with that deference and reliance which great talents instinctively command. These were the qualifications that made him for many years the oracle and guide of the patriotic party. It was not by supple and obscure intrigues, by unworthy flatteries and compliances, by a degrading adoption of plebeian dress, manners, or language, that he obtained the suffrages of the people,' but by their opinion of his uprightness, their knowledge of his disinterestedness, and their conviction of his ability. He vindicated the rights of his countrymen, not in the spirit of a factious tribune, aiming to subvert established authority, but as a Roman senator, who became the voluntary advocate of an injured province. He valued his own standing and that of his family in society, and did not wish a change or a revolution. He acknowledged a common interest with his countrymen, and sacrificed in their support all his hopes of personal aggrandizement. Had he taken part with the administration, he might have commanded every favor in their power to bestow; in sustaining that of his native land, he well knew that his only reward would be the good-will of its inhabitants, and the sweet consciousness of performing his duty; and that he must be satisfied with the common lot of great patriotism in all agespresent poverty and future fame.

In fine, he was a man of powerful genius and ardent temper, with wit and humor that never failed: as an orator, he was bold, argumentative, impetuous, and commanding, with an eloquence that made his own excitement irresistibly contagious; as a lawyer, his knowledge and ability placed him at the head of his profession; as a scholar, he was rich in acquisition and governed by a classic taste; as a statesman and civilian, he was sound and just in his views; as a patriot, he resisted all allurements that might weaken the cause of that country to which he devoted his life, and for which he sacrificed it. The future historian of the United States, in considering the foundations of American independence, will find that one of the cornerstones must be inscribed with the name of JAMES OTIS.

'He had a great contempt for those shallow, obtrusive, noisy agents who are the appropriate evil of popular governments, as the arrogant, servile, profligate minion is of monarchies. Going one evening to attend a meeting for some political purpose, and seeing that some ordinary demagogues were the most prominent persons, he exclaimed to those who accompanied him: "Zounds! what have we here? the world butt-end foremost."

CAUSE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

The following authentic anecdote on the origin of American taxation may be gratifying to persons who are fond of tracing the current of events up to their primitive sources, and who know how often changes in human affairs are first put in motion by very trifling causes. When President Adams was Minister at the Court of St. James, he often saw his countryman, Benjamin West, the late President of the Royal Academy. Mr. West always retained a strong and unyielding affection for his native land, which, to borrow a term of his own art, was in fine keeping with his elevated genius. The patronage of the king was nobly bestowed upon him, and it forms a fine trait in the character of both, that when a malicious courtier endeavored to embarrass him, by asking his opinion on the news of some disastrous event to America, in the presence of the king, he replied that he never could rejoice in any misfortune to his native country; for which answer the king immediately gave him his protecting approbation. Mr. West one day asked Mr. Adams if he should like to take a walk with him, and see the cause of the American Revolution. The minister, having known something of this matter, smiled at the proposal, but told him that he should be glad to see the cause of that revolution, and to take a walk with his friend West anywhere. The next morning he called, according to agreement, and took Mr. Adams into Hyde Park to a spot near the Serpentine River, where he gave him the following narrative: "The king came to the throne a young man, surrounded by flattering courtiers, one of whose frequent topics it was to declaim against the meanness of his palace, which was wholly unworthy a monarch of such a country as England. They said that there was not a sovereign in Europe who was lodged so poorly; that his sorry, dingy, old brick palace of St. James looked like a stable, and that he ought to build a palace suited to his kingdom. The king was fond of architecture, and would therefore more readily listen to suggestions which were, in fact, all true. This spot that you see here was selected for the site, between this and this point, which were marked out. The king applied to his ministers on the subject; they inquired what sum would be wanted by his majesty, who said that he would begin with a million; they stated the expenses of the war, and the poverty of the treasury, but that his majesty's wishes should be taken into full consider

ation. Some time afterwards, the king was informed that the wants of the treasury were too urgent to admit of a supply from their present means, but that a revenue might be raised in America to supply all the king's wishes. This suggestion was followed up, and the king was in this way first led to consider, and then to consent to the scheme for taxing the colonies."

ROBERT C. SANDS, 1799-1832.

ROBERT C. SANDS was born in the city of New York, May 11th, 1799. He entered the Sophomore class in Columbia College in 1812, and was graduated, with a high reputation for scholarship, in 1815. He soon after began the study of law in the office of David B. Ogden, entering upon his new course of study with great ardor, and pursuing it with steady zeal. He had formed in college a very intimate friendship with James Eastburn, afterwards a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church; and in 1817 he commenced, in conjunction with his clerical friend, a romantic poem, founded on the history of Philip, the celebrated Sachem of the Pequods. But Mr. Eastburn's health began to fail early in 1819, and he died in December of that year, before the work was completed. It was therefore revised, arranged, and completed, with many additions, by Sands, who introduced it with a touching proem, in which the surviving poet mourned, in noble · and touching strains, the accomplished friend of his youth. The poem was published under the title of “Yamoyden,” at New York, in 1820, was received with high commendation, and gave Mr. Sands great literary reputation throughout the United States.

In 1820, Mr. Sands was admitted to the bar, and opened an office in the city of New York; but his ardent love of general literature gradually weaned him from his profession. In 1822 and 1823, he wrote many articles for the "Literary Review," a monthly periodical, and in 1824 the "Atlantic Magazine" was established, and placed under his charge. He gave it up in six months; but when it became changed to the "New York Review," he was engaged as an editor, and assisted in conducting it till 1827. He had now become an author by profession, and looked to his pen for support, as he had before for fame or for amusement. When, therefore, an offer of a liberal salary was made him as an assistant editor of the "New York Commercial Advertiser," he accepted

it, and continued his connection with that journal until his death, which took place on the 17th of December, 1832; in the mean time editing and writing a number of miscellaneous works, which had an ephemeral reputation, but are now little known and less read. Yet many of them had decided merit, and it is our pleasure to set a few of the choicest before our readers.

FROM THE PROEM TO YAMOYDEN.

Go forth, sad fragments of a broken strain,
The last that either bard shall e'er essay:
The hand can ne'er attempt the chords again
That first awoke them in a happier day:
Where sweeps the ocean breeze its desert way,
His requiem murmurs o'er the moaning wave;
And he who feebly now prolongs the lay
Shall ne'er the minstrel's hallowed honors crave;
His harp lies buried deep in that untimely grave!
Friend of my youth! with thee began the love
Of sacred song; the wont, in golden dreams,
'Mid classic realms of splendors past to rove,
O'er haunted steep, and by immortal streams;
Where the blue wave, with sparkling bosom, gleams
Round shores, the mind's eternal heritage,
Forever lit by memory's twilight beams;

Where the proud dead, that live in storied page,

Beckon, with awful port, to glory's earlier age.

There would we linger oft, entranced, to hear,
O'er battle-fields, the epic thunders roll;
Or list, where tragic wail upon the ear,
Through Argive palaces shrill echoing stole ;
There would we mark, uncurbed by all control,
In central heaven, the Theban eagle's flight;
Or hold communion with the musing soul
Of sage or bard, who sought, 'mid pagan night,
In loved Athenian groves, for truth's eternal light.

Friend of my youth with thee began my song,
And o'er thy bier its latest accents die;
Misled in phantom-peopled realms too long-
Though not to me the muse averse deny,
Sometimes, perhaps, her visions to desery—
Such thriftless pastime should with youth be o'er;
And he who loved with thee his notes to try,
But for thy sake such idlesse would deplore—
And swears to meditate the thankless muse no more.

EVENING.

The sun is sinking from the sky
In calm and cloudless majesty;
And cooler hours, with gentle sway,
Succeed the fiery heat of day.
Forest and shore and rippling tide
Confess the evening's influence wide,
Seen lovelier in that fading light
That heralds the approaching night-
That magic coloring nature throws,
To deck her beautiful repose-
When floating on the breeze of even,
Long clouds of purple streak the heaven,
With brighter tints of glory blending,
And darker hues of night descending,
While hastening to its shady rest
Each weary songster secks its nest,
Chanting a last, a farewell lay,
As gloomier falls the parting day.

But lo! with orb serene on high,

The round moon climbs the eastern sky;
The stars all quench their feebler rays

Before her universal blaze.

Round moon! how sweetly dost thou smile,

Above that green reposing isle—'

Soft cradled in the illumined bay,

Where from its banks the shadows seem
Melting in filmy light away.

Far does thy tempered lustre stream,
Checkering the tufted groves on high,
While glens in gloom beneath them lie.
Oft sheeted with the ghostly beam,
Mid the thick forest's mass of shade,
The shingled roof is gleaming white,
Where labor, in the cultured glade,
Has all the wild a garden made.
And there with silvery tassels bright
The serried maize is waving slow,
While fitful shadows come and go,
Swift o'er its undulating seas,

As gently breathes the evening breeze.

1 The island of Rhode Island, in Narraganset Bay.