S

nt of bliss, in palace or in cot, hanting Punch! the sullen Scot,

prend frantic Irish, feel thy soft control. the Britain's ports, her men of war

pe all sheer hulks; each jovial tar

Has filled his thirsty can at thy command.

Mantling in the sceptred hand

Of George, (10) thy magic lulls the beastly king;(11)

His mane nor shakes, nor tail doth swing,

Quenched in thick fumes of Usquebagh

Hop the double-shuffling feet.
Domingo comes, (19) with groaning waiter bowed;
Where'er he turns, beaux, belles their homage
pay;

With arms sublime, that float above the crowd,
In melting state he wins his greasy way;
His dewy cheek, and heaving bosom, lave
Rich steams of whiskey punch, and chocolate's
purple wave.

II. 1.

(20) Man's thirsty race-what ails ye so?
Rheum, Asthma, Vertigo, the fevered brain
Cholic, Dyspepsia's ghastly train,

And Gout, sad torment of the crimson toe!
These cursed complaints, oh Punch! remove,
And justify the drops I love.

Say, was it pressed in vain, Rye's heavenly juice?
Oporto's blood, Madeira's yellow dews,

The thunder of his growl, and lightning of his The white-topped host, and India's dusky hoard,

paw.(12)

I. 3.

(13) Thee, cotillion sets delight,

Hooting at thy misty flight. (14)

Chauncey Place! thy russet green(15)
The rosy Boston girls hast seen,

On Mrs ******'s night, (16)

With antic ***,(17) and blue-eyed M****,
Frisking round the whiskey basin;
Now dancing up, and now retreating,
Now in reeling troops they meet;
To Peter's elbow cadence beating, (19)

thus Amadis de Gaul was called the flower of chiv-
alry. So, in modern times, Bob Logic says to
Jerry, "That's the time of day, my flower."
8. "Now rolling" &c.

Nothing can be more beautiful than these lines. The impetuous language of the verse is admirably adapted to the rush of whiskey, leaping out of the ship, by puncheons and hogsheads, as if exulting in the new found land of Liberty. The putting the wharves and the little boys that throng them on the same footing, and making them both and equally rebellow to the roar of the whiskey casks, can hardly be surpassed. It is a beautiful confusion of metaphors well worthy of the Hibernian lyre.

9. Power of whiskey punch to calm the turbulent sallies of the soul-particularly exemplified in the British character.

10. The celebrity of the Prince Regent's Punch is well known even on this side of the Atlantic.

Are given to range the dreary board,
Till through the folding doors (my soul!)
Old 'Mingo's march I spy, and whiskey's smoking
bowl.(21)

II. 2.

(22) In climes beyond our Boston Thumb,(23)
Where shaggy forms (24) infest the Pittsburgh road,
Whiskey has got the upper hand of Rum,
To cheer the Pennsylvanian's dull abode.
And oft, amid the odorous shade

Of New York's boundless cellars laid,
She deigns to hear the tippling youth repeat,
Their lectioneering fights, and frisky loves.
In good low Dutch, mellifluously sweet,
Its track, where'er the whiskey moves,
Mirth, glee, pursue, and loud-resounding laughs,
Unconquerable thirst, and never-ending draughts.

II. 3.

(25) Woods that wave o'er far Kentuck';
Shores that brood the Canvass duck;

Fields that Mississippi laves;
Or where Ohio's muddy waves
Their sluggish way through snags and sawyers
suck,(26)

19. "Domingo comes." Domingo Williams, Esq. 20. To dispel the real and imaginary ills of life whiskey was given to mankind, by the same Providence that gave White-top and Black-top to cause 11. "The beastly king," i. e. the king of beasts-them. "My bane, my antidote, are both before me." or British lion. The passage is merely emblemat- never known to produce any thing worse than the It is a peculiarity of whiskey punch that it was ic, and contains no personal allusion whatever. vapours. The dreariness of the dinner-table during 12. "Quenched in thick fumes" &c. the solemn circulation of the several kinds of wines Gray has is beautifully contrasted with the exultation that lights up every visage at the entrance of whiskey.

"Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terrors of his beak and lightnings of his eye." This is very inferior to our poet's. "The lightning of his paw" is particularly expressive of the lion's rapidity of motion, and the bringing together of thunder and lightning by two figures in the same line, is a beautiful apposition.

13. Introduction of whiskey into fashionable society, with its power of producing all the graces of motion in the body.

14. "Hooting at thy misty flight" is an original line, peculiarly after the manner of Gray. "Misty flight," a striking expression of the passage of hot whiskey through a ball-room; and nothing could be happier than the word "hooting," to express the strange, promiscuous sound which always follows the entrance of whiskey.

is

15. "Chauncey-Place! thy russet green." Most of my readers may not be aware that there any Green whatever in Chauncey-Place. But we assure them there is one appurtenant to the school under the meetinghouse; and it is very properly termed a russet green.

Variation. 64

Rusty green."

16. On Mrs ******'s night. Alluding to a dance lately given in that vicinity.

17. Variation.

Antique."

18. "Peter's elbow" &c.-figuratively, for the violin of Mr Peter Howard.

23. "Boston Thumb." See the Address, delivered on the first passage of the Boston and Roxbury Mill Dam Boston is described as resembling a human fist, which was opened by building four bridges for fingers, and said dam by way of thumb. 24. "Shaggy forms," &c.; alluding to the half horse, half alligator, so frequently found in those horrid regions.

25. Progress of Whiskey, considered as an alle-
gorical personage, from Ireland to our western
country, from thence to the Atlantic states, and
finally to Boston. Also, its effects compared with
those of rum and cider.

26. "Their sluggish way though snags and saw-
yers suck.'

Snags are stumps of trees, fixed in the bed of

* Celebrated wines lately imported from Santa Cruz.

(28) Far from the Main-street's clattering way,
To a snug Court our little Club had strayed,
What time, where W******* Place was laid,
To him the Secretary did display

A three quart bowl; the dauntless child
Stretched forth his thirty arms and smiled;
"Cone take a drop," said he," the summer rose
Shall richly paint thy blossomed nose ;-
Thine too these cellar keys, my jolly boy;
This can unlock Madeira's joy,
That show the way to all the sorts of beers,
Or ope the sacred source of Whiskey's smiling
tears."(29)

III. 2.

(30)Club drained the bowl; then, full of airs, On toe of curiosity,

The secrets of the drink to spy,

He passed the flaming bounds of kitchen stairs;
The boiling pot, the ruddy blaze,

Where cook-maids swelter while they gaze,
He saw; but (blast it) would you think!
He saw not how to mix the drink.

But see! the Secretary's sumptuous hand
Has filled again, at Club's command,

Two pitchers of etherial juice:

Their throats in fragrance clothed, and mirth-inspiring dews.

III. 3.

(31)Hark! the merry voices shout-
Bright-eyed Whiskey skips about,
Pouring from her vapoury urn
Steam that breathes, and drops that burn.
But ah! the drink is out-

Oh cup divine! what high proof spirit
Fills thee now? Though it inherit
Nor the pride, nor ample pinion,

Ruling with supreme dominion
The Secretary's whiskey had,

O'er the liquor-loving lad,
Yet oft before Club's infant eyes shall run
Such punch as ***** knows to mix, or ****,
In orient drops, invigorate of fun;

Still shall it mount, and keep its distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar slop,
Beneath the Secretary's far-but far above
White-top.

a river. Sawyers are trees whose roots rest on the bottom, and whose limbs, being on the surface, move up and down with the motion of a woodsawyer. The sound in this line is eminently expressive of the sense; a sluggish stream, choked up with mud and stumps, making its way, as it were, by a sort of capillary suction.

27. "Alike she walks," &c. Alluding to the waggon loads of whisky that come down from the interior. Incessu patuit dea."

29. Whiskey is here introduced to Mr Club by his Secretary, who generously extends to him the free use of all the liquors in his cellar.

29. "Whiskey's smiling tears," is another of the beauties which deserve to be pointed out as peculiar to the Irish Muse.

30. Club is anxious to discover the true secret of making whiskey punch, but fails in the attempt. The Secretary's farther generosity.

31. Comparison between the Secretary's whiskey punch, and any other liquor that can be produ

ced on this side the Atlantic.

POETRY

[The following should have been printed some months since; but poetry like this, can never be unseasonable.]

MARCH.

The stormy March is come at last,
With wind and cloud and changing skies,
I hear the rushing of the blast

That through the snowy valley flies.
Ah, passing few are they who speak,

Wild stormy month! in praise of thee;
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.
For thou, to northern lands again,

The glad and glorious sun dost bring,
And thou hast joined the gentle train

And wear'st the gentle name of Spring. And, in thy reign of blast and storm,

Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day, When the changed winds are soft and warm, And heaven puts on the blue of May.

Then sing aloud the gushing rills

And the full springs, from frost set free,
That, brightly leaping down the hills,
Arc just set out to meet the sea.
The year's departing beauty hides
Of wintry storms the sullen threat;
But, in thy sternest frown, abides

A look of kindly promise yet.

Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies
And that soft time of sunny showers,
When the wide bloom, on earth that lies,
Seems of a brighter world than ours.

B.

Bentham."

show that it ought to consider original wood's Magazine, which is, take it altogethauthors only as tools or materials for the re-er, about as good a thing as is going, atviewer. and to estimate them accordingly. tacks the Westminster Review of course, This is just what we mean to do in a very In No. 65 it is laughed at abundantly. capital essay now receiving its last polish, "The Westminster Review is henceforth to be and to be published-some time or other. called the Antediluvian Review. Its former titles At present we shall do no more than just of the Benthamnite and the Radical, have sunk away to tell our readers what is doing abroad in into this matchlessly appropriate cognomen. Its this respect; because we cannot fail thus readers were, it must be owned, at first rather sur to convince every honest man, that review- But the secret has at length been suffered to tran prised at the obsoleteness of the several topics. ers &c. are multiplying not only faster than spire. As the purpose of the work is reform in all books, but so much faster, that the review- its branches, church and state, book and mankind; ers are actually compelled to ransack "the and as no reform is worth a straw which does not vasty void of by-gone things" for subjects. begin at the root, the Antediluvian Review has deOf periodicals actually established we shall and so as not to set the laughers against it, all at termined to begin at the beginning; but cautiously, give no list, as we have not many columns once. Accordingly the first number has treated of to spare; of those just starting in our own no subject much beyond fifty years of age; and has land, we shall be very particularly silent; lucubrated on the Bullion question, Public Educa not caring to tell those who may not think tion, Malthus, and the "first numbers of the Edinso well of the United States Literary Ga-burgh and Quarterly Reviews." This is all as it should be. The present century is fairly excluded, zette as we do, what a wide variety they and that is enough for a first number. But the sec may select from. In England divers small ond is to be more antique and fearless; and to conthings are perpetually struggling to be, but tain articles on the Character of Marlborough; on since this year came in, at least five new development, a detail of the War of the Roses. the Revolution of 1683, and as a little additional journals of much magnitude and pretension The work is then to be considered as having fairly have been proposed or begun. There is the declared itself, and it is thenceforth to wanton in UNIVERSAL REVIEW, OR CHRONICLE OF THE the wilderness of the dark ages, to give a train of HISTORY OF ALL NATIONS. Of this we only dissertations on the discovery of the Pandects; the know that it was to begin in March, and to be Bulls of Innocent III.; the controversy of Duns published every two months. The Prospec- philosophy of St Dominic; the fall of the Gnostics; Scotus; the private correspondence and familiar tus declares all the established periodicals the rise of the Aristotelians, &c. &c. to be very poor things indeed; and that the "How much farther this radical retrogression may writers in this are to be very able, very im-go, or whether, like Neptune's horses in the Iliad, partial, very constitutional, and particularly the third bound may not exhaust the universe, must disposed to profit by the fact, that "on the still be left in that curious repository of the undis continent a new and brilliant period has covered and unintelligible, the breast of Jeremy opened, that almost resembles the fifteenth century, in the suddenness, masculine strength, and original splendour of its inSOME great English engineer-no matter tellectual exertion." Then a new series of who was called before the House of Com-the LITERARY MUSEUM is announced; we mons, to state facts touching canals, &c. Perhaps he meant to get the job of building one; be that as it may, he declared that canals were of more use than any one thought them or has found them since. A member of the Commons, a little amazed at his trotting his hobby so violently, uttered a "Pray, Sir, if canals are thus omnipotent of good, are not navigable rivers of some use?" "Certainly, Sir; they serve to feed navigable canals." This is quite a good joke, rather old, but not very,-and we make a very ingenious and felicitous application of it, in remarking, that rivers held about the same relation to canals in our engineer's opinion, that original works bear to reviews, in the taste of the reading public. In fact, the only reason why we undertook this Gazette, was our discovery that the world were rapidly getting convinced of the total uselessness of all books whatever, excepting as they may supply food for reviews, journals, magazines, literary gazettes, &c. &c. &c. This conviction on the part of the world is a proof of growing wisdom, and is moreover likely to be of some service to us. We intend to do what we can to spread and fix it, by showing that it exists; inasmuch as nothing makes people believe a thing, like finding out that others believe it. One way to do this would be to assume that the world always thinks what it should, and then to

INTELLIGENCE.

are promised-to simplify the prospectus as
far as possible-that the new work shall be
a prompt, accurate, and universal Review
and Register of Literature and all the Arts
and Sciences-which is certainly quite prom-
ise enough. It is published in London every
Saturday. KNIGHT'S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE
is fairly under way. We have seen a few
numbers of it, and think it almost better than
nothing at all,-as mere matter of amuse-
ment. It appears to be a general Maga-
zine of Belles Lettres. But the great gun of
the new periodicals, is the WESTMINSTER
REVIEW; of which the first number has just
reached us. Many of the articles are very
able, and it professes to do great things.
We take it to be a thorough radical in its
character. Doubtless our readers know,
that every body in England is either a tory,
-and wishes every thing, good, bad, and
indifferent to be just as it is, forever; or a
whig, a "constitutional whig,"-wanting
those matters altered, which interfere with
his comfort or convenience;-or a radical,
who affects the topsy turvy, and means to
leave nothing at rest until he is uppermost.
Hitherto the radicals and whigs have made
common cause and spoken by their common
organ the Edinburgh Review; but it seems
that the radicals are strong enough to have
a book of their own, and the first thing
they do, is to cast off the Edinburgh. Black-

The CAMBRIDGE QUARTERLY REVIEW is announced, to appear in March. The proprietors profess to seek no new plan, but to We learn from the Prospectus that they are do better in the old way than any other. graduates of Cambridge, disposed to pay particular attention to university matters, wholly unconnected with any similar undertaking, hoping to support "the altar and the throne," and, as we suppose, to put down the

Westminster Review.

THE Publishers of this Gazette furnish, on liberal terms, every book and every periodical work of any value which America affords. They have regular correspondents, and make up orders on the tenth of every month for England and France, and fre quently for Germany and Italy, and import from thence to order one or more copies of any work for a moderate commission; and they would remark, that their orders are executed by gentlemen who are well qualified to select the best editions, and that they are purchased at the lowest prices for cash. All new publications in any way noticed in this Gazette, they have for sale or can procure on quite as good terms as those of their respective publishers.

CUMMINGS, HILLIARD, & Co.

CAMBRIDGE:
PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS,

BY

HILLIARD AND METCALF,

THE UNITED STATES LITERARY GAZETTE.

Published on the first and fifteenth day of every month, by Cummings, Hilliard, & Co. No. 1 Cornhill, Boston.-Terms, $5 per annum, payable in July. VOL. I.

Poems.

REVIEWS.

By James G. Percival.
York, 1823. pp. 396.

BOSTON, JUNE 16, 1824.

in our streets and villages, as a new order
of animated creation. Our press teems an-
New nually with a large amount of original
produce, and that of a character not en-
tirely contemptible. At the very time that
power-looms and spinning-jennies are start-

THIS volume of native poetry is a new earn-
est that America is not always to be in lit-ing into operation in all parts of our coun-
erature the land of promise. Our capa- try, we are fabricating a fair proportion,
bilities of every sort, have too long been for our age and condition, of good mer-
the theme of our panegyrists, and as such, chantable poetry, and vendible romance.
have furnished more laughter than wit to Our productions in other departments of
our enemies. It was long since remarked, literature are neither few, nor unworthy of
and then at least, not without a colouring regard. The American imprimatur on
of truth, that we Americans, "homines works of fiction and taste is beginning to
novi," are forever vaunting the things that be known and respected even in England,
shall be; prophesying what a wonderful as our Waltham cotton stamp is in other
nation we must become in due process of parts of the world. It is no longer neces-
time; and resting a huge fabric of national sary for us to build upon futurity, or to go
vanity on the shadowy foundation of a na- back to the land of our ancestors in elder
tional hereafter. The retort is at least a fair days, asserting a claim to literature which
one upon those elder nations of the earth, is ours as well as theirs. The day has
who lose the beginnings of their greatness come when we must assert a literature of
in the mists of antiquity, that their pride is our own, not vauntingly, nor yet fearfully,
founded, not upon what they are, but upon but with that modest confidence which be-
what their ancestors have been. The boast comes the ingenuous youth who is conscious
of a son in his father's glory, or of a father of deserving well at the hands of a master,
in the promise of his son, are indeed equal-whom he does not pretend to have rivalled,
ly unbecoming in private life; and we far less surpassed. We do indeed most
think them both poor subjects of national solemnly protest against this perpetual com-
exultation. For our part, we are well parison between English and American
content that our own country shall be tried, literatures. We protest against the folly
not by the future, or the past, but as she is, of it on our part-we protest against the
provided she be tried at the common law, injustice of it on hers. Apart from all
by a jury of her peers; and we will not other considerations, it is placing the im-
object, that even her rivals and exemplars petus of.a few prosperous years in compe-
be her judges, if her efforts be fairly meas- tition with that acquired by as many cen-
ured with her means. We will not say that turies of progressive action. Allow all
her infant institutions have in a few short that should be allowed, and it is not little,
years accumulated such store of learning as for the laws, language, religion, civil liber-
cumbers the monastic shelves of European ty, domestic and public habits, that we have
academies; that her young luxury has derived from England, and enjoy in com-
brought into being such a profusion of mon with her sons and daughters of the
chef-d'œuvres in marble or canvass, as may present day, and still the literatures of the
challenge the Vatican or the Louvre; or ancient and the youthful nation are not
that her fast growing, but not yet over- fit subjects of comparison;-it is a very pro-
grown, fortunes have enabled her to main-saic sort of "magna componere parvis."
tain at her frugal board such a crowd of Ages may elapse before the literatures of
poor poets, and magnificent reviewers, as the two countries, viewed en masse, will
are marshalled under the golden banners
of nobility and regal wealth. The crumbs
which fall from our rich men's tables are
not yet so plentiful as to have made litera-
ry idlers (for such they are to those who
mingle in the busy scenes of active life) a
numerous and distinct class of our commu-
nity. But still, in literature and the arts,
we have done well, and are daily doing bet-
ter. Our artists who were famous abroad,
can now live at home. It becomes more
difficult to number our literary devotees,
of whom a few years since some one or two
stragglers were looked upon as miracles.
Professed authors are no longer pointed at

stand upon equal footing. Still, individual
authors in either country must at all times
be judged by the same critical standard;
and so far as that standard is derived from
the usages of English writers, so far are
our authors liable, and justly liable, to the
odious law of comparison. True, that with
England's superior mass of literature, her
greater number of candidates for literary
fame, by reason of the greater inducements
that are held out to them, there are, and
must be of necessity, a larger number of
first rate men; so that the comparison will
for a long time run to the disadvantage of
our authors. Still the evil, if it be one, is

No. 5.

unavoidable. Our literatures are in some sense common stock; the produce of both countries is brought into one market overt; and whoever goes there to sell, must be prepared for the competition. The reading public is the same to both; and the public never makes allowances. The public ought not to make allowances. Men who voluntarily and ambitiously force themselves into the high and responsible station of authors, who undertake for hire, either of fame or money, it matters not, to instruct or amuse the public mind, cannot reasonably complain, if that favour is withheld, where they have produced neither instruction nor amusement. Nor can they reasonably expect that the public will be at great pains to ascertain the cause of the failure. It is enough that they have failed to do that, which, undone, were better unattempted. Upon these principles we ourselves profess to judge; and therefore, while we devote our pages chiefly to American literature, we shall esteem it no part of our duty to praise it because it is American. In criticism we know no country, but the great republic of letters. "Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine agetur."

It is high time we turn to our author, who will not fear judgment on these principles. We hear he is young; but we shall allow nothing for his youth, since he is an author, and authors, like ladies, are always of a certain age; nor should we mention the circumstance, but as a cause of congratulation to him and to ourselves, for the greater chance that remains to him to do better things than he has yet done. He is an American, but we have already said we bestow no commendation for that cause. Indeed why should we, since it is no merit of his? He has published a book of near four hundred pages in rhyme. Oh that mine enemy had written half the number! Let him not count upon that seven-fold shield as a protection against any peril of authorship, unless it be the peril of being read. It is indeed "the very head and front of his offending." A man who writes a book of four hundred pages in these days, and that poetry too, should have made up his mind to condemnation beforehand. It is too much to expect, that either our ladies or our critics, whose work tables and desks are already crowded with new Waverly novels, new cantos of Don Juan, and new Quarterly and Edinburgh and North American Reviews (those admirable time-saving condensers of reading), besides all the other new things under the sun, and these coming upon them so much faster than even the most praise-worthy diligents among us either desire or deserve; it is too much to

And floated off, bounding the rushing wake,
That seemed to pour in torrents from her stern.

The wind still freshened, and the sails were stretch-
ed,
Till the yards cracked. She bent before its force,
And dipped her lee-side low beneath the waves.
Straight out she went to sea, as when a hawk
Cuts the light yielding air. The mountains dipped
Darts on a dove, and with a motionless wing
Their dark walls to the waters, and the hills
Scarce reared their green tops o'er them."

expect that such pampered gentry can find is a simple story of a young man of wealthy | Tossed, and went back along her polished sides, stomach to digest, or heart to praise, a vol- parentage, and a young woman whose only ume of these dimensions. If the name in the surviving parent lived in obscurity, who fall title-page be one unknown to fame, we need in love with each other at church. The look no farther. But if it be one of those great ones will not hear to the match; and, favourites of fortune who supply tea-talk as usual under such circumstances, pre"for the nonce," and whom not to know scribe the grand tour. The son goes into forwere to argue ourselves unknown, how eign parts, and, after a long absence, his deeply should such an one, before he pub-mistress one day sees the signal agreed uplishes four hundred pages of rhyme, ponder on between them, at the mast-head of a on the serious inconvenience he is about to ship entering the bay; but a sudden storm occasion to so many honest gentlefolks, who arises; the vessel is totally wrecked; she are bound by the laws of honor to expend finds the corpse of her true love on the much precious time and invaluable labour shore, embraces it, and dies; and thus, of in reading at least one page in ten, because course, they are bound by the laws of fashion to say that they have read him. Wherefore

"

They both were buried, where they first had met,
Beneath one stone, and they were wept by all."

should such a man expect mercy at literary Upon this slender and common-place outer we could give, since he will of course

hands?

"The sun was setting, and his last rays threw
Bright colours on the clouds that hung around
Over a broad expanse of sheeted gold,
The mountains, dimly rising in the west
On which a ship lay floating. It was calm-
Her sails were set, but yet the dying wind
Scarce wooed them, as they trembled on the yard
With an uncertain motion. She arose,
As a swan rises on her gilded wings,
When on a lake at sunset she uprears
Her form from out the waveless stream and steers
Into the far blue ether-so that ship
Seemed lifted from the waters, and suspended,
Winged with her bright sails, in the silent air.
A voice came from that ship, the voice of joy,
song of a light heart, and it invoked

The next poem, "Prometheus," is in two
cantos, occupying a hundred and twenty
pages. We have seen it highly praised,
and regret that we cannot join in the voice
of unqualified commendation; our reason
is a very simple one, and will doubtless be
more gratifying to the author than any oth-
set it down to our own particular stupidi-
ty-it is, that we cannot fully understand
it. We certainly spared no reasonable
We gave it a first and a
pains to do so.
Still un-
second perusal, not without care.
daunted, we essayed a third time, and read
on till we came to the passage which be-
gins,

"Much study is a weariness-so said
The sage of sages, and the aching eye,
The pallid cheek, the trembling frame, the head
Throbbing, &c.

Attest his truth."

Notwithstanding all this, we have really line is spread a great deal of beauty, chiefread Mr Percival's Poems ourselves quite ly of the descriptive kind. The piece through, and seriously advise all other lov- opens poetically, in mediis rebus, with a ers of the muse, who have a rational re- pretty picture of the deserted mistress sitgard for their own entertainment, to do the ting by the flag-staff, on a towering cliff like. Mr Percival certainly exhibits poet-near her father's cottage, which looked out ical powers very far above the ordinary upon the ocean, where she hourly watched range. He possesses in an eminent degree sail after sail for the long expected signal. that quality, without which a poet cannot Her melancholy visage and wasted form be, a keen perception of natural beauty;furnish the author with an apology for tella quality which includes both the sensibili- ing us the story of her love; after which, ty of the poet, and the taste of the mere the ship that bears her lover is seen in the artist. The sensibility may exist without offing, and the catastrophe follows which Being much struck with this truth of the the taste, and the reader will be shocked concludes the tale. As a specimen of our "sage of sages," and fully coinciding with as often as he is delighted. The taste author's powers, and his style of versifica-him in opinion, we shut the book. Poetry inmay exist without the sensibility, and the reader tion, we cannot do better perhaps than to deed wants its essence if it fail to excite or will at best be pleased with a cold, inani- select his descriptions of the ship which is amuse, and the mind cannot well be excitmate beauty which smiles him to sleep. about to bear the lover away, before he is ed or amused with that which conveys to it Where the two coexist in happy union, yet on board, and afterwards while she is no definite idea. We would not be undertheir joint production cannot but touch the under full sail. stood to say that no ideas are to be collectfeelings and satisfy the judgment, although ed from these pages; but that we cannot it may not reach those bolder flights of distinctly perceive the general scope and poetic fervour, which crowd the imagination design of the poem; it has no unity;-it with things of more than mortal birth, and leaves no distinct impression upon the mind. lead it to riot in its native empyreal realms. We see neither a Gothic ruin, nor a We cannot say that the general character Grecian porch, nor a good habitable house of Mr Percival's poetry, as exhibited in the of brick and mortar; but a confused mass book before us, is of this sublimated cast, of gems and glittering rubbish cumbering although there are passages which betray the earth. The solution of the difficulty much depth of feeling and power of exis, that our author's muse has been foolishpression. It has been said of poetry, that ly trying to fly after the manner of Byron, to possess moderate excellence in the art is and has consequently got lost in the clouds. to want its very essence; as if not to be Poetry in the olden time consisted chiefly beyond all praise were to be wholly unin a sort of personification, or figurative worthy of regard;-and there is as much description of the world without us, and those of truth in this observation as in most genpassions of the human heart which operate most strongly and visibly on human action; eral rules affecting matters of taste. But there are, nevertheless, different walks of but nowadays she is refined into a sort of poetry, which are to be trodden with a difmetaphysical subtilty, exercising her inferent step. We do not look for dithyramgenuity in analyzing the secret workings of bic fury in the song of Melpomene, nor exthe soul, and describing in vague and myspect to see pastoral softness in the tragic tical language the mazy world of feeling buskin. Cowper and Thompson never within us. When one of Homer's heroes reach the sublimity of Dryden, or the sits down by the seashore and looks out gloomy grandeur of Byron; yet who will upon the waters, the poet describes them, say they were not poets? So Percival dark, stern, and boundless, in such language leaves us behind him when he urges his as presents a kind of direct picture to the flight into unknown worlds, but takes us mind; but when Byron gazes on the ocean, entirely with him while he is content to he tells you how he feels about it, and how tread the flowery meads and dark vallies of he used to feel about it when he was a little this earth, and mingle in the tender scenes flection from the dark mirror of his own boy; and the image presented is but a reof domestic life. soul. We do not intend here to enter into a discussion of the respective merits of the

Of the longer poems in this book, the "Wreck" strikes us as by far the best. It

The

The coming of the breeze, to send them forth
Over the rolling ocean."

And again, after he is embarked and the
vessel has got under way.

Meanwhile

The sun had set, the painted sky and clouds
Put off their liveries, the bay its robe
Of brightness, and the stars were thick in heaven.

They looked upon the waters, and below
Another sky swelled out, thick set with stars,
And chequered with light clouds, which from the

north

Came flitting o'er the dim-seen hills, and shot
Dimmed the clear sheet-it darkened, and it drew
Like birds across the bay. A distant shade
Nearer. The waveless sea was seen to rise
In feathery curls, and soon it met the ship,
And a breeze struck her. Quick the floating sails
Rose up and drooped again. The wind came on
Fresher; the curls were waves; the sails were

filled

Tensely; the vessel righted to her course,
And ploughed the waters; round her prow the foam

old and the new schools; but we think it essential to the interest of poetry, in either form, that it should present some subject of sympathy to the reader. The author of an ingenious theory of beauty traces all our notions of it to associations with human, or The at least spiritual, life and action.

Day fades, and night grows brighter in her orb,
Which walks the blue air with a queen-like smile,
And seems with a soft gladness to absorb
All the deep blaze, that lit yon rocky pile,
Where the sun took his farewell glance, the while
He rested on the throne of parting day,
Which is his royal seat ;-as a far isle
Rolling amid the upper deep its way,
bay."

wide landscape of smooth lawns and culti-The moon glides on, as glides her shadow on the

As a loud sound of awe. She passed her hand
Over those quivering lips, that ever grew
Paler and colder, as the only sign
To tell her life still lingered-it went out!
And her heart sank within her, when the last
Weak sigh of life was over, and the room
Seemed like a vaulted sepulchre, so lone
She dared not look around: and the light wind,

vated farms, charms us from the sense of huWe regret that our limits will not permit man comfort it creates; rugged and romantic scenery reminds us of the proud savage us to go into a particular analysis of the of the wilds, or the strange beings resem-poems which follow. The "Suicide," though bling man in his spiritual qualities, which in a different metre, has much of the same superstition has at some time created; and character with the Prometheus. The plan the pleasure we derive from poetical de- we admit is easily discernible, and we have scriptions of these scenes, upon the princi- a living personage pictured before us; but ple of the old school, is (like that derived he forms no very distinct image in our from pictures) in proportion as they suggest minds, and the whole poem consists of his the scenes themselves, bringing with them vague descriptions of morbid feelings, which their natural associations, with more or are not portrayed with a very powerful less distinctness, with more or less truth of pencil, and are far from winding us up to And pressing both her hands upon her brow,

colouring and outline. And so their stories and personages delight us, according as they more or less resemble the reality of human action, and the variety of human characNow all we mean to say of the old

ter.

The tears that came to flow, and nerved her heart

That played among the leaves and flowers that grew
Still freshly at her window, and waved back
In her intense abstraction, seemed the voice
The curtain with a rustling sound, to her,
Of a departed spirit. Then she heard,
At least in fancy heard, a whisper breathe
Close at her ear, and tell her all was done,
And her fond loves were ended. She had watched
Until her love grew manly, and she checked
To the last solemn duty. With a hand
That trembled not, she closed the fallen lid,
And pressed the lips, and gave them one long kiss
Then decently spread over all a shroud;
And sitting with a look of lingering love
Intense in tearless passion, rose at length,
Gave loose to all her gushing grief in showers,
Which, as a fountain sealed till it had swelled
To its last fulness, now gave way and flowed
In a deep stream of sorrow. She grew calm,
And parting back the curtains, looked abroad
Upon the moonlight loveliness, all sunk
touch upon the realities of domestic life, well From the lone room of death, or the dull sound
deserve the highest commendation. For Of the slow-moving hearse. The homes of men
instances, we would select "Night Watch-Were now all desolate, and darkness there,
ing," and the "Deserted Wife." The former And solitude and silence took their seat
In the deserted streets, as if the wing
of these exhibits such a pure spirit of ten- Of a destroying angel had gone by,
der poetry, that we cannot resist the temp- And blasted all existence, and had changed
tation of giving it to our readers entire.

sympathize with the last desperate act. The
smaller pieces, which fill up the remainder
of the volume, are in general much better
than the poems from which we have hith-
erto extracted, and those of them more es-

and the new schools is, that it is infinitely pecially in which our author condescends to In one unbroken silence, save the moan

more difficult, and requires a far greater stretch of ingenuity in the poet, to call forth the sympathies of his readers in fayour of his own secret feelings, which may be very extravagant and very peculiar, than by description of life and manners,

and human action, and natural scenery, as
every one sees them about him. And hence
a successful writer of the former class is a
very dangerous subject of imitation. By-
ron himself, though eminently the poet of
his own heart, is well enough aware of the
necessity of presenting to the mind of his
reader some personage in whose sorrows
(for he has no joys) we are to sympathize;
and while we travel with his lordship over
a great part of the earth, prosing, or rather
poeticizing, at every step about his own
feelings in regard to every thing he sees,
Childe Harold, the stern and melancholy
outcast, wandering from clime to clime,
cheerless and alone, is all the while pictured
in our minds, giving unity to the poem, and
a constant object of interest to our regards.
All this is wanting in the "Prometheus,"
where the poet gives us nothing but vague
and indefinite descriptions of the universe
and himself; so vague and indefinite, that
the poem might almost as well be read by
stanzas backwards as forwards. Yet there
are detached passages, which, considered
by themselves, are full of the most exalted
beauty. The address to the sun, begin-
ning

"Centre of light and energy! thy way
Is through the unknown void; thou hast thy throne
Morning, and evening, and at noon of day,
Far in the blue, untended and alone,"

has an air of majesty throughout, approach-
ing far nearer to sublimity than is usual
with our author, and we regret much that
its length will not permit us to extract it.
We will substitute for it a single stanza
containing much exquisite poetry in its
"little round."

NIGHT WATCHING.

"She sat beside her lover, and her hand

Rested upon his clay-cold forehead. Death
Was calmly stealing o'er him, and his life
Went out by silent flickerings, when his eye
Woke up from its dim lethargy, and cast
Bright looks of fondness on her. He was weak,
Too weak to utter all his heart. His eye
How much he felt her kindness, and the love
Was now his only language, and it spake
That sat, when all had fled, beside him. Night
Was far upon its watches, and the voice
Of Nature had no sound. The pure blue sky
Was fair and lovely, and the many stars
Looked down in tranquil beauty on an earth
That smiled in sweetest summer. She looked out
Through the raised window, and the sheeted bay
Lay in a quiet sleep below, and shone
With the pale beam of midnight-air was still,
And the white sail, that o'er the distant stream
Moved with so slow a pace, it seemed at rest,
Fixed in the glassy water, and with care
Shunned the dark den of pestilence, and stole
Fearfully from the tainted gale that breathed
Softly along the crisping wave-that sail
Hung loosely on its yard, and as it flapped,
Caught moving undulations from the light,
That silently came down, and gave the hills,

And spires, and walls, and roofs, a tint so pale,
Death seemed on all the landscape-but so still,
Who would have thought that any thing but peace
And beauty had a dwelling there! The world
Had and life was not within those walls,
gone,

Only a few, who lingered faintly on,
Waiting the moment of departure; or
Sat tending at their pillows, with a love
And she was one-and in a lonely house,
So strong it mastered fear-and they were few,
Far from all sight and sound of living thing,
She watched the couch of him she loved, and drew
Contagion from the lips that were to her
Still beautiful as roses, though so pale
They seemed like a thin snow curl. All was still,
And even so deeply hushed, the low, faint breath
That trembling gasped away, came through the night

The gay, the busy, and the crowded mart
To one cold, speechless city of the dead!"

This delicious morceau needs no elogium, for it speaks to the heart.

"Liberty to Athens," the "Senate of Callimachi," and the "Greek Emigrant's Song," are excellent specimens of the lyric strain; and, to tell the truth, we were not a little glad to find something of the heroic order, by way of relief from the sombre, melancholic tone which usually pervades our author's rhyme. It has been said that we have a fair criterion of the poet's temperament in the natural images which he selects for ornament and illustration. We were particularly struck with the force of this remark in its application to the book before The sun, for example, is a part of the economy of nature which Mr Percival, in common with most of his fanciful brethren, makes great use of. Certainly no phenomena give rise to finer poetic feeling, of a most opposite character, than the daily coming and departing of the god of day. Yet in this whole volume of poems we never (we may be understood almost literally when we say never) see him in his morning glory, while the fading beauties of a sunset occur to darken our hearts in every page.

us.

Before we take leave of our author, we cannot omit calling his attention to one or two faults of composition which a little care will enable him to correct. The chief of them is indefiniteness. Upon this, as applied to the unity of a whole poem, we have already remarked. But the same fault occurs in its parts, arising frequently, as it would seem, from too great ambition of ornament, which leads the bewildered imagination to run on from one illustration to