him to frequently immerse his arms in cold water, he incurred a consumption which caused his death on his voyage from Charleston to the Bahamas on the 10th of January, 1809. His poems were collected after his death and published with a memoir, containing extracts from his foreign journals and correspondence, in 1810. They are on the usual miscellaneous topics of fugitive verse of the average order of excellence.*

A SLEIGHING SONG.

When calm is the night, and the stars shine bright,
The sleigh glides smooth and cheerily;
And mirth and jest abound,
While all is still around,

Save the horses' trampling sound,

And the horse-bells tinkling merrily.

But when the drifting snow in the trav'ller's face shall blow,

And hail is driving drearily,

And the wind is shrill and loud,
Then no sleigh shall stir abroad,
Nor along the beaten road

Shall the horse-bells tinkle merrily.

But to-night the skies are clear, and we have not to

fear

That the time should linger wearily;
For good-humour has a charm

Even winter to disarm,

And our cloaks shall wrap us warm, And the bells shall tinkle merrily.

And whom do I spy, with the sparkling eye,
And lips that pout so cherrily;

Round her neck the tippet tied,
Ready in the sleigh to glide?
Oh! with her I love to ride,

When the horse-bells tinkle merrily.

JOHN BRISTED.

JOHN BRISTED, who occupied for a number of years a conspicuous position in New York society by his mental activity and his literary productions, was born in Dorsetshire, England, in 1778, the son of a clergyman of the Established Church. He was educated at Winchester College, pursued the study of medicine at Edinburgh, then turned his attention to law, became a member of the society of the Inner Temple, and as he himself has phrased it, "during two years of pupillage in the office of Mr. Chitty, cultivated the melancholy science of special pleading. He published a number of books at this time. The Adviser, or the Moral and Literary Tribunal, in four volumes, in 1802, is a collection of essays on topics of morals addressed to the youth of Great Britain.

His Ανθρωπλανομενος; or a Pelestrian Tour through part of the Highlands of Scotland in 1801, was noticed with some severity in Aikin's Annual Review, where we catch a glimpse of its plan :—“ Mr. Bristed and his companion Dr. Andrew Cowen travelled through the Highlands in the character of American sailors. They roam the country in forma pauperum, descant loudly on the luxuries of the great and the miseries of the poor, go from pothouse to pothouse for hali a

Poems by the late Doctor John Shaw, to which is prefixed a Biographical Sketch of the Author. Edward Earle, Philadelphia, 1810.

Thoughts on the Anglican and American Churches, p. 87. ii. 408. VOL. I.--42

bed, complain of the jealousy of the police because they are taken up for spies, and of the frequent inhospitality of the Scots because they were not welcomed as gentlemen."

He also published a collection of Critical and Philosophical Essays in 1804.

In 1805 he published in London, The Society of Friends Examined, in which a favorable view is taken of the peculiarities of the sect; and in the following year, Edward and Anna, or a Picture of Human Life.

Mr. Bristed came to America in the spring of 1806, and established himself in the practice of the law at New York. His practice at the New York bar did not fully employ him; for we find him engaged in the delivery of lectures and the composition of several books, which did not escape the satire of Halleck in “Fanny."

In 1807 he was engaged in conducting The Monthly Register, Magazine, and Review of the United States, which had been commenced in Charleston, S. C., in 1805, under the direction of Stephen Cullen Carpenter, an ingenious man of letters, who subsequently edited The Mirror of Taste, a periodical in Philadelphia, and published a life of Jefferson.*

In 1809 Mr. Bristed published in New York---Hints on the National Bankruptcy of Britain. and on her Resources to maintain the present contest with France; in 1811, a volume-The Resources of the British Empire, together with a view of the probable result of the present contest between Britain and France, followed in 1818 by a similar review of The Resources of the United States of America; or a View of the Agricultural, Commercial, Manufacturing, Financial, Political, Literary, Moral, and Religious Capacity and Character of the American people. The last is a work of ability and interest, characterized by the author's scholarship, his full animated style, and his conservative opinions. The chapter on the literature of the United States is in a philosophical spirit.

In 1814 he issued "a Prospectus of a series of courses of Lectures to be delivered by John Bristed, counsellor-at-law," in an octavo pamphlet of forty-one pages. There were to be four courses of at least fifty lectures each; the first and second to be addressed to students generally; the third and fourth exclusively to students at law. The. principles of Metaphysics, History, Political Economy, were the subjects of the first; their application to National History, National Government, and to Eloquence, oral and written, of the second; the third was an elementary outline of the various legal codes of civilized nations, common,, civil, and international law; and the fourth course

*In 1809 Carpenter published at New York two volumes of "Memoirs of Jefferson, containing a concise History of tho United States from the acknowledgment of their Independence, with a view of the Rise and Progress of French Influence and French Principles in that country." As the title indicates, the work is decidedly anti-Jeffersonian. No publisher's name appears on the title-page, but it is "Printed for the Purchasers." The Mirror of Taste and Dramatic Censor" was published in four volumes by Bradford and Inskeep, at Philadelphia, in 1810 and 1811. It contained some very clever sketches of American actors, which were amongst the earliest productions of the artist Leslie.

In 1815 Carpenter published in Philadelphia two octavo volumes of "Select American Speeches, Forensic and Parliamentary, with Prefatory Remarks: being a sequel to Dr. Chapman's 'Select Speeches.""

was to follow the track of Blackstone. At the conclusion he also proposes to devote one evening in every week "to the explanation of the elementary principles of elocution."

He delivered the same year An Oration on the Utility of Literary Establishments on occasion of the opening of Eastburn's Literary Rooms in New York,-the germ of noble projects since happily realized in such ample institutions as the Astor Library and other literary associations of the city. While a resident of New York he married a widow, the daughter of the late millionaire John Jacob Astor.

Mr. Bristed, always of an earnest mind, engaged deeply in theological studies with the assistance of Bishop Griswold of the eastern diocese. He was ordained, and became an efficient assistant in organizing the parish of St. Mark's, in Warren, Rhode Island, and extending Episcopacy in the state. In 1822 he published his Thoughts on the Anglican and American-Anglo Churches, in an octavo volume, which exhibits his preference of the voluntary system of America over the establishments of England. It is written in an earnest evangelical spirit. In 1820 he had succeeded Bishop Griswold as rector of St. Michael's church at Bristol, R. I. There he continued to preach while his health permitted, the last twelve years of his life being passed, in consequence of illness, in retirement from the active duties of his ministry. He died at his residence at Bristol Feb. 23, 1855, in his seventy-seventh year.

66

reader is abundantly entertained with the result in his lively pages. In his comparison of the Scotch and English, he remarks of the latter— They differ wonderfully from the Scotch in one particular: a Scot is partial to his fellow-Scotchmen, with very little fondness for Scotland: an Englishman is still more partial to England, with very little fondness for Englishmen." Austin's opportunities for social observation were considerable, and he has given us pleasant pictures of his intercourse with leading people at Oxford, London, and elsewhere. Dining with the fellows at St. John's, he so impressed them with his description of the Atlantic cities, that they expressed a regret "that we were no longer the same people," upon which he replied with good humor, "that was their own fault, for the United States would doubtless accept them as a colony." He was at a bookseller's dinner with Johnson, of St. Paul's churchyard, where he met Fuseli. He visits the venerable Dr. Griffiths, of Monthly Review memory, at Turnham Green, and talks with him of the interviews of Hume and Rousseau at that spot, and there is a capital account of a meeting with Holcroft and Dr. Wolcot at Godwin's residence at Somerstown. Austin had an eye for character, and hits off his subjects with felicity. His descriptions of the orators then in the ascendant in Parliament, Fox, Pitt, Windham, and others, are of interest. Of Fox we have this personal description at the Hustings ::

You will expect a description of Mr. Fox, his appearance and demeanour. You wish to know how he was dressed, how he stood, and how he looked. In his youth he is reported to have been as great a

WILLIAM AUSTIN,

A LAWYER of Massachusetts, and a writer of marked individual temperament, with strong powers of humor and observation, was born March 2, 1778. He studied at Harvard, where his name appears on the list of graduates for 1798. In 1801, he delivered an oration at Charlestown, on the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker's Hill, which was printed.* His Letters from London, written during the years 1802 and 1803, were printed in an octavo volume at Boston, in 1804. The letters are written with ease and elegance, and show a sprightly inquisitive mind, with a strong flavor of what was called in that day "jacobinism," in its judgments of aflairs of church and state. He went to study John Bull, and amuse himself with his humors, and the

*An Oration, pronounced at Charlestown, at the request of the Artillery Company, on the 17th June; being the Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker's Hill, and of that Company. How sleep the brave who sink to rest, With all their country's honors blest! COLLINS.

By William Austin, A.D. Charlestown. Samuel Etheridge, 1801.

appearance was altogether against him. He looked as if he had been long in the sea service, and after many a storm, had retired on half pay. His greasy buff waistcoat, threadbare blue coat, and weatherbeaten hat, gave him, in connexion with his great corpulency and dark complexion with short dark hair hastening to gray, very much the appearance of a laid up sea captain. He has the countenance of an ancient Englishman, but long watching has changed the temperature of health to a dun colour. He would be thought, at present, by one who did not know him, to be a noble dispositioned, rather than a great, man.

About the year 1805, we hear of Austin's being engaged in a duel with James H. Elliott, growing out of a political newspaper altercation. The duel was fought in Rhode Island, and Austin was slightly wounded.*

In 1807, he published a volume of Unitarian views, entitled, An Essay on the Human Character of Jesus Christ. Some years later, we find him a contributor to Buckingham's New England Galaxy of a remarkable legendary tale, entitled Peter Rugg, the Missing Man. wrote the paper, The Late Joseph Natterstrom, in the first number of the New England Magazine. These show his fine qualities as a writer.

He also

Austin was eminent at the bar of Suffolk and

* Loring's Boston Orators, p. 329.

It may be found in the Boston Book for 1841. It was reprinted from the Galaxy in other papers and books, and was, says Buckingham, " read more than any other communication that has fallen within my knowledge. It is purely fictitions and originated in the inventive genius of its author."-Buckingham's Personal Memoirs, i. 87,

Middlesex. He died at Charlestown, June 27, 1841.

A DINNER WITH GODWIN, HOLCROFT, AND WOLCOT-FROM THS LETTERS FROM LONDON.

London, May 15th. Imagine to yourself a man of short stature, who has just past the prime of life, whose broad high forehead is fast retreating to baldness, but whose ruddy, thoughtful, yet open countenance discovers both the temperature of health and philosophy: of manners remarkably mild, unassuming, rather reserved; in conversation cautious, argumentative, frequently doubtful, yet modestly courting reply, more from a desire of truth, than a love of contending; in his family, affectionate, cordial, accommodating; to his friends confidential, ready to make any sacrifice; to his enemies-you would never know from Mr. Godwin that he had an enemy.

Mr. Godwin lives at Somerstown, about three miles from the city. His house with us would be considered neat and simple; here it is called a cottage. His study is small, and looks into the country, his library not extensive, yet sufficiently large for a man who depends more on his own resources, than on the labours of others. The portrait of Mary, taken by Northcote, hangs over the fireplace. This rendered the study one of the most interesting places I ever visited. Though I have frequently been in the study, I have only ventured to look at the portrait. Mr. Godwin is since married to a charming woman, who seems devoted to domestic happiness. He is at present occupied with his Geoffrey Chaucer, a work of great expec

tation.

A billet from Mr. Godwin informed me this morning, that Mr. Holcroft and Dr. Wolcot would dine there to day.

Mr. Holcroft, though nearly sixty, has suffered nothing, either from years, laborious mental exertion, or persecution. He has all the activity and vivacity of youth. Just returned from the continent, whither he had voluntarily banished himself in complaisance to the wishes of the English government, he has brought back with him not the least resentment. Persecution, instead of embittering his disposition, has had that effect, which it has on all good men. A villain will always hate mankind in proportion to his knowledge of the world; a good man, on the contrary, will increase in philanthropy.

Literature is not a little honoured, when one of her votaries, leaving a mechanical employment at a period of life when habit is usually become nature, has successfully holden the pen and realised a handsome support. Still more charming is it to see her votaries giving proofs of the strongest friendship. Holcroft and Godwin are firm friends. A striking likeness of the former, by Northcote, is in the dining-room.

Dr. Wolcot, in appearance, is a genuine John Bull, and until he opens his mouth, you would little suspect his relationship to the poet of Thebes. He is a portly man, rather unwieldy, and I believe not in haste to leave his chair when he is pleased with his seat. He is hastening to old age, and seems disposed to make the most of life he can. There is little similarity of character between Wolcot and Godwin. They are both constant in mental exertion; but the one prefers to sit on a silver cloud, and be wafted through the four quarters of the world, looking down on all the varieties of nature, and the follies of man. The other, possessed of the nicest moral feelings, loves to envelope himself in darkness and abstraction, in order to contemplate

whatever is just, fit, or useful. The one, laughing, dressed in the gaiety of spring, enters society with the pruning hook; the other, more serious, labours with the ploughshare. Holcroft, who never began to think until his reasoning powers had come to maturity, owing to a neglect of education, embarrassed by no system, follows the dictates of his own mind, and if he is sometimes erroneous, the error is all his own, it is never a borrowed error. Hence, his conversation, embellished by the variety of life which he has seen, is rendered rich, brilliant, original, and impressive.

*

Wolcot, like most men of genius, has a contempt for mere scholars, who, walking on the stilts of pedantry, imagine themselves a head taller than other folks. The talents of a certain famous man being questioned, Wolcot observed-He was not a man of genius, but a man of great capacity, and said, if we would attend to him, he would distinguish between the learned man, the man of capacity, and the man of genius.-" Here," said he, we will suppose a quantity of coins, ducats, pistoles, dollars, guineas, on this table. The learned man will be able, after thumbing his dictionaries for half an hour, to tell you the names of these coins in all languages. The man of capacity will go further and tell you the value of each, and the amount of the whole together, with every thing relative to their use, difference of exchange and origin. But who invented these coins? The man of genius." This gave general satisfaction. However, it was replied, and I thought very justly, That unless the man of genius should acquire capacity, his genius without capacity would be less useful, than capacity without genius. For, the exertion of genius is rare. God does not every day create a world and although genius may claim a higher prerogative than capacity, they are mutually indebted to each other. If genius gives employ to capacity, not unfrequently does capacity give direction and result to genius.

EDWARD LIVINGSTON

Adieu.

WAS of the same family with Governor William Livingston of New Jersey, was the brother of Robert R. Livingston, the Chancellor of the State of New York, the friend of Fulton, and negotiator of the purchase of Louisiana, and also closely allied, by marriages with his family, to General Montgomery and General Armstrong. He was born at Clermont in the Livingston Manor, on the Hudson, in New York, in 1764; was educated at Princeton, and studied law with his brother, the chancellor. Admitted to the bar in 1785, he was engaged in his profession at New York till 1794, when he was elected to Congress from Queens and Richmond counties. He then took under his charge the reform of the criminal law, one of the objects to which he especially thereafter devoted himself.* Returning to New York he was appointed by Jefferson United States District Attorney, while he was at the same time elected to the mayoralty of the city. In the discharge of the duties of the latter office he encountered with intrepidity and diligence the visitation of the yellow fever at New York in 1803.* In

Dem. Rev., p. 868.

+ New York was visited by the fever in the summer of 1808, Livingston then resided at No. 1 Broadway. As Chairman of the Board of Health, Livingston was indefatigable in his exer

this year Livingston published a volume of Judicial Opinions delivered in the Mayor's Court of the City of New York in 1802. It contains thirty-nine cases, nearly all of them, says Judge Daly, upon questions of importance.* In 1804 he took up his residence in New Orleans, where he became distinguished in his legal profession, and was elected to the state legislature, rendering various services to the state in its then unsettled condition in legal matters, by his code of procedure and other adjustments of judicial regulations. A personal controversy concerning the batture at New Orleans having arisen between him and President Jefferson, and the latter having published in 1812 a pamphlet on the subject, Livingston in 1814 published an elaborate reply, distinguished by its literary merits not less than by its argumentative

power.

On the defence of the city resulting in the battle of New Orleans, he was of great service to General Jackson, who freely used his pen and counsel, having appointed him his military secretary and aide.

present.' His argument on this subject is presented with equal ingenuity and eloquence.

From 1823 to 1829 he represented his district in the House of Representatives of the United States.

In 1829 Livingston was elected to the Senate of the United States, and in 1831 entered the cabinet of Jackson as Secretary of State. It was while he held this office that Jackson's celebrated proclamation against the nullifiers of South Carolina was issued. Two years later he was sent as Minister to France, where he was engaged in the difficult negotiation as to the payment of the indemnity. Returning to America in the summer of 1835, he died at his family-seat on the Hudson, at Red Hook, May 23, 1836.†

An estimate of Livingston's personal and literary character is given in the following words, attributed to his friend Andrew Jackson, by Auguste Davezac:—

"I once had the opportunity of hearing Jackson speak of the origin of his intimacy with Livingston. I felt myself suddenly attracted towards him,' he said, 'by the gentleness of his manners; the charm of his conversation, gay without frivolity, instructive without the ostentation of instructing; by the profound acquaint

proval of the legislature, was reprinted in London in 1824, and published in a French translation in Paris. He subsequently completed this important work in his System of a Penal Code for the State of Louisiana. His general Code embraced four distinct divisions:-A Code of Crimes and Punishments; a Code of Procedure; a Code of Evidence; and a Code of Reform and Prison Discipline. He also presented the result of his labors to the House of Representatives of the United States in his System of Penal Laws for the United States of America, published by the Government in folio in 1828. In his theory of prison discipline he advocated to a certain extent the system of solitary confinement and labor, while he sought the means of reformation as well as punishment in efforts for the education and improvement of the culprit, and carefully graduated the degrees of the penitentiary and other remedial systems. The style in which these views are set forth is as clear and simple as the ideas are humane. In regard to capital punishment he followed the humane suggestions of Beccaria, and recommended to the Legislature of Louisiana, "that the punishment of death should find no place in the code which you have directed me to

tions for the relief and comfort of the sick at the hospitals, and in his attentions to arrest the progress of the disease within the city. From his official visits to Bellevue Hospital he was exposed daily to the infection and eventually took the disorder. No professional nurses could be obtained, and the whole care of him, independently of his physicians, fell upon Captain Wolstonecraft of the artillery, who commanded upon Governor's Island, Mons. Delabigarre, a French gentleman, married and settled in New York, and Judge W. A. Duer, then Livingston's law partner, to whom we are indebted for this reminiscence. To the attentions of these friends, not less than to the skill of medical attendants, Livingston attributed his recovery.

• Historical Sketch of the Judicial Tribunals of New York from 1623 to 1846, by Charles P. Daly, one of the Judges of the New York Cominon Pleas, 1855. A work of diligent and accurate research, and in an excellent vein of local investigation and legal inquiry.

+ An analysis of these labors of Livingston will be found in two articles in the ninth volume of the Democratic Review.

ciety, and of the laws in their relation to the characters of nations; by his unlimited confidence in the sagacity of the people, and of their capability of self-government through the agency of representatives specially instructed to express the opinion of their constituents on great questions of general interest, still more than on those of local concern; and above all by that lovely and holy philanthropy which impelled him from his youth to mitigate the severity of those penal laws whose cruelties serve only to inspire in the masses a ferocity that always maintains an equilibrium with that of the laws which govern them.""

Davezac was the brother-in-law of Livingston, and earnestly devoted to his memory. He prepared a volume of Reminiscences of Livingston, a portion of which was published in the Democratic Review, to which, about 1840, he was a frequent contributor.§

ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE,

THE national explorer of the territory west of the Mississippi, and a gallant soldier of the second

*Project of a New-Penal Code for the State of Louisiana. Lond. ed., p. 39

Biographie Universelle, Supplement, Art. Livingston.
Dem. Rev. viii. 370.

Davezac was a native of St. Domingo, of French parentage, received a military education in France, came to the United States in his youth, studied medicine in North Carolina; on the acquisition of Louisiana, settled at New Orleans; became intimate with Livingston, who married his sister; received a new direction to the law, and became a highly successful advocate in criminal causes. lie was aide to Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and afterwards engaged in political life, for which his ready French eloquence gave him facilities with the people. Jackson gave him the appointment of charge to the Hague, where he passed the years from 1831 to 1889. Returning then to New York, where he took up his residence, he was elected to the state legislature in 1841 and 1843. Having aided the election of Polk, by taking the field as a political campaigner, he was re-appointed to the Hague in 1945, and beld the post till 1870. He died not long after his return to America, in New York.

He was an eloquent speaker in the warm florid style, a man of humor, and of brilliant conversational powers.