When the war was over, he was recalled to public life. He was the first of the three delegates from Connecticut in the Convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, the others being Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth. He was one of the Senators first appointed by the Legislature of Connecticut under the National Constitution. His portrait, in the scarlet robe of an Oxford Doctor of the Civil Law, is among the memorial pictures that adorn the Hall of the Alumni of his own alma mater. The name of WILLIAM SAMUEL JOHNSON, with the record of the services which he lovingly rendered to Connecticut, and of the well-earned honors which Connecticut, grateful and proud, conferred upon him, is proof enough that the old Puritan Connecticut, before, and through, and after the Revolution, was not so narrow in its Puritanism as to ostracise a true and patriotic man for being an Episcopalian. As a sequel to that record, and as illustrating the hereditary sentiment in the Johnson family toward the old politics of Connecticut, it may be added that when certain political managers, in 1816, were making a combination of sectarian influences to effect the overthrow of the old "Federalist" party in Connecticut, and especially of what had been "the standing order," they approached the late Judge Johnson, of Stratford, (son of the revolutionary statesman, and grandson of the Church-of-England missionary, and himself a graduate of Yale) with the proposal to make him Governor of the State if he would give his influence to the scheme, and that the proposal was promptly rejected.

ARTICLE VI.-MRS. SIGOURNEY.

Letters of Life. By Mrs. L. H. SIGOURNEY. With an additional chapter by her daughter. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866. 12mo. pp. 414.

WHENEVER any person has died in our country, during the last score of years, who was of public reputation sufficiently wide-spread to justify it, or of interest to his own family circle enough to make them wish such a thing, a kind of calm and peaceful confidence has rested in our minds, that, within a brief season, a poetical obituary would appear in the public prints from the well-known pen of Mrs. Sigourney. Indeed, so general has been this confidence among the people of Connecticut, that some persons, who, from peculiar modesty or from some other reason, have desired to escape the notice of the great world after death, have been beset by a kind of perpetual fear that she might survive them, and thus, having them at a great disadvantage, might send out their names into all the earth. And then, on the other hand, multitudes of longing hearts have poured forth before her their earnest petitions, that she would give their deceased friends the benefit of her Muse; and some have even requested, while in the fullness of life and vigor, that she would kindly remember themselves when they should have passed away. No one, however obscure or however youthful, has had a doubt, that even himself might, in some future day, be turned into song, or his own humble virtues made the poet's theme. But amid all this confidence for others, has not the thought, perchance, sometimes risen— what will be done when Mrs. Sigourney herself dies; who shall sing her praise in an obituary sonnet; and has not a painful doubt mingled itself with our peaceful confidence, showing that this world was not intended to be a place of perfect repose of mind? These trying questions are now answered, for, with a fitness that must impress every soul, Mrs. Sigourney appears before us once more, for the last time, and tells the story of

herself. And this story is not a sonnet, but a book; as it should be, indeed, for the life that had already opened itself in a whole volume of obituaries might properly show, at its close, that it was itself one obituary volume.

"Letters of Life" is the title which has been selected, doubtless because the narrative is given as if in a series of letters to one of her cherished friends. Whether they were actually sent to this friend, is a point which we are unable to determine from reading them; but, however this may have been, they bear the most evident marks of an intention, on the part of the distinguished writer, that they should meet the public eye. In sending them everywhere throughout the land, in a printed form, the dutiful daughter has undoubtedly followed the wish, if not the command, of the departed mother. We feel, therefore, that Mrs. Sigourney herself has desired that her life might continue in this world, and that we may, accordingly, speak of her with something of the freedom which is at times denied us in reference to the dead. With kindness and with full measure of praise we wish to speak, for we believe she lived a useful life, which was worthy of commendation for many things. But we must approach her book with all freedom of criticism, and we must be allowed the privilege of a hearty laugh, for the former is our duty in our present work, while the latter is a necessity laid upon us, both by her nature and our own.

The authoress begins her first letter by saying, that her life has been "little varied by incident," and the pleasant narrative which we read on the following pages shows most clearly the truth of this remark. Man's life, in general, has been said by some one to consist of three great things-being born, getting married, and dying. If ever a life drew near to this simplicity, we may almost say that Mrs. Sigourney's was that life; and the really interesting volume, which she has made as it were out of nothing, seems to justify the undoubting trust in her powers, which was manifested by so many strangers in sending to her for poems for every occasion and on every subject. We smile, as she tells us of the letter which she once received, requesting an elegy on a young man, "who was one of the nine children of a judge of probate, and quite the Benjamin of the

family, the member of a musical society, and who, had he lived, would likely have been married in about a year," but of whose character and life she knew nothing beyond these interesting facts. Yet as we finish this account of her own life, we hardly wonder that these few things were deemed sufficient to excite her poetic fervor, and we have a prevailing belief that the wished for elegy can now be found somewhere among her published or unpublished works. She was born in Norwich, Connecticut; lived there with her parents, in the mansion of an aged and respected lady, and afterwards in a house which had been purchased and repaired by her own father; removed, when she was about twenty-three years of age, to Hartford, where she established and for several years conducted a young ladies' school; married, in 1819, Mr. Charles Sigourney; lived in two different houses with him during his life-time, and in one without him after his death; and died, at the age of seventy-four, "loving all and beloved by all," on the 13th of June, 1865. This is the sum and substance of the book. Indeed, so little of incident is there in her whole career, that the first journey which she made from Norwich to Hartford-a ride of perhaps eight hours-is the subject of a lengthy description, and takes rank in the volume almost as one of the marked events of her history. We thank her for the prominence which she gives to this journey, for it carries us back in memory to the days when we were ourselves so familiar with the old stage, and with its sluggish movement through the sleepy villages that lie between these leading towns of our ancient Commonwealth. How we groaned in prospect of that dull ride for days beforehand; how our boyish heart felt that the jolting vehicle, on its leather springs, was the messenger coming to bear us away from the home we loved, and the dear old maiden aunt whom we loved better even than the home; how we yielded at last, when the destined hour arrived, to the resistless fate that laid hold upon us, and knowing that we should be sick and sorrowful all the way, took our place under the driver's care; how, as we traveled on over the dusty road, Franklin seemed ten miles away from home, and Lebanon twenty miles from Franklin, and Columbia still farther from Lebanon, and the day the longest day, except an occasional Sunday, that the world ever knew;

how we thought Bolton hill must have turned itself completely round since we had crossed it on our last journey, so that we could never go down the hill, but must always go up, and with a slow progress, which grew ever slower; and finally how the elms of East Hartford and the spires of the city itself filled us with rejoicing, and the feeling came that nothing in this transitory world could ever induce us to enter that hateful stage again-except, indeed, another sight of the old ancestral home in Norwich. It all comes back to us once more, to-day, but, in the distance of years, there is something of a sort of dreaminess about it, which makes it appear more pleasing now than it once did; and even the driver and his horses move more gracefully and rapidly in the picture, than they used to do in the reality. As we follow our authoress from page to page, we feel that a similar dreamy and, in her case, poetic haze must have gathered about her mind, as she reviewed all the past history, so that everything assumed to itself an unreal beauty before her retrospective vision. Let us accompany her in her course through life, and open to our readers somewhat of her descriptions and her thoughts. In doing this, we propose in the first place to speak, at some length, of her style, and then to consider, as impartially and with as just appreciation of her as possible, her character and her life's work.

It has been always, among the circle of our acquaintance, here and elsewhere, a point of much discussion, whether Mrs. Sigourney could fairly claim the name of poet. Some have earnestly maintained her right to this honor, and have compared her with Mrs. Hemans favorably. Others have, as stoutly, denied it,--have thought she was only like the organgrinder, as compared with a true musician,—and we have heard of one person, who even went so far as to be unwilling to go from New Haven to Hartford on the same train of cars with her, lest, if any accident befel him, she might rhyme about his unlucky fate. As for ourselves, we have hitherto ventured upon no opinion, and this from a felt want of compe-tence to form one. We have no poetic talent. We had one or two distinguished ancestors, indeed, widely honored for their powers and services in many lines, who wrote poetical