those we had from England, of William Pitt, Generals Wolfe and Amherst, and the King of Prussia, George Whitfield and John Wesley, in the Gentleman's Magazine, by Sylvanus Urban, were miserable productions. We had, from London, a few maps, by T. Kitchin, and some, about the time of the Stamp Act, by Jeffries, geographer to the King, whose son died a few years since in the Boston almshouse, insane. About the year 1774, a mezzotinto engraver and print-seller came from London to Newport, Rhode-Island. He engraved one or two very good copies of Mr. Copley's portraits, especially one of a venerable clergyman; but the state of the country in regard to politics induced him to return home.* Hurd was a real genius. To a superior mode of execution he added a Hogarthian talent of character and humor. Among other things of his, he engraved a descriptive representation of a certain swindler, and forger of bills, named Hudson, a foreigner, standing in the pillory. In the crowd of spectators, he introduced the likenesses of some wellknown characters, which excited much good-natured mirth. What has tended to make the name of Hurd familiar to all, is the representation of the Seal of the University, surmounted with appropriate ornaments, with a plain spread curtain beneath, in which is written the name of the donor, who gave the book, or from what fund, or by what purchase, it came into the Library. This in 30,000 volumes is enough to give a humble degree of celebrity to Nathaniel Hurd, without the ingenuity of his engraved escutcheon, which is pasted on the inner side of every volume. Some very curious and highly valuable books, that are not allowed to be taken out by students, have the escutcheon printed in red ink. But whether in red or black ink, the name of "N. Hurd, sculp." is affixed to all of them. Of the incidents of Mr. Hurd's life, little is now known, and all that is here given is gathered up from the remembrances of a few, who knew him as a man while they were children, and from the works he has left behind him. He was probably the first person who undertook to engrave on copper in the United States. We have seen a miniature likeness of the Rev. Dr. Sewall, minister of the Old South Church in Boston, engraved by Hurd, in the linear style, in 1764.† In this art he was his own instructer. There are still extant a few pictures of a different character, done on copper, by Hurd, about the same period. One is a representation of the memorable massacre of citizens, on the fifth of March, 1770. Another, and more remarkable one is that men *A few years later than the period here mentioned, there were a number of mechanics of great genius in the arts of seal-cutting, and what was called " Plate Work." We have seen a manuscript in the possession of the Hon. Judge Davis of Boston, written by his brother, the late Samuel Davis, Esq. of Plymouth, in which mention is made of a journeyman by the name of Vent, a native of Germany, who excelled in siver-plate engraving. He mentions also, Brigdon, Webb, Edwards, Pierpont, Burt, Bowyer, Parker, (the father of the late Chief Justice Parker) Belknap, Emery, Holmes, Tyler, Woodward, Frothingham, Codner, and "though last, not least," Paul Revere, with a biographical notice of whom we intend to enrich a future number of the Magazine. Of Hurd, who was dead before Mr. Davis commenced his apprenticeship in 1779, he says:-"In seal-cutting and die-sinking, he would be unrivalled in New-England, if not in the United-States, even now, [1810.] New-England manners, at the time he lived, were not propitious to workmen of fancy and taste; yet seals and shop-bills, and other productions of Hurd, claim peculiar respect, even at the present polished era of art." It will be seen from this date, that Dr. Silliman has committed an error, in claiming for Mr. Doolittle, of New-Haven, the priority in point of time, among American engravers on copper. There are productions of Paul Revere, also, of a date considerably anterior to the earliest of Doolittle's works. See Silliman's Journal of Science and the Arts, April, 1832. tioned above, representing the punishment of two notorious rogues,a more particular history of which may be entertaining. In the year 1762, there appeared in Boston, a curious character, who called himself Doctor Hudson. He gave out that he was a Dutchman; that he was possessed of a large fortune, and was traveling for his amusement. He was dressed very gaily; tried to push himself into genteel company; and, though rather expensive in his appearance, he shewed but little money and displayed no resources. He was well watched. After some time, a fellow was detected in putting off a note purporting to be from the Treasurer of the Province, which proved a counterfeit. His name was Howe; he confessed he was a partner in villany with Doctor Hudson, and that they had been privately engaged in making up a number of the Province notes, which were in high credit in this and the neighboring Provinces, and sold readily at an advanced price. The Doctor was also taken into custody. They were tried and convicted; Hudson was ordered to the pillory and Howe to the whipping-post. The execution of their sentence was accompanied by a collection of an immense crowd, and immoderate exultation. Hurd immediately put out a caricature print of the exhibition, which excited much attention. Hudson was represented in the pillory, and at a short distance was Howe, stripping, near the whipping-post. The Devil is represented flying towards the Doctor, exclaiming, "This is the man for me.' ." In front of the print is the representation of a medallion, on which is a profile of Hudson, dressed in a bag-wig, with a sword under his arm, (as he generally appeared before his detection,) partly drawn from the scabbard, with the words "Dutch Tuck," on the exposed part of the blade. Round the edge is-"THE TRUE PROFILE OF THE NOTORIOUS DOCTOR SETH HUDSON, 1762." The Doctor is represented as addressing the multitude in the following speech, which is said to have been written by the celebrated wit and poet, Joseph Green. What mean these crowds, this noise and roar? Did ye ne'er see a rogue before? Are villains then a sight so rare, To make you press, and gape, and stare? Come forward all, who look so fine, With gain as illy got as mine: Step up-you'll soon reverse the show The crowd above, and few below. Well-for my roguery here I stand, High elevated on this stage, The greatest villain of the age. My crimes have been both great and many— And for the mischiefs I have done, I put this wooden neckcloth on. There Howe his brawny back is stripping, Now all ye, who behold this sight, [Sold by N. Hurd, near the Exchange, and at the Heart & Crown, in Cornhill, Boston.] Mr. Hurd, had he lived to a more advanced age, would doubtless/ have distinguished himself yet more in an art, in the exercise of which, it is evident, he took great delight, and for which, it is equally manifest, he had both taste and talent. He was born in Boston, Feb. 13, 1730, and died Dec. 17, 1777, before he had attained the age of fortyeight. There is an original picture of him, painted by Copley, in the possession of one of his relatives at Medford, Mass. From that picture, a man by the name of JENNINGS (of whom we can learn little else) engraved a likeness in mezzotinto; and of that mezzotinto, the lithographic print which accompanies this memoir, is, as near as the different modes of engraving will admit, an exact copy. SPORTS OF CHILDHOOD. "I have been young, and now am old." WHEN a happy child, I longed for manhood, and I am now a careworn man. Reason and reality sway their stern sceptre over me, and their domination may be traced in my furrowed brow. Wisdom has scattered snows on my temples, and Prudence shot ice to my soul; the sports of the child have long been lost in the pursuits of the man. We should be too happy to die with resignation, could we retain amidst our experience and later knowledge, the buoyancy of youthful spirits, and continue to hope boldly and blindly in spite of disappoint ment. That "the boy is father to the man" may be good poetry, but it is no true philosophy. The soul, indeed, is sexual, for how early does the feminine attach itself to finery and to dolls. I, who am of the less graceful sex, should have been an equestrian of note, were the indications of character, in childhood to be trusted. A centaur was my type; before I was clad in trowsers, I was to be seen prancing in the garden, on a willow twig, like a witch upon a broomstick, and Sancho upon Clavileno, could not, in imagination move more swiftly. I was carried away by the impulse and the twig, and Orlando, mounted on Boyardo, felt less pride than I. My next aspirations were for arms; and Bellona, in spite of my zeal, would have smiled at my equipments. Bows and arrows, that excited the mirth of Captain Dalghetty, before they stretched him on the earth, were my first arms. I could not use them with the skill of Tell, or even of the primitive archer A. Had a pumpkin been placed at two-yards, on the head of an ox, I should have hit neither the one nor the other. Robin Hood and Little John, though derided by Dalghetty, were to me the most honorable persons in history. Our youthful band, however, adopted or imitated some of the improvements in the art of war. We marched in paper caps, surmounted with a goosequill; we girded ourselves with a belt of twine from which dangled a blade of wood. I have seen companies in the militia with no better discipline or equipments. All the sons of New-England have a tendency to mechanics; their aim is not to save labor, but to double the product. I was therefore early indoctrinated in the mystery of a mill, and soon built one, with no other tools than a jack-knife and a broken fork; it was what we called a trip-hammer, moved by water, to strike upon a wooden anvil. The dam was the work of days, and I conducted the water of Goose Creek to a new channel, and a fall of seven feet. The dam remains one of the monuments of my childhood. Few others exist, except those of memory and thought, which are deeply engraven on my soul. I forget the conversations and occurrences of yesterday, while I remember, freshly, the most trifling occurrences, or passing thoughts of childhood. It was but lately that I went by the place of the mill, in which if you should ask for the edifice, echo might answer, "where!" and it afflicted me to feel how little I have found in what others call a prosperous life, that has proved as satisfactory and innocent as the pursuits of early youth. Had I been a lachrymose poet, I could have wept; but, being only a foolish elderly man, I doffed coat, and worked an hour in clearing the channel and repairing the dam. Two of my nephews came up and caught me in the fact; but they were children, and loved me the better for having with them this community of feeling. Is it I who am changed, or has nature changed around me? The birds are no longer cheerful to me, the morning air in a south-west wind no longer breathes of flowers, as when I was a child. I have lost, like Macbeth, "that alacrity, and cheer of mind." "I mourn, but ye woodlands, I mourn not for you." Ye are waving and green, and your dews are as brilliant as when I brushed them away; but I have no longer the sense of enjoyment. I am changed. Novelty and freshness no longer charm me; I am all habit. I have a course, not of pleasures, but of life, like that of the horse in his mill, and which he enjoys not, though custom renders it endurable. Admit the worn-out animal to the green pastures, and he no longer frisks and plays; but from habit, he still continues to walk round in a circle, even in cropping the clover. Where is my taste for the beautiful and the sublime? Yet is nature full of sublimity and beauty. Would that I were again a child, though the most ragged and bronzed, that ever climbed for a crow's nest, and made loaves of mud by the way-side. "Farewell!" I may say with Madame Roland, splendid chimeras of youth, from which I have reaped so much delight! sublime illusions, generous sacrifices, hope and happiness, farewell!" P. THE SCHOOLMASTER? CHAP. IV. RECOLLECTIONS OF THE METROPOLIS. Qui n'a pas vu Paris, n'a rien vu. Proverbe Français. Paris semble à mes yeux un Pais de Romans. Corneille. Le Menteur. Guillot, qui a fait maint biaus dits, Dit qu'il n'a que trois cent et dix, Le dous Seigneur du Firmament Nous deffende de more amere. Guillot. Les Rues de Paris mises en vers anciens. To a stranger, who visits Paris without having previously visited any of the principal European cities, the first week of his residence in the French metropolis is more like a dream than a reality. The palaces, the 'gardens, the splendid public edifices, the vast squares, the statues, and columns, and fountains, the noble bridges, the thronged streets, and the magnificent boulevards that encircle all, fill the mind of the stranger with astonishment and delight: and if the novelty and splendor around him do not force him to repeat the old proverb, that "he who has not seen Paris, has seen nothing," they will more than half persuade him that he is dwelling in the land of romance and a region of enchantment. My gentle reader, it does not enter into the plan, which I proposed to myself at the commencement of these papers, to give you a detailed description of the wonders and curiosities of the cities I have visited. I shall not, therefore, attempt to describe the palaces, gardens, and churches of Paris; but if you are disposed to stroll with me through the city, I will lead you to some of its pleasantest walks, and point out to you many things, which have a place in history, though perchance you will not find them in the guide-book. Sallying forth, then, from my chamber, in the quiet Faubourg Saint Germain, we first enter the Rue Vaugirard, and, advancing a few paces, turn to the left through an arched gate-way, guarded by a sentinel, and pass into the beautiful garden of the Luxembourg. The sun is just rising over the noiseless streets, and shooting his level rays aslant this little solitude, buried in the midst of a populous city. The freshness of the hour is delightful. The flowers, that surround the basin in the parterre, perfume the air, the birds are twittering in the trees, and the marble statues stretch their gigantic shadows along the gravel walks. Leaving, on the right hand, the Palace of the Luxembourg, with its square antique pavilions, its long terraces and open galleries, we pass on, and, ascending a flight of stone steps, find ourselves among the trees. The slight building you see yonder is not a sentry-box but a bureau des journaux; and the grave personages, whom you see here and there seated on the stone benches of the garden, and deeply engaged in reading, are not students, who have strolled forth. to breathe the morning air, but restless politicians, eagerly poring over the columns of the morning paper, and inhaling the sweet breath of a ministerial proclamation. Farther on among the trees, and so dis |