author in his preface, "is to render more familiar | sky and catches against the top of the mounand life-like some of the scenes of the Bible." tain......At length emboldened by their own numHere, in the very first sentence of his preface,bers they assembled tumultuously together...... we suspect the Reverend Mr. Headley of fibbing: Moses...... As he advanced from rock to rock the Aaron never appears so perfect a character as for his design, as it appears to ordinary appre-sobbing of the multitude that followed after, tore hension, is merely that of making a little money his heart-strings......Friends were following after by selling a little book.

whose sick Christ had healed...... The steady mountain threatened to lift from its base and be carried away......Sometimes God's hatred of sin, sometimes his care for his children, sometimes the discipline of his church, were the motives...... Surely it was his mighty hand that laid on that trembling tottering mountain," &c. &c. &c.

or not.

The mountains described are Ararat, Moriah, Sinai, Hor, Pisgah, Horeb, Carmel, Lebanon, Zion, Tabor, Olivet, and Calvary. Taking up these, one by one, the author proceeds in his own very peculiar way to elocutionize about them: we really do not know how else to express what it is that Mr. Headley does with these eminences. These things are not exactly as we could wish Perhaps if we were to say that he stood up be- them, perhaps :-but that a gentleman should fore the reader and "made a speech" about know so much about Noah's ark and know anythem, one after the other, we should come still thing about any thing else, is scarcely to be exnearer the truth. By way of carrying out his pected. We have no right to require English design, as announced in the preface, that of ren-grammar and accurate information about Moses dering "more familiar and life-like some of the and Aaron at the hands of one and the same auscenes" and so-forth, he tells not only how each thor. For our parts, now we come to think of mountain is, and was, but how it might have it, if we only understood as much about Mount been and ought to be in his own opinion. To Sinai and other matters as Mr. Headley does, hear him talk, anybody would suppose that he we should make a point of always writing bad had been at the laying of the corner-stone of English upon principle, whether we knew better Solomon's Temple-to say nothing of being born and brought up in the ark with Noah, and hailfellow-well-met with every one of the beasts that went into it. If any person really desires to know how and why it was that the deluge took place-but especially how-if any person wishes to get minute and accurate information on the topic-let him read "The Sacred Mountains" let him only listen to the Reverend Mr. Headley. He explains to us precisely how it all took place what Noah said, and thought, while the "The fields were smiling in verdure before his ark was building, and what the people, who saw eyes; the perfumed breezes floated by...... The him building the ark, said and thought about his sun is sailing over the encampment......That undertaking such a work; and how the beasts, cloud was God's pavilion; the thunder was its birds, and fishes looked as they came in arm in sentinels; and the lightning the lauces' points as arm; and what the dove did, and what the ra- could he part with his children whom he had they moved round the sacred trust......And how ven did not-in short, all the rest of it: nothing borne on his brave heart for more than forty could be more beautifully posted up. What can years!......Thus everything conspired to render Mr. Headley mean, at page 17, by the remark Zion the spell-word of the nation and on its that "there is no one who does not lament that summit the heart of Israel seemed to lie and there is not a fuller antediluvian history?" We throb......The sun died in the heavens; an earthare quite sure that nothing that ever happenedc. quake thundered on to complete the dismay," &c. before the flood, has been omitted in the scrupulous researches of the author of "The Sacred Mountains."

He might, perhaps, wrap up the fruits of these researches in rather better English than that which he employs:

It may well be made a question moreover, how far a man of genius is justified in discussing topics so serious as those handled by Mr. Headley, in any ordinary kind of style. One should not talk about Scriptural subjects as one would talk about the rise and fall of stocks or the proceedings of Congress. Mr. Headley has seemed to feel this and has therefore elevated his manner—a little. For example:

Here no one can fail to perceive the beauty (in an antediluvian or at least in a Pickwickian sense) of these expressions in general, about the floating of the breeze, the sailing of the sun, the thundering of the earthquake, and the throbbing of the heart as it lay on the top of the mountain.

"Yet still the water rose around them till all The true artist, however, always rises as he through the valleys nothing but little black islands proceeds, and in his last page or so brings all his of human beings were seen on the surface...... The more fixed the irrevocable decree, the heavier elocution to a climax. Only hear Mr. Headley's he leaned on the Omnipotent arm...... And lo! a finale. He has been describing the crucifixion solitary cloud comes drifting along the morning and now soars into the sublime:

VOL. XVI-77

"How heaven regarded this disaster, and the | EXAS-at a distance-as the lying Pindar says Universe felt at the sight, I cannot tell. I know he saw Archilochus, who died ages before the not but tears fell like rain-drops from angelic vagabond was born:-the reader will excuse the eyes when they saw Christ spit upon and struck. I know not but there was silence on high for more digression; but talking of one great man is very than half an hour" when the scene of the cru- apt to put us in mind of another. We were say cifixion was transpiring,-[a scene, as well as anng-were we not?—that Mr. Headley is by no event always "transpires" with Mr.'Headley]-means to be sneered at as a quack. This might a silence unbroken save by the solitary sound of be justifiable, indeed, were be only a quack in some harp-string on which unconsciously fell the agitated, trembling fingers of a seraph. I know But the wholesale dealer is entitled to respect. a small way-a quack doing business by retail. not but all the radiant ranks on high, and even Gabriel himself, turned with the deepest solici- Besides, the Reverend author of "Napoleon and tude to the Father's face, to see if he was calm his Marshals" was a quack to some purpose. He and untroubled amid it all. I know not but his knows what he is about. We like perfection composed brow and serene majesty were all that wherever we see it. We readily forgive a man restrained Heaven from one universal shriek of for being a fool if he only be a perfect fool—and horror when they heard groans on Calvarydying groans. I know not but they thought this is a particular in which we cannot put our God had given his glory to another, but one thing hands upon our hearts and say that Mr. Headley I do know, [Ah, there is really one thing Mr. is deficient. He acts upon the principle that if Headley knows!]-that when they saw through a thing is worth doing at all it is worth doing the vast design, comprehended the stupendous well:-and the thing that he does" especially scene, the hills of God shook to a shout that never before rung over their bright tops, and the crystal sea trembled to a song that had never before stirred its bright depths, and the "Glory to God in the Highest," was a sevenfold chorus of hallelujabs and harping symphonies."

well is the public.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

In speaking of Mr. WILLIAM ELLERY CHAN Here we have direct evidence of Mr. Head-NING, who has just published a very neat little ley's accuracy not less than of his eloquence. "I volume of poems, we feel the necessity of emknow not but that" one is as vast as the other.ploying the indefinite rather than the definite arThe one thing that he does know he knows to ticle. He is a, and by no means the, William perfection he knows not only what the chorus Ellery Channing. He is only the son of the great was (it was one of "hallelujahs and harping essayist deceased. He is just such a person, in symphonies") but also how much of it there despite of his clarum et venerabile nomen, as Pinwas—it was a "sevenfold chorus." Mr. Head- dar would have designated by the significant ley is a mathematical man. Moreover he is a term is. It may be said in his favor that nobody modest man; for he confesses (no doubt with ever heard of him. Like an honest woman, be tears in his eyes) that really there is one thing has always succeeded in keeping himself from he does not know. "How Heaven regarded this being made the subject of gossip. His book condisaster, and the Universe felt at the sight, I can tains about sixty-three things, which he calls not tell." Only think of that! I cannot!-I, poems, aud which he no doubt seriously supposes Headley, really cannot tell how the Universe so to be. They are full of all kinds of mistakes, "felt" once upon a time! This is downright of which the most important is that of their bashfulness on the part of Mr. Headley. He having been printed at all. They are not precould tell if he would only try. Why did he not cisely English-nor will we insult a great nation inquire? Had he demanded of the Universe how by calling them Kickapoo; perhaps they are it felt, can any one doubt that the answer would Channingese. We may convey some general have been "Pretty well, I thank you, my dear Headley; how do you feel yourself?" "Quack" is a word that sounds well only in the mouth of a duck; and upon our honor we feel a scruple in using it: nevertheless the truth should be told; and the simple fact is, that the the author of "Sam Patch;" for we presume we author of the "Sacred Mountains" is the Autocrat of all the Quacks. In saying this, we beg not to be misunderstood. We mean no disparagement to Mr. Headley. We admire that gentleman as much as any individual ever did except that gentleman himself. He looks remarkably well at all points-although perhaps best,

idea of them by two foreign terms not in common use-the Italian pavoneggiarsi, "to strut like a peacock," and the German word for “sky-rocketing," schwarmerei. They are more preposterous, in a word, than any poems except those of

are right (are we not?) in taking it for granted that the author of "Sam Patch" is the very worst of all the wretched poets that ever existed upon earth.

In spite, however, of the customary phrase about a man's "making a fool of himself," we doubt if any oue was ever a fool of his own free

will and accord. A poet, therefore, should not some have supposed him, obscure-except, inalways be taken too strictly to task. He should deed, to the uneducated, whom he does not adbe treated with leniency, and even when damned dress. Mr. Carlyle, on the other hand, is obshould be damned with respect. Nobility of de- scure only; he is seldom, as some have imagined scent, too, should be allowed its privileges not him, quaint. So far he is right; for although more in social life thau in letters. The son of a quaintness, employed by a man of judgment and great author cannot be handled too tenderly by genius, may be made auxiliary to a poem, whose the critical Jack Ketch. Mr. Channing must be true thesis is beauty, and beauty alone, it is grosshung, that's true. He must be hung in terrorem-ly, and even ridiculously, out of place in a work and for this there is no help under the sun; but of prose. But in his obscurity it is scarcely nethen we shall do him all manner of justice, and cessary to say that he is wrong. Either a man observe every species of decorum, and be espe- intends to be understood, or he does not. If he cially careful of his feelings, and hang him gin- write a book which he intends not to be undergerly and gracefully, with a silken cord, as the stood, we shall be very happy indeed not to unSpaniards hang their grandees of the blue blood, derstand it; but if he write a book which he their nobles of the sangre azula. means to be understood, and in this book be at all possible pains to prevent us from understanding it, we can only say that he is an ass-and this, to be brief, is our private opinion of Mr. Carlyle, which we now take the liberty of making public.

He

To be serious, then; as we always wish to be if possible. Mr. Channing (whom we suppose to be a very young man, since we are precluded from supposing him a very old one,) appears to have been inoculated, at the same moment, with virus from Tennyson and from Carlyle. And here It seems that having deduced, from Tennyson we do not wish to be misunderstood. For Tenny- and Carlyle, an opinion of the sublimity of every son, as for a man imbued with the richest and thing odd, and of the profundity of every thing rarest poetic impulses, we have an admiration-meaningless, Mr. Chauning has conceived the a reverence unbounded. His Morte D'Arthur," idea of setting up for himself as a poet of unusual his "Locksley Hall," his "Sleeping Beauty," depth, and very remarkable powers of mind. his "Lady of Shalott," his " Lotos Eaters," his His airs and graces, in consequence, have a “Enone," and many other poems, are not sur-highly picturesque effect, and the Boston critics, passed, in all that gives to Poetry its distinctive who have a notion that poets are porpoises, (for value, by the compositions of any one living or they are always talking about their running in dead. And his leading error-that error which" schools,") cannot make up their minds as to renders him unpopular-a point, to be sure, of what particular school he must belong. We say no particular importance-that very error, we say, is founded in truth-in a keen perception of the elements of poetic beauty. We allude to his quaintness to what the world chooses to term his affectation. No true poet-no critic whose approbation is worth even a copy of the volume we now hold in our hand-will deny that he feels impressed, sometimes even to tears, by many of those very affectations which he is impelled by the prejudice of his education, or by the cant of his reason, to condemn. He should thus be led to examine the extent of the one, and to be wary of the deductions of the other. In fact, the profound intuition of Lord Bacon has supplied, in thes," "ands," and "buts," have more meanone of his immortal apothegms, the whole phi- ing than other men's polysyllables. His nods losophy of the point at issue. "There is no ex- would have put Burleigh's to the blush. His quisite beauty, he truly says, "without some whole aspect, indeed, conveys the idea of a genstrangeness in its proportions;" We maintain, tleman modest to a fault, and painfully overthen, that Tennyson errs, not in his occasional burthened with intellect. We insist, however, quaintness, but in its continual and obtrusive ex- upon calling Mr. Channing's school of poetry the cess. And, in accusing Mr. Channing of having Bobby Button school, rather because Mr. Chanbeen inoculated with virus from Tennyson, we ning's poetry is strongly suggestive of Bobby merely mean to say that he has adopted and ex- Button, than because Mr. Button himself ever aggerated that noble poet's characteristic defect, dallied, to any very great extent, with the Muses. having mistaken it for his principal merit. With the exception, indeed, of a very fine "SonMr. Tennyson is quaint only; he is never, as net to a Pig"-or rather the fragment of a sonnet,

the Bobby Button school, by all means. clearly belongs to that. And should nobody ever have heard of the Bobby Button school, that is a point of no material importance. We will answer for it, as it is one of our own. Bobby Button is a gentleman with whom, for a long time, we have had the honor of an intimate acquaintance. His personal appearance is striking. He has quite a big head. His eyes protrude and have all the air of saucers. His chin retreats. His mouth is depressed at the corners. He wears a perpetual frown of contemplation. His words are slow, emphatic, few, and oracular. His

for he proceeded no farther than the words

AUGUST, 1850.

"O piggy wiggy," with the O italicised for em- FROM OUR PARIS CORRESPONDENT. phasis with the exception of this, we say, we are not aware of his having produced anything worthy of that stupendous genius which is certainly in him, and only wants, like the starling of Sterne, "to get out."

Aerial navigation would seem during the last three months to be agitating in quite a special manner the public mind of Europe. Is the solution of the great problem, which will yet, I firmly believe, add its lustre to the already glori ous splendour of the nineteenth century, destined to be the result of this agitation? Are we upon the eve of discovering the secret of locomotion at will in and through that immense and allenveloping ocean, the air? It should not astonish us if this were so. It should rather surprise us if it were not. Our eyes have already seen more wonderful things. Certain it is that public attention and individual effort are now directed to the subject with an animation and zeal from which much may be hoped. Spain, England, France, are rivaling each other in this effort to realize at last the maguificent previsions to which the invention of the balloon sixty-seven years ago gave rise to make of the balloon, (no longer a mere popular toy for Sunday amusement,) the obedient and useful servant of man, the brilliant evidence of his dominion over nature, the proof of his almost god-like intelligence, the instrument of his future progress in civilization and happiness. These anticipations were indulged in sixtyseven years ago to a most intoxicating degree. They were destined then to cruel disappointment, and for half a century the invention of Montgol fier fell in the esteem of mankind into a contempt and forgetfulness proportioned to the height of esteem and expectation which it at first enjoyed. The following passage upon this subject, extracted from a work of Francois Arago just published by order of the Academy of Sciences, cannot, I think, fail to interest your readers. The illus trious savant says:

64

•Those scientific discoveries from which men might hope to derive the most signal advantages, the mariner's compass and the steam engine for instance, have been received upon their first ap pearance with disdainful indifference. Political events, high military deeds alone, possess the privilege of moving the mass of the public. There have been, however, two exceptions to this rule. Already by this distant allusion only, every one has reverted in mind to the discovery of America and the invention of the balloonChristopher Columbus and Montgolfier. The discoveries of these two men of genius, so differ ent hitherto in their results, had at their birth similar fortunes. Collect in fact from the Historia del Amirante the marks of general enthusiasm which the discovery of a few islands excited

gaily salutes the public, and mounts majestically into the air. Ah! then suddenly passing, like a flash, from absolute incredulity to a confidence without bounds in the capabilities of the human mind, the old lady exclaims, her eyes bathed in tears-Yes, it is settled now! It is certainthey will discover the secret of perpetual lifeand it will be after I am dead!'"

throughout Andalusia, Catalonia, Aragon, and the Tuileries: for she did not believe in balloons. Castile read the recital of the unheard-of hon-She sees the balloon loosing itself from its fastenours which all, from the highest to the lowest ings; the physician, Charles, seated in its car, ranks of society, hastened to render not only to the chief of the enterprise, but to all, down to the humblest sailor of the caravels which first touched the western shores of the Atlantic, and then take no further trouble to seek in the writings of the day an idea of the sensation which aerostats produced among our own fellow-countrymen. The processions of Seville and Barcelona are faithful likenesses of the fêtes of Lyons This extract is taken from the eulogium, or and Paris. In 1783, as two centuries before, ex- rather the biography of Caruot, pronounced by cited imaginations took no care to confine them- Arago before the Academy, upon a solemn ocselves within the limits of fact or probability.casion in 1837. It has remained since then in In Spain, there was not a Spaniard who did not manuscript among the archives of the Academy, burn to follow the footsteps of Columbus into and is now by its order published and delivered those regions, where in a few days they were to to the public. But to return to 1850. Monteamass as much gold and precious stones as were mayor, in Madrid, is preparing an immense areosever possessed by the wealthiest potentates. In tat, which is very shortly to be launched into the France every one according to the habitual bent air, and by which he is confident that he will of his ideas, made the most seductive application give to Spain the greatest name in the history of of the new power, I had almost said of the aerial navigation, as she already boasts the greatnew organs, which man had just received from est in that of ocean navigation. It would indeed the hands of Montgolfier. The physician, trans-be something remarkable if the reign of Isabella II. ported into the region of the meteors, was at last should thus rival the reign of Isabella I. In to penetrate with a single glance the mystery of England too a new impulse seems to have been the production of lightning, snow and hail. The given to aerostation, and Gale and Greer seem geographer, taking advantage of favorable winds, resolved not to be out done by their eternal rivals was going to explore without danger, and with- of France. Here M. Petin is occupied in perout fatigue, those polar zones which mountains of fecting his theory, and slowly occupied in raising ice seem to wish to veil forever from the curiosity the very modest sum, mentioned in my last, neof man, and those central regions of Asia, Africa, cessary to enable him to reduce his theory to and New Holland, which had ever been protected practice. He is likely I think to be thus engafrom the enterprise of our travellers by their deged during the whole of his life. Poiterin has stroying climate, their ferocious wild beasts, and made two successful ascensions on horseback, in their barbarous native tribes. Certain generals presence of innumerable crowds assembled upon believed that they were performing a work of the famous Champ-de-Mars. Godard and his pressing need while studying the new system sister are every Sunday attracting large numbers of fortification, which it would be necessary of the gay Parisians to the Chateau of Asnieres, to oppose to enemies manœuvring in the air. to witness their ascents of novel attractions, and Others were elaborating new principles of tac- their descents in parachutes. Last Sunday in ties to be applied to aerial battles. Projects like Paris and the immediate neighbourhood, there these, which were borrowed, one might say, from were no less than four ascensions. With one Ariosto, ought, it would seem, to have satisfied balloon ascension that has taken place since the the most adventurous and enthusiastic spirits. date of my last, I must, notwithstanding the space But this was by no means the case. The inven- I have already devoted to the subject, entertain tion of the balloon in spite of the dazzling cor- the readers of the Messenger at some length. I tege with which every one was zealous to sur- allude to the second of MM. Bixio and Barral : round it, was to be only the forerunner of still of whose first I gave some account in my letter more astounding discoveries. Thenceforth noth- of last month. It was mentioned then, that not ing was to be impossible to him who had suc-discouraged by the failure of their first attempt, ceeded in subjugating the atmosphere. This the adventurous savans were determined to try notion was perpetually revealing itself, and as it again under more favorable auspices. They sumed an infinite variety of forms. Youth seized did so on Saturday, the 27th ult. They met with hold of it with joy; and old age made it the oc- no hair-breadth escapes as on the former occacasion of a thousand bitter regrets. Behold the sion, and they obtained some important scientiwife of Marshal de Villeroi! Octogenarian and fic results, but satisfactory success has not yet sick, she is borne against her will to a window of crowned their efforts: and doubtless these are