was anticipated scratches about him, sometimes mistaking with pleasure.

broken glass for diamonds. Although its construction is meagre, Nor does he, like Richter, present in the narrative has a pleasant easy motion, immediate strong contrast the grotesque and carries one along like a low hung ve- with the pathetic. The pathetic, on the hicle, without fatigue, as without the ex- contrary, is rarely approached and never hilaration of more active exercise. We reached. Instead of feeling, as in reading pursue our journey through an agreeable Richter, that the fountain of tears and that country, with attractive scenery round of laughter are near each other, we lose the about, but feel no eagerness to arrive at sense of both in a sort of wonder at the its conclusion, and would not unwillingly odd, inconsistent way in which the hurest at any point by the way, for variety's morous and the sentimental are occasionsake.

ally mixed up; and are forcibly reminded The story has no plot, and little action that only by the master's hand can the or arrangement, but its character is marked golden key that "unlocks the gates of by elevation of sentiment, and the author joy,” be made to

open

also “ the fount of has a fine artist-like method of placing sympathetic tears. graphically before us whatever object or The imitation of the great German novgroup

he

may have in hand. The style elist is in manner rather than in spirit. exhibits all his accustomed elegance; the It is the resemblance we acquire from diction is tasteful and appropriate. There those with whom we intimately associate ; is scarcely a page that is not redeemed not that of family relationship. from insipidity by some description gro- The natural and common-place incitesque poetical——some suggestive dents of the story, have a cold, damp atthought, or truthful exemplification of mosphere about them, instead of that character and life ; but scarely an instance golden sunlight which Richter would occurs of deeply moving expression, and have poured over them, and there is little but one incident of a stirring and passion indication of that penetrating genius ate nature.

which saw and condensed into one comThere are few touches of the dramatic, prehensive sentence the whole perfect and the stream of narration runs ever theory of novel writing.

a

or

m

* Kavanagh: A Tale. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields.

“As it is but a few clear Lady-days, Mr. Longfellow's sentiment is usually warm May-day nights, at the most a few delicate and rich with thought, but he gives odorous Rose weeks which I am digging us always sentiment, and seems afraid to atfrom this Fixleinic life, embedded in the tempt the pathetic, as if distrustful (probadross of week-day cares ; and as if they bly with good reason) of his ability to reach were so many veins of silver, am sepa- | the profounder depths of feeling. rating, stamping, smelting, and burnishing Where Dickens would either plunge in for the reader, I must now travel on with at once, or, just as we are expecting him the stream,” &c.-Richter.

to do so, start off into some ridiculous The following reminds us of Dickens : attitude, playing antics at the very, verge,

Mr. Longfellow coolly takes an easier po“On the following morning, very early, as sition, and produces a picture in which he the school-master stood at his door, inhaling uses a good deal of prussian blue, and very the bright, wholesome air, and beholding the little carmine, and exhibits a general preshadows of the rising sun, and the flashing ference to cool, transparent, rather than to dew-drops on the red vine-leaves, he heard the sound of wheels, and saw Mr. Pendexter and

warm body colors. his wife drive down the village street in their

“Kavanagh” is pleasant summer readold-fashioned chaise, known by all the boys in ing, but of a winter night one would ask town as the ark.' The old white horse, that a little more of the glow and fire of gefor so many years had stamped at funerals, and nius. It is a sort of prose pastoral, and gnawed the tops of so many posts, and imag- it is therein perhaps excusable, that, parined he killed so many flies because he wag. ticularly in describing scenery, our auged the stump of a tail, and, finally, had been thor's prose runs occasionally into harmothe cause of so much discord in the parish,

nies seemed now to make common cause with his

so like his verse, that in certain master, and stepped as if endeavoring to

instances the rhyming termination alone is shake the dust from his feet as he passed out wanting to complete the resemblance. In of the ungrateful village. Under the axle-tree one short sentence we find the followhung suspended a leather trunk; and in the ing: “The singing of the great wood chaise, between the two occupants, was a large fires ;"' “The blowing of the winds;" bandbox, which forced Mr. Pendexter to let his

The splendor of the spotless snow;" legs hang out of the vehicle, and gave him the

« The sea-suggesting pines.' air of imitating the scriptural behavior of his horse. Gravely and from a distance he salu- The following has all the harmony as ted the school-master, who saluted him in well as the delicate imagination of the return, with a tear in his eye, that no man poet : saw, but which, nevertheless, was not unseen.

“ The brown Autumn came. It brought the

wild duck back to the reedy marshes of the But how mawkishly sentimental is that South; it brought the wild song back to the which follows, connected as it evidently fervid brain of the poet. Without the village is, for the purpose of introducing along with the reflection of the leaves. Within the

street was paved with gold; the river ran red with it the emblem of the serpent, so per- faces of friends brightened the gloomy walls; fectly Richterean :

the returning footsteps of the long absent,

gladdened the threshold; and all the sweet “• Farewell, poor old man !' said the school- amenities of life again resumed their intermaster within himself, as he shut out the cold rupted reign.” autumnal air, and entered his comfortable study. "We are not worthy of thee, or we should have had thee with us forever. Go

Kavanagh has singleness of design, and back again to the place of thy childhood, the as a whole, possesses a marked, though scene of thine early labors and thine early not a very elevated character. Its purlove; let thy days end where they began, and pose is to represent a country village of like the emblem of eternity, let the serpent of the present day; a petty world within life coil itself round and take its tail into its itself, affording in its diversity of characmouth, and be still from all its bissings for

ter and incident all the contrasts, the evermore! I would not call thee back; for it is better thou shouldst be where thou’art, vicissitudes, the passions, and the variety than amid the angry contentions of this little of good and evil ihat chequer life in wider town."

66

a

for the portrait of the other. They are the flow of our sympathies.

In the scenery, the subordinate person- of life, and self-renunciation, and devotion to ages, and minor incidents, our author has duty, were early impressed upon his soul. To been eminently successful, but less so,

his quick imagination, the spiritual world bethough not wholly otherwise, in the at

came real; the holy company of the saints tempt to show how, in the same situation, dian angels led him by the hand by day, and

stood round about the solitary boy ; his guarand under the same outward influences, sat by his pillow at night. At times, even, he a man of cultivated tastes and literary wished to die, that he might see them and talk habits may, by submerging the practical with them, and return no more to his weak and in the ideal, lose all hold upon what is weary body." tangible, and fritter away life in dreams, or, on the contrary, by converting the He is sent to the Jesuit college in ideal to the uses of reality, develope the Canada, where he is distinguished, and true purpose of his existence and keep a whence he finally returns to receive the life-hold upon its action,

dying blessing of his mother. The study It is time we should give the reader an of ecclesiastical history awakens in him outline of the story. Though Kavanagh a passionate desire for truth and freeis the ostensible hero, Churchill

, the vil dom; and “by slow degrees ” he becomes lage school-master, is really the predomi- a Protestant. These details, especially nant character. We might not improperly in the intercourse with his mother, and consider them as twin heroes—not in the developement of his character under the ancient signification truly, but by the the influence of her affection, reminds us complaisance of novel technicality. They of “Les Confidences;" but our author is possess little individuality, and reversed cir- wholly free from the vain, self-glorifying cumstances might have fitted either to sit air, which in Lamartine continually checks

. both sentimental, both pedantic; and we Kavanagh is settled over the church nerer lose sight of them. Like Castor of Fairmeadow, which has recently disand Pollux, when one is not endeavoring missed its aged pastor, on the usual preto shine, the other is always sure to dis- tenses for this fashionable kind of divorce, play his light.

one of which, neither the greatest nor Kavanagh is a young man educated in the least in importance, was, that the the Roman Catholic faith. His early life, reverend gentleman insisted upon pasturpassed near the sea-coast of Maine, is thus, ing bis horse in the parish fields. The described :

new clergyman is faithful to his calling,

and enters with alacrity upon his clerical “ In these solitudes, in this faith, was Kava- duties. nagh born, and grew to childhood a feeble, delicate boy, watched over by a grave and taci- “He worked assiduously at his sermons. turn father, and a mother who looked upon He preached the doctrines of Christ. He him with infinite tenderness, as upon a trea- preached holiness, self-denial, love. He did not sure she should not long retain. She walked so much denounce vice, as inculcate virtue ; he with him by the sea-side, and spake to him of did not deny, but affirm; he did not lacerate the God, and the mysterious majesty of the ocean, hearts of his hearers with doubt and disbelief, with its tides and tempests. She sat with him but consoled, and comforted, and healed them on the carpet of golden threads beneath the with faith. aromatic pines, and, as a perpetual melancholy “ The only danger was that he might advance sound ran along the rattling boughs, his soul too far, and leave his congregation behind seemed to ris and fall, with a motion and a him; as a piping shepherd, who, charmed with whisper like those in the branches over him. / his own music, walks over the flowery mead, She taught him his letters from the Lives of not perceiving that his tardy flock is lingering the Saints-a volume full of wondrous legends, far behind, more intent upon cropping the and illustrated with engravings from pictures by thymy food around them, than upon listening the old masters, which opened to him at once the to the celestial harmonies that are gradually world of spirits and the world of art; and both dying away in the distance.” were beautiful. She explained to him the pic- “ In affairs ecclesiastical he had not sugtores; she read to him the legends--the lives of gested many changes. One that he had much holy men and women, full of faith and good works at heart was, that the partition wall between -things which ever afterwards remained asso- parish and church should be quietly taken ciated together in his mind. Thus holiness I down, so that all should sit together at the