to survive the oblivion that seems to be the destiny of most human things, they should appeal only to that which is imperishable in the nature of man, to his holy affections and lofty hopes.

One effect of Bryant's faithful observation, of which we have spoken, is, that his poems are strictly American. They are American in their subjects, imagery, and spirit. Scarcely any other than one born in this country can appreciate all their merit, so strongly marked are they with the peculiarities of our natural scenery, our social feelings, and our national convictions. Of course then they are altogether orignal. What the author has seen, or what has been wrought in his own mind, he has written, and no more. His language, figures, and tone are not borrowed, for there are few if any from whom he could borrow; certainly none, and at the same time be faithful in the least degree to the influences of his native land. His skies, therefore, are not brought from Italy, nor his singing birds from England or the tropics, nor his forests from Germany or regions beyond the pole. He is not indebted more to the patient study of books than to a calm communion with outward things. He has levied no contributions on the masters of foreign literature to furnish himself with means, and has not depended upon the locked up treasures of ancient genius for the materials of thought and expression. He has written from the movings of his own mind; he has uttered what he has felt and known; he has described things around him in fitting terms, terms suggested by familiar contemplation, and thus his writings have become transcripts of external nature, appreciated by his countrymen with the readiness and ease with which truth is ever recognized.

"Lone lakes, Savannahs, where the bison roves,
Rocks rich with summer garlands, solemn streams,
Skies where the desert eagle wheels and screams,

Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves,"

are reflected from his pages like surrounding scenery from the surface of an unruffled lake. And where could he find aught more lovely and majestic, or where the land better adapted to inspire the genius of descriptive poetry than this, with its endless variety of woodland, grove, and water, with its deep forests brooding in eternal silence over the slumbering inland, with vast lakes, majestic in their repose, sending back the radiant hues of the sky, where mountain ridges rise to prop the very heavens, where broad streams roll their mighty tides for thousands of miles through fertile plains, where green prairies stretch like oceans arrested in their mightiest heavings, and where a wildness and freshness is pervading every scene, that dissociating it from human agency conducts to the thought of a loftier indwelling power.

Nor is the tone of these poems less American than the imagery or themes. They breathe the spirit of that new order of things in which we are cast. They are fresh, like a young people unwarped by the superstitions and prejudices of age, free, like a nation scorning the thought

of bondage, generous, like a society whose only protection is mutual sympathy, and bold and vigorous like a land pressing onward to a future state of glorious enlargement. The holy instincts of democracy guides every expression and prompt and animate every strain. An attachment to liberty stronger than the desire of life, a regard for human rights of more than fraternal tenderness, a confidence in humanity that admits of no misgivings, and a rejoicing hope of the future, full of illumination and peace, are the sentiments that they every where inspire. They sharpen the sense of right, they quicken the perception of the natural, they infuse a love of the true, they soften and subdue the feelings, and expand those generous emotions that comprehend in their plans of benevolence every form of human being, from the king to the slave. Could all men discipline their hearts by the rich lessons, could they bring their feelings in unison with the aspirations, could they govern their conduct by the spirit, of these poems, the highest civilization of which a community is capable would be attained-one in which peace, cultivation, refinement, and love would pervade the whole structure,

It is therefore not difficult to assign this author his true rank among English poets. We gave him in the outset the second place, and did so because we thought he deserved it in many respects. In propriety of language, in grace of diction, in beauty of imagery and thought, in picturesque description, in originality and pathos, in moral spirit, in depth of philosophy, he is equal to the best of his order, though there is a copiousness, versatility, and strength of passion that he has yet to acquire, supposing he deem it desirable.

We never have read a book without speculating more or less to the character of its author. That is something, we admit, with which the public have nothing to do, and yet it is that about which they trouble themselves most. If we could gather the traits of this book and combine them in some way into a living person, we should fancy a man to whom the language of Wordsworth to Milton might be properly addressed, "Thy soul is like a star and dwells apart," one for whom the grosser world had no allurements, endowed with kind and gentle virtues, modest, unassuming, mild, simple in taste, elevated in sentiment, dignified in deportment, pure in life, a worshipper of the beautiful every where in nature and in art, perpetually attended by noble and benevolent aspirations, familiar as a friend with the best spirits of the past, but shrinking, instinctively, from contact with society, unless to bear reproach in the cause of truth and duty. Whether such a portrait would be true, we shall not ask those who know him to say, for sure we are that the beauty and purity which abound in these writings could only proceed from a mind equally beautiful and pure; nay, more so, since that man never lived who could give utterance to his whole soul.

Yet how strange is it, say some, that a mind of this sort should expend its energy in mere political discussion. We can discover nothing in it either strange or lamentable. No doubt it would be more congenial to the

man's feelings, could he devote himself to the prosecution of his glorious art. Indeed, we hope for his own sake, for the sake of the literature of the country, that he may be permitted, in his riper age, to withdraw to some quiet retreat, where, amid the calm and beautiful scenes in which his imagination delights, he may meditate and construct a work worthy of his genius, and worthy of this great nation, one that shall grow in fame as his country expands in power and intelligence, and that shall give instruction and delight to the multitude destined in distant years to cover our vast inland deserts, and make noisy with active life the still shores of the Pacific. We wish this; but we do not regret that the author's sympathy with the cause of his fellow men has led him to mingle in the stirring warfare of politics; that with all the sensibility of genius, he could yet discipline himself to meet the rebufis and shocks of civil conflict; that in being a poet he has not ceased to be a citizen. If there were in political life any thing incompatible with the highest virtue, if his choice of it had at any time been attended by degrading compliances, if low motives of any sort had impelled his exertions, or left a single trace in what he has done, if aught else than lofty self-sacrificing devotion had led to a vocation, supposed to be so repulsive, there would be cause for regret; and not for regret merely, for loud and stern utterances of rebuke should have met the prostitution of noble powers, which are the property of mankind, to ignoble objects. But it is no descent for the best of us to be concerned about the moral and social condition of our fellow men. One of the admirers of Goethe mentions it as a proof of his incomparable genius, that when the world was rent by the grandest dissensions, when revolutions of tremendous import were going on, when there was strong movement on all sides, and it seemed as if a thunderbolt had been shot among all social arrangements, and men were yet in doubt whether it came downward from heaven, or upward from hell, he all the while remained unaffected, penning soft madrigals or singing love ditties beneath the casement of his mistress. We see nothing in this to admire. We rega.d it as a piece of most despicable cowardice, or more despicable callousness. When it shall become disgraceful to feel for the suffering millions, degraded and down trodden, when it shall be a laudable thing to be indifferent to the moral progress of the human race, when we shall have cccasion to grow ashamed of our affections, or make a mockcry of love, it will be time enough to put forth empty lamentations over men of genius engaging in political strife. It is only exposing our moral defects to entertain and utter such lamentations. No man should disdain what deeply interests the happiness of his fellows. We rejoice, therefore, that Mr. Bryant should lend his high aid to what he has deemed the cause of goodness and truth. When we think of the nobleness of that political creed which from earliest manhood he has warmly espoused, of the energy with which he has defended individual and equal rights, of the frequency and fervor with which he has appealed in all his discussions to the best feelings of men, of the heroic consistency with which he has

asserted truth in the day of its obscurity, bearing up manfully against persecutions from which less sensitive spirits would have recoiled, repelling with dignified and honorable scorn the attacks of malignant enemies, yet, in the midst of the foulest calumny and abuse, commiserating, in magnanimous meekness, the moral debasement from which they sprung, we not only rejoice, but thank God that he has been placed just where he has been placed, that he has been able, like Milton, to overcome the soft seductions of literary indolence, to battle sternly in the rude and jarring onsets of truth. Long after present storms shall cease to rage, many a young mind made strong by his example and efforts shall rise up to renew the

"Friendless warfare, lingering long

Through weary days and weary years."

Mr. Bryant has hitherto exhibited to the world only the evidence of what he can do, and the promise of what he will and must do. The present collection of his works consists of a number of short occasional poems-the common term of "fugitive" seems, however, scarcely applicable to such polished, condensed and gem-like performances-the aggregate of which falls short of three hundred duodecimo pages; and to these are to be added only a few subsequently published, most of which are familiar to the readers of the Democratic Review, as having first appeared among its contents within the past two years. But Mr. Bryant's powers are still in the full strength and freshness of mature manhood. We repeat the expression of the hope, that he may be permitted ere long to retire from the engrossing duties of editorial life, honorable and useful though they may be, to devote himself exclusively to what must still be regarded as his higher vocation, in the more congenial tranquillity of country life. And then we feel well assured that his active and well disciplined intellect will not long leave unsatisfied the demand which his country is entitled to make upon him for a great poem, worthy, at the same time to be held out to the world as the crowning pride of her young literature, and to constitute the main basis on which shall stand the statue to be erected to his own fame in the Pantheon of the Poets of the English language.

Towards the close of Schiller's noble poem, "The Artists," he beautifully represents the dignity of man and the establishment of truth as committed to the Poet's holy keeping, and exhorts him earnestly to cherish the power of song destined to dispel error and wrong from the earth. In a similar spirit we would remind the Poct of America, that the silent influence of his writings, in purifying and elevating the intellectual and moral nature of his countrymen, is his strongest inducement to a continuation of his labors. If he is faithful to his trust, as a quick-sighted discerner of beauty, of goodness and truth, when his body shall have mouldered to nothingness in its grave, his name will still be ever fresh and warm in the memories of men. Meanwhile let the living cherish the fame of one whom posterity will undoubtedly recognize as one of the most distinguished ornaments of his country and his time.

THE PROJECTED SHIP CANAL TO CONNECT THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS.*

A single glance at the map of the world will suffice to satisfy even the most unreflecting observer, that the execution of this long contemplated project, of connecting the two great oceans by a ship-canal across the Isthmus that divides the two Americas, would be (in the words of the Edinburgh Review, January, 1809, page 282) "the mightiest event in favor of the peaceful intercourse of nations which the physical circumstances of the globe present to the enterprise of man." It would effect a revolution in the commercial system of the world, surpassing that of the discovery of the passage by sea to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope. To the vast commerce of the United States and Europe with the western coast of South America, it would save the circumnavigation of the latter continent, the total distance of which is about twelve thousand miles, together with the difficulties and dangers of the navigation of Cape Horn. The immense Pacific territory of the United States, now all but inaccessible to the commerce of our Atlantic board, except by overland conveyance, would be brought within easy access to the latter. The commerce of the world with China, Japan, and the Indian Archipelago, would be facilitated by a saving of above four thousand miles in distance; together with a still greater advantage in safety and ease, from the route avoiding both the equatorial and the high latitudes of the present route, and passing through the most favorable latitudes for winds and currents each way. Similar advantages would be afforded to the whale, skin, and fur fisheries of the different nations, and especially the United States, in the Pacific. Incalculable as would be these advantages in the present state of the commerce of the world, their benefit would be multiplied by the effect which such increased facilities of communication and exchange would exert, to stimulate the immense masses of the human race thus acted upon to new efforts of industry, in the developement of the resource of the richest portions of the globe, which would vastly increase the

Considerations on the subject of a communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, by means of a Ship Canal across the Isthmus which connects North and South America; and the best means of effecting it and permanently securing its benefits for the world at large, by means of a coöperation between individuals or companies of different nations, under the patronage of their respective governments. By a citizen of New York, formerly United States Consul at Lima, and for the ports of Peru. Georgetown, D. C. 1836.

Report of the Committee on Roads and Canals, &c., with an Appendix. Twenty-fifth Congress, Third Session. House of Representatives. No. 322.