X.

Then waited not the murderer for the night,
But smote his brother down in the bright day;
And he who felt the wrong, and had the might,
His own avenger, girt himself to slay;
Beside the path the unburied carcass lay;
The shepherd, by the fountains of the glen,
Fled, while the robber swept his flock away,
And slew his babes. The sick, untended then,
Languished in the damp shade, and died afar from men.

XI.

But misery brought in love-in passion's strife
Man gave his heart to mercy pleading long,
And sought out gentle deeds to gladden life;
The weak, against the sons of spoil and wrong,
Banded, and watched their hamlets, and grew strong.
States rose, and in the shadow of their might

The timid rested. To the reverent throug,

Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all white,
Gave laws, and judged their strifes, and taught the way of right.

XII.

Till bolder spirits seized the rule, and nailed
On men the yoke that man should never bear,
And drove them forth to battle: Lo! unveiled
The scene of those stern ages! What is there?
A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air
Moans with the crimson surges that entomb
Cities and bannered armies; forms that wear
The kingly circlet rise, amid the gloom,

O'er the dark wave, and straight are swallowed in its womb."

Greece and Rome are thus introduced.

XVI.

"Oh, Greece! thy flourishing cities were a spoil
Unto each other; thy hard hand oppressed
And crushed the helpless; thou didst make thy soil
Drunk with the blood of those that loved thee best;
And thou didst drive, from thy unnatural breast,
Thy just and brave to die in distant climes :
Earth shuddered at thy deeds, and sighed for rest
From thine abominations; after-times,

That yet shall read thy tale, will tremble at thy crimes.

XVII.

Yet there was that within thee which has saved
Thy glory, and redeemed thy blotted name;
The story of thy better deeds, engraved

On fame's unmouldering pillar, put to shame

--

pp. 4, 5.

Our chiller virtue; the high art to tame
The whirlwind of thy passions was thine own;
And the pure ray, that from thy bosom came,
Far over many a land and age has shone,

And mingles with the light that beams from God's own throne.

XVIII.

And Rome-thy sterner, younger sister, she
Who awed the world with her imperial frown-
Rome drew the spirit of her race from thee,—
The rival of thy shame and thy renown.

Yet her degenerate children sold the crown
Of earth's wide kingdoms to a line of slaves;

Guilt reigned, and wo with guilt, and plagues came down,
Till the North broke its flood-gates, and the waves

Whelmed the degraded race, and weltered o'er their graves."

pp. 7, 8.

The Reformation is the subject of the following passage.

XXIII.

"At last the earthquake came-the shock that hurled
To dust, in many fragments dashed and strown,
The throne whose roots were in another world,
And whose far-stretching shadow awed our own.
From many a proud monastic pile, o'erthrown,
Fear-struck, the hooded inmates rushed and fled :
The web, that for a thousand years had grown
O'er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread
Crumbled and fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen thread.

XXIV.

The spirit of that day is still awake,

And spreads himself, and shall not sleep again;
But through the idle mesh of power shall break,
Like billows o'er the Asian monarch's chain;
Till men are filled with him, and feel how vain,
Instead of the pure heart and innocent hands,
Are all the proud and pompous modes to gain
The smile of Heaven;-till a new age expands
Its white and holy wings above the peaceful lands.

XXV.

For look again on the past years;-behold,
Flown, like the night-mare's hideous shapes, away

Full many a horrible worship, that, of old,

Held o'er the shuddering realms unquestioned sway:

See crimes that feared not once the eye of day,
Rooted from men, without a name or place :
See nations blotted out from earth, to pay

The forfeit of deep guilt ;-with glad embrace

The fair disburdened lands welcome a nobler race."-pp. 10, 11:

The American forest and the Aboriginal Indians are thus described.

XXX.

"There stood the Indian hamlet-there the lake

Spreads its blue sheet that flashed with many an oar,
Where the brown otter plunged him from the brake
And the deer drank; as the light gale flew o'er,
The twinkling maize-field rustled on the shore;
And while that spot, so wild, and lone, and fair,
A look of glad and innocent beauty wore,
And peace was on the earth and in the air,
The warrior lit the pile, and bound his captive there :

XXXI.

Not unavenged. The foeman, from the wood,
Beheld the deed; and when the midnight shade
Was stillest, gorged his battle-axe with blood.
All died—the wailing babe, the shrieking maid—
And in the flood of fire that scathed the glade,
The roofs went down; but deep the silence grew,
When on the dewy woods the day-beam played;

No more the cabin smokes rose wreathed and blue, And ever by their lake lay moored the light canoe."—pp. 12, 13. There is much more in this volume which we could quote with pleasure, but we must forbear. We will content ourselves with mentioning such poems, in addition to those already named, as appear most worthy of attention. We would select " The Song of Pitcairn's Island"--Lines" to the Evening Wind"-" To the Past"-" Monument Mountain"-" The Hunter's Serenade""Autumn Woods"--" The Disinterred Warrior"-" Scene on the Banks of the Hudson"-Sonnets on "Midsummer," "October," and on "Mutation"--" The Walk at Sunset”"Hymn to the North Star," and " The Death of the Flowers."

on

There are some pretty translations, chiefly from the Spanish; but we cannot counsel Mr. Bryant to pursue this branch of composition. Not only is it secondary to that in which he is capable of excelling, but he is not possessed of those qualities which would enable him to be distinguished as a translator. He wants versatility and pliancy of style. He can not invest himself easily in a foreign garb, and dismiss all marks of individual manner. The translations are very pleasing, but they differ scarcely at all from his original poems, except in having less force. They do not enable us to forget the identity. They are still evidently from the hands of Mr. Bryant. Mr. Bryant cannot, perhaps, be said to have a bad ear for metrical rhythm, but neither has he shown a very good one. Some of his experiments

in metre certainly cannot be called successful. Such are his "Mary Magdalen"-" Autumn Woods"--Lines" To a Cloud" Hymns of the City." The short poem called "The Gladness of Nature" halts awkwardly. Couplets sometimes occur like the following,

"Artless one, though thou gazest now

O'er the white blossom with earnest brow;"

which, if not positively bad, yet evince an ear not attuned to a delicate sense of metrical melody. The "Indian Story," which has in it much good poetical imagery, shambles thus in weak emulation of "Alonzo the Brave."

"But where is she who at this calm hour

Ever watched his coming to see?

She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower.
He calls-but he only hears on the flower

The hum of the laden bee."

Mr. Bryant does not, we think, always well understand how to adapt his metre to his subject, or he would not have written on "The Hurricane" in such dancing sing-song as the following. "Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,

I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait with a thrill in every vein
For the coming of the hurricane."

His want of metrical polish is rendered very evident by comparison whenever he has adopted the measure of Moore. His blank verse is good, and more satisfactory to the ear than his other poetry. This may be thought minute criticism, but, if Mr. Bryant's faults had not been few, we should not have stopped to notice such as these. We cannot advise him to prosecute the sportive style. He does not trifle lightly and gracefully. He has rarely attempted it, and with little success. His "Meditations on Rhode Island Coal," his lines "To a Musquito," and "Spring in Town" are not worthy of his talents. Mr. Bryant is in the main a very unaffected writer, but there is a little occasional tendency to prettiness-to the namby-pamby Rosa-Matildaism of modern album poetry, against which we would warn him. We have no flagrant instances to adduce; but whoever will look at his " Song of the Stars" will see plainly what we mean. These flaunting tags of garish embroidery consort ill with the correct and simple garb in which his thoughts are usually clothed.

We need add little to the preceding observations to express our sense of Mr. Bryant's merits. It will be seen that approbation predominates greatly over censure. We do not consider

him a first-rate poet, but we would assign him an honourable station in the second class, and regard him as eminently entitled to that respect which both in this and in his native land his poetical labours will, we trust, never fail to receive.

ART. VI.-Histoire des Gaulois, depuis les temps les plus reculés, jusqu'à l'entière soumission de la Gaule à la domination Romaine. Par Amédée Thierry. Paris. 1828. 3 vols. 8vo. THIS work of M. Amédée Thierry, the brother of the celebrated historian of the Norman conquest of England, professes to give an account of every thing which is known respecting the Gaulish or Celtic tribes, until the final reduction of Gaul by the Romans in the year 79 of our era. It extends therefore over a very large surface, both in space and time, for the Celts appear in the history of national migrations at a period long anterior to contemporary accounts of passing events, and during the time when they move on the stage, they were carried by their restless, plundering, and military disposition into Asia Minor, Northern Greece, Germany, Gaul, Italy, Spain, Britain, and Ireland. The distinctive characteristics of the whole Celtic race, the names of the several Celtic tribes, the history of their movements and migrations, their national affinity, their connections with other races, their forms of civil and military government, and the changes which these underwent, their religious and hierarchical systems, are set forth by M. Thierry in a clear, methodical, and detailed narrative. It might at first seem that the history of a race, not of a state, and above all of a wandering and predatory race, would consist merely of unconnected stories and desultory disquisitions. But there is something peculiar in the history and state of the Celts. If any nation can be said, like individuals, to have a character, to show under different circumstances and at different times, an identity of peculiar dispositions and sentiments, it is true of the Celts that certain broad marks, traced by the hand of nature, may be seen in the character displayed in every page of their history, affording an irresistible proof that dif ferent races of mankind are distinguished no less by their mental than their physical peculiarities. Thus, even where the unconnected conquests of various Gaulish tribes are related, we see a sameness of manners and feelings, and find in the subject an unity, though it is neither of time, nor of place, nor of action. There is also another circumstance which gives an almost dramatic interest to the history of this roving and barbarous race.