Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1848-09-16
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
NOTES ON NEW BooKs-lcosrrsvrD.I

with no little labor, what may be entitled the physi-
cal migraons of particular races of men the sew
eral seats into which nations have passed what
we're The Pelasgic, the Dorian the Ionian COLOMBIA
lions what the Phenician by what track and
through what stopping-places the Cells came into
Europe how our Punic friends, the Irish, quitting
Asia, strayed 10 the green ISLE and thence finally,
shielah in hand, to the land of the free and the
home Of the brave - how our unces the Welsh
peoped the Upper Missouri and turned into Kick
apoo Indians; in what manner our Cousins the
Norwegians settled New England and were the
original Yankees; and how the pyramid builders
Of Mexico and Yucatan, the Aztecs, were nothing
III the world but the lineal progeny of the Lost
Tribes OF Israel, who, TO our thinking, were no
great loss any how, judged either by their previous
behavior or by their manners when found again. All
this utilization of the merely corporal part of man.
kind-of what they conquer or colonize with, their
arms and legs, their fists and skulls, their vagabond
members, or as mechanicans would say) their
frunning gear has, we repeat been most curl
ously explored by the archaiologist the geographer,
the philologian: but the nobler, the benefcent mi
srations OF mind, the progress and propagation of
ideas, the genealogy sentiments and images chose
immortal hings1 has been left almost uninvestigated
And yet it is surely slight no uninteresting in
qury to ascertain where the notions that have af-
fected mankind the most widely sprang up; who
was the father of bright thought, transmitted from
age to age, from country to country, from tongue
TO tongue, from author to author now creepingly in
prose- and now rapidly in far-resounding verse ;
the birthplace of an idea the figure i. has made
in the world; its progeny in its own land their
resemblance TO the parent; their migration into
other countries and languages; their changes of
aspect manners, and complexion, under another
sky, when
Exilioque donos ct dulcia hmna mutant.
Atque alo patrarn quRtun sub sole jacentem.
In short, the history of the utilization and transmits
sion of fine thoughts of the great colonies of ideas
which have passed from land TO land, might easily
be made as copious and as curious as all that Ade-
lung, and Balbi, and Malte Brun have tracked from
Sanscrit paternity, Niebuhr OWNED of the Pc
iasgic stock, or Muller of the Dorics or Pinkerton
of the Cells, or Raynat written of the European
establishments in the East and West Indies.
TO illustrate both this and our present more I'M
mediate subject Lord Byron, we will borrow pas
sage from the " Pensees" of Pascal, in which he
touches upon reflections not little suggestive of
the remarks which we have Just made r
Les memes pensees poussent quelquefois tout
autrement dams I'm autre que leur auteur nertles
dams leur champ naturel, abondantes etant trans
'pantees. Mas il arrive bien plus solvent gu un
bon esprit fa produire lu meme ses propres pen
: sees tout lie fruit don't elles sont capables,; ct
'Guensuite quelques autres, les ayant Oil estimer,
les empruntent ct sen parent, mais sans en- con-
naitre leXcellence; ct ces alors que la difference
dun meme mot en- diverses pouches parait lie plus"
Thus hints, as to the manner in which one mans
thought may be fertilized by another great writer
who, with all his originality not rarely takes las we
could easily show slip of Montaigne's ideas to
raise tree from in his own plantations. He well
understood the process which he describes. But
here is another author who shall tell US little more
of how the embodied notions or feelings of one
man can pass into another and a powerful word or
two ouhast the greatest empires, the strongest mo-
numents:
"Quelque plaisir que j'aie eu," says Bernardin
de ST. Pierre, 4" dams mes voyages Il voir une statue
GU I'm monument de PAntiquile, 'en al encore da-
vantage IL lire une inscription ben Gcrite: il me
sembe alors qu'une yoix humane sorte de la
PIERRE Sc fasse entendre d travers les siecles ct
addressant Fhomme mileu des deserts lui
disc quill nest pas seul, ct que d'aures hommes,
dams ces memes lieux ont senti, pense ct soufert
CONNIE lui. Que, 81 cette inscription est de auel-
que nation ancienne, qui ne subsiste plus, ellie
etend notre anne dams les champs de lnfi ct lui
dome lie sentiment de son immoralite, en- lui mon
trant qu'une pensee survecu IA la RUNE meme
dun empire" Add, now TO these Horaces
Where for,es ante Agamemnona
Multi sed omnes iachrmables
prgeniur ignotique, Tonga
Nocte, carent qua vaie sacro;
and changing only the poet to the historian-the
luck in the poetic preserver Of ones deeds into
that OF prose preserver of them-we certainly
have the elements out of which Byron may be sus.
Pected OF having compounded, though in far gayer
tone the following long and brilliant passage in his
"Don juan
But words are things and a small drop Of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes Thousands, perhaps millions think.
IT'S strange, the shortest letter which man uses
Instead Of speech, may form lasting link
OF ages To what straits old Time reduces
Frsl man, when Paper-eyen rag like this,
Survives himself his tomb, and all that's his
And when his bones dust, his a blank,
His station, generation, his nation,
Become thing, nothing, 10 rank
Ia chronological commemoration,
Some dull Ms. oblivion long has sank,
Or craven stone found in a barracks station,
IN digging the foundation OF a closet,
May turn his name up, rare deposite
And glory long hath made the sages smile
It's something, nothing, words, illusion, wind,
Depending more open III historians style
Than on the name person leaves behind
Troy owes to Homer what whist owes TO Hoyle:
The presenLcentury growing blind
To the grea, Marlborus skill in giving knocks
Until his late Life by Archdeacon Coke.
We are the more warranted in our supposition Of
mis- lordship's having kent in his memory the Hora