hing about that apartment is old and decaying. The table, of oak
inlaid with maple, is worm-eaten and somewhat loose in the joints; the
chairs are massive and curiously carved, but the sharper edges of the
figures are breaking away; and the solemn line of portraits that cover
the walls hang faded from black, melancholy frames, and declare their
intention of soon leaving them forever. In a deep niche stands a heavy
iron clock that rings the hours with hoarse and sullen voice; and
opposite, in a similar niche, is deposited a gloomy figure in antique
bronze. A recess, curtained with tapestry of faded green, has become the
cemetery of departed genius, and, gathered in the embrace of this little
sepulchre, the works of good and great men of ancient days are gradually
mouldering away to dust again."{6}

In view of this essentially artificial and even boyish style, it is not
strange that one of his compositions should have been thus declined by
the eminently just and impartial editor of the "North American Review,"
Jared Sparks.

DEAR SIR,--I return the article you were so good as to send me. In
many respects it has a good deal of merit, but on the whole I do not
think it suited to the "Review." Many of the thoughts and
reflections are good, but they want maturity and betray a young
writer. The style, too, is a little ambitious, although not without
occasional elegance. With more practice the author cannot fail to
become a good writer; and perhaps my judgment in regard to this
article would not agree with that of others whose opinion is to be
respected; but, after all, you know, we editors have no other
criterion than our own judgment.{7}

Nevertheless the young aspirant felt more and more strongly drawn to a
literary life, and this found expression in his Commencement oration on
"Our Native Writers." His brother and biographer, writing of this
address in later years, says of it, "How interesting that [theme] could
be made in seven minutes the reader may imagine," and he does not even
reprint it; but it seems to me to be one of the most interesting
landmarks in the author's early career, and to point directly towards
all that followed.

OUR NATIVE WRITERS

To an American there is something endearing in the very sound,--Our
Native Writers. Like the music of our native tongue, when heard in a
foreign land, they have power to kindle up within him the tender memory
of his home an