He drags the vile grub from the corn it devours, The worms from the webs, where they riot and welter; His song and his services freely are ours, And all that he asks is-in summer a shelter. The ploughman is pleased when he gleans in his train, Now searching the furrows-now mounting to cheer him; The gard'ner delights in his sweet, simple strain, And leans on his spade to survey and to hear him; The slow ling'ring schoolboys forget they'll be chid, While gazing intent as he warbles before them In mantle of sky-blue, and bosom so red, That each little loiterer seems to adore him. When all the gay scenes of the summer are o'er, And autumn slow enters so silent and sallow, And millions of warblers, that charm'd us before, Have fled in the train of the sun-seeking swallow; The bluebird, forsaken, yet true to his home, Still lingers, and looks for a milder to-morrow, Till forced by the horrors of winter to roam, He sings his adieu in a lone note of sorrow. While spring's lovely season, serene, dewy, warm, The green face of earth, and the pure blue of heaven, Or love's native music have influence to charm, Or sympathy's glow to our feelings are given, Still dear to each bosom the bluebird shall be; His voice, like the thrillings of hope, is a treasure, For, through bleakest storms, if a calm he but see, He comes to remind us of sunshine and pleasure! THE FISH-HAWK. This formidable, vigorous-winged, and well known bird, subsists altogether on the finny tribes that swarm in our bays, creeks, and rivers; procuring his prey by his own active skill and industry; and seeming no farther dependent on the land than as a mere resting place, or, in the usual season, a spot of deposit for his nest, eggs, and young. The fish-hawk is migratory, arriving on the coasts of New York and New Jersey about the 21st of March, and retiring to the south about the twentysecond of September. Heavy equinoctial storms may vary these periods of arrival and departure a few days; but long observation has ascertained, that they are kept with remarkable regularity. On the arrival of these birds in the northern parts of the United States, in March, they sometimes find the bays and ponds frozen, and experience a difficulty in procuring fish for many days. Yet there is no instance on record of their attacking birds, or inferior land animals, with intent to feed on them; though their great strength of flight, as well as of feet and claws, would seem to render this no difficult matter. But they no sooner arrive, than they wage war on the bald eagles, as against a horde of robbers and banditti; sometimes succeeding, by force of numbers, and perseverance, in driving them from their haunts, but seldom or never attacking them in single combat. The first appearance of the fish-hawk in spring, is welcomed by the fishermen, as the happy signal of the approach of those vast shoals of herring, shad, &c., that regularly arrive on our coasts, and enter our rivers in such prodigious multitudes. Two of a trade, it is said, seldom agree; the adage, however, will not hold good in the present case, for such is the respect paid the fish-hawk, not only by this class of men, but, generally, by the whole neighbourhood where it resides, that a person who should attempt to shoot one of them, would stand a fair chance of being insulted. This prepossession in favour of the fish-hawk is honourable to their feelings. They associate, with its first appearance, ideas of plenty, and all the gaiety of business; they see it active and industrious like themselves; inoffensive to the productions of their farms; building with confidence, and without the least disposition to concealment, in the middle of their fields, and along their fences; and returning, year after year, regularly to its former abode. * The regular arrival of this noted bird at the vernal equinox, when the busy season of fishing commences, adds peculiar interest to its first appearance, and procures it many a benediction from the fishermen. With the following lines, illustrative of these circumstances, I shall conclude its history: Soon as the sun, great ruler of the year, The long-housed fisherman beholds with joy, THE FISHERMAN'S HYMN. The osprey sails above the sound, The geese are gone, the gulls are flying; Raise high the song, and cheerly wish her, "God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher!" She brings us fish-she brings us spring, Good times, fair weather, warmth, and plenty, Fine store of shad, trout, herring, ling, Sheepshead and drum, and old-wives' dainty. Yo ho, my hearts! let's seek the deep, Ply every oar, and cheerly wish her, Still as the bending net we sweep, God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher!" She rears her young on yonder tree, She leaves her faithful mate to mind 'em ; Like us, for fish, she sails to sea, And, plunging, shows us where to find 'em. Yo ho, my hearts! let's seek the deep, Ply every oar, and cheerly wish her, While the slow bending net we sweep, "God bless the fish-hawk and the fisher!" JOHN EDMUND HARWOOD. HARWOOD, the actor, who came over to America with Wignell's company to Philadelphia, in 1793, was a writer of verses of ease and sweetness, a collection of which he published in New York in 1809. Dunlap, in his History of the American Stage, has given some pleasing reminiscences of the man in his account of the opening of the New York Theatre in 1803 : "John E. Harwood has been mentioned in the catalogue of the splendid company brought out to this country in 1793 for Philadelphia. He was a man endowed by nature with brilliant talents, and had received in every respect the edu cation of a gentleman. His Trapanti, Sir David Dunder, Lenitive, Dennis Brulgruddery, Canton, Gradus, Captain Ironsides, and a long list of characters, were superior to any man's, in our opinion, yet seen in this country: he was more like John Bannister than any other actor of the English stage. His Falstaff was the best in this country until Cooke played it, except,-and it is a most formidable exception,-that it was not sufficiently studied. In truth, self-indulgence was the ruin of Harwood, as of thousands on and off the stage. After his marriage, he had retired from the stage, and kept a bookstore and circulating library: this retirement from a profession in which he was qualified to shine was probably not his own choice. He read his books, and neglected his business. Booksellers should never read; if they do, they are lost. There are brilliant exceptions; but then they wrote also: they did not read merely for the gratification of reading, or to kill time, but to gain knowledge, and they exerted themselves to impart it. The venerable Matthew Carey is an instance in point. Harwood was a poet, and had in early life published a volume of verses. He was a man of wit, and the favorite of every company; never obtrusive, and always willing to take a joke or to give one. He was lazy, and became corpulent; the first disqualified him for all business, and rendered many of his new characters, after he returned to the stage, less perfect than they would have been; the second spoiled his appearance and action for high or genteel comedy, for a corpulent Michael Perez (and he played it well) should not be placed by the side of Cacofogo. John E. Harwood, off the stage, would have shone as a man of fortune, and he had a wife equally fitted to be a man of fortune's wife; but as unfit for a poor man's wife as he was for a poor man. The consequence was the return to the stage, which brings him again before the reader." In an Harwood's mood, in the volume of his verses before us, is of a genial, sentimental character, softly tuned to melancholy at the voice of the nightingale, or the full of the leaf; competent at ode and elegy, and gallantly assisted, in its highest animation, by the presence of the sex. "irregular ode" he rather irreverently speaks of himself as a 66 dangler on a petticoat;" a distinction which his constant attentions in verse to Emma, Myra, and other ladies, in their various humors, would seem fully to justify. There was delicacy in his Muse as he watched the fair ones with a fond affection; and sang his amiable songs after the manner of the gentleman of the olden time, in the age which was at its height at the beginning of the century. ODE TO INDOLENCE. Goddess of ense! whose all-lethargic sway Oh! take me, Goddess, to thy circling arms, O'er every thought infuse thy magic charms, TO MISS SY, ON RETURNING THE JUVENILIA OF WITHER. IV. Not to coquet with other men, But truly cherish one: My passion to return again, And smile on me alone; Though unreserved in discourse, and free, So shall I pleasure prove, To mine estate, Full worthy of my love. IN A WOOD. Meek Peace here holds her silent reign, Not all that makes the forest ring; THE FRIENDS TO THEIR OPPOSITE NEIGHBORS. Ah! forbear, in mercy, ladies! "Tis enough we own your sway; Neither such a hectoring blade is Longer on the field to stay. Mark'd by elegance and fashion, Not to love were to be blind; Soon, too soon, the subtle passion Chains an inexperienced mind. With such dext'rous art you wheedle, Half-averted looks and smiles, Hearts insnaring with your needle, Music, romping, and such wiles. Now, while mirth and harmless story Stay the lagging foot of time, We, your slaves, who much adore ye, Tell our loves in doggrel rhyme. Ladies, hear, in pity, hear us! Spare the anguish of each heart! Yield to love, you need not fear us, Few so young are vers'd in art. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. JOHN QUINCY, the son of John Adams, was born at the residence of his great-grandfather, John Quincy, in Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11, 1767. He was named John Quincy at the request of his grandmother, after this aged relative, who was dying at the time of his baptism. As his father was absent from home on public affairs the child's education devolved principally on his mother, one every way fitted for her important position. Every day, after saying his prayers, he was required to repeat the noble lines of Collins, commencing How sleep the brave who sink to rest, and the ode by the same author on the death of Colonel Charles Ross.* It was truly said of him This characteristic anecdote of his childhood was read a few years before his death by Mr. Adams to Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, from a letter which he had just written to John J. Gurney, of England. "He recited the lines," the narrator says, "with an expression and an energy which I shall never forget the tears coursing down his cheeks, and his voice, every now and then, choked with emotion." by Senator Davis, that "the cradle hymns of the child were the songs of liberty." In February, 1778, in his eleventh year, he accompanied his father on his mission to France. He was placed at school in Paris, where he remained until his return with his father after the conclusion of the treaty with America in 1779. "He is respected," writes his father the same year, "wherever he goes for his vigor and vivacity both of mind and body, for his constant good humor, and for his rapid progress in French, as well as for his general knowledge, which at his age is uncommon." In 1781 he was made private secretary to the Hon. Francis Dana, Minister to Russia. He remained at the embassy until October, 1782, when after a short tour he joined his father in Holland, in April, 1783. After the signature of the treaty of peace at Paris in the following September, he accompanied his father to England. In 1785 he returned home with a letter from his father to Benjamin Waterhouse, in which the son's acquirements are spoken of with a just pride :— TO BENJAMIN WATERHOUSE. He Auteuil, 24 April, 1785. This letter will be delivered you by your old acquaintance John Quincy Adams, whom I beg leave to recommend to your attention and favor. He is anxious to study some time at your university before he begins the study of the law, which appears at present to be the profession of his choice." must undergo an examination, in which I suspect he will not appear exactly what he is. In truth, there are few who take their degrees at college, who have so much knowledge. But his studies having been pursued by himself, on his travels, without any steady tutor, he will be found awkward in speaking Latin, in prosody, in parsing, and even, perhaps, in that accuracy of pronunciation in reading orations or poems in that language, which is often chiefly attended to in such examinations. It seems to be necessary, therefore, that I make this apology for him to you, and request you to communicate it in confidence to the gentlemen who are to examine him, and such others as you think prudent. If you were to examine him in English and French poetry, I know not where you would find anybody his supe rior; in Roman and English history, few persons of his age. It is rare to find a youth possessed of so much knowledge. He has translated Virgil's Eneil, Suetonius, the whole of Sallust, and Tacitus's Agricola, his Germany, and several books of his Annals, a great part of Horace, some of Ovid, and some of Caesar's Commentaries, in writing, besides a number of Tully's orations. These he may show you; and although you will find the translations in many places inaccurate in point of style, as must be expected at his age, you will see abundant proof that it is impossible to make those translations without understanding his authors and their language very well. In Greek his progress has not been equal; yet he has studied morsels in Aristotle's Poetics, in Plutarch's Lives, and Lucian's Dialogues, the choice of Hercules, in Xenophon, and lately he has gone through several books in Homer's Iliad. In mathematics I hope he will pass muster. In the course of the last year, instead of playing cards like the fashionable world, I have spent my evenings with him. We went with some accuracy through the geometry in the Preceptor, the eight books of Simpson's Euclid in Latin, and compared it, problem by problem, and theorem by theorem, with le père de Chales in French; we went through plane trigonometry and plane-sailing, Fenning's Algebra, and the decimal fractions, arithmetical and geometrical proportions, and the conic sections, in Ward's Mathematics. I then attempted a sublime flight, and endeavored to give him some idea of the differential method of calculation of the Marquis de L'Hôpital, and the method of fluxions and infinite series of Sir Isaac Newton; but alas! it is thirty years since I thought of mathematics, and I found I had lost the little I once knew, especially of these higher branches of geometry, so that he is as yet but a statterer, like his father. However, he has a foundation laid, which will enable him with a year's attendance on the mathematical professor, to make the necessary proficiency for a degree. He is studious enough, and emulous enough, and when he comes to mix with his new friends and young companions, he will make his way well enough. I hope he will be upon his guard against those airs of superiority among the scholars, which his larger acquaintance with the world, and his manifest superiority in the knowledge of some things, may but too naturally inspire into a young mind, and I beg of you, Sir, to be his friendly monitor in this respect and in all others. He was of course prepared for an advanced class at Harvard, and took his degree in 1787, the year after his admission. The subject of his Commencement oration was The Importance and Necessity of Public Faith to the Well-being of a Community. In 1790, after preliminary studies in the office of Theophilus Parsons at Newburyport, he commenced the practice of the law, which he continued, varying his occupation by occasional com munications, signed Publicola and Marcellus, in the Centinel, edited by Benjamin Russell, until his appointment as Minister to the Hague in 1794 by Washington, who in 1797 pronounced him "the most valuable public character we have abroad, and the ablest of all our diplomatic corps." In July of the same year he was married to Louisa, daughter of Joshua Johnson of Maryland, consular agent of the United States at London. He was soon after recalled by his father on his accession to the presidency. During his residence abroad he made a tour in Silesia. A number of letters, written to his brother during its progress, were published by the latter in the Portfolio, and were collected in a volume by a London publisher in 1804.* The work is divided into parts, one of which is devoted to a description, and the other to statistical information respecting the country. In 1801 he was elected to the state Senate, and in 1803 a member of the Senate of the United States. In 1808 he resigned his seat in consequence of the dissatisfaction of the state legislature with his advocacy of some of the measures of Jefferson's administration. He had previously, in 1806, been appointed Boylston Professor of Rhetoric in Harvard College, and continued the discharge of his duties until he resigned in 1809. In 1810 he published the lectures he had deli Letters on Silesia, written during a tour through that country in the years 1800, 1801, by His Excellency John Quincy Adams, then Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States to the Court of Berlin. and since a member of the American Senate. London: 1804. 8vo. pp. 887. vered in his courses.* In 1810 he was appointed by Madison Minister to Russia, where he remained until 1815, when with Clay, Bayard, Russell, and Gallatin he negotiated the treaty of peace with England at Ghent, and was appointed minister to that country in the same year by Madison. In 1817 he returned home, was appointed Secretary of State by Monroe, and remained in office eight years, when he was himself chosen to the presidency by the House of Representatives, on whom the choice had devolved. He remained in office one term, when he was succeeded by General Jackson. He was immediately after elected a member of the House of Representatives from his native state, a position which he retained till his death. In 1833 he was nominated by the anti-masonic party as governor of his state. The result of the contest between three candidates threw the election into the Legislature, there being no choice by the people, whereupon Mr. Adams withdrew. He had previously, from 1831 to 1833, published a series of letters condemnatory of the principles and practice of the Free-Masons, reprinted in a volume in 1847. Throughout his long and active political career, Mr. Adams retained a fondness for literature. He published in 1832 a long poetical composition, Dermot Mac Morrogh,† the argument of which is concisely summed up in a sentence of the preface: Dermot Mac Morrogh, for insupportable tyranny over his subjects, aggravated by the violation of the most sacred of human ties, the seduction of another's wife, is justly expelled from his kingdom. He immediately repairs to " the greatest prince of his time, for wisdom, virtue and abilities," and sells his country for the price of being restored by the foreign invader to his principality. The English king, to cover the basest of aggressions with the mantle of religion, applies to Pope Adrian the Fourth, an Englishman, for authority to ravage Ireland with fire and sword, under pretence of reforming the inhabitants, and reducing them to the orthodox faith of paying tribute to the Roman See. This authority Pope Adrian grants him without scruple. You may read in Rapin the brief itself. And with this sacri legious abuse of religion, Henry, reeking with the blood of Becket, and Dermot, the ruffian builder of monasteries, achieve the conquest of Ireland, in vassalage to the crown of England. And this is the tenure by which Ireland is held as an appendage to the sister island, at the present day. It is written not at all happily, with a tame adaptation of the Don Juan style, and consists of a rhymed chronicle of the events it celebrates. The subject, says the author The subject was well adapted to the composition of an historical tale, and as such I deliver it to the judgment of my country. It is intended also as a moral tale, teaching the citizens of these States of both sexes, the virtues of conjugal fidelity, of genuine piety, and of devotion to their country, by pointing the finger of scorn at the example six hun Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, delivered to the classes of Senior and Junior Sophisters in Harvard University. Cambridge: Hilliard & Metcalf, 1810. + Dermot Mac Morrogh; or, the Conquest of Ireland. An Historical Tale of the Twelfth Century, in four cantos. By John Quincy Adams. Boston: Carter, Hendee & Co., 1832. 8vo. pp. 108. dred years since exhibited of a country sold to a foreign invader by the joint agency of violated mariage vows, unprincipled ambition, and religious imposture. We extract THE SONG. Nought shines so bright in beauty's eyes, And faithful love, thy priceless jewel- "Tis true, the soldier's life is short; A universe, without attraction. Or die upon the bed of glory. Poems of a briefer compass on subjects of the day frequently appeared from his pen. A collection of these was made in 1848.* It contains a poetic version of the thirteenth satire of Juvenal. A small volume of letters, written from St. Petersburg to his son, On the Bible and its Teachings, was published after his death.t In 1839, on the semi-centennial anniversary of the adoption of the federal constitution, Mr. Adams delivered an address before the Historical Society of New York. He was of course frequently called upon for such services, but his public discourses of this character, with the exception of the funeral discourses on Madison and Monroe delivered in 1836, 1834, and 1831, which were re-published with the title of Lives of Celebrated Statesmen by John Quincy Adams, in 1846, have not been collected. He was a constant reader, and his admirable memory enabled him to accumulate a vast stock of ready information. In English as well as ancient and foreign literature, he was thoroughly versed, and able to repeat long passages from authors in various languages. He translated Wieland's Oberon in verse, but withheld his version from the press on the appearance of that of Sotheby. In the latter part of his career Mr. Adams was a leader of the anti-slavery party, and an inflexible advocate of the right of petition on this as well as on every other subject. He carried this so far as on one occasion to present a petition for a dissolution of the Union, expressing at the same time his dissent from and abhorrence of such a proceeding. Mr. Adams retained the full vigor of his mind and body by his temperate and active mode of life to the hour almost of his death. He was in his place in the House on the 21st of February, 1848, and gave an emphatic "no" on a motion to present the thanks of the House with gold medals to various officers who had distinguished themselves in the Mexican war. A little after this the course of business was interrupted by a cry, "Mr. Adams Poems of Religion and Society by John Quincy Adams. New York: W. H. Graham. 18mo. pp. 108. + Auburn, 1850. 18mo. pp. 128. 9. 2 Alams is dying." He was falling over the left side of his chair, his right hand clutching at his desk for support. He was placed on a sofa, and removed for air to the rotunda, and thence to the door of the east portico. As he could not be taken with safety to his residence he was carried to the apartment of the Speaker, Mr. Winthrop. Here he rallied enough to falter his memorable dying words, "This is the end of earth-I am content." He then sank into an apparent stupor, in which he remained until he expired, at a quarter past seven in the evening of the day but one after his attack. "It is better to wear out than to rust out," was the favorite maxim of Adams. It was one which he lived fully up to, and with which the circumstances of his last hours finely harmonized. Had his mode of death been presented to his choice in life, it would have probably been joyfully accepted as a fitting close to his sixty-five years of active public service. THE WANTS OF MAN.* "Man wants but little here below, Nor wants that little long."Goldsmith's Hermit I. "Man wants but little here below, But 'tis so in the song. Would muster many a score; And were each wish a mint of gold, I still should long for more. II. What first I want is daily bread, And canvass-backs and wine; It was written under these circumstances:-General Ogle informed Mr. Adams that several young ladies in his district had requested him to procure Mr. A.'s autograph for them. In accordance with this request, Mr. Adams wrote the following beautiful poem upon "The Wants of Man," each stanze upon a sheet of note paper. |