whom the following selections have been made, the reader must be allowed to judge.* While any one of them will be found more or less to participate in the common advantages and disadvantages of a new country, and an infant literature, all, it is trusted, will be equally judged to be worthy of the praise of talent, of no inferior order; and the Editor would express the hope that the unprejudiced reader will not be slow to feel and admit, that this work has added to the sterling poetical literature of the English language. If the poet is to be estimated by the indications of an intense communion with nature, and a more full and true delineation of that which is beautiful, sublime, or characteristic, within the sphere of his own peculiar walk, we cannot hesitate to award the palm to the bold and successful pen of Bryant, whose poetry is thoroughly imbued with the character, coloring, and traditions of the great western world; neither is he less deserving of this preference, should he be estimated by grasp and fertility of imagination, or force, depth, and truth of moral sentiment. “Divisum imperium cum Bryant Dana habet." |