Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1846-08-29

yet wants not certain of It's ancient landmarks and
especially its rivers, though one Or two less than
given in Millions dismal geography-the
"-Four internal rivers, that dsgorge
Into the burning lake their bAIeful streams
Abhoned Styx, tbs food Of deadly hate ;
Sad Acheron. Of sorrow, black and deep;
Cocytus, named of lamcntadon loud III
Heard on the rusful stream fierce Phegehon,
Whose Of torrent IRE infame with rage.
Far off from these, slow and silent stream
Lethe. the river of oblivion, rolls
Her watery labyrinth" @A8
Within some Of these rivers dwell those anoma
lous fishes that finding eyes Of no use there ex
cept to be poked in and hurt, have dispensed with
them. Let others doubt the fact as much as they
will, we cannot: for, having seen them, we are
compelled TO believe either that we or the aforesaid
fish are eyeless.
The country, as we have intimated, has changed
many of its former features, and lost its antique in
habitants. Still, things must look not little ghost
ly there. The old proprie.ors, Pluto and dame
Proserpine, have set up tavern, and feed theil
guests, instead Of frying them. Several sons o.
that grim curmudgeon, Charon, ply at his former
trade of ferryman, and, as was his wont, drive
back all who bring not their fees |; and instead Of
Minos, Eacus, and Rhadamanthus, Kentucky
justice of the peace and his cachpole deal out the
law; though perhaps much after the old sort, Of
furnishing first and hearing afterwards. Achilles
has sunk into bully. Ulysses deals at faro, Or
pheus plays the banjo, and Eurydice goes around
with the hat for contributions.
As to the climate it seems about as bright as thai
Of 6fy-four forty is for at least half the year; and
whereas, in that latter blessed region, you are
parched for six months, and then flooded for al
many more, this submundane Oregon knows an
excess Of neither rain nor sunshine. Their poll
tics are not quite as subterranean those of par
OF New York And as, when they acquire lit.
tie more population they will have abundant terri
tory to form new State, we hope shortly to see
them admitted into the Union, under the name o.
Cimmeria. The downward direction in which
they lie should make no difference; for we are
now going that way for States. Moreover, as they
owe no public debt, they saddle us with no bur
den of that sort; and last, but not least, oui
good President SO discreety said of Texas, it viii
be ga bloodless acquisition"
g Specimens of the British Critics, by Christie
pher North, (JoHN WILSON, Philadelphia. Ca.
rey e. Hart. 1916. l2mo. PIP. 344.
This sound and spirited body Of criticism chief.
y consists Of skilful estimate and comparison Of
our two great poets of the second order, DRYDEN
and PoPE, both of whom are deliberately examined
and exalted as they deserve but not with that in.
discriminate encomium now in use, by the aid Of
which every thing grows transcendan alike and the
nanlmation of Wordsworth breathcs life and beau.
ty, the mystic flights of Shelley become not only
divine but Ineligible, or Cowper turns otherwise
than very good prose, or Crabbe seems poetic BY
dnt of being matter-of-fact!
Here we have displayed the force and the finish
of that older strain of composition, when labor anc
vigor were not yet lost in wordy facility; when
verse went not dwelling on after the far-feched
and the ideal, but moved with mighty gait, graceful
and strong, to natural thoughts and images, tina,
stirred the heart instead Of tickling or puzzling the
ingenious brain. The age that can devour Rokeby
but not the Liad, finds the Excursion lively,
but yawns over the .Eneid--and understands Shell
y or Miss Barrett, while ii finds Pope and Dryden
or even Milton knotty and hard Of study---may
well write and speak, il does, most wofully. Il
it not time to grow undeceived Of its own fruites
abundance, its steril fertility, its ease of producing
what costs greater effort to write than to read
second time Behold how they perish in whom
rejoiced as wonders of It's own Where is COP
WIN and the mighty truths of the " Political Jus
tice :" Why, they who hold forth to Dorrites ant
Subterraneans preach as well Where is the
mighty VoLNEy! ruin himself! Where is the
/" Sorrows of Werter," or the chaste Heloise y
II, then, the idols, prose and poetic, for which il
lett the lanes oil older authorship, have tumbled
down of themselves might it not learn that it would
be better at once TO turn, for its models of lera-
ture, to that elder time which alone defes, by its
productions, the mutabtes of taste and fashion
And, above all, while men like WILSON and BYRON
can read adore, and confess the prodigious SUPER
ority Of Dryden and Pope, had it not better begin
suspect that if ii cannot relish them, il had better
make il business to read them until it does
TEMPERANCE LEeIsLArIoS.-The Legislature of MAINE
have enacted law rbddng the sale Of intoxicating liquor
wholesale RETAIL except for medicinal and mechanical
paa fnx h. Gxs4 &.