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236 THE COURANT; A SOUTHERN LITERARY JOURNAL.
The Courant.
COLUMBIA, S. C., THURSDAY, NOV. 24, 1859.
THE COURANT.
The office of the Courant has been removed to No. 144 Richardson
Street, over Flanigan's Shoe-Store.
W.M. W. WALKER, JR., & CO.

Personal---Ourselves.
Our Associate, Mr. WALKER, after having bbeen severely bruised up by his late accident, is now "up and about."
The Editor-In-Chief returns his thanks to the many kind friends who have made enquiries concerning his health. "We" are improving, slowly, it is true, but surely. We hope to be at our post before long.

Schiller Festival.
Our readers will find the report of this interestting celebra-tion of our German citizens on the sixth page of this number.

More Magazines.
The Southern Literary Messenger contains a well-arranged variety.
Among the book-notices we find one upon Miss TALLEY's Poems. The editor of the Messenger expresses much the same
opinion of her powers and faults as we did in our last number.
The Southern Teacher, for this quarter, has arrived. It has
much of valuable and enduring matter. We cannot effectually
express to our readers the importance of this work. Every teacher should have it, and every fireside will be the better off,
where its happy influence penetrates. Published at Montgomery,
Ala., and edited by Prof. W.S. BARTON: at only one dollar
a year.
The Great Republic, after having cut our acquaintance since
last July, has returned to us again, with all the glory of its
spread-eagle-and-red-letter cover. Really it annoys us to see
such bad taste: why don't you get up the Magazine in a tidy,
elegant and simple style like Harper's, or the Atlantic Monthly?
There is always a horrid suspicion of catch-penny in such fantastical
outsides. Now, the matter of this number is quite up to
Harper's, and without the dreary comicalities of the great
Magazine. There is no reason why the Great Republic (now
ending its first year) should not, in a short tiime, equal and
excel any of the monthlies. OAKSMITH & Co., New York, publish
it at three dollars per annum.

Kane Monument Association.
The coproators of this Association announce a number of
lectures for the benefit of their very commendable association.
But such a mixture!
Governor banks, the illustrious!
Dr. CHAPIN, the humanitarian.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, whom every body knows.
Rev. Dr. CUMINGS, the insufferable puppy.
BAYARD TAYLOR, the modern Marco Polo.
The charming spice of variety, has been secured.

A Silly Critic.
The Saturday Press has a correspondent, "Ada Clare," who
adores absurdity, and who will proceed to any lengths, in order
to seem odd. In the face of the fact that "Beulah" has received
the very highest praise from critics who could teach
such writers as "Ada Clare" for all tiime to come, he or she, as
it may be, revives the absurdly stupid charge that "Beulah"
is an imitation of "Jane Eyre"—an opinion which at once
shews most clearly that he or she (Ada) either never read the
book, or what is worse, if he or she did read it, that "Ada
Clare" did not understand it. Moreover, at the best, it is only
asserted by the unknown writer that "Beulah" is a copy of
"Jane Eyre;" no particle of proof being adduced, but instead
some very poor Yankee rhetoric. The writer of such a thing
as the following, can't have much more heart than head; which
latter, it must be quite evident to any body who has read
"Beulah," is rather decidely fuddled in this case. This ill-
natured and uncalled-for mentioin of "Beulah" was made, we
doubt not, simply because every body else was praising the
book, from Boston to New Orleans. "Ada Clare," in his or her
wisdom, speaks to inform all the world that the book is not
what it seems; never daring to essay proof, but simply giving
us the assertion of an anonymous scribbler:
"I have finished reading 'Beulah.' Let that fact be recorded
as a proof of my extreme pertinacity of purpose. 'Beulah'
is another inane copy of 'Jane Eyre.' But it is a waxen, corky, wooden-jointed, leather-and-findings imitation of it.
Authors too often imagine that when they have succeeded in
portraying an unnatural character, and stuck it all over with
ridiculous traits, like porcupine-quills, that they succeed in
creating a type. They never seem to imagine what lumbering
and foolish monsters they erect.
" 'Jane Eyre' was a breathing, blood-warmed being, whose
vitality might have been uncommon—but it was still life. In
her writsts, you felt the beatings of purple pulses; and troops
of passionate longings, visible, through veiled, swarmed in her
sober eyes. But 'Beulah' is a wearisome, artificial piece of
pasteboard, in whose troubles you cannot sympathise, whose
pride is obstinacy—whose grief, sentimentalism of the flabbiest
sort—and whose whole life, too appallingly stupid to be reflected
upon."

A Wonderful Newspaper.
We find in the last New York Day Book, the announcement of
the most astonishing newspaper that we ever had the pleasure
to read of: the New York Weekly. Hear this grand flourish,
and hide your diminished head, O BONNER ! fly to the uttermost
parts of the earth, O Frank Leslie! And you, Irving,
Longfellow, Bryant, Willis: you, Bancroft, Whipple, Esten
Cooke, Mrs. Ellett, Miss Evins, and the rest, evaporate! Your
labour is all in vain : your names are not on the roll of "THE
BEST MALE AND FEMALE writers in the United States."
"Among its regular contributers will be fouund the names of
the best Male and Female writers in the United States. Such
writers as Justin Jones (Harry Hazel), Augustine J. H. Duganne,
William Earle Binder, Wm. Wharton, James Reynolds,
Francis S. Smith, Mrs. Mary Jane Holmes, Helen Forest
Graves, Mary C. Vaughan, Margaret Verne, Anna Raymond,
Eda Mayville, write for it regularly, while a score of other
well-known writers occasionally contribute to its columns."
But the great feature is the list of premiums offered to persons
forming clubs. After a catalogue of the jewellery, they
give a list of books which are also offered; we beg our readers
to observe what chaste and glorious works are here put within
reach of all who make up clubs for the New York Weekly:
"The Dancing Feather; Josephine, or the Maid of the Gulf;
Byron Blonday; The Matricide's Daughter; The Victim's
Revenge; The Star of the Fallen; The Mysteries and Miseries
of New York; the B'hoys of New York; Ned Buntline's
Life Yarn; The Buccaneer's Daughter; Caroline Tracy;
Midnight Queen; The Adventures of Tom Stapleton; The
White Wolf; The Mountain Outlaw; Ravensdale, or the Fatal
Duel; Claude Duval; The Adventures of Tom King; Ned
Scarlet; Paul Clifford; The Pirate Chief; The Pirate Doctor;
The Yankee Privateer; GAMBLERS TRICKS WITH CARDS;
How to Win and How to Woo."

Mrs. L. Maria Child.
What fools people will make of themselves in the pursuit of
notoriety! Mrs. L. MARIA CHILD, a third-rate Yankee poetess,
has become "famous '' 'by writing letters to Governor WISE,
begging to be allowed to take care of that wretch, OSSAWATOMIE
BROWN, and to the miserable convict himself proffering her
sympathy and kind offices! This is all done "for glory."
Verily, she deserves an ode from old "nigger-minstrel" WHITTIER,
commemorating her as the second FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.
The Richmond Enquirer says:
"Mrs. L. Maria Child (who asked ro be allowed to 'nurse'
and 'soothe' the insurrectionist, Brown,) has heretofore been
known in this section as an authoress of some pretensions,
whose literary contributions have served to fill up the columns
of one or two Northern periodicals. Hereafter she will be regarded,
in the South at least, as belonging to the Harriet
Beecher Stowe 'circle;' as one whose morbid enthusiasm and
fanatical zea1 have beclouded and vitiated a judgement otherwise,
perhaps, clear and sound."

Columbus.
Although much has been written about the great discoverer
of America, it is really amazing to observe what a degree of
ignorance prevails concerning him and his contemporaries.
The most popular book on the life of COLUMBUS, is by WASHINGTON
IRVING, and it is merely a collection of items gathered at
random from all sorts of authorities, good, bad and indifferent.
The excessive shallowness of Mr. IRVING's learning, his haste
in jumping at conclusions, have been perfectly exhibited by the
acute but most gentlemanly critique of Dr. TOULMAIN SMITH,
in his "Discovery of America.'' It is not a difficult task to refute the numerous errors of IRVING's "Columbus," but it is
almost impossible to make the public understand that one of
its old favourites is not exactly trustworthy in all respects. Critiques
of IRVING can not be expected to reach where his histories
have gone. Then such twaddle as the " Life and Voyages
of Americus Vospucius," with all the religions and political
reasons which have existed ever since the days of COLUMBUS,
must have contributed no little to give many false ideas of the
truly great navigitor. Unhappily, the best lives of COLUMBUS
are not only not translated into English, but they are very hared
to obtain at all, in the original.
We have sent three or four times to Europe for the great
"Vie de Christophe Colomb,'' and have yet to enjoy the pleasure
of getting it. We have never seen but one copy of it,
but that one sight convinced us of the immense research of the
author; and, while enjoying the mere fruits of the life-time labour
of its author, it is pleasing to see how beautifully he manages
his arguments, how clearly he refutes his adversaries and
how nobly he defends the fame of Columbus, asserting for him
his true, but almost unrecognized, character.
It will be seen by the following extract from the New York
Daily Times, that Mr. McMASTER, of the Freeman's Journal, has
been lecturing on COLUMBUS. We would like to see more about
that lecture. Mr. McMASTER, as we happen to know, has
made the study of the life and character of the "world- seeking
Genoese" a special object of attention, and he has availed
himself of the best writings, on the subject: he not taken
all of his ideas from IRVING; that is to say, from the infidel
NAVARETTE, whom IRVING follows. May we not hope to see
this lecture in print ere long? It would be a valuable contribution
to the biographical criticism concerning COLUMBUS, and,
we think, calculated to do much good:

MR. M'MASTER ON THE CHARACTER OF THE GREAT DISCOVERER.
"The Catholic Library Association held their quarterly meeting
last night at their rooms, No. 809 Broadway. Mr, James A.
McMaster, editor or the Freeman's Journal, embodied the results
of much rare reading and industrious research in an improvised
address, the purpose of which was to rectify certain
historical villificatioins of the personal character of Christopher
Columbus. What had mainly contributed, he thought, to the
neglect into which, for three hundred years after his death, Columbus' name has fallen , was the imperfect appreciation of the
value of his discoveries. It wns only after these United States,
that portion of the New World which was evidently the most
dominating and influentiall, had declared their independence,
that Columbus' personal history began to be investigated. In
1825 Navarette, an infidel of the Voltaire school, which believed
in the virtue of no man, nor in the chastity of any woman, was retained by the Spanish Government, not to vindicate Columbus,
but to construct the best possible plea for the gross ingratitude and injustice which Spain had practiced towards
him. Waslington Irving and Alex. von Humboldt, taking
Navarette as authority, had reiterated the charges against Columbus
of superstition and bigotry, of having compared his
discoveries to the trick of breaking and [an] egg and making it
stand on its end, and of his having maintained unlawful relations
with a certain laely lady of Cordova, Beatrice Henriquéz, the
mother of his second son, Ferdinand, who was also his best
historian. The lecturer met these charges in a very lawyer-like
way, ,ind in the course of his argument presented many
curious facts, drawn from historical sources remote and uncommon.
Among some of the most interesting details connected
with the career of the great Genoese, he mentioned the fact
that one of his crew was an frishman, and that previous to his
second voyage the Pope, at his earnest entreaty, issued a Bull
appointing one Bernard Boyle (Boil), a Benedictine, and but a poor
sort of Bishop any way, for he was a courtier. This Boil gave
Columbus immense trouble, and by the first ship homeward
bound, sent on letters to Ferdinand, asking him for God's sake
to recall him, for, not knowing the language, he could be of no
use where he was. It was otherwise with the Franciscans who
accompaniecl Columbus. They at once began to learn the native
tongue, and in spite of countless obstacles, and in the face
of innumerable perils, gave themselves entirely up to the conversion
of the Aborigines.
"In summing np the character of Columbus the lecturer described
him as a man called by God for the great mission of
opening up this great continent for the development of human
capacities and the spread of Christian faith and truth."

LITERARY NOTICE.
"WOMEN ARTISTS IN ALL AGES AND COUNTRIES. BY MRS. ELLET."
Another benefit hass the author of "The Women of the Revolution''
conferred on the reading public in general, and her
own sex in particular, by the work above named, from her
facile and elegant pen. It is just issued by the HARPERS, not,
we must in candour say, in their best style; for the material is
coarse and badly put together. Nevertheless, this new book,
from its intrinsic value, is worth far more than the one dollar
charged for it. For the long winter evenings, upon which we
are now entering, there is nothing like a good and pleasant
book, and none, on perusal, will deny this character to "Wo-men
Artists." Though Mrs. ELLET has transferred, as it were,
her "women" from the field of arms to the studies of art, yet
are we made to perceive that many of the same qualities which
insure superiority in one sphere, insure it in another; industry,
energy, resolution, perseverance, are never at discount, but
the germs of success, howsoever versatile the pursuits. Let
woman but cultivate the noble faculties with which she is endowed
by nature—then, let duty be what and where it may, she
will be found equal to its requirements, and ready for their performance.
There is much for high inspiration, for noble incentive,
in the lives of these artist-women. "What woman has
done, woman can do," will be the natural deduction from the
narrative of these art-victories by the strength of "feeble
woman." The names of between four and five hundred of
these women artists, many of them of world-wide fame, should
surely tend to her encouragement, not particularly for the pursuit
of art, but for the perfecting of her being in the full development
of its noblest powers, for thus the Author of her
being wills it, that she fulfil her destiny.
Mrs. ELLET, true to her partiality for her former Southern
home, has not failed to find, even on Carolina soil, fit subjects
for illustration of her theme. There is quite an extended biography
of MARY SWINTON, the sister of our own HUGH LEGARE.
A writer says of this lady : ''The literature of the world, its
science and art, are with her a houseliold things. They flow
from her eloquent tongue, as music from the harp of the minstrel."
Of Mrs. CHEVES, formerly Miss McCORD, Miss ELLEN
COOPER, and JULIAN DUPUE, all of Carolina, very honourable
mention is made.
This book adds testimony to the apparently contradictory
proclivity of woman for what are called the hard studies. To
mathematics and sculpture has she been particularly devoted,
and in them excelled. The book opens with the early sculptor
"Callichœ," and ends with HARRIET HOSMER, our contemporary,
whose name is familiar to all, and one of the most interesting
characters depicted to us by the fine taste of Mrs. ELLET,
who has brought before us noble pictnre-gallery of those
gifted women, that, o'erstepping not the modesty of their sex,
have yet independently asserted their right to a noble in the