fusion and of individual exertion which characterizes her system and her habits, has extended to her marine, which exists, as yet, merely as a corps of partisans, rather than as a great naval army. At this moment, she ought to have a fleet of six or eight line-of-battle-ships collected and practising for the purposes of comparison and discipline. The cost would be insignificant in comparison with the benefits. Any man who ever saw five ships in company a few days from port, and these same ships three months out, will understand the immense difference that is produced in their combined physical powers, by means of practice; and it is only by this combined physical power that great results are to be attained. Notwithstanding all the reviewer's friendly professions, it is easy to see his production is the work of one inimical to this country; and the truth he utters in this respect, as a taunt, is not the less a truth because it comes from an enemy.

[The authorship of the preceding article is too transparent on its face to escape the observation of any reader. Although a departure from our usual course, we have allowed some passages in its conclusion, materially different from what would have been our own language, to go unmodified, in the confidence that they would be received as conveying the sentiments of the able author of the "Naval History of the United States" on the subject of War, rather than those of the Democratic Review-which have been freely declared on more than one occasion within the past year. The absence of that gentleman, together with the pressure of time in the passage of the article through the press, precluded the opportunity of personal consultation with a view to any such changes or suppressions. It may be proper also to mention, that the same cause has prevented the usual submission of the proof-sheets to the author's eye-occasioning, probably, some typographical errors claiming the indulgence of the reader.]--ED. D. R.

1

IMPROMPTU,

WRITTEN ON THE PALM OF A SMALL WHITE GLOVE.

No realm that e'er owned monarch's sway

Hath stretched so far o'er wave and land,

But that I'd cast it all away

For that of this dear little hand!

And even though it rise to smite,

I only pray to be allowed,

As pious Christian, loyal Knight,
Humbly to kneel and "kiss the rod !"

THE SONG OF THE GALLANT MAN.

FROM THE GERMAN OF BURGER.

BY H. GATES.

HIGH rings the song of the Gallant Man,

Like the organ's tone and the churchbell's chime; Who lofty deeds can proudly span,

Deserves not gold, but heroic rhyme.

Bless God, that to sing and praise I can-
To sing and to praise the Gallant Man.

The thaw-wind comes from the noon-day-sea,*
And puffs through Italy thick and wet;
The clouds in flocks before him flee

Like sheep by the hungry wolf beset:

He lashes the fields and crashes the woods,
And the ice bursts forth from the lakes and floods.

On the mountain's top dissolves the snow;

The rush of a thousand waters sound;

The meadow becomes a sea below,

And in torrents all the vale is drowned. High roll the billows, across their course, And rocks of ice with mightiest force.

On pillar, and arch, and heavy pier,

Of quarried stone, from base to hood,

A bridge lay over the river here,

And midway a little cottage stood.

Here dwelt the tollman with child and wife-
Oh, Tollman! Tollman! fly for life!

They threaten and threaten with hollow clang;

Loud howl the storm and waves about;

Too late the affrighted tollman sprang,

And gazed from his roof on the scene without.

"Oh! merciful Heaven! Oh, pity thou! Lost! all lost! Who shall succor now!"

The clods roll down, leap after leap,
From either shore, on left and right,
From either shore, the billows sweep

Pillar from arch,—in vain is flight!

And the trembling tollman, with wife and child,
Howls louder than the storm-wind wild!

* The Mediterranean :-" Mittagsmeer.”

The clods roll down, heap after heap,
On either end, both left and right;
And pillar by pillar away they sweep,
Before the torrent's strengthening might.
And ruin approaches the middle now:
"Oh! merciful Heaven! Oh, pity thou!"

High on the far-off bank there stands
A swarm of gazers, great and small;
And each one cries and wrings his hands,
But none may rescue from that thrall,
The trembling tollman, with wife and child,
Who howl for help through the storm-wind wild!

Song of the Gallant Man sing'st thou? When?—
Like organ's tone and church bell's chime-
Go on! So name him,-name him-then!

When namest thou him, my gentlest rhyme?
The ruin approaches with fearful waste—

O, Gallant Man! Gallant Man! haste thee, haste!

Quick galloped on lofty steed, thereby,

A noble Count, serene and bold,

What holds the Count in his hand on high?
'Tis a heavy purse, stretched full of gold—
"Two hundred pistoles to him who dare
To rescue the trembling sufferers there!"

Who's the Gallant Man?

The Count? Is't he?

Say on, my noble song,-have done!

The Count was gallant, by Heaven! but see!
I know a gallanter, braver one!

And the ruin goes on, with fearful waste

O, Gallant Man! Gallant Man! haste thee, haste!

And ever louder puffed the gale,

And ever higher swelled the foam,

And ever deeper sank, to fail,

The hope that a succorer yet would come;
While pillar by pillar sank in the flood,

To the crumbling arch where the cottage stood.

"Halloo! Halloo! Fresh, brave! draw near !"
Again the Count held his prize on high;
Though each one heard, each shrank with fear,
And of thousands not one ventured nigh!

In vain for rescue, with wife and child,
The tollman howled through the storm wind wild.

Lo! humble and true, a farmer's lad,

With travelling staff, came boldly forth;

In frock of rustic coarseness clad,

And gait and mien of honest worth. He heard the Count-he took his pledge,

And gazed on the scene from the torrent's edge.

And quick, in God's name, firm and strong,
He sprang in the nearest fisher's boat;
Through eddy, and storm, and billows-throng,
He warily kept his craft afloat;

But ah! the boat was all too small

To save at once the sufferers all!

And thrice he pushed his little boat

Through billow, and eddy, and tempest's roar, And thrice he warily kept afloat,

Till every soul was safe on shore;

And scarcely the last on the firm earth stood,
Ere the last arch fell and sank in the flood!

And where is the Gallant Man? tell me, who?
Say on, my noble song, and bold!
The farmer-boy risked one life, 'tis true;-
And risked he that for clink of gold?
Had the Count withheld his prize of pelf,
Would the farmer-boy have risked himself?

"Here," cried the Count, "my vigorous one, Here is thy prize; 'tis thine,-the whole !" Say on; was that not bravely done?

By Heavens, the Count has a noble soul! But a nobler—a heavenlier-swells the breast That beats in the farmer-boy's homely vest!

"My life for gold was never sold;

I eat and drink my fill, though poor; But such is not the tollman's lot;

Give him who needs-I ask no more." So spake he, with hearty and firm intent; Then turned his back, and away he went.

High ring'st thou, Song of the Gallant Man,

As the organ's tone and the churchbell's chime! Who deeds like this can proudly span,

Deserves not gold, but heroic rhyme. And blessed be God, if in song I can

Make deathless the praise of the Gallant Man!

EARLY LIFE OF JEREMY BENTHAM.*

In a former number of this Magazine,† we took occasion to express our views of the philosophical merits-in the departments both of morals and legislation—of the great founder of the Utilitarians. We are happy to be able, by the receipt of an early number of the first part of Mr. Bowring's Memoir of him, to furnish our readers with some traits of his personal character. This might have been done before from the "Recollections" of Dumont, and from the various sketches and notices of the English Reviewers, but not with so much satisfaction and detail as it is now in our power to do it, from the more authentic materials gathered by his friend and literary executor, Mr. Bowring.

There is a part of the life of all distinguished men which is generally the most interesting, but with which the public, notwithstanding all their curiosity, are seldom made acquainted. We mean their youth and early education. Nothing can be more agreeable than to know how those who have come to exert an important influence over the minds of mankind, or on the destinies of society, comported themselves before they began to attract the attention of the world-when, free from the consciousness of observation, they acted freely, and gave a loose rein to the native bent of their dispositions, unawed and untrammelled by the conventionalities and restraints of our forced social existence. How eagerly we catch at all the traits of the childhood of great men, which either tradition or history has preserved! How we pore over the lessons given by his mother to the infant Washington! With what a strange feeling of delight do we read of the fierce independence and inflexible energy of the military student of Brienne! And what treasures would we have given, had some school-companion, or brother playwright of Shakspeare, seen fit to let us know somewhat of his sports on the merry banks of the Avon, or his madcap pranks in the midnight streets of London! "Can we not," asks D'Israeli, speaking of the youth of genius, "in the faint lines of his youth, trace an unsteady outline of the man? In the temperament of genius, may we not reasonably look for certain indications or predispositions announcing the permanent character? Is not great sensibility born with its irritable fibres? And the unalterable being of intrepidity and fortitude, will he not, commanding even amid his sports, lead on his equals ?"

* The works of Jeremy Bentham, now first collected. Part XIX., containing Memoirs of Bentham, by John Bowring, including Autobiographical Conversations and Correspondence. Edinburgh, 1842.

† See Democratic Review for 1840.

VOL. X., No. XLVIII.—69