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214 THE COURANT ; A SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL.

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gestion to some booksellers, to collect and publish these
addresses, for they must drive out of the market such a wretched
salmagundi as this volume before us. Or, what is better, will
not some body who can do it, write a "Life of HUMBOLDT?"
One is most sadly needed, Mr. BAYARD TAYLOR to the contrary
not withstanding: who values his reputation so little that he says in his "introduction" that the work has been "faithfully and conscientiously done, by one every way capable of the performance." This was evidently written for it consideration:
Mr. TAYLOR could not have said so if he had read the book.

We advise our readers to wait patiently until some body writes a life of HUMBOLDT; for even the likeness in this book
is pronounced ridiculous by all who ever saw the great philospher.

This volume may be obtained at the book-store of Mr. P. B. GLASS.

McDonald Clarke, the Mad Poet.

Every one has heard of McDonald Clarke, the Mad Poet,
who, some ten years ago, was one of the most noted eccesntricities
of New York. Stephen H. Branch, another eccentric,
scarcely less notorious, furnishes the following interesting account
of poor Clarke, which we extract from "My Eccentricities
on Earth and Ocean," now in course of publication in the
New York Mercury:

"McDonald Clarke had dyspepsia badly, and would board at
the Graham House while his money lasted, and then the host
would request him to leave. At the table he always created
infinite mirth. I often met him on the Battery with his pockets
filled with stale Graham bread, and at Mercer's dining-
saloon, on the corner of Nassau street, and on the steps of the
Astor House, and while rapidly promenading Broadway, with
his eyes riveted on the ground. I also saw him on every Sabath,
in front of Dr. Taylor's Grace Chuech, at the corner of
Rector street and Broadway, where he used to await the arrival
of a lady, and almost stare her into fits, and to whom he
addressed such lines as these, through the public journals :

"Her form's elastic as a willow stree,
Glorious in motion, when the winds are free ;
She moves with timid dignity and grace,
While thought is thrilling through her sweet young face."

"In his last days he often came to the Graham House, and
the host was very kind to him, and did not charge him for his
meals. He called on Sunday morning, when all were at church
save myself. I was ill, in the rocking-chair, and for an hour
he amused me with his incoherent fights of eloquence, and the
recitation of his choicest poetry. He came several times
during the week. On a stormy evening, while I was seated by
the stove, he rushed in and took a seat beside me, and wept
aloud, and spoke of his affection for the lady, whom he
supposed was ardently in love with him. He said that he had
been twice invited to her parties ; but, on rining the bell, he
was twice rejected by the servant. The cards of invitation were
forgeries, but those who imposed on McDonald assured him
that they were genuine, and were written by herself. I strove
in vain to disabuse McDonald's mind, who said he should make
the third attempt the following week, and, if possible, he would
have an interview with the precious object of his affection.
On the afternoon of the following Sunday he came to the Graham
House and rang the bell, and dashed into the parlour,
greatly excited and took a seat on the sofa where I was reclining,
and exclaimed: 'Why, Branch, people call me crazy ; but
you don't think I'm crazy, do you Branch? I know you don't.
You love me, don't you, Branch? I know you do! Heigho!
I'm not long for this world, I am going to Heaven in a few
days, where I shall fare better than among the unkind people
of this world. Yes, I rambled through Greenwood last week,
by the Silver Lake, and seelected the lovely and romantic spot
where my poor bones will doon repose and wither. (His tears
now began to fall like summer rain.) And there will be the
sacred bells, and the Grace Church exercises, conducted by the
pure and eloquent Dr. Taylor, and the mournful music and solemn
procession, and the sexton's dreary hearse and spade, and
the pale white monument. And those who deny me bread and
call me crazy, and trifle with my affections, will then sadly miss
me and my beautiful poetry, and lament my melancholy fate.
And they will come and stand before my monument, in Greenwood's
Silver Dell, and weep and profoundly regret that they
always neglected poor McDonald Clarke. Yes, Branch, I see my
snowy monument by the Silver Lake, and shall soon be there.
O God! Yes, I shall too soon be in the dismal vale! But you
will come and see me, won't you, Branch? I know you will!
I know you will! O God! my destiny is very hard!' and he
buried his face with both hands and cried with all the simplicity
of childhood; and I strove to restrain my tears, lest he
would not cease his lamentations if he saw my eyes moistened
with Nature's sympathizing waters. And I breathed kind
words into his lacerated heart, and he leaned his head upon my
shoulder, and was silent for some moments, when he sprang to
his feet and said he would like a bath, and went to the
bathing room. In half an hour he returned, went to the
tea table, ate sparingly, came into the parlour, went to
the window, and knelt and prayed in whisper tones.—
The clouds had suddenly dispersed, and the moon was
full, whose soft rays rested on the sad face of McDonald.
He then got the Bible and read a chapter, and was absorbed in
a second prayer just above a whisper, when a transient boarder
(from Boston) entered the parlour and sate on the sofa, and
began a spirited conversation with a fried who had long been
waiting for him. McDonald, while engaged in prayer, in a
kneeling posture, sprang to his feet, and rushed towards the
gentlement in lively conversation on the softa, and told them
that if they did not cease to laugh and talk so loudly, he would
smite them on the spot. They were amazed and terrified, and
dared not to speak. McDonald then rapidly paced the parlour,
and exclaimed, 'I am only forty years old, with nearly half
the period often allotted to man yet to run, and I am near my
journey's end.' And then, with a sudden halt in the centre of
the parlour, he again rivtted his wild eyes on the gentlemen
seated on the sofa, who had excited his ire, and stamped and
exclaimed, 'How dare you talk and laugh in God's holy hour?

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This is the all-glorious Sabbath, and it is sacrilege to talk and
laugh beyond a whisper. Do it again, and as sure as my name
is McDonald Clarke, I will paralyze you where you sit. Silence,
I say, (stamping) silence!' The two gentlemen then
arose and left the parlour in pursuit of the host, and McDonald
went to the window and delivered a glowing apostrophe to the
moon and stars, and asked me to play sacred music on the
piano, which I did ; and he strove to sing, byt his voice was
severely weakened and nearly lost by his nervous excitement,
and through his severe anathema of the two gentlement who
had just left the parlour. As I played he stood beside me, and
hummed a beat time with his hands. I closed the piano,
and he went to the window and prayed again, and breathed
the most eloquent and touching soliloquy I ever heard. Such
melting pathos and purity of language never flowed from
human lips. He rose to the highest inspiration in his allusion
to his departed mother, and his anticipated joy at his early reunion
with her in Heaven. I have always regretted that I had
no pencil and paper on this sad occassion, so that I could have
preserved his supernatural soliloquies, which impressed me
with profoundest solemnity. The host now came into the parlour
and asked McDonald where he boarded, and he said he
had no home. He then asked him if he had any friends. He
said that he ate, and sometime slept at a Dentist's, in Park
place, and that he would now go there. I asked him if I
should accompany him, and he warmly thanked me, and put
on his cloak and cap, and very carefully adjusted his large red
comforter around his neck, and took my arm and I accompanied
him to the residence of his dentist friend in Park Place.
I rang the bell, and the servant came and said the dentist was
out, and McDonald then shook my hand and bade me an affectionate
good-night and walked in and closed the door—which
was my last communion with poor McDonald Clarke. I called
the next day, and the servant told me that McDonald left half
an hour after my departure on the previous night, and had not
returned. I went in pursuit of him but could not find him.
The next I heard of him was through the newspapers, which
stated that he was found at midnight, by a policeman, in Broadway,
near St. Paul's Church, in a terrible storm, and in a state
of raving insanity, with his apparel partially gone; that he was
conveyed to the Tombs ; that neither the policeman nor any of
the officers of the Tombs knew McDonald, nor was he sane
enough to disclose his name; that on going to feed him in the
morning, his place of confinement was partially filled with icy
water, in which he was bathing himself, which had been running
all night, and which had given him a chill of death ; that
he was finally recognized by one of the Tombs' officers, and
conveyed to the Alms-House Hospital, where he soon died. I
called to see him before he died, but he did not know me. His
reason entirely returned just prior to his death, which he called
for a custard, of which he was always extremely fond, and he
ate a little, and said he was glad his hour had come, as he was
tired of earth. He bade his nurse an affectionate farewell, and
died without a contortion or a moan. His sudden and pauper
death produced great excitement, and the newspapers severely
lashed his murderers, who strove to make him think that the
lady loved him dearly, and had invited him to her aristocratic
parties. But the names of the villains were not published, as
they should have been, because they belonged to the upper
circles. Some kind friends erected a monument to his memory,
on the very spot McDonald had selected, by Silver Lake, in
Greenwood, for which they received much praise."

Dainty Hints,

FOR EPICUREAN SMOKERS.—Whoever has been in Havana
must needs recollect the little brazier, with its ball of white
ashes, beneath which a live hard-wood coal, called a "candela,"
glows all day for the accommodation of smokers in every
house. This we thought once a dainty device. But our friend,
Master Karl, has given us some new delicate and fragrant
suggestions, which we now lay before our readers for their
edification, to wit :

"It is an established canon that the purest and most elevated
tastes of flavors are unmixed—simple. I respectfully submit
that in smoking tobacco, this rule by no means holds good.

"And here I might cite the learned Windstruphius, who in his
'Epigrammata,' puns so learnedly on Bacchus and To-Bacco,
and their mutual flavoring influence. This I spare you.
Likewise the lucubrations of Schioppius Dunderhedius, whi in
speaking most horrificially, De ordore fetida tobacci, distinctly
analyses into two smells—one infernal, the other diabolical.
This spared also (by request).

"But I mean simply to say that a point may be given to a
good cigar by lighting it from wood—not from a timber of a
lucifer match, but from a smoldering, smoking fragment of a
log, either hickory, oak, or even pine. And note yet, good fellows
all, that the earlier in the season this is done, the more
delicate is the goût ; yea, this rule holds so far good, that on
the first crisp evenings in September, no musk-rose or violet
that is—nay, no eau de cypre—nay, no hediosmya—nay, no
daintily-ambered acqua coloniae or the Paradisaical sweets that
be, can surpass the odorat of the first whiff of a wood-lighted
cigar.

"Year, and more. If you smoke light, and mild, and dry,
preferring Latikéa and Knaster to the fine-cut, tumback and
chopped cavendish, there is a class of perfumes—that, I ween,
which Piesse places as a third note in the gamut of good
smells—a certain spicy oriental class, such as cascarilla, or a
faint admixture of santal, which perfumes the axe which lays
it low, which in no wise detracts from piping joys. And I tell
you, in all truth, that Virginia leaf, with these sweet delights,
and with sumach or kinni kinnick therein gently mingled,
spreads around such a pastilled, ecclesiastical cathedral air,
blended with the dim souvenirs of the rue Bréda, that he who
smokes thereof is oftentimes in tone to sing the high song of
king Solomon, or the lyrics of the Persian land, wherein love
and devotion are so curiously entwined, that no sensation that
is, can be compared thereto, unless it be the kissing of your
sweetheart during sermon-time under the lee of the high backed
old-fashioned pew.

"Ita dixit ille Rector
Er wollt's nicht anders han,
Vale semper bone Lector,
Lug du und stoss dich dran
Gut Gesell ist Rinckman.'" C. G. L.
Cozzens' Wine Press

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The Poet's Sleep

The sensitive organization which causes vivid impressions,
that fertility of the mind that makes it, as Herbert says, a
kingdom, accounts for the peculiar enjoyment of sleep by the
poets, both as a vital fact and a subject of contemplation. Its
luxury has never been more atteactively set forth than by Tennyson
in his "Palace of Sleep," and "Sleeping Beauty;" and
one of the bitterest touches in the "Locksley Hall" is the
"drunken sleep" of the unloved bridegroom; Shelley celebrates
its "mighty calmness ;" and Wilson's Ode to the Sleeping
Child, is full of pathos ; Keats enfolds it in a classic
voluptuousness ; how exquisite is the description of Madeline
asleep :

"Blissfully havened both from joy and pain,
Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray ;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again."

Notwithstanding the eloquent beauty and the profound truth
of such apostrophes, perhaps the indirect and casual references
of the bards to sleep, more nearly hint its benign economy and
its latent significance. Thus criticism has recognized a peculiar
aptness in the phrase of Shakespeare—"how sleeps the moonlight
on this bank;"—so the point of Collin's description of
fear is that on the "ridgy steep" of th "some loose overhanging
rock, he throws himself to sleep." Leight Hunt utters a natural
exclamation in his vigil by a sick child—"sleep breathes at
last from out thee:" Talfourd well atributes an invigorating
rest to "the selectest fountains of repose ; " and Coleridge has
a fine expression in the Ancient Mariner:

"O Sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given—
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven
That slide into my soul :"

while Mrs. Browning describes the aspect of death as "long
disquiet merged in rest."

An infinite variety of epithets might be gleaned from Shakespeare
to the same effect, as wehn he calls sleep a "golden
dew," and compares patience to the "midnight sleep." But it
is in its relation to the passions that he has treated of this mystery
of our being as only the Poet of Nature can. How memorably
the wakefulness of Remorse is unfolded in Macbeth!—
of Jealousy in Othello whom "not poppy nor mandragora,
nor all the drowsy syrups of the world, can medicine to that
sweet sleep he knew but yesterday,"—of haunted and cruel
ambition in the dream of Richard, and of fantasy in Mercutio's
description of Queen Mab ; how chastely beautiful the sleep of
Imogen, how innocent that of the infants in the Tower. How
Duncan's venerable sleep unnerved his murderer's hand! How
profoundly Hamlet muses of its relation to mortality—" to
sleep—perchance to dream!"—and how natural in the midst
"of an afternoon" to sleep. Cleopatra's wonderous fascination
is indciated memorably in death:

"She looks like sleep,
As she would snare another Antony
In her strong toil of grace!"

And what a comprehensive epitah is this—"after life's fitful
fever he sleeps well?" or where shall we find in a the same space
a better picture or philosophy of the whole subject than in
King Henry's familiar soliloquy?—H. T. Tuckerman in Southern
Literary Messenger.

Americans Abroad

That clever and satirical little old lady, Sydney, Lady Morgan,
when describing the brilliant company that had been at
her house on a certain evening, said: "I told you two dukes
and one duchess ; but the delight was a new and handsome
American, a member of Congress—I dare say he exchanged his
Bible for a Peerage the meoment he landed in Liverpool. You
should have seen his ecstacy when presented to a duchess, and
how he luxuriated beneath the shadow of the strawberry
leaves." There is a great deal of well-deserved point in this.
Burke's Peerage is studied by many Americans more than their
Bibles. The people that are most anxious, when in Europe, to
get a smile from the Queen or word from an Emperor, are the
Americans. There are no more preserving lion-hunters in
European capitals than many of the Americans sojourning
there. There are no more inveterate toadies of rank than are
to be found among our fellow-citizens domiciled at Paris.
There are no people more ready to sneer at their native land,
and to draw invidious comparisons between it and European
countries, than some of our unpatriotic compatriots, who have
dwelt so long in the atmosphere of monarchy as to forget, or
to be ashamed of, their national birth-right.

It may be regarded as indicating a little high, fine, aristocratic
feeling for Americans to express or otherwise manifest
an indifference or a contempt for their country, its institutions,
or its society. But the test of dignity and respectability is,
after all, not what one thinks of one's own manners and actions,
but what dignified and respectable people think of them.
And Americans should be taught that there is not quality more
despised by intelligent people of the European high classes,
than American toadyism. There is no meaner trait than forgetfulness
or pretnded contempt of one's own country. There
was no more ridiculous figure in Lady Morgan's company than
the handsome American Congressman, extatic at an introduction
to a duchess, and luxuriating under the shadow of the
ducal strawberry leaves. Money may purchase for Americas
a certain position in high society on the Continent ; but how
thos rich spend-thrift Americans, who ape the style of nobility,
are sneered at by their titled guests, after they have left
their dinner-parties or their balls. There is much advantage
to be derived from foreign travel ; but when it leads to or aims
at the adoption of aristocratic airs, and the repudiation of
every thing American as something vulgar, common, and unclean,
it is a miserable and despicable business.
[Philadelphia Bulletin.

IN a recent lecture on marriage, Rev. G. W. Woodruff, of
Connecticut, said : "I know of no more distressing thing than
a little-souled, hen-pecking woman, or a noble woman linked to
one of those sordid, mean little libels upon mankind. If such
is your case, why, get a divorce, in Heaven's name, and God
help ye to it!"