If the Belle to whom those lines were addressed were a Mahomedan, the stanza is happily conceived, but not otherwise. Verbum sap. and to have adapted himself to the every day, common-place wants of the present. We cannot say that he has shot folly on the wing exactly; but very near that. He writes from feeling, not from cool reflection. In the choice of his subjects for poetry, Mr. HoffThe result of deliberate study and well digested man evinces any but commendable partialities. Love thought is not perceptible in two thirds of his num- and wassail are the continual, almost the sole, burerous fugitive articles, prose and verse. This may be thens of his song. Amatory poetry requires more nature, but it looks like the work of contingency. talent than any other species. If it be not executed Finish, in his prose observable in pages and passages, to a certain very lofty pitch, it becomes merely the does not pervade any of his effusions throughout. sentiment of some unprincipled roué, or the romantic The most of his poetry is quite deficient in this re- nonsense of a verdant youth, or the sickening twaddle spect. It reads musically enough-jingles well of a tight-laced consumptive school miss who expects sounds faultlessly to the careless ear, but to the reader to find a Paul Clifford at her chamber door with a whose affection for the nicest rules of art is paramount dagger and a faultless moustache to render his love it does nothing of the kind. It is helter-skelter verse; irresistible. Ancient love effusions comprise the the feet are correctly counted, and the ends of the entire body of that school of poetry. There is nolines rhyme full; not a half rhyme being found in thing to be written bordering on that line unless it be scarcely any one of his stanzas; but Mr. Hoffman is a dish warmed over and devoid of its original seaone of the versifiers who will,-whether in considera-soning, or a mere string of hot, enervating, meretrition of haste or lack of talent we know not,-sacrifice cious vulgarity disguised in a model artiste sort of sense to sound; substance to appearance. He fre- garb. Although the most of Mr. Hoffman's profesquently uses words too that are offensive to good taste. For instance, in a poem named "MOONLIGHT ON THE HUDSON," he talks of travellers "snoozing." Had the expression found a place in a police report in connection with an adventure of one of the lazzaroni who make the corporation grounds their beds, it would have been more appropriately used. The poem, which is not divested of many elegant conceits, is a faint echo of Byron, and is just clever enough to induce a regret in the reader that the author, capable of so much good, should neutralise what he does possess by aiming at what is so far beyond his reach. Echoes are but echoes after all-deceptive often-startling, so deep is their imitative power —yet intangible and worthless as needs be. One tone from its own source direct, and that source yourself, is better than twenty echoes, even if those echoes are nearly equal to what they are but copies of. In admiring the rainbow how seldom do we cast more than a superficial glance upon its invariable accompaniment, the shadow, yet if the real bow were not set in the Heavens, and its false representative were allowed to appear alone, how many of us would lavish our admiration upon the latter. Mr. Hoffman is given to the fabrication of queer images; he evidently throws them off from a heated fancy, and never heeds whether they accord with common sense or not. In one of his poems he tells us that "The night falls chill and gray Like a drizzling rain on a new made tomb." The force of this comparison is too abstruse for such a poor comprehension as ours; but perhaps our readers will be fortunate enough to construe it properly, in the spirit which prompted our subject to write it. "To A BELLE WHO TALKED OF GIVING UP THE WORLD," Mr. Hoffman says: "You give up the world! why, as well might the sun, With one rosy smile, the young morn in its birth- Of hours, to grope o'er a pall-cover'd earth." sional attempts in the amatory way are tolerable, yet * * * * * From sparkling song and sally gay, It comes to steal my heart away." No lady would be particularly flattered to have her Knight errantry females were made of sterner stuff, name bandied about at a wine revel. In the days of and were proud to have blood as well as wine shed in their honour, but those times have passed away, and with them their customs and the tastes thereupon dependent. Of course, we must weigh the produchis Bacchanalian efforts we can say little that will be tions of the age by its manners and sentiments. Of flattering. He takes occasion, in a few lines explanatory of "THE ORIGIN OF MINT JULEPS," to denomition, quoting a motto from Milton's Comus to sanction nate that vulgar conglomeration an Olympian invenit. Verses like these comprise nothing to be proud of, and when a reputation for being a poet is made from them, a wonderful change will have been wrought in the machinery of social life, and in the tastes of men of letters. It is easy to perceive (all thought of taste thrown aside) that Mr. Hoffman in the metrical effusions referred to, constantly had Moore in his fancy. We know that this charge has been made ere this, and we know, too, that it has met with more than one prompt and able denial; yet conscience will not permit us to abstain from repeating it. Mr. Hoffman has not only imitated, but actually paraphrased Moore, perhaps without being aware that he did so. We do not imagine that he sat down wilfully to imitate or parody. Man is imitative, and instinctively will endeavour to accomplish that which pleases him most. We have no doubt that Mr. Hoffman can repeat Moore word for word, and we are certain that he admires him. It is not strange then that he should, (unconsciously, we are glad to admit) have spiced his own verses after the fashion of his master. In the course of his career our subject has published several pieces of verse that are highly creditable to his heart and head, one of which is the following: MORNING HYMN. "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" The Eternal spoke, And from the abyss where darkness rode The earliest dawn of nature broke, And light around creation flow'd. The glad earth smiled to see the day, The first-born day, come blushing in; The young day smiled to shed its ray Upon a world untouch'd by sin. "Let there be light!" O'er heaven and earth, And shed the Gospel's light abroad, Then come, when in the orient first From God's bright throne of glory there. But these are "angel's visits" only, and if they were numerous, they would not give Mr. Hoffman a recognisable lien upon the name and fame of a genuine poet. His so-called poetry is simply a reflection of the real thing. As a verse writer he is merely pleasant. You read and forget him, or if you do not, it is no genius of his that preserves his memory. His verses linger in the ear as the negro melodies of the south whistled about the streets do; not because of their worth, but of their light, common-place, popular nature—their " tenpound-ten" sort of harmony. We have caught ourself listening with attention to the regular cadences of the hoofs of a horse at full canter, and so have we, this ten years, been accustomed to hearken, with childish interest, to the canter of Mr. Hoffinan's rhyme. Porpulaity is no test of genius, if it were geniuses would be countless. Mr. Hoffman's songs are as popular as any in the language, but, neverthe Here is another that would reflect no shame upon less, he has no genius for poetry. Albeit no poet, he the best of the versifiers : WRITTEN IN SPRING-TIME. THOU wak'st again, O Earth, From icy keep; And, laughing at the sun, Who hath their freedom won, Thou wak'st again, O Earth, And who by fireside hearth Now will remain ? Spring first did reign. Earth thou hast many a prime- Thou wak'st again, O Earth! As when at Spring's first birth While boughs are blossoming, is a good prose writer, but he will never be a literary magnate ;-only one of the greatest of the lesser lights in the firmament of letters. He deserves credit for his industry, and for converting his 'pen, so far as periodicals go, into an instrument of some service to the local public. He has fought hard and nobly for a copyright law, and he has devoted much labour, and all the talent he possesses, to the entertaining elucidation of important points in our colonial history. He is a sterling republican, and loves his country well enough to make his national affection visible in his articles. He is a clever editor and a respectable reviewer. We believe him to be well read in the best of ancient literature, and thoroughly conversant with all that is worthy belonging to the modern crop. At present he conducts a hebdomedal of high pretension (a reflex of the London " Athenæum") published in New York city, and called the "Literary World." It was originally conducted by Evert A. Duyckink, Esq. Mr. Hoffman is a gentleman of agreeable manners and appearance; with a fine face and head, and an expressive eye. Science has done all it could to conceal the emasculation rendered necessary by the accident of his boyhood, and a person unacquainted with the fact would suppose that he stood upon two feet of his own. We wish he did so as a poet. We rejoice that we have concluded. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE TIMES OF GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON. NO. I. It is my intention to do justice to the living and the dead; and, in writing these papers, I shall avoid all partizan bias or feeling. I mean to write of Andrew Jackson, the man, the statesman, and soldier, but not of Andrew Jackson the partizan and leader of one of the most powerful parties that ever existed in this country. The first time I had any intercourse with this celebrated man, was in the year 1821. As I was crossing the Esplanade, in the city of Nashville, on a very warm and sultry day in the month of June, I met him near the State House, accompanied by Doctor Bronough, his then military surgeon and friend, and two or three other individuals of eminence. He stopped me, somewhat abruptly, and said to me, "I will thank you, young man, to sign this paper. It is a remonstrance against chartering a score or more of Banks. Come, my young friend, don't hesitate; step over the way to Stephen Cantrell's store, sign it at once, and whatever is to be done, must be done quickly. There's no time to be lost, if we expect to nip these banking swindling schemes in the bud!" description that produced a death-like silence.* Some moments elapsed before the Assembly recovered itself; when two of its members, Adam Huntsman, and a man named Miller, rose and protested against the action of General Jackson, and the entire proceeding. They protested rather in behalf of the dignity of the Legislative body, whose legitimate functions, they alleged, had been invaded, rather than in defence of the bank bill. Both, however, had ultimate cause to regret the course they had adopted: for the rapidly increasing popularity of the General absorbed every thing and demolished every thing that opposed it. Mr. Miller, I believe, never politically recovered from the shock his conduct provoked; but Mr. Huntsman, by removing to a distant portion of the State, where he ultimately became an advocate of General Jackson's fortunes and political creed, ultimately restored himself, and subsequently reached the American Congress, where he sustained the General's administration, though he professed to be a Judge White man. banking mania that had beset them, and which had already began to develop itself, in all its blighting consequences and depravity. Whatever might have been said, or whatever was said, in reference to the bold and somewhat arbitrary I was half inclined to offer some opposition to the course of conduct General Jackson pursued on the loan of my signature; but, as I was satisfied that the occasion in question, it was, beyond all possible doubt, General was right, I did "step over the way to Ste- the means of saving Tennessee from the distress, absophen Cantrell's store;" and then and there signed lute misery, and approximating anarchy, that had althe remonstrance. The General was very much ex-ready been inflicted on Kentucky and Ohio, by the cited, for he had not found all on whom he called to be pliant to his will; not a few had paused to discuss the merits of the banking question-a question to him at all times, and in all its phases, superlatively odious. When I had recorded my signature, he was pleased to say to me, "you have done that to-day, young gentleman, which will through life redound to your honour!" With this remark, he departed on his mission of remonstrance. He obtained a large number of signatures in the city of Nashville and the adjacent county; and, having prepared himself for any emergency that might occur, he proceeded to Murfreesborough, where the Legislature of Tennessee was in session, and in person presented the remonstrance to the speaker, at the bar of the House of Representatives. He took the liberty to exercise this strange privilege of Parliament, inasmuch as the Freedom of the House had been voted him by an anterior legislature. The odious bank bill was under discussion at the time the remonstrance was presented; and General Jackson took the liberty to present his views on the subject. He denounced it as an abomination, a scheme to swindle and defraud; and, handing up his remonstrance, he stated its nature and contents; and added, if any man voted for the bill then pending, he would be guilty of treason to the trusts confided to him by his constituency, and if indicted, a jury of twelve men would find him guilty of wilful and corrupt perjury. I was at Murfreesborough at the time this scene transpired, but did not happen to be in the Legislature at the moment. The utmost excitement followed it, as a matter of course; but it was of that In the year 1816, the former State had, by the passing of a single act, established two-and-forty "Independent Banks, as they were called, and planted them in different and remote sections. The further out of the way they could be located, the better it suited the convenience and designs of those who managed them. Several of them were in places that were almost inaccessible. I recollect one of them remarkably well. It was called the Bank of Barbersville, and purported to exist in the town of Barbersville, in Knox County. It had been in operation a few months only, when I became possessed of a cheque on it, drawn by Col. Richard M. Johnson, of several hundred dollars. Being anxious to obtain its liquidation, and not being able to negotiate it with any of the banks or bankers "in the settlements," I mounted my horse, and proceeded toward the *The effect that surprise or astonishment produces is often the escape of Napoleon from the Island of Elba, and of his reludicrous and never equal. It is related that when the news of turn to Paris, reached Vienna, it found the Congress of Allied Powers engaged in discusssing a project for his more rigid Prince Talleyrand, on the 11th day of March, 1812. It could enthrallment. The report of his escape was laid before it by not be credited, and in speaking on the subject, Sir Walter Scott remarks:-"The astonishing, as well as the sublime, approaches the ludicrous; and, it is a curious physiological fact, that the first news of an event which threatened to abolish ali the labours of the Congress of Vienna, seemed so like a trick in a pantomime, that laughter was the first emotion it excited in the bosom of almost every one." The reverse of this untoward merriment was the result of General Jackson's action, on the legislative wisdom of Tennessee. town of Barbersville. It was, I soon found out, amid the peaks of that part of the Alleghany range of mountains that are known as the Cumberland Ridge; but, on coming within some ten miles of it, I found myself entirely off the legitimate track, for there was nothing but a bridle path, that led from the main road to the city of Barbersville; and the main road itself would scarcely have been recognized as a road, if the traveller were not assured that such was the fact, by the erection of a public land mark. After wandering, now this way and that, the better part of a day in this wilderness of the mountains, I accidentally fell into the company of a mountaineer, who with his rifle and his game on his shoulder, was returning to his home, which, he informed me, was in the vicinity of Barbersville. In consideration of a draught from my flask, the man consented to be my guide; and after wandering through a succession of glades, fens that were intersected with occasional ranges of towering cliffs, and deep and scarcely penetrable forests, we reached the city of n.y search. It contained a log building, occupied as a jail; a grist mill, a tavern, a blacksmith's shop, and a gallows and stocks, and a whipping post. Its entire population might have amounted to thirty or forty, possibly fifty persons, I was too late when I arrived to attend to any kind of business,--especially, was I behind banking hours, and bank business, and therefore made up my mind to wait till the next morning, ere I attempted to do any thing. In the mean time, I availed myself of a beautiful moonlight night, and a vacant hour, to look at the Elephants of the magnificent city of Barbersville. The first object that awakened my curiosity, was the building occupied by the "President, Directors, and Company of the Bank of Barbersville." I was indebted to the courtesy of the only servant that was in the hotel, for a personal inspection of the outside of the edifice. It was composed of round logs, dove-tailed together at the ends, and was, I should think, about fifteen feet long, by six or eight in width, and might have been six or seven feet high. And this was the banking house that had already inundated the State of Kentucky with a series of beautiful bank notes, engraved by Murray, Draper, Fairman, and Company, of every denomination, from one dollar to one thousand. To me, the edifice was an absolute novelty, though it did not seem to awaken the especial wonder of my conductor, the hostler. The jail was indeed a curiosity, in architecture as well as utility. It was composed of logs, erected on a superstructure and base of the same material, perched at least five-and-twenty feet in the air. It was approached by a ladder, which its keeper put up and took away, as necessity, convenience, or as his caprice dictated. The main door was confined by placing the shaft of a tree, some fifty feet in length, against it, butt-end foremost, while the smaller end rested on the ground. The great weight of the shaft rendered it a formidable means of security and confinement, for it took at least a dozen men to move it. That it did afford abundant means of confinement, was proved by the fact, that at the time I saw it, it contained two incarcerated victims, under sentence of death for murder. Having seen quite as much of Barbersville as I desired, I went to bed, slept soundly, and the next morning, at 10 o'clock, I called on Col. Joseph Eve, the President, and Mr. Benjamin Tuggle, the Cashier, of the Bank of Barbersville, and desired them to liquidate the claim I presented. Col. Joseph Eve was a good looking man, and seemed to be in possession of some of the qualities of civilization; but Mr. Benjamin Tuggle, Cashier, was a very different kind of personage. He was blind of an eye; his face bore definite marks of many a bloody affray; and the haft and hilt of the long bowie knife that protruded from his bosom, made quite an unfavourable impression on my fancy. Col. Eve looked at the cheque I prescnted, and remarked that although Col. Johnson's claim on the bank was a good one, he could not tell what to do with it, until he had a meeting of the honourable board of directors. To facilitate the object of my visit as rapidly as possible, he said he would call a meeting of that important body at once. Hereupon, Mr. Joseph Eve applied a hunter's horn to his mouth, "And blew a blast so loud and dread," that it reached the very peaks of the mountains, and summoned the directors to attend to the business of the bank! In all good time, the "twelve" made their appearance. They were clad in hunting shirts and moccasins, and looked very much like twelve men who had no especial aversion to deeds of dreadful note. A conversation took place inside of the banking_house, which did not last long, before Col. Joseph Eve made his appearance, and informed me that the directory had decided that they could'nt pay any more cheques for Col. Johnson. With this annunciation I was not very well pleased, and was proceeding to descant on the inconvenience I had subjected myself to, by making a journey to Barbersville, when I was very decidedly bade to "shut up," by Mr. Benjamin Tuggle, who accompanied the brief mandate with an intimation that if I were not satisfied, and thought proper to grumble, I might find myself strung up to the tallest and strongest sapling that could be found in all Knox County. And, as I was not disposed to submit myself to any such process of elevation and eminence, I very summarily paid what little debts I had contracted in the city of Barbersville, and made the best of my way to the settlements. This Bank of Barbersville was a fair sample of the two and forty that the Legislature of Kentucky launched into existence, in a single session; and which, after having imposed on the good people, in the short space of six or nine months, some twenty millions of paper promises to pay, and laid the foundation of years of subsequent toil, hardship, and absolute ruin,-gave up the ghost, and cursed Kentucky for a succeeding quarter of a century. It was to avoid this species of banking, to protect the people of Tennesse and maintain the good credit of the State, that General Jackson took the ultra steps that distinguished him, at Murfreesborough, in the year 1821. Had he not done what was at the time a subject of denunciation, and which has, within the last five years, been made the subject of rude criticism, reproach and castigation, Tennessee would, beyond all doubt, have run into the wild and ruinous excesses of banking that desecrated Kentucky. Nor the least curious or picturesque of the old | niche is occupied by a defaced statue; the others are architectural appurtenances of the old city of Norwich, blank. The gateway has been greatly injured; it has are the gateways which lead to the cathedral pre- been recently repaired-but no care is taken to precincts. The oldest and finest of these is that dedicated serve the rich carved work, which the boys of the to St. Ethelbert, of which we give an engraving. It neighbouring school daily spend a part of their playwas constructed by the citizens as part of their atone- hours in pelting with large stones, to the exceeeding ment for the mischief they did in the great riot of amusement of the passers by. Erpingham Gate is 1272, when among other things they destroyed the much inferior as a work of art, but is in far better Church of St. Ethelbert, which stood on the spot now preservation than St. Ethelbert's Gate. It consists occupied by the gateway. Over the arch is a chapel, of a very lofty arch, round the mouldings of which are but it has not been used as a place of worship since thirty-eight small statues within canopied niches. A the Reformation. The lower part, which is the statue of the builder, in a kneeling position, is placed original building, is of stone; the upper part is com- over the centre of the gate. Other statues, with paratively recent, and is constructed of black flint, animals, flowers, and different figures, are spread over inlaid rather curiously with stone-work. In the the surface. The gate was erected by Sir Thomas spandrels of the arch is sculptured a representation Erpingham, in 1428, as part of the penance enjoinof St. George attacking the dragon. Above this is a ed on him for having adopted the principles of series of niches with crocketed canopies. The central | Wickliffe. |