narrative style; fine touches of good humored satiric wit, with a true vein of mild and gentle pathos, just and delitate sentiment, all couched in a style of transparent clearness, of limpid beauty, constitute the poetic capital of our poet.

Mr. Hoyt is to be considered chiefly as a rural, descriptive poet, and as a domestic painter. He is at home in the fields and by the fireside. No grand, no brilliant, no profound bard is he, but peculiarly sweet and agreeable. He might be ranked, perhaps, with Parnell, (their lives are different, to be sure, but the sum total, to speak mathematically of his poetical traits and talents, might be accounted as nearly equal to those of the Queen Anne's poet,) who stands among the lesser lights, the Dii Minores of the poetital firmament.

Altogether, Mr. Hoyt has published very little; two very thin pamphlets, previously to his last collection, which includes the best things in the earlier publications, as well as his more recent efforts. But they "are choicely good," as Walton says of Marlow and Raleigh, better than most of "the strong lines in this critical age." Lovers of simplicity, of meditative reflection, of polish, sentiment, and purity of style, will admire the verses of Mr. Hoyt; but the majority of poetical readers will think him wanting in passion and excitement. Indeed he eschews passion, dramatic effect, and "exciting" topics altogether. His favorite topics are domestic scenes of fireside happiness, the joys of innocence and home, the heaven of childhood, the beautiful serenity of virtuous age.

Nor is he deficient in touches of ironical humor, without bitterness, and instinct with wisdom. He has a manly vein of satire and eloquence, as in World Sale and New.

Snow and Rain are universally admitted to be finished landscapes; and, indeed, we agree with Mr. Hoyt's critic in the American Review, (we believe the late Mr. Colton,) that these are the best specimens of idyllic verse, or rural painting, that American poetry can show. Other names may be mentioned more brilliant, of more varied resources, of more profound philosophy; we have had lyrists and moralists in verse of the first class; but, perhaps, no one, who, in his peculiar sphere, has surpassed Mr. Hoyt. His sphere is limited; it is the province of the domestic poet and pastoral bard; its range is narrow, yet in it he is a

master.

The peculiar measure of Mr. Hoyt's poetical efforts strikes us most agreeably, though they have affected other critics differently. The returning strain, the recurrence of a harmonious line, add, to our ear, to the rhythmical beauty. Yet it is a mannerism, and might become monotonous. Most of these poems have passed through a number of editions and meet a ready sale. Their popularity affords proof that an uncontaminated poetical taste still remains.

Mr. Hoyt has in print some delightful poetical jeux d' esprit we wish he would collect them with these pieces in a larger volume. In the Evening Mirror, he has had several; and we have lighted upon verses in the Sun, so much superior to the common run of newspaper verse, that we charged upon our author pieces he confessed to be his. We have not quoted a line, as we wish our readers to find out the separate beauties for themselves. The critic is a literary taster, but the reader must mark and in wardly digest for himself.

Mr. Hoyt is a clergyman of the Episcopal Church, and may be fitly regarded as the best clerical poet, by far, of

that church. A modest, though manly preacher, he is not by any means a fashionable preacher; most fortunately for us and for his own true interest, though not for his pecuniary interest.

Able controvertists arise, flourish, die, are forgotten. Brilliant declaimers flash and vanish more suddenly still; but genuine poetry outlasts controversies and fashions in oratory, though it gives no personal popularity or worldly honors, or worldly gear. The Muse yields nothing perishable to her followers. Gold is not lasting, but glory is; so

the Poet, too often, is poor and famous.

In the case of a professional man, this and we hope will not be with our author. Church should especially cherish.

should not be; Such as he, the

VII.

THE LITERARY CHARACTER OF R. H. DANA.

THE review of American novelists in the Foreign Quarterly, just and fair in the main, was yet guilty of omissions that should have been noticed at the time, and the authors neglected fully discussed by a competent critic. It is not our purpose at present to occupy the whole ground, nor to attempt filling the wide and unseemly gap left by the reviewer-more, we apprehend, from ignorance or inadvertence, than from any desire to suppress excellence, or hide real merit. That duty we leave to the American critic, who can honestly appraise the peculiar talents and unique productions of several among our lighter writers, whose names we might mention, not one of whom is alluded to by the critic; while two serious writers-the one a great painter, and the other a true poet, of unquestioned excellence as writers of prose fiction, Allston in his Monaldi, and Dana in certain tales, among prose fictions holding a somewhat analogous rank to that the master-pieces of Heywood and Middleton would sustain in a comparison with the Shaksperian drama-have been passed over without attracting the most casual remark.

This extreme carelessness may furnish some excuse for the critical remarks we are about to make, and for attempting to sketch the features of one of the purest and noblest of our American men of genius.

An equally good reason for such a sketch may be found in the fact of the great injustice done our author by the present race of readers, to whom he is known only by name. Genius and virtue like that of Mr. Dana's should be kept fresh and alive before his countrymen. Such men as he are not given to the world to be left in doubt as to whether they have lighted upon their appropriate sphere, or whether they have not wandered into some stranger orb. Though Mr. Dana has not been a voluminous writer, he has still written abundantly enough, and with adequate power, to reveal to all who can understand him, the purity and nobleness of his aims, and to impress young and docile minds with the wisest lessons of life and duty.

It is now nearly a quarter of a century since we have seen anything in the way of prose fiction, in print, by the author of the Idle Man; during which period so many candidates for public honor, and claimants for a niche in the temple of fame, have been pouring in, that the public eye is well nigh clouded by the sparkling ephemerida, and the public ear confounded by loud clamors and noisy appeals. In the midst of this hubbub, the silent speculative genius of Dana, and the power, the purity, and the classic cast of Dana's writings have passed almost unregarded. Among the thousands who devour James, the tens who study Dana may be easily enumerated. The lovers of historical melodrama see nothing in simple, undisguised, unaffected, yet most real and vigorous true dramatic painting. Perhaps the American is too much of a philosopher for these readers, who are captivated by detailed narrative, and circumstantial description; though, as a mere writer of tales, full of striking characters, closely crowded with stirring incidents, set in a frame of poetic description, and enshrined within a halo of pure imagination,