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Bryant to spoil the fine natural effect of his entire poem, by
comparing a lady's eyelashes into herbs hanging down Narcis-
sus-like, and admiring themselves in the "gutta serena" of her
own eyes. As usual, however, he rallies, and winds up the
whole poem nobly and appropriately.

"The forest depths, by foot unprest,
Are not more sinless than thy breast:
The holy peace that fills the air

Of those calm solitudes is there."

The companion picture to the American maiden of Bryant is Wordsworth's beautiful verses to the English wife. A poet seldom succeeds when he praises one of his own family, but here Mrs. Wordsworth has inspired the poet of Rydal. These are well known to be addressed to his wife.

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And steps of virgin-liberty;

A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

"And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine;

A being breathing thoughtful breath,

A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;

A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command:

And yet a spirit still, and bright

With something of angelic light."

In our foregoing extracts we have endeavored to illustrate every opinion and observation we have made by characteristic extracts from the poet's writing. It is impossible to rise from the study of Mr. Bryant's poems without feeling more in harmony with nature and man than the spirit generally feels. We know that we have been calmly, kindly reasoned with by a good, calm, sad, Christian man, who, having no turbulence in himself, endeavors to throw the quiet mantle of his own reflective spirit over his companions.

He looks upon nature with the platonic admiration of a sage, and not with the disturbing passion of a lover; he feels towards all visible beauty more as a friend than as a wooer, and in this spirit realizes the thought of Shakspeare:

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That can translate the stubbornness of fortune

Into so quiet and so sweet a style !”

He looks upon the physical world as a storehouse of moral reflection, calculated to make us wiser and better men, and considers his fellow-creatures more as creatures to be reasoned into virtue and submission, than to be roused into exertion against evil, or to be tamed into the recognition of a supreme good. In a word, he finds

"Books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything !"

FITZ-GREENE

HALLECK.

THE author of "Fanny " possesses many qualities calculated to make him a popular poet; he also has one or two which may, as time rolls on, peril his existence as part of the enduring national literature of America.

He has fancy, versification, a keen eye for the incongruous, and a taste for the beautiful; but against these gifts must be set off his want of earnestness. We are never certain he feels his subject; he writes about it well and wittily; and in some of his poems he displays a truthfulness and depth worthy of any poet, but the mood seems to pass away, and he becomes the Mephistophilean jester at the various passions and pursuits of the world. This is a mind which is not calculated to produce a solid impression on the public; they require a breadth and depth in the treatment of a subject which are incompatible with its nature. It requires a poet of great and varied powers, like Byron, to achieve a permanent reputation without this truthfulness of intellect; it may be said that even the author of "Childe Harold" has not stood the critical test. Many poets

have been famous in their time, and even in the generation after them, and yet have been negatived by posterity.

The secret of Byron's success in "Don Juan" lies in that love of unexpectedness which is so constituent a part of human nature. However absurd and dangerous a practical joke may be, it invariably draws forth a laugh from the majority. In this mixed style of poetry there is a kind of intellectual contradiction, which in some shape approximates to the same habit of mind.

In addition to this feature in the human character, Byron made an appeal to the beautiful and the heroic. "Don Juan" not only abounds with passages which apparently ignore the existence of all love, truth, devotion, and the better parts of our nature, but also with the finest appeals to these very elements. These are too numerous to need enumeration; a rapid glance at the poem will convince the most sceptical. There is also another attraction in this kind of writing, and it consists in the easiness with which some piquant lines are remembered by reason of the double and generally felicitous rhymes.

We shall, however, commence with Mr. Halleck's shorter poems, and close our notice with a short analysis of his chief production called "Fanny." As he has written very little verse, we shall try him by a more careful standard than that applied to men of more extensive productions. Nor is this unjust on other grounds. There is an evident polish about his lines; the first glance shows the elaborate care with which every thought has been expressed; there is not much of that "abandon" which characterizes some poets.

We are not quite sure whether Mr. Halleck intends the

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