ty, of the school-boy and the man, of the peer and the peasant. The reason of this is obvious. Crusoe is nature herself speaking in her own language on her own most favorite and intelligible topics. Art is no where present, she is discarded for matters of higher and more general interest. While the poet and the scholar appeal to the select few, Defoe throws himself abroad on the sympathies of the world. His subject, he feels, will bear him out; the strongest instincts of humanity will plead trumpet-tongued in his favor. Despite the extraordinary moral and intellectual changes that a new fashion of society, a new mode of writing and thinking, have wrought in England, "Robinson Crusoe "still retains (though partially dimmed) his reputation, and the reader who can unmoved peruse his adventures, may assure himself that the fault of such indifference lies with him; Defoe is wholly guilt less. For ourselves, the bare recollection of this tale brings before our minds sympathies long since resigned, and which otherwise might be altogether forgotten. We remember, as though it were an event of yesterday, our first perusal of "Robinson Crusoe." We remember the sloping green in front of the grey abbey wall, where we sate thrilled with wonder and a vague sense of horror, at the print of the unknown savage's feet on the deserted island, which the solitary mariner discovered in one of his early wanderings. We remember the strong social sympathies that sprung up within us the birth, as it were, of a new and better existence- -as we read how from being utterly desolate, Robinson Crusoe gradually found himself the companion of one or two associates, rude indeed, and uncultivated, but men like himself, and therefore the fittest mates of his solitude. We remember (and how few tales beloved in boyhood can bear the severe scrutiny of the 54 ATHENEUM, VOL. 5, 3d series. man!) the generous warmth with which he entered into the feelings of the sailor, as he saw his little colony-including the goats, who were grown so tame that they would approach at his call and suffer him to penn them at night in their fold-gradually augmenting round him, and at last springing up into a limited monarchy, of which he was the head. We remember too-for no gratification is without its alloy-we remember the acute regret we experienced when feuds and ambitious feelings began to spring up within the bosom of that colony, where Astræa, driven from all other parts of earth, should have taken up her abode, and Peace sate throned as on a sepulchre. Will it be believed that this tale, so perfect in its descriptions-so affecting in its simplicity-so entirely and incorruptibly natural-was refused by almost every bookseller in the metropolis? Yet strange as it may seem, this was actually the fact. "Robinson Crusoe " was hawked about through the trade as a work of neither mark nor livelihood, and at last accepted, as a proof of especial condescension, by an obscure retail bookseller. It is singular, but not less true-and we leave our readers to draw their own inference from the fact that almost every book of any pretensions to originality has been similarly neglected. "Paradise Lost" with difficulty found a publisher, while the whole trade vied with each other in their eagerness to procure the works of such dull mechanical writers as Blackmore and Glover; "Gulliver's Travels" lay ten years in MS. for want of due encouragement from the booksellers; and in our own times, and in a lighter branch of literature, the "Miseries of Human Life," and the still more ingenious "Rejected Addresses," were refused by the trade with indifference, if not contempt. To crown the list of works thus misunderstood, Sir W. Scot has left it on record that "Waverley" was actually declined three several times by the acutest publisher of his day; and at last ushered into the world, after it had lain twelve years unnoticed in its author's desk, with doubt, hesitation, and indifference. Credite posteri! excites a new emotion; whoever strikes a chord in the world's heart never struck before; he is the only Inventer, the only sterling Original. It is in this sense that we style Shakspeare for all his plots, and the ground-work of the majority of his characters, are borrowed-a creator; in this sense also we give Wordsworth, and Scott, among the moderns, credit for that same high attribute. To invent is to look into oneself, to draw from one's own heart materials for the world's sympathy. This Defoe has done throughout his "Robinson Crusoe." The "Adventures of Alexander Selkirk " are the mere pegs on which he has hung his painting; the grouping on the canvass itself the light and shade of character and description It was objected to "Robinson Crusoe," on its publication, when to doubt its other merits was impossible, that it had no claims to originality; that, in fact, it was a mere transcript of the "Adventures of Alexander Selkirk." Of all objections to books of value, none are more common, none more vulgar than this. True originality lies not in the mechanical invention of incident and circumstance-else who more original than a high-flown startling melodramatist ?-but in the development of incident-the creating new matter for thought and feeling; in exploring the untried depths of the heart; in multiplying the sources of sympathy. Whoever fine tone of feeling and simplicity that pervades and mellows the entire composition-these are all essentially his own. BLOOMFIELD. THE frequency of the development of literary talent among shoemakers has often been remarked. Their occupation being a sedentary and comparatively noiseless one, may be considered as more favorable than some others to meditation; but, perhaps, its literary productiveness has arisen quite as much from the circumstances of its being a trade of light labor, and therefore resorted to, in preference to most others, by persons in humble life who are conscious of more mental talent than bodily strength.-Partly for a similar reason, literary tailors have been numerous. We may mention the Italian writer Gelli, our learned countrymen Hill and Wild, &c.; and to these we might add many others, as, for example, George Ballard, author of "Memoirs of Learned British Ladies," and who made himself a good Saxon scholar while practising his trade; the antiquaries Stow and Speed, who both flourished in the sixteenth century, the former the author of "The Survey of London," and other very elaborate works, and the latter of a valuable History of Great Britain; and the late celebrated mathematician, Jean Henri Lambert, who, when young, after working all day with his father, who was a tailor, used often to spend the greater part of the night in reading, and in this manner, by the assistance of an old work which came by chance into his possession, instructed himself in the elements of mathematical science. Of literary shoemakers again, or persons who have contrived to make considerable progress in book-learning, while exercising that handicraft, we may notice, among others, Benedict Baudouin, Anthony Purver, Joseph Pendrell, Gifford, and Holcroft. We may add to the list that extraordinary character Jacob Behmen, the German mystic, of whose works we have an English translation, in two volumes quarto, and who continued a shoemaker all his life. But Bloomfield, before entering upon the exercise of this trade, had had the education of his faculties begun while following the equally contemplative, and much more poetical occupation of a keeper of sheep-a condition, the leisure and rural enjoyment of which had fed the early genius of the painter Giotto, the logician Ramus, the mechanician Ferguson, the linguist Murray, and many others of the lights of modern literature and art, as in the ancient world it is said to have done that of the poet Hesiod. Bloomfield's literary acquirements, however, with the exception of his acquaintance with the mere elements of reading and writing, appear to have been all made during the time he was learning the business of a shoemaker, and afterwards while he worked at the same business as a journeyman. posed the work which first made his talents generally known, and for which principally he continues to be remembered, his "Farmer's Boy." It is a curious fact, that, notwithstanding the many elements of disturbance and interruption in the midst of which the author must in such a situation have had to proceed through his task, nearly the half of this poem was completed before he committed a line of it to paper. This is an instance of no common powers, both of memory and of selfabstraction. But these faculties will generally exist in considerable strength when the mind feels a strong interest in its employment. They are faculties also which practice is of great use in strengthening. Bloomfield's feat, on this occasion, appears to have amounted to the composing and recollecting of nearly six hundred lines without the aid of any record; and the production of all this poetry, in the circumstances that have been mentioned, perhaps deserves to be accounted a still more wonderful achievement It was while he sat plying his trade in his garret, in Bell Alley, with six or seven other workmen around him, that Bloomfield com- than its retention. THE GATHERER. Sir Humphry Davy-WHENEVER he was deeply absorbed in a chemical research, it was his habit to hum some tune, if such it could be called, for it was impossible for any one to discover the air he intended to sing: indeed Davy's music became a subject of raillery amongst his friends; and Mr. Children informs us, that during an excursion, they attempted to teach him the air of God save the King; but their efforts were perfectly unavailing. "It may be a question," continues his biographer, "how far the following fact with which I have just been made acquainted, admits of explanation upon this principle (want of ear). On entering a volunteer infantry corps, commanded by a Captain Ocnam, Davy could never emerge from the awkward squad; no pains could make him keep the step; and those who were so unfortunate as to stand before him in the ranks, ought to have been heroes invulne rable in the heel. This incapacity, as may be readily supposed, occasioned him considerable annoyance; and he engaged a sergeant to give him private lessons; but all to no purpose. In the platoon exercise he was not more expert; and he whose electric battery was destined to triumph over the animosity of nations, could never be taught to shoulder a musket in his native town." Anti-Slavery Petitions.-If we had more respect for the Anti-Slavery politicians than we can bring ourselves to feel, it would be prodigiously diminished by their incessant attempts to make "the ladies' ridiculous. We speak of the "politicians;" for we fully believe that there are many well-intentioned people involved in these applications. Our aversion is for the demure gentlemen who turn these honest people into instruments for purposes as worldly as ever passed through the brain of a Treasury whipper-in. But their efforts to make the women of England parties in their roguery, are intolerable; and while we declare that a "female president, treasurer, and secretary," are a combination of monstrosities in our eyes, hardly less startling than the three heads of Cerberus, yet this offensive foolery is urged on in every village where half a dozen spinsters can be conglomerated over their tea; they fancy themselves into public characters, and in due time forth comes an address, painted by the last pupil of the drawing-school, and pinned up in silver paper by the dowager saint of the sisterhood. Thus we learn that "the petition to the Queen from the ladies of Derby, praying her Majesty to extend her influence to procure the abolition of slavery in our colonies, has received about 1200 signatures. The petition is beautifully written, and enclosed between two richly-embossed card-boards. One of them is ornamented by the figure of a liberated female slave, in Indian ink, exquisitely executed by a young lady of that town.'" They ought to be put on a short allowance of rouge and flirtation for the next six months. Superstition. The following little anecdote shows that the great English chemist of the 19th century was not more exempt from a childish superstition on some occasions, than the great English lexicographer of the 18th century. "Mr. Underwood informs me, that on the 17th Nov. (1813), he met Humboldt at dinner at Sir Humphry Davy's hotel; and adds: I do not know whether you are aware that Davy had a superstitious dislike at seeing a knife and fork placed crosswise on a plate at dinner, or upon any other occasion; but I can assure you such was the fact; and when it occurred in the company of his intimate friends, he always requested that they might be displaced whenever this could not be done, he was evidently very uncomfortable.'" Russia-In one of the foreign scientific journals there is a calculation, according to which the Russian empire exceeds the terra firma in the moon by 123,885 square leagues. The diameter of the moon is 893 leagues; the surface is therefore 2,505,261 square leagues. If in the moon, as in our earth, the fluid part, which we call sea, covers two-thirds of the surface, only 835,087 square leagues remain for the terra firma. Now, according to calculations made in the year 1818, the Russian em. pire extends over a surface of 958,972 square leagues, the possessions in America included; consequently the excess remains as above stated. According to another calculation, the Russian empire extends over 174° of longitude, and 36 1-2° of latitude. It contains about 2-19th parts of the terra firma, the 14th part of our hemisphere, and the 28th part of our earth, Its population is about 45,271,469 souls; one million of savages, and 340,000 noble. men, not included. A Generous Singer and a Generous Tai Lor-Farinelli, the Italian opera-singer, whose voice and abilities seem to have 86 surpassed the limits of all anterior vocal excellence, having ordered a superb suit of clothes for a gala at court, when the tailor brought it home, he asked him for his bill. "I have made no bill, sir," says the tailor, nor ever shall make one. Instead of money," continued he, "I have a favor to beg. I know that what I want is inestimable, and only fit for monarchs; but since I have had the honor to work for a person of whom every one speaks with rapture, all the payment I shall require will be a song." Farinelli tried in vain to prevail on the tailor to take his money. At length, after a long debate, giving way to the humble entreaties of the tradesman, and flattered perhaps more by the singularity of the adventure than by all the applause he had hitherto received, he took him into his music-room, and sung to him some of his most brilliant airs, taking pleasure in the astonishment of his ravished hearer; and the more he seemed surprised and affected, the more Farinelli exerted himself in every species of excellence. When he had done, the tailor, overcome with ecstacy, thanked him in the most rapturous and grateful manner, and prepared to retire. No," said Farinelli, "I am a little proud; and it is perhaps from that circumstance that I have acquired some small degree of superiority over other singers; I have given way to your weakness, it is but fair that in your turn you should indulge me in mine;" and taking out his purse, he insisted on his receiving a sum amounting to nearly double the worth of the suit of clothes. Description of an Aide-de-Camp's Duties. When carrying orders, let your eye he directed to the very point aimed at. You have nothing to do with the flying shots, if they have nothing to do with you. If you should lose your horse, travel on foot. If you should lose a leg, you must hop on one. If you should lose both, you must try how you can travel on the other extremity. But should you lose your head, you had better stop, for you cannot deliver a verbal message. Should an aide-decamp have a sealed message, and find his escape from the enemy quite impossible, it is better that he should eat the written command, than that the enemy should digest it. During one of the engagements I was in, says Shipp, with the 87th regiment, the bugler was ordered to sound a retreat. He replied, "I never learnt it, your honor, "And why?" said the captain. "Please your honor," was the answer, "the boys told me it would be of no use." An Irish soldier, who was in the Duke of York's retreat from Dunkirk, being asked how they retreated, replied, "Sure we did not retreat at all, at all." "Well," said the gentleman, "how did you get to your shipping?" "Why, by an eschellon movement, sideways!" |