"Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings-as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered the best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.

"Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.

"With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under ground.

"The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from the field, at dinner-time; and they think themselves luck to get the dinner.

"The rays of happiness, like those of light,

are colorless when unbroken.

"Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

"The country is lyric-the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the most perfect

musical drama.

"The natural alone is permanent. Fantastic idols may be worshipped for a while; but at length they are overturned by the continual and silent progress of Truth, as the grim statues of Copan have been pushed from their pedestals by the growth of forest-tress, whose seeds were sown by the wind in the ruined walls.

"The every-day cares and duties, which men call drudgery, are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of time, giving its pendulum a true vibration, and its hands a regular motion; and when they cease to hang upon the wheels, the pendulum no longer swings, the hands no longer move, the clock stands still.

"The same object, seen from the three different points of view-the Past, the Present, and the Future-often exhibits three different faces to us; like those sign-boards over shop doors, which represent the face of a lion as we approach, of a man when we are in front, and of an ass when we have passed.

"In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.

"Some critics have the habit of rowing up

the Heliconian rivers with their backs turned, so as to see the landscape precisely as the poet d not see it. Others see faults in a book

Panza, with his eyes blinded, beheld from his wooden horse the earth no larger than a grain of mustard-seed, and the men and women on it as large as hazel-nuts.

"Like an inundation of the Indus is the course of Time. We look for the homes of our childhood, they are gone; for the friends of our childhood, they are gone. The loves and animosities of youth, where are they? Swept away the sandy bed of the river. like the camps that had been pitched in

"As no saint can be canonized until the Devil's Advocate has exposed all his evil deeds, and showed why he should not be made a saint, so no poet can take his station among the gods until the critics have said all that can be said against him."

Mr. Churchill's use of the old church its dimensions may reasonably be supposed pulpit is preposterously improbable, since to have equalled the capacity of his study to receive it, and greatly to have exceeded the width of an inner door. It is laughable to observe with what forethought and labor it is brought up, and made to serve in presenting with an easy, natural air these meditations, which, after all, we read with little interest, because however beautiful or brilliant in themselves, they stand separate and disconnected. Brought in as illustrations, such things possess a charm which is lost when we see them alone. Forced upon us without propriety they become wearisome. Scattered pearls are of less value than when drawn together by the thread of connection, their beauty being enhanced by the union of a purpose. Another objection might be offered to this "pulpit eloquence" as it is facetiously termed, in that it draws attention from the story and fore us in their stead, which, however its personages, and brings the author beagreeable to us, might not, on the present occasion, be convenient to himself. Mr. Churchill never commences his romance; but we catch a glimpse of Mr. Longfellow, seated in Mr. Churchill's study, extracting from his common-place book material for pages of his own.

the

matis persona is exhibited in a rather The sentimentality of our principal draspiritless pic-nic held at the "Roaring Brook," in the neighboring town of West

wood. The description of the place, and the drive to it, is lively and poetical:

Every State and almost every county of New England has its Roaring Brook--a mountain streamlet overhung by woods, inpeded by a mill, encumbered by fallen trees, but ever racing, rushing, roaring down through gurgling gullies, and filling the forest with its delicious sound and freshness; the drinking-place of home-returning herds; the mysterious haunt of squirrels and blue-jays; the sylvan retreat of schoolgirls, who frequent it on summer holidays, and mingle their restless thoughts, their overflowing fancies, their fair imaginings, with its restless, exuberant and rejoicing stream.

"Fairmeadow had no Roaring Brook. As its name indicates, it was too level a land for that. But the neigboring town of Westwood, lying more inland, and among the hills, had one of the fairest and fullest of all the brooks that

roar.

"Over warm uplands, smelling of clover and mint; through cool glades, still wet with the rain of yesterday; along the river; across the rattling and tilting planks of wooden bridges; by orchards; by the gates of fields, with the tall mullen growing at the bars; by stone walls overrun with privet and barberries; in sun and heat, in shadow and coolness, forward drove the happy party on that pleasant summer morning.

"At length they reached the Roaring Brook. From a gorge in the mountains, through a long, winding gallery of birch, and beech, and pine, leaped the bright, brown waters of the jubilant streamlet; out of the woods, across the plain, under the rude bridge of logs, into the woods again--a day between two nights. With it went a song that made the heart sing likewise; a song of joy, and exultation, and freedom; a continuous and unbroken song of life, and pleasure, and perpetual youth."

The pedantry of the two scholars breaks out immediately on their arrival:

"How indescribably beautiful this brown water is!" exclaimed Kavanagh. "It is like wine, or the nectar of the gods of Olympus; as if the falling Hebe had poured it from the goblet."

"More like the mead or metheglin of the northern gods," said Mr. Churchill," spilled from the drinking-horns of Valhalla."

"But all the ladies thought Kavanagh's comparison the better of the two, and in fact the best that could be made."

of Miss Sally Manchester, and the house in which, with Alice and her mother, she resided:

"The old house they lived in, with its four sickly Lombardy poplars in front, suggested gloomy and mournful thoughts. It was one of those houses that depress you as you enter, as if many persons had died in it-sombre, desolate, silent. The very clock in the hall had a dismal sound, gasping and catching its breath at times, and striking the hour with a violent, determined blow, reminding one of Jael driving the nail into the head of Sisera. "One other inmate the house had, and only

one.

This was Sally Manchester, or Miss Sally Manchester, as she preferred to be called; an excellent chamber-maid and a very bad cook, for she served in both capacities. She was, indeed, an extraordinary woman, of large frame and masculine features; one of those who are born to work, and accept their inheritance of toil as if it were play, and who consequently, in the language of domestic recommendations, are usually styled "a treasure, if you can get her." A treasure she was to this family; for she did all the housework, and in addition took care of the cow and the poultry, occasionally venturing into the field of veterinary practice, and administering lampoil to the cock, when she thought he crowed hoarsely. She had on her forehead what is sometimes denominated a "widow's peak"that is to say, her hair grew down to a point in the middle; and on Sundays she appeared at church in a blue poplin gown, with a large pink bow on what she called "the congregation side of her bonnet." Her mind was strong, like her person; her disposition not sweet, but, as is sometimes said of apples by way of recommendation, a pleasant sour.'

The family mansion of the Vaughans must be familiar to every one. We feel as if we had seen it and been in it a thousand times:

"The old family mansion of the Vaughans stood a little out of town, in the midst of a pleasant farm. The county road was not near enough to annoy; and the rattling wheels and little clouds of dust seemed like friendly salutations from travellers as they passed. They spoke of safety and companionship, and took away all loneliness from the solitude.

'Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings-as some savage tribes determine the power of muskets by their recoil; that being considered the best which fairly prostrates the purchaser.

"Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.

"With many readers, brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable gold mines under ground.

"The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from the field, at dinner-time; and they think themselves luck to get the dinner.

"The rays of happiness, like those of light,

are colorless when unbroken.

"Critics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, stationed at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to challenge every new author.

"The country is lyric-the town dramatic. When mingled, they make the most perfect

musical drama.

"The natural alone is permanent. Fantastic idols may be worshipped for a while; but at length they are overturned by the continual and silent progress of Truth, as the grim statues of Copan have been pushed from their pedestals by the growth of forest-tress, whose seeds were sown by the wind in the ruined walls.

"The every-day cares and duties, which men call drudgery, are the weights and counterpoises of the clock of time, giving its pendulum a true vibration, and its hands a regular motion; and when they cease to hang upon the wheels, the pendulum no longer swings, the hands no longer move, the clock stands still.

"The same object, seen from the three different points of view-the Past, the Present, and the Future-often exhibits three different faces to us; like those sign-boards over shop doors, which represent the face of a lion as we approach, of a man when we are in front, and of an ass when we have passed.

"In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.

"Some critics have the habit of rowing up the Heliconian rivers with their backs turned, so as to see the landscape precisely as the poet did not see it. Others see faults in a book

Panza, with his eyes blinded, beheld from his wooden horse the earth no larger than a grain of mustard-seed, and the men and women on it as large as hazel-nuts.

"Like an inundation of the Indus is the course of Time. We look for the homes of our childhood, they are gone; for the friends of our childhood, they are gone. The loves and animosities of youth, where are they? Swept away like the camps that had been pitched in the sandy bed of the river.

"As no saint can be canonized until the Devil's Advocate has exposed all his evil deeds, and showed why he should not be made a saint, so no poet can take his station among the gods until the critics have said all that can be said against him."

Mr. Churchill's use of the old church its dimensions may reasonably be supposed pulpit is preposterously improbable, since to have equalled the capacity of his study to receive it, and greatly to have exceeded the width of an inner door. It is laughable to observe with what forethought and labor it is brought up, and made to serve in presenting with an easy, natural air these meditations, which, after all, we read with little interest, because however beautiful or brilliant in themselves, they stand separate and disconnected. Brought in as illustrations, such things possess a charm which is lost when we see them alone." Forced upon us without propriety they become wearisome. Scattered pearls are of less value than when drawn together by the thread of connection, their beauty being enhanced by the union of a purpose. Another objection might be offered to this "pulpit eloquence" as it is facetiously termed, in that it draws attention from the story and fore us in their stead, which, however its personages, and brings the author be agreeable to us, might not, on the present occasion, be convenient to himself. Churchill never commences his rom but we catch a glimpse of Mr. I seated in Mr. Churchill's study. from his common-place boo! the pages of his own. The sentimentali matis persons spiritless Bro

mind with pleasant thoughts of Prince Rasselas and the Happy Valley.

"The house was one of the few old houses still standing in New England; a large, square building, with a portico in front, whose door in summer time stood open from morning until night. A pleasing stillness reigned about it; and soft gusts of pine-embalmed air and distant cawings from the crow-haunted mountains, filled its airy and ample halls."

Moreover, Mr. Hiram Adolphus Hawkins was a poet; so much a poet, that, as his sister frequently remarked, he "spoke blank verse in the bosom of his family." The general tone of his productions was sad, desponding, perhaps slightly morbid. How could it be otherwise with the writings of one who had never been the world's friend, nor the world his? who looked upon himself as "a pyramid of mind on the dark desert of despair?" and who, at the age of twenty-five, had drunk the bitter draught down? His productions were published in the and it was a relief to know, that, in private Poet's Corner of the Fairmeadow Advertiser; life, as his sister remarked, he was "by no means the censorious and moody person some of his writings might imply."

"There was in the village a domestic and resident adorer, whose love for himself, for

Miss Vaughan, and for the beautiful, had trans

formed his name from Hiram A. Hawkins to H. Adolphus Hawkins. He was a dealer in English linens and carpets; a profession which of itself fills the mind with ideas of domestic comfort. His waistcoats were made like Lord Melbourne's in the illustrated English papers, and his shiny hair went off to the left in a superb sweep, like the hand-rail of a bannister. He wore many rings on his fingers, and several breast-pins and gold chains disposed about his person. On all his bland physiognomy was stamped, as on some of his linens, "Soft finish for family use." Everything about him spoke the lady's man. He was, in fact, a perfect ring-dove; and, like the rest of his species, always walked up to the female, and, bowing his head, swelled out his white crop, and uttered a very plaintive murmur.

The interview between Churchill and Mr. Hathaway tempts us, but it is long and would be injured by abbreviation; we must therefore refer our readers to the volume.

his book with a moral : True to himself Mr. Longfellow ends

"Stay, stay the present instant!

Imprint the marks of wisdom on its wings!
Oh, let it not elude thy grasp, but like
The good old patriarch upon record,

Hold the fleet angel fast until he bless thee !”