THE

AMERICAN MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

JULY, 1837.

NOTORIOUS CHARACTERS,

AND CHARACTERS OF NOTE.

"And make them men of note!"-Shakspeare.

"THE world knows nothing of its greatest men," says the author of Philip Van Artavelde. The world will be better able to appreci ate the sagacity of the poet's observation after having seen our series of "Notorious Characters and Characters of Note." The world, indeed, cannot be said to know nothing of its great men, but how little does it know of its greatest men! Some of "the few, the immortal names" we shall mention, are indeed recognized as great, but not as the greatest! Is Martin Van Buren as great as John Williams? Is Mr. Senator Webster as great as Dr.

Graham? Is the
For, if it were,

sublime as great as the ridiculous? Certainly not. then there would be more sublime than ridiculous people in the world, and every body knows the contrary to be the fact.

"Some

are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." "Here follows prose," said Malvolio, when about to read this often-cited passage--and prove it is as much as our first quotation is poetry. Our series will primarily include those who were born great, and those who have achieved greatness; and, by and by, we shall add "a chosen tally of the singular few" who have had greatness thrust upon them. Let every person of both sexes, who considers himself or herself as belonging to either of the three classes, instantly subscribe to, and pay for the American Monthly-for though we shall

"Nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice,"

yet shall we not be more complimentary to such as subscribe yet

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owe us no subscription," than to those who subscribe yet "owe

VOL. X.

1

us subscription;" or to that still more reprehensible class who will neither subscribe nor "owe subscription ?"

In thirty or forty years we hope to make our gallery so complete that posterity may possess the likeness of every celebrated individual of the nineteenth century. We pause no longer "in limine," but present the expectant reader with

Portly Mr. Williams! It is a privilege to look upon such greatness as yours-though only "done in little," by that curious "scrap". scraper, Johnston, who has hitherto set the country in a roar by an annual exhibition of fun,* but who is now engaged monthly to illuminate the pages of this, our world-renowned periodical, by engraved "flashes of merriment!" Look at him! Eyes--observe the oculist. There he stands, with greater self-possession than that of the elderly gentleman by the side of a murmuring stream, for he holds, as Counsellor Phillips's Napoleon did a sword and a fire-brand, his hat "in one hand" and his cane "in the other." But, to get fairly at the position in which the artist has chosen to represent the occult oculist, we must aspire to the honour of becoming his memorialist, and ecstatify the world by a recountal of a few of the adventures of one, concerning whom it might with peculiar appositeness be said—

"He was a man, take him for all in all,
Eye shall not look upon his like again."

To give his biography would be a task of unnecessary supererogation. To tell who and what he is, we need not; for, "breathes there a man" in our country "with soul so dead," so obscure, so willing to be argued unknown, as not to be familiar with "the fame of the name" of the celebrated John Williams, oculist in ordinary to Louis XVIII., Charles X. and King Phillippe !-Not his Indian Highness-but Phillippe, king of the French-Phillippe the cool, who stands as little in awe of his evil genius as did Brutus of oldPhilippe the more than Ajax invulnerable, who defies all manner of

* Vide "Scraps by D. C. Johnston," Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, passim, not pass him.