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At the age of eighteen I made another sacrifice in dress to purchase a Bible with a margin sufficiently large to enable me to insert a commentary. To this object I devoted several months of study, transferring to its pages my deliberate convictions.

I am glad to class myself with the few who first established the Sabbath School and Benevolent Society at Watertown, and to say that I have endeavored, under all circumstances, wherever my lot has fallen, to carry on the work of social love.

With such tastes and incentives, and a parallel development of the religious sentiment, Miss Howard commenced a literary career at the age of sixteen with a poetical composition, "Jepthah's Rash Vow." The North American Review, in its Miscellany, published her next verses, "Jairus's Daughter." In 1819 she was married to Samuel Gilman, and went to reside with him in Charleston, where he became pastor of the Unitarian Church. Dr. Gilman has a literary reputation outside of his profession, as the author of a pleasant volume of character, The Memoirs of a New England Village Choir.

CavolineGelman

In 1832, Mrs. Gilman commenced the publication of the Rose Bud, a weekly juvenile newspaper, one of the earliest, if not the first of its kind in the country, which developed itself in the mature Southern Rose. From this periodical her writings have been collected. Her Recollections of a New England Housekeeper, and of a Southern Matron, have been much admired for their feminine simplicity and quiet humor; aiding the practical lessons of life in the most amiable spirit. The story in these is a slight vehicle for the facts. In her Poetry of Travelling in the United States, published in 1838, she has sketched the incidents of both a Northern and Southern Excursion with spirit. The volume also contains some pleasant papers by her friends. Mrs. Gilman's Verses of a Lifetime were published at Boston in 1849. Tales and Ballads, and Ruth Raymond, or Love's Progress, are other volumes, from the same source. The

Oracles from the Poets, and The Sybil, are passages of verse from the best poets, ingeniously arranged under appropriate classifications of fact or sentiment, to respond to numbers which are to be taken at random.

Mrs. Gilman has also edited the Letters of Eliza Wilkinson during the Invasion of Charleston, one of the most interesting personal memorials of the Revolutionary Era.*

The prose of Mrs. Gilman's books is natural and unaffected, with a cheerful vein of humor. Her poems are marked by their grace of expression, chiefly referring to nature, or the warın-hearted, home-cherishing affections. A description of a southern country home in the opening of a little poem entitled "The Plantation," is in a happy vein.

THE PLANTATION.

Farewell, awhile, the city's hum
Where busy footsteps fall,
And welcome to my weary eye
The planter's friendly hall.

Here let me rise at early dawn,
And list the mockbird's lay,
That, warbling near our lowland home,
Sits on the waving spray.

Then tread the shading avenue
Beneath the cedar's gloom,

Or gum tree, with its flickered shade,
Or chinquapen's perfume.

The myrtle tree, the orange wild,
The cypress' flexile bough,

The holly with its polished leaves,
Are all before me now.

There towering with imperial pride,
The rich magnolia stands,

And here, in softer loveliness,

The white-bloomed bay expands.

The long gray moss hangs gracefully,
Idly I twine its wreaths,

Or stop to catch the fragrant air

The frequent blossom breathes.

Life wakes around-the red bird darts

Like flame from tree to tree;

The whip-poor-will complains alone,
The robin whistles free.

The frightened hare scuds by my path,
And seeks the thicket nigh;
The squirrel climbs the hickory bough,
Thence peeps with careful eye.
The humming-bird, with busy wing,
In rainbow beauty moves,
Above the trumpet-blossom floats,
And sips the tube he loves.
Triumphant to yon withered pine,
The soaring eagle flies,

There builds her eyry 'mid the clouds,
And man and heaven defies.

The hunter's bugle echoes near,
And see his weary train,
With mingled howlings, scent the woods,
Or scour the open plain.

Yon skiff is darting from the cove,
And list the negro's song-

The theme, his owner and his boat-
While glide the crew along.

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Mrs. Ellet's Women of the American Revolution, vol. i. pp. 223-236.

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Space for the river, tinged with rosy light,
Where green banks wave.

Space for the sun, to tread his path in might,
And golden pride-

Space for the glow-worm, calling by her light,
Love to her side.

Then pure and gentle ones, within your ark
Securely rest!

Blue be the skies above, and your still bark
By kind winds blest.

MRS. CAROLINE H. GLOVER, the daughter of the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Gilman, has also acquired distinction in the popular literature of the Magazines, by a number of productions marked by their spirit and domestic sentiment. She was born in 1823, in Charleston; was married in 1840, and since the death of her husband in 1846, has resided with her parents.

Under the nom de plume of "Caroline Howard," her mother's maiden name, she has contributed largely to literature for children, and also written several poems and tales, which have appeared in many of the leading magazines of the day.

SPRING TIME.

God of the hours, God of these golden hours!

My heart o'erflows with love

To Thee, who giv'st with liberal hand these flowers;
To Thee, who sendest cool, delicious showers,
Fresh from the founts above.

God of the hours, the fleeting checkered time,
When Nature smiles and weeps,
Thou paintest sunset clouds with hues sublime,
Thou tunest bird-notes to the joyous chime

That all creation keeps.

Pale, emerald trees, how gracefully ye twine
Around your boughs a wreath;

Or does some angel hand with touch divine,
Bring from celestial bowers your verdure fine,
To deck the bowers beneath.

How silently your leaflets old and brown
On undulating wings,

In autumn months came floating, floating down, To form a carpet, as they formed a crown

For you, ye forest kings.

Well may you bend with proud and haughty sweep, For sunbeams love to lie

Upon your boughs, the breeze you captive keep,
And e'en the dew-drops which the night-clouds weep
Upon your leaflets, die.

Last eve the moon on modest twilight smiled,
And told the stars 'twas Spring!

She swept the wave, deliciously it gleamed,
She touched the birds, and woke them as they
dreamed,

A few soft notes to sing.

God of the April flowers, how large thy gift-
The rainbow of the skies

That spans the changing clouds with footstep swift-
And rainbows of the earth, that meekly lift
To thee their glorious eyes.

Oh, not content with beauty rich and fair,
Thou givest perfume too,

That loads with burden sweet the tender air,
And comes to fill the heart with rapture rare,
Each blushing morn anew.

God of the Spring-time hours! what give we Thee,
When thus Thou bounteous art?

Thou owest us naught, we owe Thee all we see— Enjoyment, hope, thought, health, eternity,

The life-beat of each heart.

This morn came birds on pinions bright and fleet,
A lullaby to sing

To Winter as he slept-but other voices sweet
The low dirge drowned, and warbled carol meet,

To greet the waking Spring.

Thus trees, and birds, and buds, and skies conspire To speak unto the heart,

"Renew thy strength, be fresh, be pure, desire To be new touched with purifying fire,

That evil's growth depart."

God of the Seasons! from our bosoms blow
The sin-leaves, and plant flowers
Bedewed by gentlest rains, that they may show,
That tended by thy love alone they grow,
God of these golden hours.

CARLOS WILCOX.

CARLOS WILCOX was the son of a farmer of Newport, New Hampshire, where he was born, October 23, 1794. In his fourth year his parents removed to Orwell, Vermont. He entered Middlebury College soon after its organization, and on the completion of his course delivered the valedictory oration. He then went to Andover, where his studies were frequently interrupted by the delicate state of his health. He commenced preaching in 1818, but was obliged after a few

Carlos Wilesy

months' trial to desist.

The following two years

were spent, with intervals of travelling, with a friend at Salisbury, Connecticut. His chief occupation was the composition of his poem, The Age of Benevolence, the first book of which he published at his own expense in 1822. In 1824 he accepted a call from the North Church at Hartford. He resigned this situation in 1826 on

account of his health. This being somewhat reestablished by travel during the summer months, he accepted a call to Danbury at the end of the year. Here he died on the 29th of the following May.

It

His Remains were published in 1828. The volume contains two poems, The Age of Benerolence and The Religion of Taste, delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and fourteen Sermons. Both of the poems are incomplete. was the author's design that the first should extend to five books, of which he only lived to complete the first and portions of the three following. These are entitled, Benevolence, the Glory of Heaven; Benevolence on Earth, the resemblance of Heaven; the Need of Benevolence, and the Rewards of Benevolence. The second poem extends to one hundred and seven Spenserian stanzas.

The poems of Wilcox abound in passages of rural description of remarkable accuracy. The greater portion is, however, occupied with reflections on the power and beneficence of the Deity in the constitution of the material universe and the human mind. His verse always maintains correctness and dignity of expression, and often rises to passages of sublimity.

SPRING IN NEW ENGLAND FROM THE AGE OF BENEVOLENCE.

The spring, made dreary by incessant rain, Was well nigh gone, and not a glimpse appeared Of vernal loveliness, but light-green turf Round the deep bubbling fountain in the vale, Or by the rivulet on the hill-side, near Its cultivated base, fronting the south, Where in the first warm rays of March it sprung Amid dissolving snow:-save these mere specks Of earliest verdure, with a few pale flowers, In other years bright blowing soon as earth Unveils her face, and a faint vermeil tinge On clumps of maple of the softer kind, Was

as nothing visible to give to May,

Though far advanced, an aspect more like her's
Than like November's universal gloom.
All day beneath the sheltering hovel stood
The drooping herd, or lingered near to ask
The food of winter. A few lonely birds,
Of those that in this northern clime remain
Throughout the year, and in the dawn of spring,
At pleasant noon, from their unknown retreat
Come suddenly to view with lively notes,
Or those that soonest to this clime return
From warmer regions, in thick groves were seen,
But with their feathers ruffled, and despoiled
Of all their glossy lustre, sitting mute,
Or only skipping, with a single chirp,
In quest of food. Whene'er the heavy clouds,
That half way down the mountain side oft hung,
As if o'erloaded with their watery store,
Were parted, though with motion unobserved,
Through their dark opening, white with snow ap-
peared

Its lowest, e'en its cultivated, peaks.

With sinking heart the husbandman surveyed
The melancholy scene, and much his fears
On famine dwelt; when, suddenly awaked
At the first glimpse of daylight, by the sound,
Long time unheard, of cheerful martins, near
His window, round their dwelling chirping quick,

Remains of the Rev. Carlos Wilcox, late Pastor of the North Congregational Church in Hartford, with a Memoir of his Life. Hartford: Edward Hopkins, 1823. 8vo. pp. 480.

With spirits by hope enlivened up he sprung
To look abroad, and to his joy beheld
A sky without the remnant of a cloud.
From gloom to gayety and beauty bright
So rapid now the universal change,
The rude survey it with delight refined,
And e'en the thoughtless talk of thanks devout.
Long swoln in drenching rain, seeds, germs, and buds,
Start at the touch of vivifying beams.

Moved by their secret force, the vital lymph
Diffusive runs, and spreads o'er wood and field
A flood of verdure. Clothed, in one short week,
Is naked nature in her full attire.

On the first morn, light as an open plain
Is all the woodland, filled with sunbeams, poured
Through the bare tops, on yellow leaves below,
With strong reflection: on the last, 'tis dark
With full-grown foliage, shading all within.
In one short week the orchard buds and blooms;
And now, when steeped in dew or gentle showers,
It yields the purest sweetness to the breeze,
Or all the tranquil atmosphere perfumes.
E'en from the juicy leaves, of sudden growth,
And the rank grass of steaming ground, the air,
Filled with a watery glimmering receives
A grateful smell, exhaled by warming rays.
Each day are heard, and almost every hour,
New notes to swell the music of the groves.
And soon the latest of the feathered train
At evening twilight come;-the lonely snipe,
O'er marshy fields, high in the dusky air,
Invisible, but, with faint tremulous tones,
Hovering or playing o'er the listener's head;
And, in mid-air, the sportive night-hawk, seen
Flying awhile at random, uttering oft
A cheerful cry, attended with a shake
Of level pinions, dark, but when upturned
"Against the brightness of the western sky,
One white plume showing in the midst of each,
Then far down diving with loud hollow sound;—
And, deep at first within the distant wood,
The whip-poor-will, her name her only song.
She, soon as children from the noisy sport
Of hooping, laughing, talking with all tones,
To hear the echoes of the empty barn,
Are by her voice diverted, and held mute,
Comes to the margin of the nearest grove;
And when the twilight deepened into night,
Calls them within, close to the house she comes,
And on its dark side, haply on the step
Of unfrequented door, lighting unseen,
Breaks into strains articulate and clear,
The closing sometimes quickened as in sport.
Now, animate throughout, from morn to eve
All harmony, activity, and joy,

Is lovely nature, as in her blest prime.
The robin to the garden, or green yard,
Close to the door repairs to build again
Within her wonted tree; and at her work
Seems doubly busy, for her past delay.
Along the surface of the winding stream,
Pursuing every turn, gay swallows skim;
Or round the borders of the spacious lawn
Fly in repeated circles, rising o'er

Hillock and fence, with motion serpentine,
Easy and light. One snatches from the ground
A downy feather, and then upward springs,
Followed by others, but oft drops it soon,
In playful mood, or from too slight a hold,
When all at once dart at the falling prize.
The flippant blackbird with light yellow crown,
Hangs fluttering in the air, and chatters thick
Till her breath fail, when, breaking off, she drops
On the next tree, and on its highest limb,
Or some tall flag, and gently rocking, sits,

Her strain repeating. With sonorous notes
Of every tone, mixed in confusion sweet,
All chanted in the fulness of delight,
The forest rings:-where, far around enclosed
With bushy sides, and covered high above
With foliage thick, supported by bare trunks,
Like pillars rising to support a roof,
It seems a temple vast, the space within
Rings loud and clear with thrilling melody.
Apart, but near the choir, with voice distinct,
The merry mocking-bird together links
In one-continued song their different notes,
Adding new life and sweetness to them all.
Hid under shrubs, the squirrel that in fields
Frequents the stony wall and briery fence,
Here chirps so shrill that human feet approach
Unheard till just upon, when with cries
Sudden and sharp he darts to his retreat,
Beneath the mossy hillock or aged tree;
But oft a moment after re-appears,

First peeping out, then starting forth at once
With a courageous air, yet in his pranks
Keeping a watchful eye, nor venturing far
Till left unheeded. In rank pastures graze,
Singly and mutely, the contented herd;
And on the upland rough the peaceful sheep;
Regardless of the frolic lambs, that, close
Beside them, and before their faces prone,
With many an antic leap, and butting feint,
Try to provoke them to unite in sport,
Or grant a look, till tired of vain attempts;
When, gathering in one company apart,
All vigor and delight, away they run,
Straight to the utmost corner of the field
The fence beside; then, wheeling, disappear
In some small sandy pit, then rise to view;
Or crowd together up the heap of earth
Around some upturned root of fallen tree,
And on its top a trembling moment stand,
Then to the distant flock at once return.
Exhilarated by the general joy,
And the fair prospect of a fruitful year,
The peasant, with light heart, and nimble step,
His work pursues, as it were pastime sweet.
With many a cheering word, his willing team,
For labor fresh, he hastens to the field
Ere morning lose its coolness; but at eve

When loosened from the plough and homeward turned,

He follows slow and silent, stopping oft
To mark the daily growth of tender grain
And meadows of deep verdure, or to view
His scattered flock and herd, of their own will
Assembling for the night by various paths,
The old now freely sporting with the young,
Or laboring with uncouth attempts at sport.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Was born at Cummington, Hampshire County, Mass., November 3, 1794. His father, a physician, and a man of strength of character and literary culture, took pride in his son's early ability, and cherished the young poet with paternal affection. We have heard the anecdote of his reciting the poem "Thanatopsis" at the house of one of his friends, with tears in his eyes. "The father taught the son," we are told in a valuable notice of the poet's life and writings,* "the value of correctness and compression, and enabled him to dis

An article on Bryant, which appeared in the Southern Lit. Mess, for 1843. It is from the pen of Mr. James Lawson, an old friend of the poet.

tinguish between true poetic enthusiasm and fustian."

We may here quote the passage which follows in the article just referred to, for its personal details of the poet's family, and the apposite citations from his verse. "He who carefully reads the poems of the man, will see how largely the boy has profited by these early lessons-and will appreciate the ardent affection with which the son so beautifully repays the labor of the sire. The feeling and reverence with which Bryant cherishes the memory of his father, whose life was

Marked with some act of goodness every day,

is touchingly alluded to in several poems, and directly spoken of, with pathetic eloquence, in the Hymn to Death, written in 1825.

Alas! I little thought that the stern power Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus Before the strain was ended. It must ceaseFor he is in his grave who taught my youth The art of verse, and. in the bud of life Offered me to the Muses. Oh, cut off Untimely! when thy reason in its strength, Ripened by years of toil and studious search And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught Thy hand to practise best the lenient art To which thou gavest thy laborious days, And, last, thy life. And, therefore, when the earth Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes,

And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale When thou wert gone. This faltering verse, which

thou

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And then shall I behold

Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung,
And her, who still and cold,

Fills the next grave-the beautiful and young.

"We have seen, too, while referring to his father, the devoted affection with which he speaks of her 'who fills the next grave.' The allusion is to his sister who died of consumption in 1824. The Death of the Flowers, written in the autumn of 1825, we have another allusion to the memory of that sister:

In

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Till the slow plague shall bring the fatal hour." Bryant early displayed the poetical faculty, and fastened upon the genial influences of nature about him. He began to write verses at nine, and at ten composed a little poem to be spoken at a public school, which was published in a country newspaper. At the age of fourteen he prepared a collection of poems, which was published in Boston in 1809.* The longest of these is entitled the Embargo, a reflection in good set heroic measure of the prevalent New England antiJeffersonian Federalism of the times. This was a second and enlarged edition of the "Embargo," which had appeared the year previous in a little pamphlet by itself. It is noticeable that never since that early publication, while actively engaged in public life, has the poet employed his muse upon the politics of the day, though the general topics of liberty and independence have given occasion to some of his finest poems. By the side of this juvenile production are an Ode to Connecticut River, and some verses entitled Drought, which show a characteristic observation of nature.

DROUGHT.

Plunged amid the limpid waters,
Or the cooling shade beneath;
Let me fly the scorching sunbeams,
And the south wind's sickly breath!
Sirius burns the parching meadows,
Flames upon the embrowning hill;
Dries the foliage of the forest,

And evaporates the rill.
Scarce is seen a lonely floweret,
Save amid th' embowering wood;
O'er the prospect dim and dreary,
Drought presides in sullen mood!
Murky vapours hung in æther,

Wrap in gloom, the sky serene;
Nature pants distressful-silence
Reigns o'er all the sultry scene.
Then amid the limpid waters,

Or beneath the cooling shade;
Let me shun the scorching sunbeams,
And the sickly breeze evade.
July, 1807.

Bryant studied at Williams College, which he left to prosecute the study of the law, a profession in which he was engaged in practice at Plainfield for one year, and afterwards for nine years at Great Barrington. In 1816 his poem of Thanatopsis, written in his nineteenth year, was published in the North American Review. Its sonorous blank verse created a marked sensation at the time, and the imitations of it have not ceased since.‡ In 1821 he delivered the

The Embargo; or, Sketches of the Times. A Satire. The second edition, corrected and enlarged, together with the Spanish Revolution, and other Poems. By William Cullen Bryant. Boston: Printed for the Author by E. G. House, No. 5 Court street. 1809. 12mo., pp. 36.

The poem received the following notice at the time from the Monthly Anthology for June, 1808:-" If the young bard has met with no assistance in the composition of this poem, he certainly bids fair, should he continue to cultivate his talent, to gain a respectable station on the Parnassian mount, and to reflect credit on the literature of his country.”

A story is told of the first publication of this poem in the Review, in connexion with Richard H. Dana, of which we are enabled to give the correct version. Dana was then a member of the club which conducted the Review, and received two

race.

Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard, his composition entitled the Ages, a didactic poem, viewing the past world's progress by the torch-light of liberty, and closing with a fair picture of American nature, and its occupation by the new This he published in that year with other poems at Cambridge. In 1825, abandoning the law for literature, he came to New York and edited a monthly periodical, the New York Review and Athenæum Magazine, which in 1826 was merged in a new work of a similar character, also conducted by him, the United States Review and Literary Gazette, which closed with its second volume in September of the following year. In these works appeared many just and forcible criticisms, and a number of his best known poems, including The Death of the Flowers, The Disinterred Warrior, The African Chief, The Indian Girl's Lament. These periodicals were supported by contributions from Richard H. Dana, the early friend of Bryant, who wrote both in prose and verse, by Sands, and by Halleck, whose Marco Bozzaris, Burns, and Wyoming appeared in their pages. Mr. Bryant was also a contributor of several prose articles to the early volumes of the North American Review.

In 1824 a number of his poems, The Murdered Traveller, The Old Man's Funeral, The Forest Hymn, March, and others, appeared in the United States Literary Gazette, a weekly review published at Boston, at first edited by Theophilus Parsons, and afterwards by James G. Carter.

**

In 1826 Bryant became permanently connected with the Evening Post, a journal in which his clear, acute prose style has been constantly employed since; enforcing a pure and simple administration of the government within the confines of its legitimate powers, steadily opposing the corruptions of office, advocating the principles of free trade in political economy both in its foreign and domestic relations, generous and unwearied in support of the interests of art and literature, uncompromising in the rebuke of fraud and oppression of whatever clime or race.

On the completion of the half century of the Evening Post, Mr. Bryant published in that papert a history of its career. Its first number was dated November 16, 1801, when it was founded by William Coleman, a barrister from

poems, Thanatopsis and a Fragment, which now bears the title, "Inscription on the Entrance to a Wood." The first was somehow understood to be from the father; the other from the son. When Dana learnt the name, and that the author of Thanatopsis, Dr. Bryant, was a member of the State Legislature, he proce ded to the Senate-room to observe the new poet. He saw there a man of a dark complexion, with quite dark if not black hair, thick eyebrows, well developed forehead, well featured, with an uncommonly intellectual expression, though he could not discover in it the poetic faculty. He went away puzzled and mortified at his lack of discernment. Bryant afterwards came to Cambridge to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Poem, and Dana spoke of his father's Thanatopsis, the real author explained the matter, and became know. as the writer of the two poems. In this innocent perplexity the acquaintance between these poets began.

When

*Mr. Theophilus Parsons, son of the eminent Judge Parsons, Dane Professor of Law at Cambridge, was also ore of the early contributors to the North American Review under the editorship of Everett. He published a volume of Essays" which reached a second edition in 1847. The subjects of these-Life, Providence, Correspondence. The Human Form, Religion, the New Jerusalem-indicate the Swedenborgian religious and philosophic views of the author. Mr. Carter, alluded to in the text, was much interested in the subject of Education, and took an active part in the introduction of normal schools into this country, in Massachusetts.

+ No. for November 13, 1851.

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