PREFACE John Baptist Jackson has received little recognition as an artist. This is not surprising if we remember that originality in a woodcutter was not considered a virtue until quite recently. We can now see that he was more important than earlier critics had realized. He was the most adventurous and ambitious of earlier woodcutters and a trailblazer in turning his art resolutely in the direction of... more...

THE SLAVER.   On the 18th day of February 1850, Her Majesty's steamship Rattler was lying at anchor about twenty miles to the northward of Ambriz, a slave depôt situated on the western coast of Africa. Week after week had passed away in dull uniformity; while the oppressive heat, the gentle breeze which scarcely ruffled the surface of the deep, and the lazy motion of the vessel as it rolled on... more...

CRITICISM EVANGELINE A review of Mr. Longfellow's poem. EUREKA! Here, then, we have it at last,—an American poem, with the lack of which British reviewers have so long reproached us. Selecting the subject of all others best calculated for his purpose,—the expulsion of the French settlers of Acadie from their quiet and pleasant homes around the Basin of Minas, one of the most sadly romantic... more...

I. AN AMBUSCADE Early in the year VIII., at the beginning of Vendemiaire, or, to conform to our own calendar, towards the close of September, 1799, a hundred or so of peasants and a large number of citizens, who had left Fougeres in the morning on their way to Mayenne, were going up the little mountain of La Pelerine, half-way between Fougeres and Ernee, a small town where travellers along that road... more...

CHAPTER I. THE LETTER.   Katie Clifford sat on the floor, in the sun, feeding her white mice. She had a tea-spoon and a cup of bread and milk in her hands. If she had been their own mother she could not have smiled down on the little creatures more sweetly. "'Cause I spect they's hungry, and that's why I'm goin' to give 'em sumpin' to eat. Shut your moufs and... more...

THE JUBILEE YEAR FUND. In the last number of The American Missionary we published the plea of the Executive Committee of this Association for an offering to relieve the Association in its financial necessities. We present below the working point of that document in these words: It is proposed to raise during the next six months a special Jubilee Year Fund of $100,000, in shares of $50 each, with the... more...

LIFE OF SAXO. Of Saxo little is known but what he himself indicates, though much doubtful supposition has gathered round his name. That he was born a Dane his whole language implies; it is full of a glow of aggressive patriotism. He also often praises the Zealanders at the expense of other Danes, and Zealand as the centre of Denmark; but that is the whole contemporary evidence for the statement that he... more...

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES. No method has yet been discovered for preserving the recollection of human actions and events precisely as they have occurred, whole and unimpaired, in all their truth and reality. Time is an able teacher of causes and qualities, but he setteth little store by names and persons, or the mould and fashion of their deeds. The pyramids have outlived the very names of... more...

THE NEW HYPERION. FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE. My first dinner in the avenue of Ettlingen followed upon the twelve-barreled bath, but was far from being so glacial a refreshment. As I descended, quite pink and glowing, I found eight or ten individuals in the dining-room. They were French and Belgians, and exchanged a lively conversation in half a dozen provincial accents. The servants too... more...

CHAPTER I. THE BARONY OF DESMOND.  I wonder whether the novel-reading world—that part of it, at least, which may honour my pages—will be offended if I lay the plot of this story in Ireland! That there is a strong feeling against things Irish it is impossible to deny. Irish servants need not apply; Irish acquaintances are treated with limited confidence; Irish cousins are regarded as being... more...