ness and vividness of the effect to be produced. Let us turn

to Byron, and see how he treats it.

"I see before me the Gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand-his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,

And his drooped head sinks gradually low—
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,

Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now

The arena swims around him--he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.

"He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday—

All this rushed with his blood-Shall he expire

And unavenged?-Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!”

We are willing to admit that it is scarcely just to select a verse at random from the American, and compare it with one of the most successful efforts of the great English poet. We, however, only intend by this comparison to illustrate that we think Mr. Bryant has injured a fine subject by throwing over it too frigid a mantle of philosophy.

With respect to the origin of these celebrated verses to the Gladiator, it is stated that Byron was indebted for them to Shelley. It has been said by Leigh Hunt, that during

the time the "

"gloomy Childe was in daily intercourse with Shelley a very perceptible change in his poetry is visible. We throw this out as a study for the curious.

In the progress of his review of the world Mr. Bryant comes to the New World, and thus speaks:

"Late, from this western shore, that morning chased
The deep and ancient night, that threw its shroud
O'er the green land of groves, the beautiful waste,
Nurse of full streams, and lifter-up of proud
Sky-mingling mountains that o'erlook the cloud.
Erewhile, where yon gay spires their brightness rear,
Trees waved, and the brown hunter's shouts were loud
Amid the forest; and the bounding deer

Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yelled near."

Having thus traced the march of civilization westward, rising in the east like the sun, to travel to the west going down perhaps there; like the physical light, to rise again in the east; the poet finishes his history by this apostrophe to his native land:

"But thou, my country, thou shalt never fall,
Save with thy children-thy maternal care,
Thy lavish love, thy blessings showered on all-
These are thy fetters-seas and stormy air
Are the wide barrier of thy borders, where,
Among thy gallant sons that guard thee well,
Thou laugh'st at enemies: who shall then declare
The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell

How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell?"

It may be affirmed that his intention was to take a calm

general view of the ages of the world; if so, he has perfectly succeeded as a philosopher, but failed somewhat as a poet. also observe that we do not think he shines in the

We may
Spenserian stanza.

Our readers must not think, because we intend to consider this phase of his mind the first, that we are wilfully blind to his other faculties. We shall now enter into an exposition of the more agreeable and stirring parts of his nature.

The tendency to moralize is an evil when indulged in indiscriminately; and a greater one when it is superinduced. Mr. Bryant's productions are, however, so pervaded by this predisposition that it is the leading faculty of his mind. It is, indeed, his very nature. This will always give a value to his reflections over the mere artificial moralist. We feel that it is genuine thought-no make-believe-it is deep from the poet's soul. He looks on nature with a sad calmness, like Wordsworth's muse in many of his finest moods. He, however, falls short of the art shown by the author of "Netley Abbey," of hiding his intention. As we said before, Mr. Bryant labors to obtrude his design; this, with all deference to so true a poet, we think an error, either of judgment or

execution.

We give, as an instance, the commencement of the "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood."

66

'Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs

No school of long experience, that the world

Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen

Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood

The calm shade

And view the haunts of Nature.

Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze

That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to guilt
Her pale tormentor, misery. Hence, these shades
Are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive

And musical with birds, that sing and sport

In wantonness of spirit; while below

The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect,

Again, in his "Thanatopsis," there is too much ostentation

of purpose expressed in the opening.

"To him who in the love of Nature holds

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks

A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away

Their sharpness, ere he is aware."

While we are on this trail we may as well quote a few instances of this peculiarity, and then dismiss the subject altogether. It seems as though Mr. Bryant could not begin a subject in blank verse, without a superfluity of explanation, which materially destroys the pleasure of the perusal. It is very

much like impairing the unexpectedness of a play by unnecessarily announcing the denouement before it begins. All writing, more especially poetry, is dramatic, and very much of all its interest depends upon curiosity. In addition to this besetting tendency, alike characteristic of Wordsworth and Bryant, is a prolixity in the opening sentences in many of his poems. Few poets can write simpler, closer English than Mr. Bryant, but mark how feeble is the commencement of a very fine poem:

"The time has been that these wild solitudes,

Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me

Oftener than now; and when the ills of life

Had chafed my spirit-when the unsteady pulse

Beat with strange flutterings-I would wander forth
And seek the woods."

There is a homely phrase of "putting one's best leg foremost;" but our poet seems to take a delight in putting his dullest thought and feeblest verse at the porch of his otherwise fine structures of verse. We should advise the man who opened Bryant for the first time to plunge into the middle of each poem at once, and read right through to the end; it takes him a dozen lines to get warmed sufficient to go on theme. We now dismiss our objections on this score,

sider the brighter side of his poetical world.

with his

and con

In the opening lines to that beautiful composition called “The Burial Place," there is a piece of quiet painting very effective:

"Erewhile, on England's pleasant shores, our sires Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades