And unalloyed by aught that can defile The poet proceeds to speak of the power of these great principles of beauty and grandeur over the heart and the imagination, in all periods, even in those of which history has preserved no record, but of which the poetry is yet looked upon as the highest effort of human genius. He dwells upon the infallible certainty with which the human mind again recurs to them whenever, for a time, they have been obscured by the ignorance and false taste of the age. Their effect upon the happiness of those who love them with the warmest affection, and study them with the greatest ardour, is then touched upon, and illustrated by instances from the lives of the most celebrated poets. This part of the poem is written with great feeling, and though we cannot quite assent to the position which the author seems to lay down, that a good poet is, of course, good for nothing else than to write poetry; yet we cannot help entering into the pathos with which he dwells upon the story of their fortunes. At the close of this melancholy review, he exclaims “O! it is painful, To think the very chiefest of the mighty, Heroes in song, as there are those in war How they were made the butt and sport of fools, Trampled and crushed by such as would have perished An impious fame-O! 'tis enough to deaden Of what may come, disturb thee-there is in thee The world's cold burden-let this time of respite As after violence cannot wrench thee from. That they inspire. There may be nicer art, And a more fitting harmony of sounds, Of instant need, can waken. Therefore seize The undoubting moment, and may heaven befriend thee, Nor quite desert thee, till the point is gained, When thou canst say, a victory is won, That none should scorn."-pp. 20, 21. From this part of his subject, he turns to more delightful themes. The following, if we are not mistaken, is a just, as well as most beautiful sketch of the genius of a great living poet: "There is a life In all things, so a gifted mind hath told That grow from air-the sun who walks at noon Distinctly audible, though to other ears They had no sound. The mountain, whose bald forehead A grassy vale, and in each vale a lake Which some of poorer spirit have pronounced Without a sense of awe."-pp. 23, 24. The poem concludes with a magnificent vision, in which we have a view of some of the most illustrious masters of song, seated in the midst of that imaginary beatitude which is conferred by posthumous fame, and the hold which their immortal writings keep on the hearts of every successive generation. We have had a little difficulty in making out one or two of these personages from the description of our author, and in our turn recommend the attempt to our readers as a trial of their ingenuity. One of them, of whom it is said that he had suffered foul and cruel wrong from his fellow men, till the natural kindness of his heart had departed, and his mind became filled with musings of fierce resentment and dreams of horrible vengeance on his enemies, is thus supposed to address the author, in the following passage, with which the poem concludes: "Hear Carefully what I utter, and retain it Deep in thy heart of hearts. We are a band, Of wealth and power--and some of us were doomed Whose rich reward is fame. And we have gained it, Be cautious and considerate, ere thou take Many a pitiless storm, and nerve thyself To many a painful struggle. If thy purpose Is fixed, then welcome. We will hover o'er thee, May often listen to our friendly voice, After thy earnest toils. We now are with thee-- And thou canst read them, as we wrote them down, And all his riper years-which, when it comes In front of every foe, and send to ages His name and power-else wherefore lives he not Rich in the generous gifts of a glad people, As he is rich in thought? There is no feeling Above the common wants and common pleasures If thou hast chosen our companionship, Thou shalt have solitude enough to please A hermit, and thy cell may show like his."-pp. 38-40. These are by no means comfortable words. Our citizens are not, to be sure, much in the habit of buying historical pictures. We hope they will contract the habit by and by—but, in the mean time, they certainly buy and read a great deal of poetry-transatlantic poetry we mean. The works of the principal living British poets, are things which every body must have; they are a sort of classics among us; every body would be ashamed not to have read them. Those who can afford it, procure the most elegant English editions, with beautiful designs; those who cannot, content themselves with the cheaper editions of our own country, where they often run through several impressions. If, therefore, the native literature of the United States is not patronised as it ought to be, it is not owing to the want of a strong appetite for literature among our citizens. The great difficulty is, that we are afraid of committing ourselves. We do not like to praise a thing, till we see the seal of transatlantic approbation upon it. We are like those singers at a church, who do very well while sustained by a few skilful and powerful voices, but feel excessively awkward at being obliged to sing alone. We are greatly distressed, and are apt to be wonderfully feeble and faint in our applauses, when we are obliged to utter them without the chorus of the British literati to keep us in countenance. One would be apt to suppose, that as the meritorious productions of our native literature are by no means numerous, they would be sought after with great avidity, and that no well educated man among us would be willing to acknowledge himself unacquainted with their contents. Such, however, is unfortunately not the case. Fashion has almost as much to do in directing what books shall be read, as what dresses shall be worn; and a large class of people look into none but such as her dictates make it necessary to read. It is the fashion throughout the United States, to read the tolerable English works of the day-but fashion has not made it indispensable to read Amecan works of the same degree of merit. A very good book may be published in one of our principal cities, and acquire a considerable reputation there, and yet be scarcely heard of in the others. Within a twelvemonth, there appeared in this city a treatise on a very important subject, one of the best compositions of its kind, both for matter and style, of which the English language has to boast. We think very highly of it here, but we cannot learn that any body to the east or the south of us has read it. We did ourselves the pleasure of paying the tribute of our approbation to its merits in the first number of the New-York Review, but as we have seen no record of it in the other chronicles of literature, which are so respectably conducted in different parts of the union, we conclude that the book has not come to the knowledge of either the editors or their contributors. Of the malevolence which obstructs the patronage of our literature, spoken of in the passage last quoted, we must be permitted to have our doubts. Personal enemies and rivals a man of genius may have, who might be glad to lower his reputation; but it seems to us, that all the neglect of talent in our country, and all the unfortunate criticisms upon works of merit, of which there is any great reason to complain, may be traced to other causes than enmity or rivalry. They have their origin, no doubt, in that indecision and uncertainty of |