successful. His visit of St. Nicholas, we believe, has been regularly reprinted for some years past in certain of our city journals; and together with the two exquisite poems of "Lines to my Children, with their Father's Portrait," and "Lines from a Husband to his Wife," are to be found in most of the collections of American poetry.

Dr. Moore's poetical talents incline him to domestic themes and incidents and characters; he is a disciple of Cowper and Goldsmith; yet by no means an imitator of either. His vein is original: his manner is his own-still, his admiration for classic models may guide his taste and control his pen. Both of these fine poets might be proud of such a follower, each of them would have gloried in such a friend.

We can see nothing in this writer of the ordinary sins of American versifiers, no plagiarism, no imitation, no morbid feeling, no rhetorical flourishes, no transcendentalism.

The poems are occasional; and so far, instead of being worthy of rejection on that score, they are the natural effusions of the writer's heart and fancy. After the highest walks of song, the drama and the epic, (only worthy, when admirable,) what forms of verse are so enduring and so popular, as the songs and ballads which make up the popular staple of every national poetic literature? These are truly occasional, spontaneous, individual. It is in such poems the poet writes his life, gives his experience; proclaims his joys. and praises; embalms a friend or an enemy; deepens a sentiment or renders his description most vivid. The regular forms of poetry seem strained and elaborate compared with this. They want, apparently, the impulse which gives truth to these, and which infuses its life into them. Other verse is more reflective or philosophical: this gives the essence of the art; the true poetic afflatus.

Much of our American verse (the best portion) is lyrical. Not always verses for music, nor drinking songs, nor effusions of gallantry, though we can point to a rich anthology of that class. But a lyrical spirit runs through much of the serious poetry of Bryant, all of Halleck's and Brainard's; and most of the productions of Dr. Moore's muse are essentially lyrical, although they often run into the more purely elegiac form of this, the following poems are more especially to be remarked, in confirmation of our criticism.

The Organist, a spirited address, in epistolary guise, the Wine Drinker and the Water Drinker, two capital poems, that would have delighted Green, (author of the Spleen,) and much after his manner; and that must gratify every rational man, as well as lover of fine verse; and the exquisite lines to my Daughter on her Marriage, the equally admirable address to Southey, which with the fine poems to the Poet's Children and Wife, we have referred to before, emphatically stamp our Poet's mastery of the pathetic, in domestic scenes. The parallel may seem strained, but we are apt to compare these rare gems with such a poem as Cowper's Address to his Mother's Picture; and we think our bard loses not a whit by the comparison. With Goldsmith, our poet is a model of simplicity and natural grace, which shine out in the lightest copy of verses. A few of the pieces in this volume of this kind and exactly suited to the occasion that produced them, may not be adequately appreciated by the common reader, but none can fail to be impressed (who have a heart to feel or a taste sufficiently cultivated to appreciate our author's delicacy) with the poems we have mentioned above. They are, truly, classical poems.

VI.

AMERICAN VERSE:-RALPH HOYT.

WHAT is true, generally, of the best poets, holds with regard to our own writers of verse: they are almost invariably the briefest. Brevity is the essence of wit in its widest acceptation; of passion and imagination no less than of epigrammatic smartness. The very highest flights of Fancy cannot be long sustained; the most brilliant flashes of genius are the most evanescent.

This has ever been the case, from the days of the Hebrew Bards to the present epoch. And where great Poets have written long poems, how few of these are fairly endenizened in the national heart, and have taken a firm hold on the popular feeling. Few, very few, great, long poems survive a very limited period; and even the classic national epics, which can be counted on the fingers, are by no means perfect throughout. In the grandest of epics, Paradise Lost, how much there is one could willingly let die. Many fine poets of the second rank assume that position from their perfect short pieces, not from mediocre long ones.

But a short effort must be complete and finished, in itself, to be valuable. It is, as in statuary: the critic demands perfection; whereas, in architecture, one is necessarily more lenient. Or, as in painting, an historical picture

may be deficient in parts, while a portrait ought to reflect the living features. Yet, one shall often find the Poet priding himself on his elaborate and longer productions, and contemning, as slight and worthless, those fugitive, occasional effusions which alone stamp him with immortality.

The length of the performances of our Poets is in an inverse ratio to their intrinsic merits. Thus far, the longest are superlatively meagre and valueless, and fill single volumes, any one of which would probably contain the Gems of American Verse.

We need an American anthology, which should bring together many delicate blossoms, mostly reared in hothouses, and which can ill bear the rude air of common criticism or the chilling breezes of neglect. Our Parnassus is a garden of exotics chiefly: we have no forest trees yet growing upon it. The soil is not hardy and vigorous enough for the towering oak or majestic elm: it produces, instead, the ever-sweet rose, the graceful lily, the variegated tulip, and the exquisite mignionette.

We have no cedars of Lebanon, but beautiful japonicas. The cactus is a true type of our poetical flowers. It is a foreigner; it is raised and developed with care and pains; and its flower is delicately fair.

Critically, the American Poets fall within the class of Minor Poets. They do not as a class-none of those whose verse will last-write at length, or in the highest walks of the Epic and Tragic Muse. Yet, their efforts may be and often are excellent. And we have thus far at least a score but surely not over two hundred, as one collecter affirmed, of true Poets, whose works will maintain a desirable place in all select collections of poetry.

Of this nature, and belonging to this class, are the

charming effusions of Mr. Hoyt's genius, who is not a great Poet, because he does not attempt the highest walks of Poetry, but who is a pure and sweet one, with judgment to boot, in not venturing upon flights without his reach, or wasting his powers on unattainable objects.

He has happily opened an original vein in these sketches, which display true pathos, and a delicate talent for satiric irony; descriptive skill and a fine ear, attuned to the nice management of his peculiar measures. A pleasing pastoral tenderness-a pure tone of domestic feeling runs through the verses of Mr. Hoyt, whose landscape is enveloped in an atmosphere of sentiment.

We remember some years since having read one morning a delicate piece of criticism in one of the morning papers (the News, a democratic journal, since defunct,) on a poetical brochure, by the Rev. Ralph Hoyt, then a new name in the American Parnassus. Certain stanzas from Snow were extracted, containing one of the very finest pieces of rural painting we ever read. It was a genuine transcript from nature, seen through the poetic medium, and executed with the happiest skill. Since that time Mr. Hoyt has produced a few more poetic blossoms, to endure as a permanent literary wreath. He has, in plain English, gained his place, which we run little hazard in predicting will be firm and undisturbed.

His aim is not lofty, his views are not extravagant: he has no prejudices to combat nor taste to create. He is a disciple, with individuality and independence, of the pure school of Goldsmith, and Campbell, and Beattie. He is no copyist, yet his spirit, subjects, and diction are those of the

approved good masters" of sterling English verse. Description, faithful, original, fresh, and spirited; a pleasing,