not only imbued with the traditional Magyar spirit of independence, but we find in them also that more enlightened love of freedom and justice, which respects the natural rights of man, not less than the constitutional rights of a nation.

The next drama offered by Kisfaludy was "Stibor Vajda,' (Duke Stibor,) founded on the history of Stibor, the cruel duke of Transylvania. It was first presented at Pest, on the 7th of September, 1819. This play, unlike most of the dramas of Kisfaludy, is better adapted for reading than for representation. It has great interest as a picture of the manners of the time in which the scene is laid, and as an indication of the spirit of that in which it was written, which permitted the representation of a play, relating the oppression exercised upon the peasantry by a powerful prince and the retribution which overtook him.

On the twenty-fourth of September, only seventeen days after the first representation of "Stibor," appeared Kisfaludy's first comedy "A' Kérök." The success of this play induced him to continue his labors in this field. Before the close of the same year (1819,) he composed "A' Partütök" (the Rebels,) a picture of Magyar village-life. This piece was, however, not presented at the theatre until the spring of the following year.

Comedy is, of all species of literary composition, that which suffers the most in being conveyed from one language into another; and this is especially the case where the two languages differ from one another so entirely in construction and genius, as the English and the Magyar. But as any notice of the works of Kisfaludy would be incomplete, which gave no account of his comedies, we shall, on a future occasion, offer our readers some extracts from these, making choice, for this purpose, of such plays as are peculiarly descriptive of national manners, and may, on that account alone, possess an interest for the foreign reader.

Edmund Duight.

ART. III. Memoirs of SIR THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON, BART. Edited by his Son, CHARLES BUXTON, Esq., B. A. Second Edition. London: 1849. 8vo. pp. 614.

It would be with great reluctance that we should call a man whom we very much respected a "philanthropist. From the common application of the word it has acquired the most unpleasant associations, and we never hear it without experiencing a series of very disagreeable emotions. There comes up before us the image of a thin man, of a nervous habit and inquisitive disposition; of a dyspeptic and pugnacious temperament; whose talents not having been appreciated in the exercise of any useful or ornamental art, has much leisure to talk about very offensive subjects in a very offensive way; who is always full of bad taste and false logic, apt to be personal, while his facts are as tender as his assertions are hardy. He is not modest, not wise, not useful, not a gentleman, not much of a man; - but he is "earnest," and so self-forgetful that he has quite run to seed without knowing it. He possesses only a part of the qualities of charity; for he "believeth all things" and "hopeth all things," but he is "puffed up," and doth "behave himself unseemly."

We

This, we have been assured by himself and his friends, is a philanthropist. We were skeptical as to the statement. felt a distrust of the man and the speaker, and a little alarmed. Perhaps our dignity was somewhat hurt at the implication that we, too, in spite of that privacy which our insignificance assures us, in spite of the distance which we have most anxiously preserved, were nevertheless made an object of the gentleman's affection. We thought it cruel to be thus clasped (even metaphorically) in his embrace. We supposed it was quite impossible for us to escape; but we felt both disposed and authorized to adopt the most energetic measures in the attempt.

Now, by the general rule, every man who makes speeches for the negroes is a philanthropist. Sir Fowell Buxton made speeches for the negroes. But the syllogism fails. Here at least is an exception, for Sir Fowell Buxton was an excellent and able man. He was modest, wise, and useful,- very

much of a gentleman, and we should maintain, a great man; great in purpose, great in action, great in his influence upon great affairs; timid in profession, brave in accomplishment; hesitant in deliberation, prompt in action; of a comprehensive mind, "looking before and after;" genial of heart, open of hand; ready of access to every influence which should move a man, but when determined, of an energy which guarantied the future.

In reading the history of a life like his, the characteristics. of the pseudo-philanthropist become more painfully distinct from the contrast. When we observe how, under the guidance of a pure motive, a man has been able to benefit many of his race by devoting the best energies and highest powers of his nature to their improvement, we look with increased distrust upon those who pretend, indeed, to follow his example, but whose characters lack the cardinal virtues of temperance, charity, and fairness, and whose action is more harmful to the progress of good than any thing which we know. Is it not, indeed, a miserable sight to see the leadership taken by false guides; to see present defeat and lasting disgrace brought upon many a good cause by the unfitness of those who conduct it? Can we believe in the sincerity of those who, professing universal philanthropy, show a total want of every lesser charity? What title shall we give them, when we remember that "whoever makes truth disagreeable, commits high treason against virtue."

And here we would express our sense of the admirable manner in which the editor of these Memoirs has performed his task, and of the great value of the book he has published. The narrative is well arranged, simply and concisely written. The writer never gets between you and his subject, and never tries to make a great deal out of a very little. There is no lagging of interest, but the story moves steadily forward to the end. The editor has avoided those sins of prolixity and excessive eulogy to which biographers are peculiarly prone, and has fully succeeded in his object, as set forth in the preface, to "show, as plainly as possible, what sort of a person my father was, so that the reader should feel as if he had been one of his most intimate friends." The purpose of the book is not to display Mr. Buxton's talent, though it was commanding; nor the part he played in the history of

his country, though it was distinguished; nor to give a picture of the society in which he moved, though it was highly cultivated and respectable; but to show his motives, his principles, and his conduct, and to point out, as can be done in the biographies only of a few, how faithful the course of his life was to his purest motives, and to his most profound convictions; how he kept "the height that he was able to attain."

In estimating the value of such a biography so written, our only danger is on the side of extravagance. Still we feel constrained to place it in the first rank among works of the greatest value. For there is no higher object of literature than to "teach virtue not to be ashamed, and to turn many to righteousness." There is no surer means of accomplishing this than the example of a life which gives at once a proof of the possibility of virtue, shows the means of its attainment, and the glorious results of its acquisition.

Mr. Buxton was not a man of genius. The original powers of his mind were those which most men possess ; and it is this fact which renders his biography of the greater value, because it is an example applicable to all men. We have the lives of extraordinary men, and they are curious and valuable. But ordinary men see nothing in them applicable to their own condition of mind and character. They draw no argument from them to influence their own lives. Few men of any one generation excel in those qualities of sensibility, of discrimination, of decision, which make the poet, the philosopher, or the commander. Fewer still are placed in circumstances to become heroes in history. Most men cannot be remarkable; the majority must always be common-place. But all men have characters to develop, and duties to perform, with such powers as they have, and under the circumstances of their position. And the man who has solved the questions, and performed the duties, that are placed before every individual of his race, has achieved a work of universal usefulness, if not of universal fame.

Thomas Fowell Buxton was born at Earl's Colne, in the county of Essex, England, on the first of April, 1786. His father, whose name he bore, was high sheriff of the county, a man of kind and active disposition and liberal hospitality. Dying in 1792, he left his widow with three sons and two daughters. Thomas Fowell, the eldest son, thus came under

He had

the sole care of his mother when but six years old. already given evidence of a bold and determined character, which needed more firmness of control than is usually exercised over a fatherless boy. One who knew him when young, said of him," He never was a child; he was a man when in petticoats.' But his mother was a woman of remarkable energy. Her son described her as "large-minded about every thing; disinterested almost to an excess; careless of difficulty, labor, danger, or expense, in the prosecution of any great object. With these nobler qualities were united some of the imperfections, which belong to that species of ardent and resolute character." She belonged to the Society of Friends; but, as her husband was a member of the Church of England, her children were baptized in infancy, and she never attempted to convert them to her faith. But her whole influence was exerted to give them a high moral and religious culture, and to imbue their minds with reverence for the Scriptures, and an interest in generous and charitable purposes. This influence had much effect in regulating the character and directing the course of her son until he became of age, when his mother contracted a second marriage with Mr. Edmund Henning, of Weymouth.

When only four years and a half old, Fowell Buxton was sent to school at Kingston, where he suffered so severely from ill-treatment and want of food, that his health was impaired, and he was removed, after two years of this peculiarly English discipline, to the school of the celebrated Dr. Charles Burney, at Greenwich. At this school he passed eight years, "without making any great advances in learning." He was then, as in mature years, remarkably tall; and this, with the slowness of his mental powers, added perhaps to a certain weight of character even then discernible, gained him the nickname of "Elephant Buxton.” His vacations were spent sometimes with his paternal grandmother, at her country house, Bellfield, near Weymouth, but more frequently with his mother at Earl's Colne. Here he was instructed in the mysteries of fieldsports by a faithful gamekeeper, named Abraham Plaistow, a man of whom Mr. Buxton, in riper years, said,

"He had more of natural good sense and what is called mother wit, than almost any person I have met with since a knack