But Judge Marshall's sense appeared to be at once both instinctive and analytical: his logic extended as far as his perception: he had no propositions in his thoughts which he could not resolve into their axioms. Truth came to him as a revelation, and from him as a demonstration. His mind was more than the faculty of vision; it was a body of light, which irradiated the subject to which it was directed, and rendered it as distinct to every other eye as it was to its own.

"The mental integrity of this illustrious man was not the least important element of his greatness. Those qualities of vanity, fondness for display, the love of effect, the solicitation of applause, sensibility to opinions, which are the immoralities of intellect, never attached to that stainless essence of pure reason. He seemed to men to be a passionless intelligence; susceptible to no feeling but the constant love of right; subject to no affection but a polarity toward truth."

Of Mr. Legaré Mr. Griswold says:

"The impression left by his collected writings' is, that his mind was of the first order, but that it did not hold in that order a very prominent place. He had that rectitude of judgment, that pervading good sense, that constant natural sympathy with truth, which is a characteristic of the best class of intellects, but he was wanting in richness, fervor, and creative vigor. He possessed the forms of fine understanding, but the force of intellectual passion, or the fire of genius, are not found. His perception of truth was superior to his power of illustrating it. We follow the difficult and somewhat languid processes of his thoughts, and, surprised at last at finding him in possession of such admirable opinions on all subjects, we imagine that he must have discovered his conclusions by different faculties from those which he uses to demonstrate them. That splendid fusion of reason, imagination, and feeling, which constitutes the inspiration of the great, is not visible; the display is meagre, laborious, and painful. He fills the measure of his subject, but it is by the utmost stretch of his abilities; we do not observe the abounding power, the exuberant resources, the superfluous energy, which mark the foremost of the first.

"In his own profession Mr. Legaré had, with many, discredited his reputation by the devotion which he avowed to the civil law. It is understood that no one who has been able thoroughly to master and comprehend the common law, is disposed to give much time to the civilians. I am inclined to believe that no man ever yet took up the Code, because having sounded the common law through its depths, he had found it wanting: many have cheaply sought the praise of having gone through the common law, by appearing to have attained to something beyond it, upon the principle that if you 'quote Lycophron, they will take it for granted that you have read Homer.' In Mr. Legaré's case, such suspicions are probably without justice. He was attracted to the first collection of written reason' chiefly by the interest which the scholar feels in that majestic philosophy of morals which is the 'imperium sine fine' of Rome. His remarks in a review of Kent's Com

mentaries, show that he understood what advantages the common law had attained over the civil law, as a practical system, by its constant regard for certainty, convenience and policy. As a common lawyer, Mr. Legaré was respectable; and in great cases, his elaborate style of preparation made him a formidable opponent.

"As a statesman I think the finest monument of his powers is his speech in Congress on the Sub-Treasury. It is formal, elementary, and scholastic, but able, and at times brilliant. His politics, as displayed in various essays and reviews, were profound and intelligent; but it always seemed as if he had settled his views of the present times upon opinions derived from history, and not that, like Machiavelli, he had informed his judgment on occurrences in history by suggestions drawn from his own observation. Still, by any method to have formed sound principles on government and society, in the unfavorable circumstances in which he was placed, was an indication of extraordinary powers. He triumphed over disadvantages of position, connections, and party; and was among the wisest men of the South. Yet he appears, like Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Ames, to have been of a too desponding temperament; to have magnified dangers that threatened our young energies, and to have lacked faith in our system, after it had passed some of the strongest trials to which it was reasonable to suppose it would ever be subjected.

"As a classical scholar Mr. Legaré made great pretension, but there is nothing in his works to prove that he was here superior or even equal to several of his countrymen. His proficiency partook of the dryness and severity of his character. He studied rather as a grammarian than as a man of taste. He may have been accurate, but he was not elegant. He writes often about the Greeks and Latins, but he had never caught the spirit and sentiment of classical enthusiasm. We miss the fine felicity of illustration, the apt quotation, the brilliant allusion, which are so attractive in the writings of one whose heart and fancy have dwelt familiarly in the clime of antiquity. He is not betrayed as a visitor to the halls of the past by the smell of aloes and cassia hanging about his garments, caught from the ivory palaces whereby they have made him glad. We know the fact by his constantly informing us of it, and because he describes the localities with the precision of one who must have observed, chiefly for the purpose of making a report. The most striking passage in his writings on a classical subject is that relating to Catullus, in his criticism of Dunlap's History of Ancient Literature. The remarks on that poet are original, beautiful, and undoubtedly just."

But our limits forbid us to pursue more extensively this survey of American writers. Of Longfellow, Sanderson, Hooker, Hoffman, and others, Mr. Griswold has given interesting and generally accurate estimates; and as he always presents a specimen of the author whom he judges, so as to submit himself to the test of direct verification by the reader, he deserves to be called, since Luke Milbourne, "the fairest of critics."

The data which he gives are sufficient to bring before the reader the history of American letters through the departments of Statesmanship, Philosophy and Religion, as well as the history, condition and prospects of our Legal, Historical, Romantic, Esthetical and Miscellaneous literature; and to show the justness of his assumption, that thus far, despite of all that has been said to the contrary and in the face of all the confessed obstacles to our intellectual progress, we have done more than any other nation, for the same term of time, in the various fields of investigation, reflection, imagination and taste.

We take leave with the renewal of our thanks to the editor for the spirit which prompted, and our respect for the talents and tempers which have guided, his labors. He has triumphed over many difficulties; and we have pleasure in commending his work to the perusal of all who are interested in literature and criticism.

FOREST LEAVES, AND OTHER POEMS. By MRS. LYDIA PEARSON.

A VOICE from the forest! or, rather, a pleasant sound of many voices, swelling in plaintive chaunt through the solitary woods at evening, and throbbing in delicate echoes against the hillskept in tune by the harmony of an uniform sentiment, whose key-note still is melancholy! Nor to us does it seem wonderful, that the harp-strings of a "spirit finely touched," should answer to the varying airs of fortune with notes forever sad. The world, said one of its true worldlings, is a comedy for them that think, and a tragedy to those that feel: we might add, that, to the feeling heart, thought serves for little else than to open new passages to sympathy, and discover remoter sources of pain. Life" which, to every one that breathes, is full of care"-must bring to one inheriting, as this lady does, the darkly-glorious dower of genius, such shows, such glimpses, such suggestions of fear and sadness, as the rough and bustling never dream of. So refined an atmosphere of sensibility as attends a nature like hers, must be often dimmed by clouds, whose duskiness is owing, not to their own thickness, but to the exquisite purity of the

medium in which they are formed. "If you listen to David's harp, touched by the Holy Ghost," says Bacon, "you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carolings;" and to those prophetsouls who partake a portion of the depth and foresight of the Divine existence, for whom a veil is riven, it may well seem as if a dirge was the only tribute proper for the past, and a lamentation the fit herald of the future.

We have heard it objected, as a kind of moral fault against this gentle and tender poet, that the tone of her verse is sombre; and we would defend her from so strange a reproach, by observing that the pensiveness which is complained of, is twin-born with the power which ought to be admired, and is inseparable from it. But there are readers enough to whom this plaintive tone will be welcome. Clouds are things common enough in the heaven of every man's prosperity; the ray which can turn those clouds into spots of glory, and spectacles of magnificence, is not common.

MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF PHILIP SYNG PHYSIC, M. D. By J. RANDOLPH, M. D.

WE have been much gratified by this notice of one to whose professional sagacity, in former years, we were weightily beholden, and of whose disinterested kindness we shall always retain a grateful remembrance. It is a memorial of the greatest physician of the last generation, written by an accomplished one of this. It is able, discriminating and valuable. Our own recollections enable us to verify many features in the portrait. The career of the remarkable person who is the subject of this interesting sketch furnishes an illustration of the unquestionable truth, that to the constitution of a great practical understanding, moral qualities must contribute even more largely than intellectual ones. Indeed, in contemplating the ability of a man of the first order of professional power, we are at a loss, many times, to determine whether the peculiarities which make his superiority, ought to be referred to one class or to the other. In those lofty regions of sincere greatness, the two blend to

gether into one. Those who looked at Dr. Physic, unreflectingly, might have thought that his capacity consisted in his habits that it was in the obstinate scrutiny into the facts of his cases in his prolonged and unresting consideration of those. facts and the earnest, almost devoted attention with which every case was followed up-that the true secret of the marvellous skill of this extraordinary man might be found. But that would have been to confound the power itself, with the conditions under which the development of that power necessarily took place it would have been to mistake the elements which a plant appropriates from the air and earth in aid of its growth, for the living principle of the plant itself. The truth is, that the mental vigor of Dr. Physic was of the rarest and truest kind his intellect was wonderfully quick and far-ranging in its suggestions, thorough in its processes, and fearless in its conclusions; but those mental habits of caution, patience and inquiry, were the only medium in which these qualities could work out their best and perfect display. Uncontrolled by that discipline, they would have resulted in an ability splendid and impracticable; but they would not have filled the sphere of the most illustrious professional excellence, in medicine, that this country has ever witnessed. It must be remembered that the power to examine minutely and reflect slowly, is, itself, a species of genius; and, perhaps, the highest. There is a class of natures, whose intellectual action is of an electrical kind-instant, intense and momentary: there is another sort, in whom the accumulation of mental energy is given forth with the gradual, steady and continuous flow of a galvanic current. One is more startling and impressive; the useful power of the other is greater; both are equally divine. The well-known observation of Sir Isaac Newton, in relation to himself, would indicate that he is to be classed, with Dr. Physic, in the latter rank.

Elegant and satisfactory as Dr. Randolph's Memoir is, in reference to the design and purpose which he contemplated, we confess that we are hardly willing that the name of this extraordinary and admirable man should go down to future times without a memorial of a different and more minute and detailed