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fely quoted; for while the topics are American, the stment has a general interest

Ez fer the war, I go agin it

I mean to say I kind o' du-
Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it,
The best way wuz to fight it thru;
Not but wat abstract war is horrid,
I sign to thet with all my heart-
But civlyzation doos git forrid
Sometimes upon a powder-cart.

*

Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion
In my idees consarnin' them—
I think they air an Institution,
A sort of-yes, jest so-ahem:
Do 7 own any? Of my merit

On thet pint you yourself may jedge;
All is, I never drink no sperit,

Nor I haint never signed no pledge"

Two letters from the volunteer, Birdofredum Sawin, whose Taurals have not been improved by the campaign, conclude the series of political verses. The appended burlesque "notices of the press, or fictitious extracts from reviews, are as amusing as the verses, and fairly satirise the off-hand, careless style of many newspapers.

Several names of recent writers have been omitted in our review. To describe fairly the relative merits of young authors who are still at the bar of public opinion, would be a difficult and unpleasant task. We cannot make our own opinions a basis of criticism, and we should vainly seek assistance in the pages of many reviews. After all that has been written as criticism on recent poetry, there is a want of definition and clearness. The simple dictum of Edgar Poe that every poem should be short enough to be read in ‘a single sitting' -seems as valuable as many of the rules laid down by the critics. With this apology for brevity, we may introduce the names of the younger American poats-Street, Taylor, Save, Boker, Stoddart, and Buchanan Real-reminding the reader that we leave the respective merits of these writers among the numerous open questions of literature.

Artero B. Stereo, e Iween lately residing at Albany, has published descriptive nonne which have passed through several editions, and his hop hirl' commended for their graphic

e. With reference to the selection of epithets, one American

critic compares Street with Bryant; while another says: 'In a foreign land, his poems would transport us at once to home.' In Frontenac, a tale of the Iroquois, the author has added a narrative interest to his descriptive passages, of which several are clearly written with picturesque effect. The frequent recurrence of favourite epithets is justly censured by a reviewer; and the criticism may be quoted here, for this iteration is too common among young poets, and sometimes prevails as an epidemic among magazine-writers. For example, the reviewer who first happily applied the epithet 'weird' to Hawthorne's tales, must be tired of it when he finds it copied in almost every review of this author. In Street's poems, says the critic, it is amazing how many things slant. Light slants, spears slant, trees slant, brinks are "tree-slanted," banks slant, squirrels slant-all nature slants. A great many more things "shimmer" than ought to do so."

BAYARD TAYLOR, who has written in prose lively sketches of travel in the East, is the author of Poems of the Orient, and various lyrical pieces. Of these, and the several poetical works by SAXE, BOKER, and STODDART, a friendly critic remarks generally, that their faults are the results of excess, not of deficiency of poetical fancy.

A short notice of the poems of THOMAS BUCHANAN READ may serve to explain our remark on the uncertainty of recent reputations. In several reviews-American and English-these poems-rather slight in texture, and consisting mostly of sentiments and descriptions given in a lyrical form-have been highly praised. It has been asserted that Read, as a poet, is superior to Bryant and Longfellow, and that one of his poems-The Closing Scene-is 'equal to Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' We have not found these eulogies warranted by a perusal of the poems; though we agree with a critic who describes the author as one endowed with poetic sensibility and an instinctive elegance of expression.' The Closing Scene, so highly commended, consists chiefly of a delineation of late autumnal scenery, and has a well-sustained tone of pensiveness.

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LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY-MARIA BROOKS-HANNAH F. GOULD-SARAH J. HALE -LUCRETIA AND MARGARET DAVIDSON-FRANCES S. OSGOOD, AND OTHER WRITERS.

The poetry written by Mrs Sigourney may be noticed, not only on account of its own merits, but as representative of the general characteristics of many other productions of the same class. A reference to the number of names included in the several collections of poems by American ladies, will be sufficient to prove that our only way of treating such a profusion of materials, is to select a few fair specimens.

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY-a native of Norwich, in Connecticut, appeared in early life as a writer of verse characterised by feminine delicacy and religious sentiment. Her first volume of poems, published in 1815, was followed in 1822 by Traits of the Aborigines of America; and other poems have appeared from time to time, of which the best have been collected in a recent edition. With regard to the prevalent qualities of the poems by Mrs Sigourney-their didactic purport, tender feeling, and pious tone-they may be described as fairly representing the productions of several other American ladies, who have written poems which we cannot here notice in detail. In pathos, the authoress of The Dying Infant, The Emigrant Mother, To-morrow, and other poems of the same character, has few rivals among her sisterpoets. Her verses are evidently the unfeigned expressions of an amiable and pious character; and it is an unwelcome task to examine strictly their value as proofs of inventive genius. An American Reviewer has fairly pointed out their defects; and we may quote his remarks, because they are applicable to so many poems of the same class.1

Having noticed several narrative pieces, the critic says:'Though names are used, and persons indicated, there is really nothing there but qualities. The purest types of the affections are grasped in all their firmness and delicacy; but there is no combination of them with those other human elements which, in their union, produce character. The consequence is, that we have no representations of the affections as modified by sex, age, nation, position, or character. With remarkable distinctness of conception, and decision of expression, we have presented to us the type, but it is given in its simple unity, abstracted from all individuality. We assert confidently, that in this volume there is

1 North American Review, No. 143.

not displayed one trait of character but that of the author herself. The little poems of Harold and Tosti, and Bernardine du Born, fine as they are in sentiment, have nothing but the incidents on which they are founded to entitle them to their names. But this peculiarity of bringing out a quality at the expense of all character, which we have indicated as a limitation of Mrs Sigourney's genius, is probably a chief source of her influence over the hearts of her readers. She is thus enabled to stamp a deep impression of one affection, at least, on the mind; and by detaching it from the other elements of character, by making a person stand simply for an emotion, she has completely mastered one prominent source of the pathetic. As an illustration of her power in this respect, and of her excellences in many respects, we will quote the following striking poem :

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From my own native clime, I took my way
Across the foaming deep. My husband slept
In his new grave, and poverty had stripped
Our lonely cottage. Letters o'er the wave,
From brother and from sister, bade me come
To this New World, where there is bread for all.
So, with my heavy, widowed heart I went,
My only babe and I.

Coarse, curious eyes
Looked searchingly upon me, as I sat

In the thronged steerage, with my sick, sick soul.
But at each jeering word, I bowed my head

Down o'er my helpless child, and was content,
For he was all my world.

Storms rocked the bark,
And haggard fear sprang up, with oaths and cries,
Yet wondrous courage nerved me; for to die
With that fair, loving creature in my arms,
Seemed more than life without him.

If a shade

Of weariness or trouble marked my brow,
He looked upon me with his father's eyes,
And I was comforted.

But sickness came,

Close air, and scanty food. Darkly they pressed
On feeble infancy, and oft I heard,

As mournful twilight settled o'er the sea,

The frequent plunge, and the wild mother's shriek,
When her lost darling to the depths went down.
Then came the terror. To my heaving breast
I closer clasped the child, and all my strength
Went forth in one continued sigh to God.

Scarcely I slept, lest the dire pestilence
Should smite him unawares. E'en when he lay
In peaceful dreams, the smile upon his cheek,
I trembled, lest the dark-winged angel breathed
Insidious whispers, luring him away.

It came at last. That dreadful sickness came, The fever-short and mortal. Midnight's pall Spread o'er the waters, when his last faint breath Moistened my cheek. Deep in my breaking heart I shut the mother's cry.

One mighty fear

Absorbed me-lest his cherished form should feed

The dire sea-monsters, nor beneath the sods

Of the green, quiet, blessed earth, await

The resurrection.

So, I shuddering pressed

The body closer, though its deadly cold

Froze through my soul.

To those around, I said:

"Disturb him not-he sleepeth." Then I sang

And rocked him tenderly, as though he woke
In fretfulness, or felt the sting of pain.

My poor, dead baby! Terrible to me

Such falsehood seemed. But yet the appalling dread
Lest the fierce, scaly monsters of the sea

Should wind around him with their gorging jaws,
O'ermastered me.

Nights fled, and mornings dawned;

And still my chill arms clasped immovably

The shrivelling form. They told me he was dead, And bade me give my beautiful to them,

For burial in the deep. With outstretched hands, They stood demanding him, until the light

Fled from my swimming eyes.

But when I woke

From the long trance, that icy burden lay
No longer on my bosom. Pitying words
The captain spake: "Look at yon little boat
Lashed to our stern. There, in his coffin, rests

The body of thy son.

If in three days

We reach the land, he shall be buried there

As thou desirest."

There, from breaking morn,

My eyes were fixed; and when the darkness came,

By the red binnacle's uncertain light

I watched that floating speck amid the waves,
And prayed for land.

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