sakes the cabinet and the camp, then we recognise, at once, the scholar, the philosopher, and the poet. In the strong-holds at En-gedi, he is a mere soldier; in the palace of Saul, a servile musician; in the cave of Adullam, a skulking fugitive; and in the forest of Hareth, an unhappy exile. But when he tore himself away from the thraldom of care, the bustle of business, and the din of Jerusalem, when he wandered away by the brook of the field, or the plains of the wilderness, when he retired to his chamber, and communed with his heart, then he formed those noble associations, and composed those exquisite performances, which will transmit his name with renown to the remotest posterity. My Lord Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh, Erasmus, Grotius, Mr. Addison, and Mr. Locke, together with a great multitude of illustrious men, have been deeply involved in the cares of public business, as well as engrossed by the meditations of the closet. But for the fairest portion of their glorious fame how much are they indebted to the latter! While the chancery decrees of Sir Francis Bacon moulder away in the hands of some master of the rolls, the experiments of his study, and the essays of his wit, like certain exquisite paintings, grow brighter by time. While we peruse, with still renewing pleasure, Raleigh's history of the world, his unlucky politics are scarcely regarded. Mr. Addison was secretary of state, and Grotius an ambassador; but who inquires for the despatches of the one, or is interested in the negociations of the other? The fame of Erasmus, constantly immersed in the turmoil of his times, and engrossed by cares, civil and ecclesiastic, would have perished with the names of those miserable monks whom he has derided, or those imperious princes whom he has courted. But by sometimes wisely withdrawing himself from the cabals of a court, and the polemics of the church, by meditating on horseback and in his chamber, by avarice of time, by intenseness of application and ardour of genius, he has filled ten folios, composed in the purest Latinity, where an indolent reader can find nothing too prolix, and where a critical reader can discover nothing to reprehend. The foolish politics of Addison are scarcely remembered even by his faction. The character of Locke, as a man of business, is painted with no other pencils than those of ridicule, and the diplomacy of Grotius and of Sir William Temple are utterly contemned; but their literary and philosophical works, the beauteous offspring of retirement and study, will continue to charm, "Till time, like him of Gaza, in his wrath, Though in the text we are admonished to commune with ourselves in our chamber, yet it would be a very partial and narrow interpretation, if it were concluded that we could not meditate any where else. The secresy of a closet, and the stillness of midnight, are, unquestionably, propitious to the powers of reflection. But other places and other seasons may be selected for that salutary discipline, which the Psalmist recommends. It is a vulgar error to suppose that retirement and contemplation are never to be found except in a forest or a desert, a cell or a cloister. In the thronged mart, and in the blaze of day, he who has inured himself to habits of abstraction, may commune with himself, as though he was in his chamber. Proofs of this abound in many a page of the records of literature. Some of the fairest displays of self-knowledge, some of the finest results of meditation, some of the sweetest fruits of retirement, owed their appearance not to the tranquillity of sylvan groves. In many a metropolis, resounding with the din of commerce, and crowded with the throng of nations, contemplation has had her fill. Though a sublime poet, in a fit of rural enthusiasm, has exclaimed, Hide me from day's garish eye, yet it would be alike dangerous and delusive to believe, that we cannot speculate at noon, as well as at night. In short, the choice of time or place is not essential to the formation of habits of self-sequestration, and the acquisition of the precious power of withdrawing the mind from ali external objects. As, in Dr. Johnson's phrase, I am often wakefully disturbed at midnight, and as I have not wholly forgotten my boyish attachment to woods and meadows, I acknowledge that I often commune with myself in my chamber; and, in genial seasons, by the banks of a romantic river, or in the recesses of a lonely forest. I have already speculated twice on the profit and . pleasure producible by nocturnal hours wisely employed, and rural rambles judiciously directed. But for a period of no inconsiderable duration I have often retired to rest at a vulgar hour, and have wholly exchanged the country for the city. Change of circumstances demanded new habits. Though but seldom I wind slowly o'er the lea; though the glimmering landscape but rarely fades before my sight; and my ears generally listen to other sounds than the drowsy tinklings of a shepherd's bell, yet it is my duty to reflect much even in the midst of confusion. Accordingly I commune with my own heart in the crowd, and can be still even in the street. I sermonize in the suburbs, and find apt alliteration in an alley. I start a topic in High street, and hunt it down as far as Southwark or the Northern Liberties. I walk through the market-place, as I once wandered in a wood; and while one is talking of his farm, and another of his merchandise. I listen to the suggestions of fancy, or invoke the cherub contemplation. He But, to return to a more rigorous exposition of the text, and consider it merely as an exhortation to the tranquil exercise of our mental powers in the retirement of the closet, I do not know whether in the pages of any philosopher I could find a better lesson of salutary discipline. It is favourable to the culture of intellectual as well as moral habits. who accustoms himself to closet meditations will not only purify his heart but correct his judgment, form his taste, exercise his memory, and regulate his imagination. Moreover, he then has an admirable opportunity to view the world at a due distance, to form a deliberate estimate of life, to calculate with precision the proportion of his own powers, combined with those of other men; and having weighed himself, as it were, in the balance of the sanetuary," to find new causes for regret, and new reasons for reformation. To multitudes, solitude, retirement, and reflec tion appear in a form more horrid than the weird sisters in Shakspeare. The man of business, the man of pleasure, the votary of vanity, and the vietim of lassitude, all sedulously shun those hours which have been so nobly employed by philosophers, poets, hermits, and saints. Dr. Young, who has immortalized his self-communion, in one of the most original poems in our language, a poem not only of gorgeous metaphors, but of the most ardent piety, exclaims, with more than mortal enthusiasm.— Oh, lost to virtue, lost to manly thought, Lost to the noblest sallies of the soul! Who think it solitude to be alone, Communion sweet! communion large and high! INGRATITUDE OF REPUBLICS. "For the workman is worthy of his meat."-MAtt. x. 10. If there be such a personage as Truth, this assertion certainly belongs to her family, for what can be more just than that a vintager should eat some, at least, of those grapes which he had planted and watered. But judging from the practice of the world, at the present time, one would think my text was grown obsolete, and that its principle was not recognised. In the shambles there is always meat enough, but how little is bestowed upon workmen. Parasites, buffoons, fiddlers, equestrians, French philosophers, and speculators gormandize; but I see Merit, that excellent workman, that needeth not to be ashamed, as lank and as lean as my old tabby-cat, who has had nothing to eat but church mice for a year. Though I am not saluted a brother by any legiti mate parson, and belong to no ministerial association on earth, yet I cherish great respect, and feel a cordial regard for the established clergy. I consider them, with few exceptions, as faithful workmen; they make us moral; they instruct our youth; they lead sober and peaceable lives. Along the cool, sequestered vale of life, They keep the noiseless tenor of their way. They are wise, they are amiable men, though they are ignorant of foolish questions, and "strivings about the law;" they understand perfectly the great rules of life. Such men, therefore, are worthy of their meat, and should be liberally provided. They labour much: few men labour more; they are compelled to exercise not only the head but the hands. The private estate, as well as the gospel vineyard, claims their care. When the drudgery of the year is done; when numerous sermons have been composed, and numerous sick-chambers visited; when they have been in watchings and weariness often, what meat will the benevolence of a parish bestow? Verily, a morsel. A beggarly pittance, called a salary, and that pittance scantily and grudgingly paid. When I visit a village, covered with stores and shops, and cultivated by opulent farmers; when I hear the inhabitants boast of their flourishing circumstances, and recount how many bushels of wheat they threshed last year, and how well it sold; if I should be informed that their parson's annual stipend is but sixty pounds, in despite of all their boasted riches and ostentation, I should think them unworthy to enter a church. If I should repair to any place where men congregate, and describe to them one, who, in an hour of jeopardy, had quitted his hearth, travelled many wearisome miles, been exposed to sickly air, been shot at for hours, and frequently without a crust or a draught to supply the waste of nature. If I should add, that all this peril was sustained, that we, at home, might live in security, not one of my audience, provided speculators and bloodsuckers were not of the number, would deny that the OLD SOLDIER was a worthy workman. But where is his meat? Oh, my good sir, do not propose that question in a republic, you know that a republic is never bounteous. Belisariuses ask for their obolus, here as well as at Rome. But here the business ends. They receive in Great Britain and elsewhere. You might as soon expect moderation in a Frenchman, or knowledge of the belles-lettres in a country attorney, as that a commonwealth should be grateful. heedlessness of character, yet, if not oftener, at least every Sunday, I copy the common custom, and invest my little person in clean array. As, from a variety of motives, and none of them, I hope, bad ones, I go with some degree of constancy to church, I choose to appear there decently and in order. However inattentive through the week, on the solemn day I brush with more than ordinary pains my best coat, am watchful of the purity of my linen, and adjust my cravat with an old bachelor's nicety. While I was lately busied at my toilet, in the work of personal decoration, it popped into my head that a sermon in praise of neatness would do good service, if not to the world at large, at least to many of my reading, writing, and thinking brethren, who make their assiduous homage to mind a pretext for negligence of person. Among the minor virtues, cleanliness ought to be conspicuously ranked; and, in the common topics of praise, we generally arrange some commendation of neatness. It involves much. It supposes a love of order, an attention to the laws of custom, and a decent pride. My Lord Bacon says that a good person is a perpetual letter of recommendation. This idea may be extended. Of a well-dressed man, it may be affirmed, that he has a sure passport through the realms of civility. In first interviews we can judge of no one except from appearances. He, therefore, whose exterior is agreeable, begins well in any society. Men and women are disposed to augur favourably, rather than otherwise, of him who manifests, by the purity and propriety of his garb, a disposition to comply and to please. As, in rhetoric, a judicious exordium is of admirable use to render an audience docile, attentive, and benevolent, so at your introduction into good company, clean and modish apparel is, though an humble, at least a serviceable herald of our exertions. As these are very obvious truths, and as literary men are generally vain, and sometimes proud, it is singular that one of the easiest modes of gratifying self-complacency should, by them, be, for the most part, neglected; and that this sort of carelessness is so adhesive to one tribe of writers, that the words poet and sloven are regarded as synonymous in the world's vocabulary. This negligence in men of letters sometimes arises from their inordinate application to books and papers, and may be palliated by a good-natured man, as the natural product of a mind too intensely engaged in sublime speculations to attend to the blackness of a shoe or the whiteness of a ruffle. Mr. Locke and Sir Isaac Newton might be forgiven by their candid cotemporaries, though the first had composed his essay with "unwashen hands," and the second had investigated the laws of nature when he was clad in a soiled night-gown. But slovenliness is often affected by authors, or rather pretenders to authorship; and must then be considered as highly culpable; as an outrage of decorum, as a defiance to the world, and as a pitiful scheme to attract notice by means which are equally in the power of the drayman and chimneysweeper. I know a poet of this description, who anticipates renown no less from a dirty shirt than from an elegant couplet, and imagines that when his appearance is the most sordid the world must conclude, of course, that his mind is splendid and fair. In his opinion, "marvellous foul linen" is a token of wit, and inky fingers indicate humour; he avers that a slouched hat is demonstrative of a well-stored brain, and that genius always trudges about in unbuckled shoes. He looks for invention in rumpled ruffles, and finds highsounding poetry among the folds of a loose stocking. But this smirched son of Apollo may be assured there is no necessary connexion between dirt and ability. It is not necessary to consummate such a marriage to produce the fairest offspring of the mind. One may write brilliantly, and, strange as it may seem, be dressed well. If negligence be the criterion of genius, a critic will, in future, inspect a poet's wardrobe rather than his works. Slovenliness, so far from being commendable in an author, is more inexcusable in men of letters than in many others, the nature of whose employment compels them to be conversant with objects sordid and 'impure. A smith from his forge, or a husbandman from his fields, is obliged sometimes to appear stained with the smut of the one or the dust of the other. A writer, on the contrary, sitting in an easy chair at a polished desk, and leaning on white paper, or examining the pages of a book, is, by no means, obliged to be soiled by his labours. I see no reason why an author should not be a gentleman, or at least as clean and neat as a Quaker. Far from thinking that filthy dress marks a liberal mind, I should suspect the good sense and talents of him who affected to wear a tattered coat as the badge of his profession. Should I see a reputed genius totally regardless of his person, I should immediately doubt the delicacy of his taste and the accuracy of his judgment. I should conclude there was some obliquity in his mind, a dull sense of decorum, and a disregard of order. I should fancy that he consorted with low society; and, instead of claiming the privilege of genius, to knock and be admitted at palaces, that he chose to sneak in at the back door of hovels, and wallow brutishly in the sty of the vulgar. It is recorded of Somerville and Shenstone that they were negligent, and of Smith that he was a sloven. But disregard of dress is by no means a constant trait in the literary character. Edmund Waller, Prior, Swift, and Bolingbroke, were remarkably neat in their persons, and curious in the choice of apparel; and of David Mallett, Dr. JohnBon observes" that his appearance was agreeable, and he suffered it to want no recommendation that dress could give." The Orientals are careful of their persons, with much care. Their frequent ablutions and change of garments are noticed in every page of their history. My text is not the only precept of neatness that can be quoted from the Bible. The wise men of the East supposed there was some analogy between the purity of the body and the mind; nor is this a vain imagination. I cannot conclude this sermon better than by an extract from the works of Count Rumford, who, in few and strong words, has fortified my doctrine: "With what care and attention do the feathered race wash themselves and put their plumage in order; and how perfectly neat, clean, and elegant do they ever appear. Among the beasts of the field, we find that those which are the most cleanly are generally the most gay and cheerful, or are distinguished by a certain air of tranquillity and contentment; and singing-birds are always remarkable for the neatness of their plumage. So great is the effect of cleanliness upon man that it extends even to his moral character. Virtue never dwelt long with filth; nor do I believe there ever was a person serupulously attentive to cleanliness who was a consummate villain." DAVID EVERETT, ONE of the band of accomplished contributors to the Farmer's Museum, and a political editor himself of note, was born in 1769 at Princeton, Massachusetts. He fitted himself for Dartmouth College, and is on the list of graduates for the year 1795, when he delivered a valedictory Poem, with this generous prophecy of the growth of the country :— The Muse prophetic views the coming day, Previously to entering college, he was a teacher in the grainmar-school at New Ipswich, where he wrote the famous juvenile schoolboy recitation for one of his pupils, Ephraim Farrar, which has been made so well known to the public in Bingham'st Columbian Orator: LINES SPOKEN AT A SCHOOL EXHIBITION, BY A LITTLE BOY You'd scarce expect one of my age Don't view me with a critic's eye, Exceed what Greece and Rome have done?- Mayn't Massachusetts boast as great Or where's the town, go far and near, Or where's the boy but three feet high Great, not like Cæsar, stained with blood, Everett studied law in Boston, and wrote for Russell's Gazette and other newspapers, including *Loring's "Hundred Boston Orators." + Caleb Bingham, the compiler of this production, almost as well known, in its way, as Webster's Spelling Book, was a school teacher, and afterwards a bookseller of Boston, and had been a graduate of Dartmouth in 1782. As a director of the State prison, he interested himself in the instruction of tha younger criminals. He was a Jeffersonian in politics. His school books were, besides the Columbian Orator, the American Preceptor, a book of selections for reading, Young Lady's Accidence. He also wrote a narrative entitled The Hunters. He died in 1817, at the age of sixty.-Allen's Biog. Dict. Mr. Loring, in his Boston Orators, gives an account of Farrar, the original speaker of the lines, and quotes some remarks by Edward Everett, at a High School Examination, at Cambridge, July 28, 1850, in which he alludes to this “favorite little poem, which many persons have done me the honor to ascribe to me, but which was in reality written by a distant relative and namesake of mine, and, if I mistake not, before I was born." the Farmer's Museum, then under the management of Dennie, where his prose papers, Common Sense in Dishabille, became quite popular. They were of an epigrammatic turn, employed chiefly with utilitarian remarks on frugality and teinperance, in the manner of Franklin, and were collected in 1799 in a small volume. The same year was also published, from the same source, his Farmer's Monitor. He contributed also to a literary paper called the Nightingale in 1796. Everett wrote a tragedy called Daranzel, or the Persian Patriot, which was acted and published at Boston in 1800. It is called, on the titlepage, "an original drama," and, to the author's name, is added, "corrected and improved by a literary friend." Original it was, in reference to the productions then, as now, taken from foreign authors for the American stage; but its composition belongs to a large class of English productions, happily long since antiquated. Any one who turns over the dramatic writings of the eighteenth century, will meet with abundance of such Orcastos, Indamoras, and Zaphiras as figure in this piece: such stratagems, prisons, and despair Where Melancholy cannot count her sighs, Act v. sc. i. Judged, however, by its own literary fashion, it In the Prologue also, the author himself appears, to ask that indulgence from the public, and that deprecation of the critic's eye which his little pupils and their descendants have so often supplicated from more indulgent circles of family friends: To captious critics, versed in scenic laws, In 1804, Everett delivered a Fourth of July Oration at Amherst, and in September, a Masonic Oration, at Washington, N. H. In 1809 he edited the Boston Patriot, and in 1812 The Pilot, a paper in the interest of De Witt Clinton for the presidency. He wrote a series of papers on the Apocalypse, which were published in a pamphlet. He left Boston in 1813 for Marietta, Ohio, with the purpose of establishing a newspaper, but death interrupted his plans at that place, Dec. 21, of the same year.* Kettell's American Poetry, ii. 113; Buckingham's Newspaper Literature, ii. 212; Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, 3d ed. 840. SAMUEL MILLER, THE author of the Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, a work still valued for its taste, judgment, and fidelity, was born in 1769 in the town of Dover in Delaware, the son of a Scottish clergyman, who passed forty-three years of ministerial duty in that place, one among the many examples of sound literary and family influence radiating from the old American pulpit. Samuel Miller, 66 The life of Samuel Miller was passed in pastoral duties as a Presbyterian clergyman in New York, which he discharged for twenty years from 1793, and as Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Church Government in the Theological Seminary of Princeton, to which he was called in 1813, and which he held for thirty-six years, till his decease Jan. 7, 1850. During this period of educational service he was contemporary in the institution with the sincere and amiable Alexander, whose son, in the recently published memoirs of his father, has paid a generous tribute to his memory. "Dr. Miller," says he, came from the training of city life, and from an eminently polished and literary circle. Of fine person and courtly manners, he set a high value on all that makes society dignified and attractive. He was pre-eminently a man of system and method, governing himself, even in the minutest particulars, by exact rule. His daily exercise was measured to the moment; and for half a century he wrote standing. He was a gentleman of the old school, though as easy as he was noble in his bearing; full of conversation, brilliant in company, rich in anecdote, and universally admired. As a preacher he was clear without brilliancy, accustomed to laborious and critical preparation, relying little on the excitement of the occasion, but rapid with his pen, and gifted with a tenacious memory and a strong sonorous voice; always instructive, always calm, always accurate."* Miller's Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century, containing a Sketch of the Revolutions and Improvements in Science, Arts, and Literature during that period, was published in two volumes in 1803. It was executed with care and in a judicious spirit, enhanced by its pleasing style. Its survey of the progress of the intellectual elements of society was full and fair for the period, and may still be consulted with profit and pleasure. The portion devoted to the early American literature, the scholars and men of letters who promoted the education of the infant state, is in a spirit which all succeeding writers who traverse the ground may be emulous of. It is thoughtful, patriotic, and sincere. This work originally grew out of a pastoral discourse delivered by the author on the first day of the new century, and was dedicated to John Dickinson, the author of the Farmer's Letters. It includes the consideration of the mechanical sciences, chemistry, medicine, *Life of Archibald Alexander, p. 380. mathematics and some of its applications, the fine arts, and a liberal discussion of literature in its several departments of original composition, and in the advancement and study of the ancient and oriental and of the European languages. This formed but the first part of a contemplated work, the other three portions of which were to embrace Theology, Morals, and Religion, and to present "the great events in the Christian Church, in the Moral World, and in Political Principles and Establishments during the century," a comprehensive design which the author never carried out. From 1805 to 1814 Dr. Miller was Corresponding Secretary to the New York Historical Society. He delivered before that body, A Discourse designed to Commemorate the Discovery of New York, September 4, 1809, being the completion of the second century since that event.* In 1813 he published in an octavo volume of more than four hundred pages the Memoirs of his associate the Rev. Dr. John Rodgers, pastor of the Wall street and Brick Churches in New York.† It contains a narrative of the growth of the Presbyterian Church in New York, with much historical information of general interest expressed with elegance of style. Of the learning of the old school of clergymen in the country he says: Many persons are apt to suppose that the race of divines who flourished in our country seventy or eighty years ago, though pious and excellent men, had a very scanty supply of books, and in many cases a still more scanty education, compared with the divines of later years, and especially of the present day. This opinion is not only erroneous but grossly so. Those venerable fathers of the American Church were more deeply learned than most of their sons. They read more, and thought more, than we are ready to imagine. The greater part of the books of ancient learning and ponderous erudition, which are now to be found on this side of the Atlantic, were imported and studied by those great and good men. Original works are actually in fewer hands, in our day, compared with the number of readers, than in theirs. They read solidly and deeply we hurry over compends and indexes. They studied systematically as well as extensively; our reading is more desultory, as well as more superficial. We have more of the belles-lettres polish, but as biblical critics, and as profound theologians, we must undoubtedly yield to them the palm of excellence. This is well said in reference to the labors of the old American fathers. It should be remembered that it was written in 1813, and that Dr. Miller lived to see a new, thorough, and profound course of theological study established in the country. In 1827 he published Letters on Clerical Manners and Habits; addressed to a Student in the Colls. N. Y. Hist Soc. vol. i. + John Rodgers, whose name is remembered with great respect in New York, was a native of Boston, Mass., born in 1727, of Irish parentage. He was a disciple of Whitefield as a youth, and was educated at the Academy of the Rev. Samuel Blair at Fog's Manor in Chester county, Pa. He was with Davies the preacher (afterwards President of Princeton) in Virginia. He came to New York in 1765. His degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred by the University of Edinburgh, through the agency of three distinguished persons. Whitefield suggested the matter to Franklin, who obtained the favor through Dr. Robertson. In the Revolutionary war he was a correspondent of Washington. He died in New York, May 7, 1811, in his eighty-fourth year. Theological Seminary at Princeton; in which he reviews the various positions of the clergyman; in his study, in society, his mode of writing, thinking, and conversation; in the economy of health, usefulness, reputation, and the preservation of a sound, judicious piety. In 1840 Dr. Miller published his Memoir of the Rev. Charles Nisbet,* the first President of Dickinson College, whose acquaintance he had made in 1791, when he visited him at Carlisle to seek the opportunity of hearing his course of Theological Lectures, a genial specimen of biography, with much interest in the copious and interesting original material. Edward Miller, the brother of the preceding, was born at Dover May 9, 1760. He was educated at the Academy at Newark in Delaware, conducted with eminent ability by two clergymen, Doctor Francis Allison and Alexander McDowell. He studied medicine at Dover with Dr. Charles Ridgely, and afterwards in 1781-2 in the Military hospital at Baskingridge, New Jersey. In the last year he embarked as surgeon in an armed ship bound for France, and in a year's absence acquired a knowledge of the French language. He returned to pursue his profession in Delaware, and in 1796 became a practitioner of medicine in New York, where he engaged with Dr. Mitchill and Dr. Elihu H. Smith in the publication of the first journal of the kind ever printed in the country, the Medical Repository, commenced in 1797. Its conductors were members of a "Friendly Club," which was a nucleus at its weekly receptions for the intellect of the city. Dunlap, who wrote an account of Miller,* has left a record of this social circle in New York, which also included, besides himself then Manager of the New York Theatre, James Kent then Recorder of the city, Anthony Bleecker the lawyer and master in chancery, Charles Brockden Brown, William Walton Woolsey, George Muirson Woolsey, John Wells the lawyer, William Johnson the Supreme Court reporter, and the Rev. Dr. Samuel Miller. Edward Miller died March 17, 1812. His writings on medical topics, including his report on the yellow fever, were published in s volume. His medical reputation stood high, and his literary and social qualities endeared him to his friends. DE WITT CLINTON. THE name of Clinton has long been eminent in the annals of New York. George Clinton was the governor of the province from 1743 to 1753, and the name of his son, Sir Henry Clinton, is familiar to every reader of the history of the American Revolution. These were, however, but distantly related to the family with whom we are concerned. The first who is mentioned of the direct ancestors of De Witt Clinton was William Clinton, an officer in the army of Charles the First. After the execution of that monarch he took refuge in the north of Ireland, where he died, leaving an orphan son, James, only two years of age. Memoir of the Rev. Charles Nisbet, D.D., late President of Dickinson College, Carlisle. New York: Carter. 12mo pp. 857. The Monthly Recorder, New York, April, 1818. |