VOL. III. RICHMOND, JUNE, 1837. No. VI. T. W. WHITE, Editor and Proprietor. AND THE VIRGINIA HOUSE OF DELEGATES. $5 PER ANNUM. BRITISH HOUSE OF COMMONS, without feeling that they must be respected. The quainted with their acquirements and habits of life, school in which they are trained is the vast and complicated domestic scene of an empire that ramifies to the ends of the earth, that has to do with the policies of all nations, and whose centre is the great focus of human society, of civilization, and of social influence. Mind acts on mind in London to sharpen the faculties, and to force it up to intensity and make it productive, as in no other part of the world. Every thing there tends to perfect human capabilities, and to elicit the greatest wealth of intellect, and the most stupendous results of moral power—at least to give birth to such results. And the British Parliament is the grand theatre. The members of that body are perfectly at home in their own sphere; they are at home in the nation; the whole world in its history and present actual condition is always under their eye. Nothing can surprise them, and they anticipate events. I happened some years ago to be spending a few days in Richmond, during the session of the Legislature. It was just after the adjournment of Congress, when I had spent the winter at Washington, attending almost every day the debates of one or the other of the two houses, or dropping down into the Supreme Court. I had also at sundry times been a spectator of the doings of some half of the state legislatures of the Union, at the north, middle, and west. Comparison in such a case was natural, and I was struck with some peculiar traits in the Virginia Legislature, as differing from every other, and scarcely less from Congress. Between the Virginians and the north-men there was a wide variance. Since that time I have attended more or less for a series of years the debates of the British Parliament. In the House of Commons I imagined I Of course it is not to be supposed that there is any found almost an exact type of the Virginia House of thing in the Commonwealth of Virginia so stirring in Delegates. I have often attempted to philosophize its interests, or so active in the formations and perfecupon it in the way of query, how this should happen? tion of talent, as in the field and centre of the British and have thought it possible it might not be unwelcome, Empire. But if 1 mistake not there are things very if I should send you a few of my reflections on the sub-like to each other in both. In Virginia the men destined ject. You know of what materials the British House of Commons is composed. For example in 1834, the members holding commissions in the army were 64; in the navy 19; lawyers 71; persons in trade 82; literary men 6; of no profession 416. Total 658. As high birth and gentility for the most part take precedence in the offices and places at the gift of the British government, it will be obvious, as well as for other reasons, that the two first classes are cultivated, gallant, and accomplished men. Their commissions are prima facie evidence of some merit; and in addition to this they ordinarily have been able to assert some strong rival claims of personal character to be put in requisition and returned to Parliament. Lawyers, especially such as could command so much popular influence as to obtain a seat in Parliament by suffrage, may be set down as men of talent. Those of the fourth class, connected with trade, when raised to the dignity of legislators, are generally selected both for their wealth and standing in society, earned by an industrious and successful career in the more extended branches of commerce. They are men of character and of great practical talent. Mere literary pursuits seem to furnish but a meager proportion. The majority appear to be of the gentry, sons of the nobility and other men of leisure, whose family connexions, or wealth, or other considerations have given them a prominence in society. Take them as a whole, they are men of high culture, and of varied and eminent accomplishments. Now and then they have a fool; as for example, " orator Hunt, the honorable member for Preston." But, nil mortuis nisi bonum. It is impossible, however, to come in near contact with that body, to witness their deliberations, and be ac for public life are ordinarily of the best families; if not born to fortune they are somehow nursed in its lap; they are well bred, and well educated (I believe there is a difference between the two); they are early inspired with chivalrous notions, which contribute to the formation of a lofty character; they are always in society, and in good society; they are trained to a variety of manly exercises and field sports, which invigorate the physical and moral powers; they are Virginia patriots, cherishing impartiality and pride in their own state; every man has an equal fondness for his own country, and the centre of his being is the estate that has come down from his ancestors, associated with its history and the dear ones now living there; and the Virginia gentleman has never been doomed to that toil which wears out the physical being, and which makes the mind as well as the body stoop. Like unto these are the habits and character of the English gentry. The Virginians, indeed, to a great extent, are the genuine English stock of the better classes; they came with English feelings, and their children have retained them, so far as national and political quarrels have not operated in a different direction; their associations are a la mode Anglaise; their manners of the same original stamp; their family pride the same; they have the same watchful care and affection for their heraldic ensigns; the family plate and furniture goes down from generation to generation; their counties and towns are either of the same denomination, or bear the most noted names of English royalty, nobility, heroes, and statesmen; every where in Virginia one is reminded of England. Their political, civil, and social fabric throughout, monarchy excepted, is on the same model. The courts and law books of England, bating all anti-repub VOL. III.-43 lican features, are nearly the same with those of Virginia. Popular elections and magisterial appointments are conducted in a similar manner. They have the same church and liturgy. The organization of the Virginia legislature, and their modes of doing business, are a copy of the British Parliament; and the Speaker of the House of Delegates in his high back chair, the gown and wig wanting, could not fail to remind one of Manners Sutton, now Lord Canterbury, in the Chair of St. Stephens, before this notable structure was buried in the ruins of the late conflagration. SONNETS. TO SUMMER. Ay, thou art welcome--Summer, bright and glad! Summer's come! QUILLON. It is a scene of grandeur: swift and bright Can it be wonderful, therefore, that one who has seen both these assemblies, listened to their debates, and observed their feelings, and manners, should make a study of the points of likeness, and mark how the one has grown out of the other, and been cast in the same mould? I am not a Virginian, Sir, but a North-man; but I admire both the English and Virginia character in many of the points to which I have attended. I could not desire to see these traits obliterated. They command my respect, and I feel that they are great and noble. You and those about you, who were bred in Virginia, will best know, whether one who has seen and known but little of you, has rightly discerned in these matters. Doubtless you will discover that his vision is imperfect and indistinct; but has he not drawn the portrait in some essential and proud points? For one I say, let In liquid sheen and spray-cloud's varied light :— the primitive Virginia character be held fast and che-Dark pines, like sable plumes, wave o'er its height, rished; let the highest and purest model of our English And caves yawn round with darken'd mouths wide spread, ancestry be maintained. Say what we will, there is much in old England worthy of our respect; and I may add, of our imitation. The time, I trust, has gone by, when political animosities and national prejudice will not allow us to see any good in that quarter. After all, the English are the freest people on earth; they are the highest in civilization; they have more domestic happiness than any other nation; the manners of their most cultivated classes are the simplest and purest; there is a higher order of morality, a sterner integrity, among them, than even we can boast of; and it is to be observed, that it is christianity, rightly understood and inculcated, that has secured to them this enviable distinction. 1 must confess, that the House of Representatives in our national Congress suffered in my view in comparison with the Virginia House of Delegates. I saw, or imagined I saw, in the latter, a oneness of character, a conformity of opinion, manners, and habits, growing out of a uniformity of education, and manner of life, with such diversity indeed as to impart life and expres sion to the picture, but which on the whole was very delightful to contemplate. Generally, too, there was the appearance of the gentleman-of the agreeable amenities and courtesies of life, shown off without pains, and therefore in the best way. Like the British House of Commons they appeared of one family. But there is a heterogeneousness in our national House of Representatives, which mars the beauty of such a picture; and I am sorry to add, some appearances of vulgarity. This results naturally and necessarily from the diversities of our national character; and there is no remedy for it. Whether it will be for good or for evil remains to be determined; though it must be a subject of some anxiety with the prophets of the future. A TRAVELLER. While over all the sun's red glance is shed. How, musingly, below, her warrior-lover stray'd, E. M. H. I had ever a penchant for burying grounds,-and in the yard of my old paternal church, where I was christened, married, and hope, when life's fever is over, to be buried, I have spent many an hour, strolling among the tombs, and recalling memories of those who were sleeping around me. In time, when I had learned by heart, and could repeat all those quaint old epitaphs, I began to wander farther, and to visit other similar receptacles, until, at length, I came to be called "Young Mortality," by my playmates and youthful companions, who had no sympathy with my fondness for church-yards; and I was left to pursue my fancy unchecked and undis turbed. and all the dust and bustle of the crowded thoroughfare, its woody glens and grassy slopes are gradually becoming the quiet resting-places of those who have "walked the way of nature," and, weary of the toil As I grew to manhood, the pursuits of business afforded me less time to devote to such idle wanderings, and by degrees I relinquished them. Yet still the old love of those quiet spots would haunt me; and often, in idle or forgetful mood, I have found my footsteps stray-some journey, are fain to lie down, and be at rest. ing towards those grassy enclosures, whither "That fell sergeant, Death, "So strict in his arrest," has for years been conveying his victims, until at length those silent cities of the dead are full, and the passing bell has ceased to knoll over their crowded, yet quiet abodes. "Sweet Auburn!" green be thy fields, and ever shady and quiet thy walks! May thy trees wave, thy flowers bloom, and thy streams flow, perennial, till the day when thou shalt be called to give up thy dead, at the sound of the archangel's trump! But I wander from my design in commencing this article, which was to relate an "ower true tale” of the dead. A country church-yard was ever most desolate and It was at mid-day, in a populous city. The churchcheerless to me. The population of our country towns yard wall separated the sleeping from the moving crowd. is so sparse, that it is necessary to choose a central I was wending my way along that busy and stirring position for the common place of sepulture, in order to thoroughfare, intent upon far other thoughts than remiaccommodate the wants of the whole; and thus too niscences such as I have been describing; when, just often the location is anything but picturesque or appro-as I passed the gate leading into the burial-ground, I priate. Gray's beautiful "Elegy in a Country Church- observed an assemblage of some eight or ten persons, yard," could never have been written in this hemis-gathered near a spot at the farther end of the yard, phere. But in our larger and more populous towns, in our cities, and in some of our larger villages, the case is widely different. Many churches have their own receptacles for those, who "Have felt the worst of death's destroying wound, And lie, full low, graved in the hollow ground.” where the soil appeared to have been freshly turned up. There seemed to be some object of curiosity transfixing them to the place; and, my old predilections reviving, I joined them. The sexton, they told me, had been required to open the tomb before which we were now standing, for the interment of one of the family to whom it appertained, and whose remains were to be placed there that day. Attempting to do this, he had thrown up the earth which covered the stone steps lead Trinity and St. Paul's in New York, the Granary and King's Chapel yards in Boston, are examples which almost all who read these recollections will remember.ing to the door of the vault, and had unlocked it. It Those stately trees, that long luxuriant grass, those hedges of thorn, that soft and secluded quiet in the midst of the noisy, bustling city; who has not enjoyed those sylvan retreats, and there held commune with the dead? seemed alike aghast at the fancied resistance, with which the sexton's attempt to open the vault had been met, and all alike seemed to expect some fearful termination to the adventure: opened outwards,—and he had been in the act of unclosing it, when he distinctly heard something which he took to be a living creature, moving against the door, inside the vault. Knowing that the door had not been opened for more than fifteen years, he was staggered, and, But I remember, also, many others, of simpler and in his momentary panic, refused to proceed further in a humbler pretension, where less mighty and less renown-duty, the performance of which he felt was about to tered names are chronicled upon monuments less proud minate in some fearful and revolting result. It was at that and costly than those which tower above those crowded moment that I joined the groupe. It was composed printombs. I have lain beneath a green and whispering cipally of persons of that idle, lounging class, ever so nuwillow, stretching its old branches over a range of hum-merously represented in the streets of a great city. All ble graves, not one of which bore other record of the head there "reposing on the lap of earth," than a simple slate slab, bearing the name, and age, and date of decease, with, perhaps, the addition of a rude verse, the simple tribute of some affectionate though unlearned friend. The moss of many years covered most of the mounds, and the simple stones had sunk sidelong into the hollows occasioned by the decay beneath. And in At my suggestion that the object of his alarm could those quiet retreats I have loitered for hours, and watch-be nothing living, as the tomb had, for so many years, ed the solemn yet simple procession, which was following some new inmate of this silent colony to his long repose, until I gradually learned to sympathize with the sad visitants in the performance of their sacred rites-and my presence came, at length, to be expected as one of the necessary accompaniments of these scenes in that old sylvan church-yard. "Sweet Auburn!" what a lovely spot is that selected from thy secluded retreats, by the people of yon fair city and its vicinage, for the repose of their dead! | How often, in years gone by, have I wandered there, amid those glades and vales, and wooded hill-tops, and thought how fitting was that retreat for the abode of the sleepers! And now, shut out from the city's noise, "Those linen cheeks of theirs Were counsellors to fear." as he very well knew, been closed, the sexton gathered courage, and, again descending the steps, took firm hold of the lock of the iron door. But still he hesitated to open it. I reiterated my arguments against his fears; and, at length, summoning all his courage, he boldly drew wide open the old door upon its rusty hinges. As he did so, there fell outwards, at his feet,-nay, upon them, as he stood on the stones,—a fleshless skeleton! The knee-joints bent downwards upon the edge of the lower step, which formed the sill of the iron door while closed. The arms were extended over the head, and fell beyond the skull, which rested on the last stair but one, while the finger-joints dropped upon the stair above. The skull was partially covered with long hair, plainly denoting the sex of the deceased. I noticed also that the teeth were very fine, and in a state of wonderful preservation. On the floor of the vault were strewed the decaying remains of a shattered coffin, that seemed to have fallen from a high niche in the side of the tomb, where others were ranged, entire, in black and mouldering array. sun shone brightly upon all the gay scene around, yet shed no ray to enliven that dark prison-house. The flowers were springing over her very head, and the summer breezes were blowing balmily among the waving trees whose branches kissed the very sod that covered her dreary abode. Yet not a scent of the violet, nor a breath of the zephyr could reach her, pacing in bitter agony the narrow floor of her living tomb. Friends were mourning her in their sad home, made desolate by her departure. Music had lost for them all charms, because her voice, which had alone to them sun, the balm-breathing air, the pale stars, the silver All these particulars were glanced at in a moment, and the whole story was thus revealed, as if by some terrible convulsion of nature. My simple companions stood around in speechless terror. The sexton seemed ready to sink, lifeless, into the tomb he had been open-seemed music, was mute. The blue sky, the warm ing for another. Never shall I forget the scene! Suggesting to the assemblage the propriety of preserv-moon, the song of birds,-all, all had lost their brighting silence upon the occurrence, at present, as being likely to create the most unhappy feelings, and to awaken the most poignant and unavailing regrets, in the bosoms of the numerous surviving relatives of the unfortunate deceased,-a -a suggestion which I have the happiness of believing was so far followed, as to prevent the unfortunate consequences I apprehended in making it,-I advised the sexton to restore the remains with decency to the tomb, and to leave all as it was, apparently, to the eye of those who were unacquainted with the terrible truth. This was done,-the new tenant, for whom this fearful opening had been made, was deposited in that sad receptacle, on the same day; and the seal of that tomb has never since been broken. As I walked out of the churchyard, how full was my mind of conjectures and imaginings, as to the fate of the unfortunate person, whose remains, after fifteen years' confinement in the cold and dismal tomb, had just fallen, as if supplicating for release, at my feet! The sexton had informed me, that the last person buried there was a lady, of about twenty two years of age, who was married a year prior to her decease, and whose death was thought, at the time, to have been occasioned by some disease of the heart, superinduced by imprudence in the manner of dressing. And thither she had been carried, during a temporary suspension of animation, from all the cheerfulness of her once happy home, where she was surrounded by smiling faces, and every charm that could render domestic life a continuous scene of joy and sunshine,-to the cold, dark, dreary vaults of a charnel-house! Oh! what a waking must have been hers! Confined within the narrow limits of a coffin,-arrayed in the robes of the dead,-the companion of the mouldering dust of the departed,-doomed to a slow, lingering, miserable,-perhaps a maddened and desperate death! Methought, as I went on my musing way, methought I could see her, with almost superhuman energy, bursting open her horrible prison, and tearing off the revolting cerements in which she had been wrapped, and, applying herself to the iron door of her living tomb, attempting to break it from its hinges, screaming the while, in agony, for succour,-alas! alas! how vainly! Those crowded streets, full of gay and laughing beings, many of whom had been her once familiar friends,-the costly dwellings standing around, even within sight of her wretched dungeon, and resounding with all the varied tones, that betoken happiness and good cheer;-could not her voice, once so welcome in those streets and in those halls, now penetrate them, and bring relief to her, whose lightest wish once all flew with alacrity to gratify? Ah no! The ness, their softness, and their beauty now for them: for she was not there to share and to embrace those once cherished delights. But where was she the while,and on what were all her thoughts intent, this soft and delicate one,-the chosen and cherished, the lost and lamented, of so many fond and faithful hearts? Separated from them, and from life, and from happiness, only by a few feet of earth,-struggling to free herself from the confinement of a premature grave, and to rush into their bereaved and despairing bosoms:-passed by, daily, without concern, by hundreds who once loved, and who still mourned her! The living lying down with the dead! Languishing, starving, stifling, among the noisome vapors of a charnel-house! The buried, yet the quick! What a lesson, writ on the great page of life's constantly unfolding volume! And yet, stranger, I doubt you have read it less as a lesson than as a legend! A STORY OF GOD'S JUDGMENT.* BY W. GILMORE SIMMS. I A Grand-dam, by the cottage door, II "A tale of God's own judgment, child, And punishment was done-- *This story, in its first rude draught, was published some few has undergone the revision of the author in some considerable years ago, but in a journal then of very limited circulation. It respects, and is now, perhaps, more worthy the consideration of the reader. |