The connexion of religion with intellect and literature is yet to be pointed out. We conclude with expressing our strong conviction that the human mind will become more various, piercing, and all-comprehending, more capable of understanding and expressing the solemn and the sportive, the terrible and the beautiful, the profound and the tender, in proportion as it shall be illumined and penetrated by the true knowledge of God. Genius, intellect, imagination, taste, and sensibility, must all be baptized into religion, or they will never know, and never make known, their real glory and immortal power.

ART. II.-1. Mrs Hemans's Earlier Poems.-Poems. By Mrs FELICIA HEMANS. A new Collection. 2 vols. 18mo. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins. 1828.

2. Records of Woman; with other Poems. By FELICIA HEMANS. Boston. Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins. 1828. 8vo. pp. 253.

WE have formerly had an opportunity of expressing our opinion of the general characteristics of Mrs Hemans's Poetry.* It is the principal purpose of the present article, to give some account of the two publications, the titles of which stand at its head.

The volumes entitled 'Mrs Hemans's Earlier Poems,' consist of various works, many of them of considerable length, which had not before been collected. With much to please, and with nothing to offend, they do not, in general, possess the higher and peculiar characteristics of her later poetry. They display, however, the same elegance and cultivation of mind, and show a command of language and ease of versification, which has been surpassed by very few poets. What, indeed, she had imagined and described in one of the poems in this collection, she has since executed. She has given proof of her power to pour forth a strain

'So wildly sweet, its notes might seem
The etherial music of a dream;

*See Christian Examiner, vol. iii. p. 403, seqq.

A spirit's voice from worlds unknown,
Deep, thrilling power in every tone.'

We may quote still further,

'Oh! many a pang the heart hath proved-
Ere the sad strain could catch from thence
Such deep impassioned eloquence.'

We are disposed to give an extract respecting her earlier productions, from one of Mrs Hemans's letters written long since. We have felt some hesitation about it, considering the delicacy with which she has always withdrawn herself personally from public observation. But the same character which has led her to do so, is equally discovered in the passage to be quoted. After remarking upon the proposed publication of her Earlier Poems, and expressing a wish, that they might be arranged in the order of time, she observes;

"The first of them, "The Restoration of the Works of Art," having been written at a comparatively early age, I fear that poem, and several of its immediate successors, may appear very deficient in interest, the nature of the subjects admitting so little expression of passion or feeling. But this circumstance naturally arose from my situation at the time. I wrote them in unpractised youth, in thorough retirement, without one literary friend to aid or advise, and cheered only by one voice of unwavering encouragement. All these things made me timid; and though urged onward by a spirit of hope, upon which, when I recollect the many obstacles thrown in my path, I now look back with surprise, I was yet glad to shelter myself under the shadow of mighty names; and accordingly chose such subjects, as would oblige me rather to restrain, than to give way to the expression of my own peculiar thoughts and feelings. I had no guide on whom to depend; and, therefore, with a woman's apprehensiveness of attack or ridicule, I first turned to that track, in which it seemed that facts and authorities would best secure me from either. I almost fear that I must weary you with all this egotism, and yet I rather wished to explain to you, and such of my American friends as may take any interest in the subject, the total difference of manner, which must be observed between my early and later writings.

The Earlier Poems, beside their intrinsic merit, which gives them a title to a high, though not to the highest rank, have a particular interest, as showing the gradual developement of that

genius whose power is now so universally felt. They exhibit the mind of their author, under a different aspect from that in which it is seen in her later works. Compared with these, they serve to show, what seems to be so often practically disbelieved, that the finest productions of poetry, like those of the other beautiful arts, are the result, not of natural genius alone, but of the power, freedom, and skill in its exercise, which is produced only by long discipline, cultivation, and continued efforts. It has been said, that a poet is born a poet, while an orator is to be made. But one individual is as much and as little born a poet, as another is an orator, or a sculptor, or a painter. Each must make himself. The earlier productions of Mrs Hemans show with how rich a mind, rich in each gift of art as well as nature, she was preparing herself for the production of her later works.

Of the two volumes of Earlier Poems, the first and a part of the second contain five separate publications, under the following titles;-1. "The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy;' 2. 'Tales and Historic Scenes;' 3. 'Translations from Camoens, and other Poets, with Original Poetry;' 4. "The Sceptic, a Poem;' 5. Stanzas to the Memory of the late King. These publications were favorably noticed in the fortyseventh number of the Quarterly Review. The poem which has, on the whole, given us most pleasure, is the longest, the Abencerrage, one of the historic tales. During the reign of Abo Abdeli, the last Moorish king of Granada, Hamet, the chief of the Abencerrages, or Aben-Zurrahs, is represented as revolting from that monarch, and joining the enemies of his nation, the Spaniards. He does so in a spirit of bitter revenge for the injuries inflicted on his tribe, and the murder of his father and brother. He is present, fighting in company with the Spanish forces, at the conquest of Granada. Before his defection he had become deeply attached to a Moorish maiden, who is described as possessing all that beautiful union of qualities which Mrs Hemans knows so well how to combine in her female characters. When driven from his country, but before his purpose of revenge is known to her, he seeks a last interview with Zayda.

'A step treads lightly through the citron shade,
Lightly, but by the rustling leaves betrayed—
Doth her young hero seek that well known spot,
Scene of past hours that ne'er may be forgot?

'Tis he-but changed that eye, whose glance of fire
Could, like a sunbeam, hope and joy inspire,
As, luminous with youth, with ardor fraught,
It spoke of glory to the inmost thought;
Thence the bright spirit's eloquence hath fled,
And in its wild expression may be read

Stern thoughts and fierce resolves-now veiled in shade,

And now in characters of fire portrayed.

Changed e'en his voice-as thus its mournful tone
Wakes in her heart each feeling of his own.

"Zayda, my doom is fixed-another day,
And the wronged exile shall be far away;
Far from the scenes where still his heart must be,
His home of youth, and, more than all-from thee.
Oh! what a cloud hath gathered o'er my lot,
Since last we met on this fair tranquil spot!
Lovely as then, the soft and silent hour,
And not a rose hath faded from thy bower;
But I-my hopes the tempest hath o'erthrown,
And changed my heart, to all but thee alone.
Farewell, high thoughts! inspiring hopes of praise,
Heroic visions of my early days!

In me the glories of my race must end,
The exile hath no country to defend !

E'en in life's morn, my dreams of pride are o'er,
Youth's buoyant spirit wakes for me no more,
And one wild feeling in my altered breast
Broods darkly o'er the ruins of the rest.
Yet fear not thou-to thee, in good or ill,
The heart, so sternly tried, is faithful still!
But when my steps are distant, and my name
Thou hear'st no longer in the song of fame,
When Time steals on, in silence to efface
Of early love each pure and sacred trace,
Causing our sorrows and our hopes to seem
But as the moonlight pictures of a dream,
Still shall thy soul be with me, in the truth
And all the fervor of affection's youth?
-If such thy love, one beam of heaven shall play
In lonely beauty, o'er thy wanderer's way."

""Ask not, if such my love! oh! trust the mind To grief so long, so silently resigned !

Let the light spirit, ne'er by sorrow taught
The pure and lofty constancy of thought,
Its fleeting trials eager to forget,

Rise with elastic power o'er each regret!
Fostered in tears, our young affection grew,
And I have learned to suffer and be true.
Deem not my love a frail ephemeral flower,
Nursed by soft sunshine and the balmy shower;
No! 't is the child of tempests, and defies,
And meets unchanged, the anger of the skies!
Too well I feel, with grief's prophetic heart,
That ne'er to meet in happier days, we part.
We part! and e'en this agonizing hour,
When Love first feels his own o'erwhelming power,
Shall soon to Memory's fixed and tearful eye
Seem almost happiness-for thou wert nigh!
Yes! when this heart in solitude shall bleed,
As days to days all wearily succeed,

When doomed to weep in loneliness, 't will be
Almost like rapture to have wept with thee.

""But thou, my Hamet, thou canst yet bestow
All that of joy my blighted lot can know.
Oh! be thou still the high-souled and the brave,
To whom my first and fondest vows I gave,
In thy proud fame's untarnished beauty still
The lofty visions of my youth fulfil,

So shall it soothe me 'midst my heart's despair,
To hold undimmed one glorious image there!"'

Vol. I. pp. 51-54.

With this speech of Zayda we may contrast part of another equally powerful and affecting, which she addresses to Hamet, after his joining the enemies of his country.

""Oh! wert thou still what once I fondly deemed,
All that thy mien expressed, thy spirit seemed,

My love had been devotion-till in death
Thy name had trembled on my latest breath.
But not the chief who leads a lawless band,
To crush the altars of his native land;
Th' apostate son of heroes, whose disgrace
Hath stained the trophies of a glorious race;
Not him I loved-but one whose youthful name
and radiant in unsullied fame.

Was pure

Hadst thou but died, ere yet dishonor's cloud
O'er that young name had gathered as a shroud,