no commercial revulsion diminish. The paper in his escritoire, if he choose to stain it with poetic notes of hand, will always command a premium. He can serve both Apollo and the Syrian god; and to him each will be true. He has written enough to secure that fame hereafter, of which he has already had a not disgracious foretaste. He has no right to stifle the stirrings of the power within his soul. We speak this more in reference to his duty to the public than to himself; since in the selfish sense, so far as fame is concerned, he might contemplate his dissolution with composure; assured by the past, that when his death-hour comes, be it soon or late, he will leave behind a name which his countrymen, and the lovers of genius every where, would not willingly let die; and that even now he might enrobe himself in the cere-cloth, and contentedly "take his farewell of the sun." ART. VII.-The Life and Services of Commodore William Bainbridge, United States Navy. By THOMAS HARRIS, M. D., Surgeon, United States Navy. 8vo. Philadelphia: 1837. The brilliant and perhaps unexpected success which attended our naval conflicts with Great Britain during the war of 1812, rendered the names of the principal commanders familiar as household words throughout the land. Their well-fought battles were at the time hastily chronicled, and soon followed by the various demonstrations of a well-spread and thoroughly popular fame. The mixed emotion of national exultation and gratitude to the victors, sought to express itself in illuminations, public receptions, presentation services of plate, and the various manifestations of that joyousness which sprang up in the bosom of every citizen, from a sense of the honour of his country, and of the exploits of his countrymen. Neither did this feeling appear in mere demonstrations of the more formal and speechaccompanied description-it mingled itself with domestic doings and with household feelings: parents and sponsors borrowed, from the honoured navy-list, names for the little Christians who were brought in those days to the baptismal font. If the rage for multiplying collegiate institutions throughout the country had been of somewhat earlier date, we doubt not that, with that curious felicity which distinguishes so much of our nomenclature, not a few colleges would have received their titles from names that were renowned upon the quarter-deck. The history of the navy furnished the sign-painter with his theme, and many a faithful Red Lion, and Black Bear, and Rising Sun, were content to yield their places to naval exploits, or naval commanders. The likenesses, or what purported to be such, of the latter, pendent upon the sign-posts of village or road-side taverns, bore the brunt of as many storms as did their originals. We recollect to have seen at a little halting place on the brow of one of the Allegheny ridges, a sign decorated with a likeness of Commodore Bainbridge, as the artist had been so considerate as to interpret it by appending the name: it was unquestionably a rude tribute; but for all that, perched up as it was so far from the element on which the name had been made known, it was fame. The reputation which the American naval commanders have enjoyed, has, however, been of an indefinite kind. They stand in need, therefore, so far as the accuracy and permanency of their fame are concerned, of careful biography. We are ready to acknowledge that, previously to the perusal of the work before us, our general familiarity with Commodore Bainbridge's name and services had not enabled us to do full justice to the sterling qualities of his character, or accurately to appreciate the extent and value of his services. The care of his memory has fallen into good hands, for his biographer, Dr. Harris, beside full general qualifications for the purpose, brought to the work the additional qualification of personal familiarity with the history of our navy, acquired by long and active service, and a participation in one of its brilliant achievements. For other reasons we were pleased to find Dr. Harris's name associated with such a work as the present; we hail any instance of a professional man of eminence finding, amidst his professional duties, hours enough to be devoted to a literary undertaking. The memoir of Commodore Bainbridge will be found to possess its appropriate biographical interest, and at the same time an incidental value considered in connection with American history. We were glad to perceive that Dr. Harris has not been disposed to overlook a fundamental principle of biographical composition, which is too often neglected by writers who allow themselves to be tempted from the portraiture of individual character by aspirations for the higher dignity of history. "Commodore Bainbridge's career in the navy has been nearly contemporaneous with its origin. It has been therefore suggested to the author to annex to his memoir a sketch of the history of the naval policy of the United States, of the events which distinguished the partial hos 8 tilities with the French republic, and a more extended account of the various actions with the Barbary powers in the Mediterranean under the command of Commodore Preble and others. The incidents of these brief but eminently successful wars, were considered appropriate subjects for the biography of an individual actively engaged in the one, and personally most interested in the results of the other. It will be seen that the author has ventured to give a cursory view of many of these events; but to have extended his narrative, would have destroyed the individuality of a personal memoir." Yes, as soon as the individuality of the personal memoir is merged in the record of events, no matter how important they may be, the work may be history, or it may belong to that intermediate species, better known in French than English literature "Memoires pour servir," &c. ; but assuredly it ceases to be biography. It is a grievous error in literature that works purporting to be biographical, should be distinguished for that subordination of individual motives, and passions, and actions, which is the appropriate characteristic of history. The dividing line between them may be so distinctly marked that none need cross it unawares but from wilful or stupid blindness. Writers of history are too often (to use a western world term of greater significancy than beauty) squatters on the territory of biography, to the injury of the rightful proprietors, and to the disparagement of their own functions. It is the right of a reader of a work of pure biography to look for a knowledge of personal humanity, and not to have foisted upon him in its stead aggregates and abstractions, by which many a luckless individual has been lost in his own biography. When we look at the past through the medium of biographical composition, we are entitled to be informed what some one being-man or woman-has done or thought or felt-to be informed in what manner the individual, his personal power swaying perhaps the destiny of thousands, has acted upon the age in which he lived, if withdrawn more into the seclusion of his own being, how the age has acted upon him. To present it in its most general form, the philosophy of biography is to teach by showing to us how the individual, who may be the subject of it, either has been deepening the shades which hang upon the world, or by the blessed influences of a wise and happy spirit has been adding-no matter in what quantity, or whether in lofty or lowly life-it may be the ray of a planet, or of a beacon, or of still something to the light of good thoughts and good deeds, which is a sustaining element of human nature. The memoir of Commodore Bainbridge has carried our 53 minds back to several interesting periods of American history; and after commending Dr. Harris's fidelity and discretion in not allowing himself as a biographer to be tempted too far away to subjects of an historic nature, we unblushingly claim for ourselves, in the notice of the volume, the reviewer's great privilege of digression. We are ex officio discursive. The remark, in the passage above quoted from the preface, that Commodore Bainbridge's career in the navy has been nearly contemporaneous with its origin, though true, may, without some slight qualification, leave an unjust impression, inasmuch as it appears wholly to overlook the naval history of the revolutionary war. The maritime affairs of that contest were in many instances brilliant, but they were all of a subordinate character. The naval engagements were of necessity only incidental to the great struggle. A war of independence must be waged upon the land-it is the soil, and not the wave, that will be incarnadined. When the purpose is freedom, the mailed hand of war will be thrust into the casements of men's houses-his bloodstained foot will be in their streets, and over their fields-upon the threshold, and at the hearth. The news of victory or of defeat is not then brought upon the sea-breeze from a distant ocean, for men walk forth to battle from their homes. The navy organized by the old congress was merely temporary in its design; and, its purposes being accomplished, the remainder of its history is briefly told. The ships which had survived the war were sold, and retired, we presume, like many a veteran, into the placid channels of civil life. When, not many years afterwards, the navy was revived by the first act of congress under the present constitution, which authorized the construction of vessels of war in 1794, its history became continuous. Commodore Bainbridge's first commission as a lieutenant bears date very nearly at the commencement of that era-a period when it was necessary for the country to look to the merchant service for its supply of officers. The professionally educated officer is a luxury of a more advanced season of national existence. In the olden time, a man was officially born to rank, which now-a-days, by the tedious process of promotion, he arrives at only after many years of service, and after much faith, hope, and charity. William Bainbridge was born in 1774, at Princeton, New Jersey, and at the age of 15, having discovered that his vocation was to be a sailor, he shipped in a merchant vessel at the port of Philadelphia. His worth raised him, while yet in his minority, to the command of the ship in which he made several voyages. The merchant service of the country was at that period dependent upon its own resources for defence and security, and consequently partook of a mixed character of traffic and of warfare. During one of his voyages, Captain Bainbridge had an opportunity of shadowing forth the future victor of the Java by his courage and skill in a very pretty affair, in which he compelled a British schooner of superior armament to strike her flag, after having commenced the attack upon his ship. We cannot dwell upon this part of Commodore Bainbridge's career longer than to advert to one occurrence which may serve to recall the indignities and oppressions to which the American flag was once subjected by the practice of the British claim of inpressment, a subject which, after having been discussed for more than a quarter of a century, and by word, by pen, and by powder, has not yet been definitively settled. "On a returning voyage from the north of Europe, he was boarded by a lieutenant of a British line of battle ship, who, in accordance with the odious practice of impressment, commanded him to muster his crew, and show his shipping articles; an indignity to which the commanders of all merchant vessels were at that time compelled to submit, rather than by resistance, in most cases necessarily unavailing, expose their vessels and cargo to the danger of capture and condemnation in the British courts of admiralty. The first man examined was Allen M'Kinsey, who from his name was pronounced a Scotsman. Captain Bainbridge stated to the lieutenant that he was born in the city of Philadelphia, and was his first mate. The boarding officer affected to doubt the truth of this declaration, became very insolent, and when about to seize M'Kinsey, Captain Bainbridge intimated to him to repair to his cabin, where he would find a sabre and pistols to defend himself. "The mate quickly availed himself of the intimation, and as he descended the companion-way, boldly declared that he would kill the first man who attempted to force him from the ship. The officer, judging of M'Kinsey's determined purpose from his manner, prudently refrained from a pursuit. Another young man was then seized and ordered into the barge. Captain Bainbridge remonstrated against this outrage, stating that this man, claimed as a British subject, was a native of the United States, and had a wife and children in Philadelphia. He added, that as his vessel was feebly manned, her safety would be endangered by any diminution of his crew. Finding expostulations of no avail, he told the officer, in a spirited tone, that he would supply the place of this seaman by seizing one out of the first British merchantman he met, provided she was not of superior strength. The lieutenant observed, with a contemptuous sneer, that an American merchant captain would not dare to impress one of his majesty's subjects, and, nodding disdainfully, carried off his victim. "Five days afterwards Captain Bainbridge fell in with an English armed merchant brig of eight guns and twenty men, which, after preparing for action, he brought to by firing a gun across her bow. He kept the guns of the Hope bearing on the brig, while he ordered his first mate to seize and bring on board an able unmarried seaman. This order was promptly, though with some difficulty executed; after which, the English captain was hailed, and informed, that he might report, that Captain William Bainbridge had taken one of his majesty's subjects, in retaliation for a seaman taken from the American ship Hope, |