rejette sur les pretres toute la faute de l'animosite entre les sectes chretiennes qui malgré leurs disputes s'accorderoient ensemble sur les principaux articles de la foi. Tout ce qui nous reste encore est le fanatisme lorsqu'on peut animer une nation par la liberté de la religion, et lui insinuer adroitement qu'elle est opprimée par les pretres et les seigneurs. Voila ce qu'on appelle remuer le ciel et l'enfer pour son interet.”* Voltaire is another of the antagonists of Machiavel. It was he who published in 1740 the first edition of the king of Prussia's Anti-Machiavel, with a preface of his own. This preface is filled with the grossest adulation. The singularity is, that both Frederic and Voltaire censure Machiavel for irreligion; risum teneatis. The direct charge Voltaire brings against Machiavel is this; he acknowledges that he might possibly hate tyranny, for every man must hold this in abhorrence, but "Is it not base as well as horrible," says Voltaire," to the last degree to hate tyranny, and at the same time to teach and recommend it?" Had this witty satirist an idea that no one could be ironical but himself? LIFE VERY SHORT. MAN is never so deluded as when he dreams of his own duration. The answer of the old patriarch to Pharaoh may be adopted by every man at the close of the longest life. "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my pilgrimage." Whether we look back from fifty, or from twice fifty, the past appears equally a dream; and we can only be said to have lived while we have been profitably employed. Alas! then, making the necessary deductions, how short is life! Were men in general to save themselves all the steps they take to no purpose, or to a bad one, what numbers, who are now active, would become sedentary? SIN. THIS word has been gradually banished the oligarchy of fashion, from the hour in which Charles II. and his profligate court trod down piety along with hypocrisy, to this day, when the new philosophy has accomplished its total outlawry, and denounced it a rebel to decency and the freedom of man. * Instructions de Frederic II. a ses generaux publiées pendant son regne. VOL. VII FOR THE PORT FOLIO. The Backwoodsman. A Poem. By J. K. Paulding. Philadelphia: M. Thomas. pp. 200. 12mo. 150cts. boards. THE author of this poem, according to his publisher's account, is "one of the most eminent literary gentlemen in America," and we are not disposed to question his title to this distinction. We had occasion to speak of him, in our review of the "Letters from the South;" (P. F. Feb. 1818.) and our readers may not have forgotten that we then gave him credit not only for the cleverness with which his book was got up, but also for the management with which it was got off. He now aspires to a more exalted character than that of a mere tourist, having employed himself since" more than five years ago," on a work the object of which is to" indicate to the youthful writers of his native country, the rich poetic resources with which it abounds, as well as to call their attention home, for the means of attaining to novelty of subject, if not to originality in style or sentiment." In allusion, no doubt, to his own power of commanding those fertile resources which the subject embraces, he acknowledges, and we readily agree with him, that he had but "scanty materials" for the undertaking. His praise, however, is of another description. Manifold have been the labours of ingenious men among us to invite the muse of poetry from her secluded haunts. Of the perils and privations of our forefathers she has hitherto disdained to sing, and she turns a deaf ear to the rude exploits of our sylvan war We have no ferocious giants, no frowning battlements, no lordly knights nor distressed damsels. With us, all is plain, simple, unsophisticated nature. The most terrible necromancer among us is the sheriff, whose gates readily open on the exhibition of a bit of paper. In such an utter absence of any thing like a hero or even a suitable scene for a poet's eye in a fine frenzy to roll upon, it required uncommon nerves and powerful motives to publish an epic lay. We say to publish, because it will not be disputed, even by those English incendiaries who burn down our manufactories, that the poetical furor has raged in the veins of our young republicans ever since the date of the Declaration of Independence, when we escaped From all the countless pack of galling ills, That slaves still suffer when the tyrant wills. p. 174. It is positively affirmed by a learned critic, of whose erudition our author seems to have availed himself, that "there is hardly any human creature past childhood," who has not inhaled the ethereal flame. The same writer proceeds to show the pernicious effects of restraining the effusions of poetical aspirants, and he concludes by a solemn warning, which is worthy of all credit among the princes and potentates of the earth, that "A suppression of the very worst poetry is of dangerous consequence to the state.' MARTINUS SCRIBLERUS, Of the art of sinking in poetry, chap. III. It is in this important truth that we are to find the moving cause of the extraordinary production now before us. The writer has had the advantage of occupying an official desk at the seat of our government, where he had both the leisure and the opportunity to discern the signs of the times. For five years his patriotism has fervently laboured, and at length he has produced what will avert the disastrous consequences against which the genius of the immortal Scriblerus has cautioned all the world. Nor is this the first time that our author has laid so dear a sacrifice on the altar of dulness, in his ardent devotion to the public weal. During the late war, when, to adopt a phrase not uncommon with him," the adverse foe was nigh," his "Scotch Fiddle," like the patriotic bird of Rome, preserved the capitol. And should he come again, we dare promise that whatever conduct may be pursued by other "imps of freedom" who "at home like women stay," our poet will be found at his publisher's door, ready to print the very worst poetry, rather than let the state suffer any detriment. Some weak-sighted critics who have not penetrated the profound designs of our poet, and who dwell only on the lofty pretensions of the "address to the reader," point to the common places which abound in every page of this work, and deny its claims to originality or novelty. They aver that there is no "story" in it; that as to" diversity of character" they find none except in that comprehensive passage where it is said of the hero, after lis emigration to the woods, that Judge, general, congressman, and half a score Of goodly offices, and titles more Reward his worth, while like a prince he lives, &c. p. 71. This Basil was found, at the opening of the work, a hard working day-labourer in the state of New York. Notwithstanding the grand canal and all the rest of the grand things which are to make the citizens of that commonwealth like the merchants of Tyre, our hero was in danger of starving. His industry To other's boards gave plenty through the year He was pinched too by another cause, for we learn that -his house became too small! Alarmed by this singular phenomenon he resolved to take his family to the western country. His wife, of whom we learn nothing, excepting that she seems to be peculiarly fitted for a new country, and his children, are put into "a little covered cart," which is dragged by "a right sturdy nag" to Ohio, where they all live happily the rest of their lives, surrounded by a numerous offspring, &c. after the most approved fashion of the Minerva press. This vehicle is denominated" a cavalcade" in one of our journals, and the author calls it an "equipage." Where two of " the most eminent literary gentlemen in America" differ, it is not for us to venture an opinion and we therefore leave it " to be arranged by one or more competent editors." On one occasion the cart or cavalcade was in some danger in consequence of the carelessness of Basil, who, instead of minding his reins had suffered his attention to be drawn to a commanding station on one of the Alleghany mountains hitherto " unmapped," to use one of Mr. Paulding's " novelties," from which the pedestrian could see all the states "The new and old, the little and the great," and descant, in the true spirit of modern philanthropy on the happiness of the whole American family, while his own is in danger of being dashed to pieces. The incident is thus related: Hard was the tugging up that mighty hill, Full oft the sturdy pony stood stock still; And had not Basil watch'd the wheel right well Back they had tumbled-where, no soul can tell. Some readers would alter the penultimate line of this extract so as to read, And had not Basil watch'd the right wheel well, &c. from which it is alleged that we should guess there was a precipice on that side, or that old Basil was not such a blockhead as to watch the wrong wheel, a mistake which poets as well as politicians are liable to make; and they add that the expression right well is at least childish, if not vulgar. Now this last reason convinces us that the printer is right, for, the viler the poetry, the more noble was the determination not to suppress it. The reader need not suspect that we are afraid of disturbing the text lest we should make it worse, a consequence not easy to be wrought with that or any other line in the book. The hero having conducted his " equipage" to Ohio, we hear no more of him, except some matter of course particulars about his children growing up, his own hair becoming white, his private prosperity and his public honours. Besides the stations of judge, general and congressman, he held ten goodly offices, and more than as many titles, the constitution of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding! Such is the contemptuous manner in which the enemies of American genius would treat the lofty pretensions of a writer, who is never so happy as when he is engaged in vindicating the reputation of our country from the foul slander of European libellers, in encouraging the modest merits of our candidates for literary fame, and in maintaining the exalted claims of our fair to respect, admiration and love. If we wished to establish the originality of this poem, either in the language, the ideas, or the characters, we might point to its title, and the name of the hero; we might demand triumphantly what epic poet has ever ventured to exhibit on the field of combat, after a disastrous conflict, A strapping blade Flat on his back!! p. 164. and, who ever saw |