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Upon his willing ear, like the sweet south
Upon a bank of violets, from those

Who knew his talent, riches, and so forth;

That is, knew how much money he was worth!”

Moore himself must smile at the parody on his well known song of

"There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream,

but the American poet's

"There's a barrel of porter at Tammany Hall,”

is too well known to need quoting. It is certainly a capital specimen of that species of verse. Mr. Halleck sometimes makes the same sound rhyme a couplet. In the course of a few stanzas we meet with these:

XCIV.

"And never has a summer morning smiled
Upon a lovelier scene, than the full eye
Of the enthusiast revels on-when high, &c.

XCV.

"He can hear

The low dash of the wave with startled ear, &c.

XCVIII.

"When life is old

And many a scene forgot, the heart will hold," &c.

The poem concludes with the failure of Fanny's father. The following stanza is one of the last.

"Some evenings since he took a lonely stroll

Along Broadway, scene of past joys and evils,

He felt that withering bitterness of soul
Quaintly denominated the 'blue devils,'

And thought of Bonaparte and Belisarius,

Pompey, and Colonel Burr, and Caius Marius."

So ends Halleck's longest production. There is much fine poetical thought in it, elegant versification, and an occasional unexpectedness of "rhyme and reason," but the author lacks that range of the pathetic and the humorous which rendered Byron the most characteristic poet of the present age. Don Juan is the undoubted modern epic. The want of earnestness of the times is admirably mirrored in that wonderful poem. Half jest, half superstition, the world's face is there seen in all its incongruous phases. The mixed and uncertain state of the human mind had its epitome in Byron. Capable of the mightiest and the meanest actions, and often performing them well nigh together, the gloomy, infidel, devotional poet was the perfect representative of his age. It is this wonderful mobility of character which has made him the most popular writer since Shakspeare. He has an aspect for all classes of men. In his earlier efforts we behold the boy imitating his favorite authors. An insult roused him, and he rushed, under the inspiration of rage, into a field where he felt his strength. He then knew his power, and worked out, as caprice or accident prompted, his mighty poetical nature. The chivalric and romantic, the pathetic, the humorous, the satirical and supernatural, the gloomy pastoral and the historical or traditional, all were successfully thrown before the public, in different poems. At last,

by a singular effort, his last poem combined all these elements, and therefore Don Juan will always be the completest representation of a poet's idiosyncrasy ever revealed to his fellow men. In this many-sidedness Byron holds supreme dominion over his contemporaries. Wordsworth surpasses him in the intensity of his worship of nature. Moore, in his playful elaboration of metaphors, conventional elegances, and finely-edged wit. Scott, in the range of human character; although the objectivity of the novelist, and the subjectivity of the poet, render them perhaps unfit parallels. But in adaptability to the masses, as existing in the nineteenth century, no poet has so completely taken their nature upon him as the author of Don Juan. Even "Childe Harold," gloomy and subjective as it is, becomes a phase of the human mind, as shadowed in the present age, and has its root as much in the world as in the poet's heart. We make these remarks to show why we do not think that Mr. Halleck is the Byron of America. One half of his poetical labors is an imitation of the noble poet's greatest work. Materials for a poem of this description are not to be found in a young republic; the magazine is in ancient monarchies. Time is a vast storehouse of absurdity, solemnities, sorrows, and jests. This is the gamut of human nature, and it requires centuries to learn its science of harmony.

We conclude our notice of Halleck by assuring him that the Anglo-Saxons will expect finer poems than he has yet produced; it is in him, we know, for has he not revealed some of his powers by such lines as these? They come forth to the outer world just as a strain of melody bursts from a banquet hall,

where high revel is held, when the door is opened to admit

some favored guest.

"Strike-till the last armed foe expires:
Strike-for your altars, and your fires;
Strike-for the green graves of your sires,
God, and your native land!”

RICHARD HENRY DANA.

THERE are a simplicity and individuality about Dana's writings, which give him the decided impress of being a man of more originality than he really possesses.

There is less reliance upon foreign sources for his subjects; he likewise treats them in a manner of his own, which compels the reader to respect him for his intention, if he cannot applaud him for the successful result of his experiment.

We shall treat of his poems first, and then consider him as a lecturer and essayist.

He is well known to the public as the author of the “Buccaneer," a poem of great merit, and full of fine thoughts, simply and forcibly described.

His portrait of the freebooter himself is drawn with a vigorous pencil. There is a total absence of all tawdry or adventitious embellishments in this old poet's verse, which stands out in bold relief to the artificial elegances and cuckoo-note tracks of many modern and fashionable authors.

"Twelve years are gone since Matthew Lee

Held in this isle unquestioned sway;

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