LITERARY NOTICES. THE HISTORY OF LONG-ISLAND, FROM ITS DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME: with many important and interesting Matters; including Notices of numerous Individuals and Families, etc. BY BENJAMIN F. THOMPSON, Counsellor at Law. In two volumes. pp. 1055. Second Edition. THESE volumes, dedicated though they are to a particular history, commend themselves by their richness to the general reader. The author is a patient, sincere, unrequited antiquarian. By the collation of materials which his pains-taking has saved out of old town annals, we are enabled to preserve a true and curious picture of the life and manners of the Long-Islanders two hundred years ago, embracing both the Dutch and English settlers; and our remoteness in point of feeling, more than of time, we venture to assert, is enough to provoke a smile at such primitive modes. The gaunt, stark, moody Puritanism, whose stiff-cut garment was forced upon the supple and cultivated figure of the age at home, sat here like true Nature, where its backward tendency, humored as if by the kick of Necessity itself, reached the very savageness of the year one. Here all was in character; the howling wilderness, the far-stretching, desolate plains; the breakers bursting upon the sea-shore, like a perpetual cannonade; and as the stern settler in his Sunday clothes stalked to the meeting-house, pulling his musket after him through the thick briars, he encountered only the sullen front of the Indian, or some of the Half-Moon squadron, the grunting and phlegmatic Dutchman of the Manhadoes, positive of his prior right. Puritanism might have been born here, instead of being wafted to the neighborhood by any 'May-Flower.' As it was, it was the right soil wherein to plant dragon's-teeth, and a precious crop of warriors rose up to battle for conscience, armed cap-à-pie with their own prejudices. Thrown back into the midst of savage nature, and of savage men, they brought with them an appropriate garment of external manners; and that which was treason against taste, when it threw itself into violent contrast with the fantastic elegance of the first CHARLES, here became very proper. For how should men be of a winning or joyous aspect, when every occasion of a hard repulsive life scowled dismally, and the eye wandered over pickets and palisades on a landscape never caressed as yet by the hand of culture? And farther: is it to be wondered at that Woman, whose mitigating beauty knows how to light up with an adorable lustre the worst scenes, contracted the complexion of the time, and Religion smiled horribly a ghastly smile? Here was not the place for the roscida mella, the sweet blandishments of society, where the earth was ferocious: outer modes were therefore consistent, but certain principles of action were inconsistent. Let us not forget that we are now to arrange annals. Though the soil, much of it be barren, and history devotes but few (yet important) pages to this field, these islanders have preserved among them some materials which will not be deemed uninteresting, as illustrating the character of the Puritans. Tender conscience, as will be seen, (the bugbear of the time,) was found associated with rough hands; and as drink now-a-days, so meat then 'made many brothers to offend.' For conscience' sake they fled from tyranny; to worship GoD according to conscience, they erected an asylum; toleration and the rights of conscience they were prepared to maintain, though they had to burn a few Quakers with intolerably hot flames. To their honor be it said, on the first breathingspell which they could get from the savages, and after a few enclosures had been erected to protect them from the more imperative wolves, their very first care was to provide for the support of a minister, and to build a meeting-house, (without a bell,) where they might conscientiously worship God. This is the first praiseworthy memorial on the record of every town; and the transmission of this pious trust to succeeding generations has since served to beautify the landscape of many a New-England village. Notices like the following are of frequent occurrence: 'AT A Jineral townd-meeting held in Hempstead the seventh day of Janeuary in the yere of our LORD 1677, It was agreed on by the major vote that they should bild a meting-house. This was confirmed at a townd-meeting held the first day of Eaperell, and Mr SEMANS and JOHN SMITH (!) was chosen to go agree with JOSEPH CARPENTER to bild a meting-hous.' AUG. 1, 1683.-Town voted that JEREMY WOOD should have ten shillings a year 'for looking after ye opening and shutting of ye window-shutters belonging to ye meeting hous, and to look carefully after ye hour-glass.' JAN. 29.-The town voted ABRAHAM SMITH thirty shillings a year for beating the drum on Sunday, and other meting days, to be paid in tobacco payment, or wheat at six-and-eight pence, and Indian corn at four shillings a bushel.' At Jamaica, March 9, 1692, Mr. JOSEPH SMITH was chosen to go with NEHEMIAH SMITH to ye main in order to ye procurement of a minister;' and five years afterward the town resolved to erect a new and larger house for public religious worship, for which purpose the inhabitants were 'divided into five squadrons,' to procure and bring to the spot timber, stone, lime, and whatever materials were wanted.' The following will show how the salary was raised: 'MAY the 24: We under Righten dwo Ingeage Ech and Every of us to give these under Righten sumes to JEREMY HUBARD yearly, during the time we liue under ministry, and to pay it in corn and Cattel at Prise as it Pasis Currant among us.' We have read with interest many other quaint passages from the old-town records contained in these volumes, illustrative of these characteristics, as well as others descriptive of the intolerant and intolerable persecution of the Quakers, (especially of those who 'permitted Quakers to quake at their houses in Gravesend,') and of Lady Moody, the HESTER STANHOPE of her time, who defended herself against the attacks of her enemies with a heroic bravery worthy of JOAN D'ARC. Indeed, we have gleaned from the work before us much to illustrate the primitive manners of the Long-Islanders, which until a comparatively late period remained essentially the same. Separated, like the Britons, from the whole world, they sought no change. For instance, the last militia-training in Queens county afforded a parallel to what occurred in King's county in 1694, when a woman of the town of Bushwick was indicted at the sessions 'for having beat, and pulled the hair of Captain Peter Praa! while at the head of his company of soldiers! on parade!! Agriculture was not greatly advanced, nor were pasture-grounds more cultivated in many places, a few years ago, than in the days when WILLIAM JACOCKS and EDWARD RAYNOR were appointed to be cow-keeps for the yeare; the people to be ready, at the sounding of the horn to send out their cows, and the keeper to be ready to take charge of them, sun half an hour high, and to bring them home half an hour before sunset.' Education was then limited to reading and spelling; sometimes extra guilders being devoted to 'a writer.' Scandal went about seeking for food, and courtship was accompanied with as disorderly means as the unlawful kiss stated to have been stolen from the sweet lips of Bette ScuDDER.' There were no turnpike-roads, and the facilities of travel were very limited. The Kings-county men knew nothing of the Queens-county men, and both were ignorant of the Suffolk-men; and the pall of ignorance became denser as the circle widened. Forty years ago the late learned and venerable Doctor DWIGHT traversed the island, and remarked: The views, affections and pursuits of the people must of course be always limited. Almost all their concerns are absolutely confined to the house or to the neighborhood, and the neighborhood rarely extends beyond the confines of a small hamlet.' In order to become aware of the great changes which are now going on, and will soon revolutionize this secluded spot, it is necessary to look over the volumes under notice. They contain a mass of information on topics which we can now scarcely mention; memorials of the revolution; biographical sketches of many distinguished men; a catalogue of the birds of Long-Island, furnished by JAMES E. DEKAY, M. D., etc., etc. The accuracy of information on local points is not to be complained of. There is no doubt the author would go fifty miles to settle a date, never minding dust, weeds and the rank grasses. He possesses the keenest scent for a fact, tracking it and retracking it; pausing momentarily at any fence or obstruction; throwing up his head with a little uncertainty, and then on. By threshing about the sands and scrub-oaks, he has hunted up some birds of pretty good feather, and drawn up many a noble tree and genealogy, proving this one to be the son of a distinguished lord, that one of a 'merry cobbler.' It turns out that there is armor enough among the old farmhouses to furnish a herald's office, and Smithtown is a hot-bed of nobility. Most of the facts saved are valuable; others, which must have been attained by dint of much labor, will not be appreciated by the obtuse public, while the ignorant might apply to them that very apposite remark made by the President of the Long-Island rails, who when threatened with law-suits because he had gone sparking through the pine timbers and kindled a rousing flame, said with a happy raillery, that the company was like a south-side crow, very hard to catch, and not worth any thing when it was caught.' So much for the annals of Long-Island, which no one hitherto has taken the pains to explore; reckoning it some sandy Pylos, some barren region, where only the pines grew, those excrescences of barrenness, and every aspect was altogether savage. But the invasion of modern travel is at last there, letting in the noisy world, and from 'Coneyn Eylant' to Montauk Point waking up the pulses of a new life. Once, the low market-wagon with its forlorn horses crawled to such places of inauspicious title as Cow-Neck or Mosquito-Cove. The very names of things have been changed; 'Glen-Cove' and 'Roslyn' now allure the traveller with their euphonious sound. We have seen the gigantic engine roll over the solitudes of the great plains, the white smoke rising in columnar masses like the many pillars of the Giants' Causeway; the brilliant fragment of a rainbow upon the escaping steam,and athwart the path a deer springing, like a swift memory of the past, to plunge into the waters which the Indians loved so dearly, and which was almost their only lake- Ronconcoma! The discovery has been made that the island possesses many a delightful Tempe, many a chosen spot of unsurpassed picturesqueness and beauty. On all hands are beheld some objects worthy of the judicious traveller; whether he rambles on the borders of the Atlantic coast or looks down from a loftier promontory where luxurious mansions take in the prospect of the Long-Island Sound, or have been builded, like another Baise, on the very margin of its delicious waves; and we cannot but hope that Mr. THOMPSON'S book will make the public still better acquainted with these scenes. THE GREECE OF THE GREEKS. By G. A. PERDICARIS, A. M., late Consul of the United States at Athens. New-York: PAINE AND BURGESS. THIS interesting work, as its title indicates, presents to us the condition of modern Greece, and is dedicated to those who are interested (and who is not ?) in the fate of that nation. A Greek by birth, but an American by adoption and education, we find our author, as United States' Consul, on his way to Greece, in 1837. He left that country in his early youth; and our interest in his work is greatly heightened by the peculiar relation subsisting between himself and the land he describes. It brings to mind the psychological triangle of COLERIDGE, on one of the angles of which he placed an ideal representative of the public, on one other angle his imaginary self, and on the remaining one took his stand, to observe how he appeared before the public, and relatively, the public to him! Our author reached Athens in the beginning of 1838, and soon after we find him threading his way through the valleys, the ruin-crowned passes, and rocky islands of his native land. He visited all the localities of historic renown, and those connected with the strange events of the Greek Revolution; and of all these he has given clear and spirited descriptions, together with the reflections unavoidably awakened by the nature of his themes. The work opens with a summary review of the existing government of the country; of the circumstances connected with its formation; and of the system of diplomacy pursued by the allied powers, from all of which the author presents this conclusion: The history of the last fifty years has recorded many wrongs; many acts of oppression and injustice; but neither the history of the present, nor the annals of ancient and modern times, can afford us a more terrible example of national vassalage than that of Greece, or which more vividly portrays the beauties of an exotic policy, justly characterized by MACAULAY as the worst species of slavery.' We are compelled,' he says, 'to acknowledge that no form of government can give a guarantee for peace and security in Greece, so long as her people, her assemblies and her courts are distracted by the Machiavelian intrigues of the foreign diplomatists.' In his observations on the condition of the people and the resources of the country, Mr. PERDICARIS has frequent cause to remark upon the injurious operation of the government, and in no respect does it display so great a want of wisdom as in the disposition of the public domain. Some of the most fertile districts are lying waste, and losing their population, from the exorbitant rents demanded of the peasants who cultivate them. They are obliged to pay to the national treasury twenty-five per cent. of the gross produce of the soil; and, as if that were not enough, they are farther subjected to the vexatious exactions of the tithe-gatherers, who are the worst scourges of the land. A government deeply in debt has yet rulers so stupid as not to know that the prosperity of the people is necessary to that of the nation; or who prefer to keep them in poverty, in order to make them the better slaves. Notwithstanding all that is said, however, in disparagement of the government, our author speaks favorably of the King, whose character and position he has well considered. Indeed, throughout the work the writer has manifested a thorough knowledge of the character and condition of the Greeks, and a comprehensive insight into the operations of the government, for good and evil, upon them. And although he finds much in the system of politics through which their native energies are thwarted that tends to retard the development of the resources of the country, he does not despair of their ultimate triumph over all oppression, and every discouragement, and the final achievement of a new and glorious destiny. His hopes of this consummation are founded upon their deep nationality of feeling; their institutions of religion and education; the success of their revolution, and their 'late and splendid triumph in behalf of constitutional liberty.' We must refer the reader to the work itself for the biographical sketches of DUCAS, COLCOTRONI and MARCO BOZZARIS, which are admirably written, and replete with interest. In fine, to the antiquary, the artist, the poet, the student of nature, of art and of political economy - to all readers, in short- we cordially commend the volumes whose merits we have so imperfectly indicated. - THE ARTISTS OF AMERICA: A SERIES OF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF AMERICAN ARTISTS; with Portraits and Designs on steel. By C. EDWARDS LESTER. New-York: BAKER AND SCRIBNER. THE immediate object of this series of biographical sketches, the writer informs us in his preface, is to make our artists and their works better known at home. 'I have long believed,' he says, that the insensibility of the nation to the claims of art and artists was more owing to a lack of information on these subjects, than to any, perhaps all other causes; and I have long desired to see this want supplied with some work, uniting beauty of execution and cheapness of price with authenticity of facts, to secure for it general circulation. Artists themselves will not do it, although well qualified for the task; perhaps they could not do it without suffering, however unjustly, unkind imputations. No one else seems inclined to make an attempt, and I have resolved to try it myself. Confining myself strictly to the object of the work, already stated, I shall endeavor only to make our artists and their works better known to their own countrymen. No alarm need be felt by them; for I shall not consider it my business to deal with living men without their consent, however current the old adage may be, that public men are public property. I do not propose to compare one artist with another, nor to praise any body. All an artist or an author needs, is to be known through his works. If these convey his eulogy, let him have no solicitude about his fame.' Mr. LESTER opens his series with a biographical notice of WASHINGTON Allston, accompanied by a fine portrait of his illustrious subject. The following admirable lines by Mr. CALEB LYON, of Lyonsdale, after the manner of SWAIN's Funeral of Sir WALTER SCOTT,' have an appropriate place of honor in the present sketch: CREATOR of the Beautiful, which lives through distant years, Methought I saw a funeral band following thee in tears; "T was not the tread of mortals, but a strange ethereal train, For stars shone brightly through them, while sweeping o'er the plain. The Dead Man of ELISHA pass'd sadly in my dream, And the Angel of St. PETER shone like the morning's beam; With ELIJAH from the Desert, and URIEL from the Sun, Mourning in tearless silence the great departed one. ROSALIE'S radiant form was there, her tresses flowing wild; MONALDI, gazing wildly, moved with an air of pride; |