THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF JEREMIAH SMITH.

AT a time when the lives of great men are held up for our imitation, and their characters are studied as containing the secret of success, it is well to draw a lesson, or two, from the failures of an unsuccessful man.

Such a one was Jeremiah Smith. He was born the 6th of April, 1841, in the little town of West Hampton, Vt. His father, a farmer, died soon after, leaving his mother, a woman of a keen, though uneducated mind, and his grandfather, a relic of Revolutionary days, as guardians of Jeremiah's early years. History is almost silent about his childhood. We know that he early developed a taste for letters. He learned his alphabet at the age of two, and literally devoured his picture-books.

Of course he went to the district schools and there distinguished himself. One of his school compositions has been preserved, and shows, both in the choice of subject and in the treatment, an originality and a power of invective which are remarkable. His theme was the schoolma'am.

The next few years seem to have quickly passed with Jeremiah, and to have increased his desire for literary fame. Every scrap of paper that fell in his way, - even the backs of his late father's receipted bills and the margins of the Hampton Gazette - he appropriated with a miserly eagerness that reminds one of Pope. Few men are content to write much without a thought of publication, and soon the fatal itching to get into print seized Jeremiah. Whittier, when a farm-boy, sent a poem on a scrap of paper to an editor, and immediately his genius was recognized. Smith did more; he wrote a long article on the "Art of Living," and sent it to the editor of the Hampton Gazette, but his genius was not recognized.

Disgusted with this and other failures to get into print, he decided that his talents were not of the inferior order which wins newspaper notoriety. Nothing short of a book would do him justice.

Emerson, it is said, keeps a huge note-book by him night and day, in which to record every brilliant thought, and whenever he has filled a dozen pages in this way he selects a title at random, and publishes them as a new essay. Smith was following, in a measure, this plan. Every incident in the barn-yard, every narrow escape from a mowing-machine, was booked for future use. Such is the devotion to art which every literary man feels.

At first, I am sorry to say, he thought of writing a Sunday-school book. A great many people have crept into literature in this way, but it never was a respectable road, and of late years, since they have begun to write such books by machinery, there is no opening here by young writers. Fortunately about this time Smith began to read the New York Ledger, and soon determined to write instead a sensational novel of the highest order, which should reveal all the wickedness of a great city. To be sure, he had never been in a city; but genius will readily overcome such minor difficulties, so he set boldly to work. Perhaps the following extract will show more clearly than any description can the force and dramatic power of his work: -

"THE HOUNDS OF HELL GATE, OR A MINE WITHIN A MINE. Chapter I. The great city is at rest. The organ-grinders have retired to their downy couch, and the busy hum of trade is still. All is silent. But bark! From yonder splendid mansion peal forth the strains of revelry and mirth. It is the birthday of the fair young heiress, Adelia De Bray. Within is the gay music of the dance, the whirling figures of ravishing beauties, and the sparkling wine. Amidst all the joyous mirth moves Adelia the admired of all admirers. Wearied with constant flattery, she seeks, for a moment, the pure air of the outer heavens; and, as she gazes at the silver crescent above, her thoughts wander far away to another hemisphere, and she murmurs softly, "Clarence, ever mine own." She sees not the forms of two masked figures creeping stealthily behind her. The next moment a stifled cry, the odor of chloroform, a feeble struggle, and a closed carriage rolls rapidly away, bearing the senseless form of the beautiful heiress. (To be continued in our next.)"

We have quoted enough to show the genius of the man.

Shortly after, completing the eighty-ninth chapter, he fell in love with a maiden of West Hampton, and began to write poetry. In the files of the Hampton Gazette, preserved in the College library, one may find a large number of poems addressed to M. W., which flowed from his facile pen. History says that M. W. rejected the poems, but accepted the man. Jeremiah, in consideration of his increased happiness, consented to abandon his literary projects, and to devote himself to farming. In this pursuit he achieved a success which neither he nor a great many other young men like him could have won in poetry or prose.

W. B. H.