202 Origin of Great Men. JJan. The people of America are commissioned of the Lord to accept them and write them in other hearts, that Public Opinion may rise to its perfection and the reign of heaven begin on our shore. As Public Opinion advances, the excellency of laws must rise. As Public Opinion decides, either right or wrong will bear sway. To Public Opinion the Pulpit and Lyceum must speak. To Public Opinion the reformer and philan thropist appeal. As Public Opinion reforms, the wrongs of our land will disappear. Make Public Opinion declare it, and the liquor dealer will be shamed from his evil trade. Let Public Opinion say it must be so, and the mechanic, seamstress and operative will receive juster rewards for their labor, and all industrial interests will rise and flourish. Have Public Opinion frown with a hearty indignation and slaves will be set at liberty and the old bloody gallows go down, and prisoners be treated as human beings. Give Public Opinion the laws of the land written in men's hearts, and universal christianity will be the religion of the world and christians will love and serve each other. Let us then go out on the mighty mission! Let the laws of the Lord be written in every heart and mind, and a pure Public Opinion will preside at last the empress of the world, "and they shall teach no more, every man bis neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know him from the least to the greatest." Origin of Great Men. COLUMBUS was the son of a weaver and a weaver himself. Rabelias was the son of an apothecary. Claude Loraine was bred of a pastry cook. Molier was the son of a tapestry maker. Cervantes was a common soldier. Homer was the son of a poor farmer. Terence was a slave. Oliver Cromwell was the son of a brewer. John Howard was an apprentice to a grocer. Franklin was a journeyman printer, son of a tallow chandler and soap boiler. Dr. Thomas, Bishop of Worcester, was the son of a linen draper. Daniel Defoe was a hosier, and son of a butcher. Whitefield was the son of an Inn-keeper at Gloucester. Sir Cloudesley Shovel rear admiral of England, was an apprentice to a shoemaker and afterwards a cabin boy. Bishop Prideau worked in the kitchen at Exeter College, Oxford. Cardinal Wolsey was the son of a butcher. Ferguson was a shepherd. Dean Tucker was the son of a poor farmer in Cardiganshire, and performed his journeys to Oxford on foot. Edmund Halley was the son of a farmer at Ashleh de la Zouch. Lucian was the son of a maker of statuary. Virgil was the son of a porter. Horace was the son of a shopkeeper. Shakespeare was the son of a wool stapler. Milton was the son of a money scrivener. Pope was the son of a merchant. Robert Burns was the son of a ploughman in Aryshire. Mr. HALLECK, the gifted author of Alnwick Castle, Marco Bozzaris, Fanny, and a hundred other gems of poetry, was born at Guilford, in Connecticut, in August, 1795. In his eighteenth year he removed to the city of New York, where he has since resided. It is said that he evinced a taste for poetry, and wrote verses at an early period; but the oldest of his effusions are those under the signatures of "Croaker," and of "Croaker & Co,," published in the N. Y. Evening Post, in 1819. In the production of these pleasant satires he was associated with Dr. Drake, the author of the "Culprit Fay," a man of brilliant wit and delicate fancy, with whom he was long intimate. Drake died in 1820, and his friend soon after wrote for the N. Y. Review, then edited by Bryant, the lines to his memory, which we here apppend. Halleck has generally been engaged in commercial pursuits. He was once in "the cotton trade, and sugar line;" but has for several years been the principal superintendent of the affairs of the great capitalist, the late Mr. As tor. We are indebted to the American Courier for the above cut and article.-ED ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAM DRAKE. "The good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust, Burn to the socket."-WORDSWORTH. Green be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise. Tears fell, when thou wert dying, From eyes unnsed to weep, Will tears the cold turf steep. When hearts, whose truth was proven, It should be mine to braid it And feel I cannot now. While memory bids me weep thee, Nor thoughts nor words are free, The grief is fixed too deeply That mourns a man like thee. ARTICLE LXXIX. SELECT POEMS. BY REV. S. G. BULFINCH. ST. PETER IN PRISON. BY KEBLE. AND when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains; and the keepers before the door kept the prison. Acts xii. 6. THOU thrice denied, yet thrice belov'd, In sharpest perils faithful prov'd The prayer is heard-else why so deep He loves and is beloved again- Dares not invade the guarded nest. He loves and weeps-but more than tears That gracious, chiding look, Thy call Even through the veil of sleep it shines, The Angel, watching by, divines And spares awhile his blissful trance. Or haply to his native lake His vision wafts him back to talk As in that solemn evening walk. His dream is changed-the Tyrant's voice But as he rises to rejoice Not Herod but an Angel leads. He dreams he sees a lamp flash bright, The flame, that in a few short years Shall pierce and dry the fount of tears, Is waving o'er his dungeon bed. Touch'd, he upstarts-his chains unbind- To freedom and cool moonlight air. Then all himself, all joy and calm, The pastoral staff, the keys of heaven, LAY OF THE IMPRISONED HUNTSMAN. BY SCOTT. My hawk is tired of perch and hood, I wish I were as I have been, With bended bow and bloodhound free, I hate to learn the ebb of time From yon dull steeple's drowsy chime, Inch after inch, along the wall. The lark was wont my matins ring, These towers, though a king's they be, No more at dawning morn I rise, A blithesome welcome blithely meet, And lay my trophies at her feet, ANECDOTES.—A prisoner being brought up at a London police office, the following dialogue passed between him and the magistrate:— "How do you live?" "Pretty well, sir, generally a little beef and pudding for dinner." "I mean, sir, how do you get your bread?" "I beg your worship's pardon; sometimes at the baker's and sometimes at the chandler's shop." "You may be as witty as you please, sir; but I want to know how you live, and therefore ask you how do you do?" "Tolerable well, I thank you, sir, I hope your worship is well also." A Greek maid being asked what fortune she would bring her husband, answered, “I will bring him what is more valuable than any treasurea heart unspotted, and virtue without a stain, which is all that descended to me from my parents." ARTICLE LXXX. Female Penitentaries. BY THE EDITOR. 1. A Short Account of the London Magdalene Hospital. London. 1846. 2. De la Prostitution dans la Ville de Paris. Par A. J. B. Parent-Duchatelet Deuxieme Edition. Paris. 1837. It is time that we broke through that spurious modesty that suffers certain fearful forms of vice to grow to a rank luxuriance rather than even hint at their existence. We allude to the hesitancy in exposing the peculiar sins of woman. Treatises on this topic, often written with the purest intentions, are thrown aside, while novels and romances are suffered to lay upon our drawing-roon, tables, which exhibit a laxity of principle that is indeed shocking to contemplate. Our daughters every where are met with these works which exhibit vice in such colors that the most wary are deceived. We are hunting out the causes of many immoralities, but how little is done for the unchaste female! Whoever touches the subject is told that "it is a difficult question to meddle with-an exceedingly awkward subject-we must let it alone we suppose-it is very dreadful to be surebut there will be always abandoned women, and they are a class it really soils one's imagination to meddle with.' And so the wandering soul is suffered to drift away. How different the case with the young thief! He is caught and placed in a cell. In time he is released, and perhaps regains his character. But to the erring girl the door is closed. How different with the other sex, even when guilty of this identical sin! His deeds, foul and dark as they are, are often unknown. Woman is the greatest sufferer by the loss of her purity; so, of course, is thrown on her the greater responsibility in resisting temptation. But is she to suffer without hope? We forget the Saviour's treatment of fallen women. By condemning the harshness of the Jewish Church towards this class of sinners by his own personal tenderness towards more than one who had fallen from virtue's path, He seems, in tones the most distinct, to commend these erring members to the Christian Church. Has that Church followed the example of her Head? It is said by statisticians that three or four years, at most seven, terminates the career of such a life! Late hours, wet, cold, intoxication to drown thoughts, ill usage, disease, break down the frail tenement of flesh and blood. Sin is a hard taskmaster. Can the Church waive aside this work as out of her department? Some efforts have been made for unfortunate females. But how small, compared with the evil! Our measures are puny, stunted, and dwarfish. What is the State doing? What the Church? Private generosity often does more than both. Sometimes the institutions themselves do more than all combined. The London Female Penitentiary, the largest in the city, did work to the amount of 1184l., while the subscriptions only amounted to 7241. These thoughts have been suggested by an article in the London Quarterly Review for September. It is indeed refreshing to find a |