POETRY AND FACT.-JACQUES CALLOT. 19 acquainted with the Indian character, and is | utterly insufficient to produce any exalting tendency extracted from the North American Review. "There is nothing pleasing to the imagination in the dirty and smoky cabin of an Indian chief; there is nothing romantic in his custom of sleeping away the days of leisure from the perils of war or the adventures of the chase; there is not a particle of chivalry in the contempt with which he regards his squaw, and the unmanly cruelty by which he binds upon her burdens grievous to be borne. His whole life is surrounded by the dismal accompaniments of poverty, sensuality, ignorance, and vice. In the arts, he has never learned to do more than supply his coarsest animal wants. His taste for ornaments cannot well be more despicable. He rings his nose as farmers ring their pigs, to keep them out of mischief; he daubs his body over with hideous colours, which give him the appearance of a devil; he puts horns upon his head, or sticks it all over with gaudy feathers; and then he is a finished specimen of the Indian fine gentleman. In his amusements his taste is equally refined with his taste in dress. His war dances and funeral dances are mere contortions, exhibiting every form of ungraceful bodily action; and these are accompanied by a species of music consisting of a rude movement in time, and certain unmeaning howls, compared with which, the barking of wolves and the growling of bears, are melody itself. His warfare is a compound of cruelty and cowardice. His point of honour is, to entrap his enemy unawares, and with no danger to himself; his glory, on returning to his native village, he places in exhibiting the greatest possible number of scalps, torn bleeding from the heads of his murdered victims. His treatment of a captive enemy is horrible beyond description. His highest enjoyments consist in taunting him with insults and reproaches in the midst of the fiercest death-agonies, which his diabolical skill enables him to invent. His sagacity is bounded to the discovery of a trail or track; his wisdom consists in a few wise saws handed down from his ancestors, and treasured up by the old women of the village. When in council, he dresses these scanty ideas with a touch or two of forest rhetoric,-and that is his eloquence, and his statesmanship. How can it be anything more? To what circle of experience, to what treasuries of knowledge, can he resort, for the enlargement of his mind and the cultivation of his eloquence? What occasion has his simple life for anything more copious in thought, and more polished in language? His religion is founded upon the simple conception of a Supreme Being, and that is always sublime; but what attributes belong to this conception of the Supreme Being, can easily be inferred from the Indian's customs, and his conduct. How unworthy of a God, his notions of Him are, it is unnecessary to illustrate, for it is known to all. His views of another life are distinct enough, but in his conduct and character in this. They are low, gross, sensual. They have scarcely a glimmering of the light of imagination to redeem them from the most deplorable darkness. JACQUES CALLOT. It was the observation of the Duke of Wellington after the battle of Waterloo, "that nothing, excepting a battle lost, can be half so melancholy as a battle won." The feeling was honourable to that great captain-the victorious leader-the conqueror of conquerors-who in all the glow of triumph, and hailed by assembled sovereigns as the saviour of Europe, felt that all would have been too dearly purchased by the loss of so many friends and comrades, "were not the results indisputably for the public benefit." When we reflect how strong a feeling of horror seizes on the minds of most men, on witnessing or even hearing of the violent death of a single individual, we feel astonished that we hear of the death of fifty thousand in a battle, without any such feeling, unless indeed a personal friend has fallen, or the enemy has triumphed. Yet the sudden deaths of so many utterly unfit to die, hurried at once to their last account, rising as it were on a cloud of blood to the judgment seat,-these are fearful considerations; but-in the eagerness with which man enters into strife when his spirit is roused, his blood up, and he snuffs the battle from afar like the chafed war-horse; or, far from the scene of fight, thinks only of the glory gained by the humiliation of a foe,-they are scarcely taken into account; or, at the most, are dismissed with a sigh as necessary evils. It must be allowed that they are and will be necessary evils until mankind at large become more fully impressed with the worldly wisdom of honest dealing, with the value of human life, and the truth of the doctrines of peace inculcated in the gospel. When barbarism has everywhere shrunk back before the advancing step of civilization,-then, and then alone, will man cease to injure and assault his brother man, and war and all its miseries shall be no more;-then alone shall nation cease to meet nation in the bloody shock of battle. Christ, when he forbade us to revenge ourselves upon our enemies, did not command us to abstain from self-defence, a principle implanted in our very nature, and without which all the bonds that hold society together would be unloosed, and hordes of pagan barbarians would overrun the earth. The principle on which war was at first carried on, and is still practised, by barbarians, is that of extermination. It may be admitted that since the avowed object of war is to gain a certain concession, whatever that may be, from the enemy, by inflicting as much injury as possible on him, it is abstractedly foolish to spare the life of any prisoner man, woman, or child. Accordingly we find wars of extermination were first practised. The life of the prisoner was held as absolutely forfeited, but it was often considered convenient to keep him as a slave. As men advanced in refinement, more humanising sentiments began to prevail, and the usage of slaying a prisoner ceased, though still frequently practised. It was not until the doctrines of Christianity prevailed, that the preservation of prisoners began to be esteemed a duty. If we could exactly trace the full effect of this departure from the practice pursued by the barbarian; how much the value of life was raised in the eyes of the people; how the means by which this increased value had arisen were hailed in consequence, with additional fervour and admiration; and how this humanising influence spread through all the ramifications of human life; we should have a wonderful and convincing proof, were any such needed, that where the gospel enters, there will civilization follow. Still, however, “wars, horrid wars" exist, attended by evils, softened, however, in some degree by modern usage, which does not exclude all the courtesies of social life, even on the battlefield. Although the comparative humanity of our days could not suffer the occurrence of such cruelty as was practised at the siege of Rouen by Henry V., when many thousands having died in the town of hunger, the remainder, who were reduced" to live on horses, dogs, cats, mice and rats, and other things unfit for human creatures," drove "full twelve thousand poor people, men, women, and children, out of the place, the greater part of whom perished wretchedly in the ditches of the town," where they were compelled to remain by the besieging army;-although we trust that such deliberate cruelty will never again be practised by civilised nations, still! still! how much of misery and horror falls to the share, not only of the combatant, but the humble peasant in his cottage, and reaches even the high-born noble in his palace. He who devotes his talents to the purpose of banishing such evils from the face of this beautiful earth; who seeks to dispel the false visions of glory, by awakening our sympathies for those whom war makes wretched; who boldly lays before the conqueror the record of the miseries his ambition has occasioned,—is deserving of being held in grateful memory by all posterity. Such a man was JACQUES CALLOT, an engraver, who, forcibly impressed by the scenes of which he had himself been a spectator, designed and etched two sets of plates, with the benevolent intention of impressing his fellow-men with a deep sense of the miseries they inflicted on each other, by indulging in a passion for strife, war, and glory. It may not be uninteresting to give some account of a man | who was not less remarkable for his talents than his virtues. Jacques Callot was born in the town of Nancy, in Lorraine, in the year 1593. His parents were of noble blood, and his father held the office of a herald-at-arms. The love of art seemed to be innate, and became so strong that while a mere child he earnestly entreated his parents to be permitted to receive instructions in drawing, and to adopt the profession of an artist. They, who with the foolish prejudice of the times looked upon art as a degrading and mechanical pursuit, refused their consent. The boy, however, would not be controlled, and at twelve years of age ran away, and falling in with a party of wandering gipsies, or Bohemians as they were then called, of whom he has furnished a remarkable memorial in a set of prints, (depicting various scenes he beheld among them,) reached Florence, where he attracted the notice of an officer of the Grand Duke, who placed him for instruction under Remigio Canta Gallina, an engraver of eminence. From thence he went to Rome, for the purpose of further improvement; but here the runaway was captured by some merchants of Nancy, friends of his father, who accidentally meeting him, obliged him to return with them. The love of art was not, however, to be repressed; he again found means to escape, but was pursued and retaken by his brother at Turin. His father, however, perceiving that his ardent attachment to the fine arts would never permit him to attain distinction in any other pursuit, prudently subdued his own prejudices, and gave his consent to his pursuing the bent of his own genius. Callot now returned to Florence, and studied first under Giulio Parigii, and afterwards under Philip Thomassin, from whom he sought to acquire the free use of the graver; but although he obtained sufficient skill in that branch of his profession, he always preferred the use of the etching-needle, which he managed with infinite address. He became a favourite with the Grand Duke Cosmo II., for whom he executed many capital works. On the death of the Duke he returned to Nancy, where he was well received by the Duke of Lorraine, who granted him a considerable pension. His name became celebrated, and noble patrons almost disputed the honour of employing him. The Infanta of Spain sent for him to Brussels at the time Breda was besieged by the Marquis Spinosa, in order that he might visit the scene of action, and make a series of designs illustrative of the various events of the siege. Here commenced that experience of the actual "Miseries of War," which he afterwards turned to such good account. Louis XIII. commissioned him to make similar designs of the sieges of Rochelle and the Isle of Rhé; and even when the Duke of Lorraine was defeated, and the town of Nancy captured, the JACQUES CALLOT.--INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A NEGRO POET. 21 monarch was desirous that the artist should record | a deep impression on the sensitive mind of Callot. an event which he looked upon with shame and He had intended to remove to Florence, but was indignation. He nobly replied that he would rather prevented by death, which overtook him on the lose his right hand than do anything that would 28th of March, 1635, at the early age of 42. compromise his honour; and such he should regard devoting his talents to depict such events as the downfall of his native town, and the disgrace of his native prince, as he considered the Duke of Lorraine to be. The siege of Nancy took place in 1631, and in 1633 he published his celebrated series of eighteen prints, depicting all the various miseries of war; miseries which he had been unfortunate enough to have beheld far too closely not to be sensible of the horrors of this dreadful scourge. His avowed object was, that since the representation of the actual miseries inflicted by war,-not by words, but by figures, was likely to produce a more vivid impression on the minds of the beholders than any mere description, he might by such means bring men to realise scenes which they only heard of from afar, and thus do much to convince them of the blessings of peace, and effectually aid the efforts of the minister of the gospel and of the philosopher. Accordingly he depicted a series of subjects, in which with even painful minuteness he pourtrayed the various evils attendant upon war: the battle-field; the stormed city, with the inhabitants making their escape from pillage and slaughter; burning cottages; desolated fields, and all those miseries which are to be found in the detail of every campaign. These prints are eighteen in number, and are reckoned among his choicest works. He also published a smaller set of seven, doubtless with the intention of more widely circulating the practical instruction he sought to inculcate. Another instance of the desire he felt to amend mankind through the medium of art, is a very curious print entitled "Punishments," in which criminals are represented as undergoing the various sentences of the law. An inscription at the bottom informs us that the punishment of crime is represented that the beholders may, by the contemplation of it, be deterred themselves from its commission. Callot married a lady of good family in 1625, but he died without issue. Such was Jacques Callot. He made art subservient, not to superstition, as has been too frequently the case, but to civilization; he called in the aid of pictorial design to soften human suffering; and well deserves a high place in that noblest chapter of the book of Fame, where are inscribed the names of the benefactors of mankind. E. INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A I HAD already, at the age of twelve years, composed some verses in memory, because my godfather did not wish me to learn to write; but I dictated my verses by stealth to a young mulatto girl, of the name of Serafina, which verses were of an amatory character. From this age, I passed on without many changes in my lot, to my fourteenth year; but the important part of my history began when I was about eighteen, when fortune's bitterest enmity was turned on me, as we shall see hereafter. For the slightest crime of boyhood, it was the custom to shut me up in a place for charcoal, for four-and-twenty hours at a time. I was timid in the extreme; and my prison, which still may be seen, was so obscure, that at mid-day no object could be distinguished in it without a candle. Here, after being flogged, I was placed, with orders to the slaves, under threats of the greatest punishments, to abstain from giving me a drop of water. What I suffered from hunger and thirst, tormented with fear, in a place so dismal and distant from the house, and almost suffocated with the vapours arising from the common sink, that was close to my dungeon, and constantly terrified by the rats that passed over me and about me, may be easily imagined. My head was filled with frightful fancies, with all the monstrous tales I had ever heard, of ghosts, and apparitions, and sorcery; and often, when a whole troop of rats would arouse me with their noise, I would imagine I was surrounded by evil spirits, and I would roar aloud and pray for mercy; and then I would be taken out, and almost flayed alive, again shut up, and the key taken away, and kept in the room of my mistress, the Senora herself. On two occasions, the Senor Don Nicholas and his brother showed me compassion, introducing through an aperture in the door a morsel of bread and some water, with the aid of a coffee-pot with a long spout. This kind of punishment was so frequent that there was not a week that I did not suffer it twice or thrice, and The fate of his native city appears to have made | in the country on the estate I suffered a like mar Callot's manner of working was singular, but remarkably bold and effective. He was particularly fond of introducing very small figures, in which he was singularly successful, frequently introducing several hundred in one piece. The print of "Punishments" is an instance of this. It is of moderate size, and crowded throughout with very small figures. At the first glance it appears a mass of confusion; but after a little contemplation the wonderful skill with which such a multitude of groups, all beautifully distinct, are arranged, together forming one harmonious whole, strikes the beholder with admiration and delight. tyrdom. I attribute the smallness of my stature and the debility of my constitution to the life of suffering I led from my thirteenth or fourteenth year. My ordinary crimes were, not to hear the first time I was called; or, if at the time of getting a buffet, I uttered a word of complaint; and I led a life of so much misery, daily receiving blows on my face, that often made the blood spout from both my nostrils: no sooner would I hear myself called than I would begin to shiver, so that I could hardly keep on my legs; but supposing this to be only shamming on my part, frequently would I receive from a stout negro lashes in abundance. Some attacks of the ague, which nearly ended my days, prevented me from accompanying my mistress to Havana. When I recovered sufficiently, my first destiny was to be a page, as well in Havana as in Matanzes; already I was used to sit up from my earliest years, the greatest part of the night in the city, either at the theatre or at parties, or in the house of the Marquis M——— H——, and the Senoras C. If during the tertullia I fell asleep, or, when behind the volante (chariot), if the lantern went out by accident even as soon as we arrived, the mayoral, or administrator, was called up, and I was put for the night in the stocks, and at daybreak was called to an account, not as a boy and so much power has sleep over a man, four or five nights seldom passed that I did not fall into the same faults. My poor mother and brothers more than twice sat up waiting for me while I was in confinement--waiting a sorrowful morning. : Three times I remember the repetition of this scene; at other times I used to meet my mother seeking me. Once, above all, a memorable time to me, when the event that follows happened. We were returning from the town late one night, when the volante was going very fast, and I was seated as usual with one hand holding the bar, and having the lantern in the other, I fell asleep, and it fell out of my hand; on awaking I missed the lantern, and jumped down to get it; but such was my terror, that I was unable to come up with the volante. I followed, well knowing what was to come; but when I came close to the house, I was seized by Don Sylvester, the young mayoral. Leading me to the stocks, we met my mother, who giving way to the impulses of her heart, came up to complete my misfortunes. On seeing me she attempted to inquire what I had done, but the mayoral ordered her to be silent, and treated her as one raising a disturbance. Without regard to her entreaties, and being irritated at being called up at that hour, he raised his hand and struck my mother with the whip. I felt the blow in my own heart! To utter a loud cry, and from a downcast boy, with the timidity of one as meek as a lamb, to become all at once like a raging lion, was a thing of a moment; with all my strength I fell on him with teeth and hands, and it may be imagined how many cuffs, kicks, and blows were given in the struggle that ensued. My mother and myself were carried off and shut up in the same place; the two twin children were brought to her, while Florence and Fernando were left weeping alone in the hut. It scarcely dawned, when the mayoral, with two negroes acting under him, took hold of me and my mother, and led us as victims to the place of sacrifice. I suffered more punishment than was ordered in consequence of my attack on the mayoral. But who can describe the power of the laws of nature on mothers? the fault of my mother was that, seeing they were going to kill me, as she thought, she inquired what I had done, and this was sufficient to receive a blow, and to be further chastised. At beholding my mother in this situation, for the first time in her life (she being exempted from work), stripped by the negroes and thrown down to be scourged, overwhelmed with grief and trembling, I asked them to have pity on her for God's sake; but at the sound of the first lash, infuriated like a tiger, I flew at the mayoral, and was near losing my life in his hands:-but let us throw a veil over the rest of this doleful scene. I served the breakfast, and when I was going to take the first morsel (taking advantage of the moment to eat something), my mistress ordered me to go to the mayoral's house, and tell him-I do not remember what. With sad forebodings, and an oppressed heart, being accustomed to deliver myself up on such occasions, away I went trembling. When I arrived at the door, I saw the mayoral of the Molino, and the mayoral of the Ingenio, together. I delivered my message to the first, who said, "Come in, man ;" I obeyed and was going to repeat it again, when Senor Dominguez, the mayoral of the Ingenio, took hold of my arm, saying " It is to me to whom you are sent ;" took out of his pocket a thin rope, tied my hands behind me as a criminal, mounted his horse, and commanded me to run quick before him, in order to avoid my mother or brothers seeing me. Scarcely had I run a mile before the horse, stumbling at every step, when two dogs that were following us, fell upon me; one taking hold of the left side of my face pierced it through, and the other lacerating my left thigh and leg in a shocking manner, which wounds are open yet, notwithstanding it happened twenty-four years ago. The mayoral alighted on the moment, and separated me from their grasp, but my blood flowed profusely, particularly from my leg; he then pulled me by the rope, making use, at the same time, of the most disgusting language; this pull partly dislocated my right arm, which at times pains me yet. Getting up, I walked as well as I could, till we arrived at the Ingenio. They put a rope round my neck, bound up my wounds, and put me in the stocks. At night all INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A NEGRO POET.-OUR TOWNS. the people of the estate were assembled together, and arranged in a line. I was put in the middle of them, the mayoral and six negroes surrounded me, and at the word "Upon him!" they threw me down; two of them held my hands, two my legs, and the other sat upon my back. They then asked me about the missing capon, and I did not know what to say. Twenty-five lashes were laid upon me. They then asked me again to tell the truth. I was perplexed; at last, thinking to escape further punishment, I said, "I stole it." "What have you done with the money?" was the next question, and this was another trying point. "I bought a hat." "Where is it?" "I bought a pair of shoes." "No such thing." And I said so many things to escape punishment, but all to no purpose. Nine successive nights the same scene was repeated, and every night I told a thousand lies. After the whipping, I was sent to look after the cattle and work in the fields. Every morning my mistress was informed of what I had said the previous night. At the end of ten days, the cause of my punishment being known, Dionisio Copandonga, who was the carrier who brought the fowls, went to the mayoral, and said that the missing capon was eaten by the steward Don Manuel Pipa, and which capon was left behind in a mistake; the cook Simona was examined, and confirmed the account. I do not know whether my mistress was made acquainted with this transaction; but certain it is, that since that moment my punishment ceased: my fetters were taken off, and my work eased, and a coarse linen dress was put on me. I was presented to my mistress, who for the first time received me with kindness. But my heart was so oppressed, that neither her kindness, nor eating, nor drinking, could comfort me. I had no comfort except in weeping; my mistress observing it, and to prevent me from crying so much, and at the same time being so very drowsy, ordered me to move about, and clean all the furniture, tables, chairs, drawers, &c. All my liveliness disappeared, and as my brother was greatly attached to me, he became melancholy himself: he tried, however, to cheer me up, but always finished our conversations in tears; for this reason also my mistress would not let me wait upon her, nor ride in the volante to town; and at last appointed me in the service of young Master Pancho: they bought me a hat and a pair of shoes-a new thing for me; and my master allowed me to bathe, to take a walk in the afternoon, and to go hunting and fishing with senor.-Translated from the Spanish by Dr. Madden. A GOOD MODEL IS DESIRABLE. PEOPLE seldom improve, when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.—Goldsmith. OUR TOWNS. 23 THE picture of crime and of spiritual wretchedness, presented in our cities, or in our great provincial towns, is melancholy in the extreme. Nowhere are such frightful powers of evil openly developed; nowhere are they shown in such appalling combinations. The best and the worst principles, indeed, are here exhibited in their full size and proportions. Everything is mature, and of its utmost growth. It is the proper field for the contemplatist in his study of human nature; and not less for the lover of his species, to put forth the resources of his benevolence with the largest probability of increase. But the most diligent investigation would be insufficient, and the deepest reflection baffled, in endeavouring to compute the vast and various sum of profligacy and of misery which here finds its abode. It would require a patience of research and a sagacity in the detection belonging rather to the agents of police than of charity. And, after all, the half would remain undiscovered. We rejoice, however, that the subject is by no means strange to the Christians of this great metropolis, but one becoming every day more practically and usefully familiar. You have not forgotten, amidst all your noble pursuits, to seek out and relieve that spiritual want with which your dwellings are on every hand encircled. Long and arduously have some of you toiled at the painful task, to take its gauge and dimensions, as it lurks in the very precincts of your houses, palaces, and temples, or seeks a precarious shelter amidst your suburban fields; or dwells, unseen and unsuspected, in your cellars, alleys, garrets, brothels, prisons. You have striven to meet and master it, as it stalks abroad, and riots in your public ways and crowded thoroughfares, assuming every shape of vileness mingled with distress, or of momentary and maddening indulgence ending in beggary and despair. And though your success has lain almost alone in the disclosure of its many aspects and terrific magnitude, such labour cannot be finally in vain. But the power of social evil, as it invades the security and peace of families, destroys all household ties, estranges the child from his parent, and the parent from the child,-the husband and the wife mutually from each other, and the brother from those friends provided for him by the hand of nature; as it absorbs in selfish gratification or reciprocal distrust every feeling of neighbourhood, and forbids that interchange of good offices which, in another sphere, the vilest and most abandoned would not refuse to render; so that the very name-a townsman and a fellow-countryman-has become utterly devoid of meaning; as it assumes the revolting shapes of insubordination and of dangerous caballing-of systematic intimidation and defiance of the laws; as it converts every workshop into a political |