Mr. PAULDING is known by his numerous novels and other prose writings, much better than by his poetry; yet his early contributions to our poetical literature, if they do not bear witness that he possesses, in an eminent degree, "the vision and the faculty divine," are creditable for their patriotic spirit and moral purity.

He was born in the town of Pawling,-the original mode of spelling his name,-in Duchess county, New York, on the 22d of August, 1779, and is descended from an old and honourable family, of Dutch extraction.

His earliest literary productions were the papers entitled "Salmagundi," the first series of which, in two volumes, were written in conjunction with WASHINGTON IRVING, in 1807. These were succeeded, in the next thirty years, by the following works, in the order in which they are named: John Bull and Brother Jonathan, in one volume; The Lay of a Scotch Fiddle, a satirical poem, in one volume; The United States and England, in one volume; Second Series of Salmagundi, in two

volumes; Letters from the South, in two volumes; The Backwoodsman, a poem, in one volume; Koningsmarke, or Old Times in the New World, a novel, in two volumes; John Bull in America, in one volume; Merry Tales of the Wise Men of Gotham, in one volume; The Traveller's Guide, or New Pilgrim's Progress, in one volume; The Dutchman's Fireside, in two volumes; Westward Ho! in two volumes; Slavery in the United States, in one volume; Life of Washington, in two volumes; The Book of St. Nicholas, in one volume; and Tales, Fables, and Allegories, originally published in various periodicals, in three volumes. Beside these, and some less pretensive works, he has written much in the gazettes on political and other questions agitated in his time.

Mr. PAULDING has held various honourable offices in his native state; and in the summer of 1838, he was appointed, by President VAN BUREN, Secretary of the Navy. He continued to be a member of the cabinet until the close of Mr. VAN BUREN's administration, in 1841.

ODE TO JAMESTOWN.

OLD cradle of an infant world,
In which a nestling empire lay,
Struggling a while, ere she unfurl'd

Her gallant wing and soar'd away;

All hail! thou birth-place of the glowing west, Thou seem'st the towering eagle's ruin'd nest! What solemn recollections throng,

What touching visions rise,

As, wandering these old stones among,
I backward turn mine eyes,

And see the shadows of the dead flit round,
Like spirits, when the last dread trump shall sound!

The wonders of an age combined,

In one short moment memory supplies;
They throng upon my waken'd mind,
As time's dark curtains rise.

The volume of a hundred buried years,
Condensed in one bright sheet, appears.

I hear the angry ocean rave,

I see the lonely little barque
Scudding along the crested wave,
Freighted like old Noah's ark,

As o'er the drowned earth 't was hurl'd,
With the forefathers of another world.

I see a train of exiles stand,

Amid the desert, desolate,

The fathers of my native land,

The daring pioneers of fate,

Who braved the perils of the sea and earth,
And gave a boundless empire birth.

I see the sovereign Indian range

His woodland empire, free as air;

I see the gloomy forest change,

The shadowy earth laid bare;

And, where the red man chased the bounding deer, The smiling labours of the white appear.

I see the haughty warrior gaze

In wonder or in scorn,
As the pale faces sweat to raise

Their scanty fields of corn,

While he, the monarch of the boundless wood, By sport, or hair-brain'd rapine, wins his food.

A moment, and the pageant's gone;
The red men are no more;

The pale-faced strangers stand alone
Upon the river's shore;

And the proud wood-king, who their arts disdain'd,
Finds but a bloody grave where once he reign'd.

The forest reels beneath the stroke

Of sturdy woodman's axe;

The earth receives the white man's yoke,

And pays her willing tax

Of fruits, and flowers, and golden harvest fields, And all that nature to blithe labour yields.

Then growing hamlets rear their heads,

And gathering crowds expand,

Far as my fancy's vision spreads,

O'er many a boundless land,

Till what was once a world of savage strife,

Teems with the richest gifts of social life.

Empire to empire swift succeeds, Each happy, great, and free; One empires still another breeds,

A giant progeny,

Destined their daring race to run,
Each to the regions of yon setting sun.

Then, as I turn my thoughts to trace

The fount whence these rich waters sprung, I glance towards this lonely place,

And find it, these rude stones among. Here rest the sires of millions, sleeping round, The Argonauts, the golden fleece that found.

Their names have been forgotten long;

The stone, but not a word, remains;
They cannot live in deathless song,
Nor breathe in pious strains.
Yet this sublime obscurity, to me
More touching is, than poet's rhapsody.
They live in millions that now breathe;
They live in millions yet unborn,
And pious gratitude shall wreathe

As bright a crown as e'er was worn,
And hang it on the green-leaved bough,
That whispers to the nameless dead below.

No one that inspiration drinks;

No one that loves his native land; No one that reasons, feels, or thinks, Can mid these lonely ruins stand, Without a moisten'd eye, a grateful tear

Of reverent gratitude to those that moulder here.

The mighty shade now hovers round

Of HIM whose strange, yet bright career,
Is written on this sacred ground

In letters that no time shall sere;
Who in the old world smote the turban'd crew,
And founded Christian empires in the new.

And she! the glorious Indian maid,
The tutelary of this land,

The angel of the woodland shade,

The miracle of God's own hand,

Who join'd man's heart to woman's softest grace, And thrice redeem'd the scourges of her race.

Sister of charity and love,

Whose life-blood was soft Pity's tide,
Dear goddess of the sylvan grove,

Flower of the forest, nature's pride,
He is no man who does not bend the knee,
And she no woman who is not like thee!
Jamestown, and Plymouth's hallow'd rock
To me shall ever sacred be-

I care not who my themes may mock,
Or sneer at them and me.

I envy not the brute who here can stand,
Without a thrill for his own native land.

And if the recreant crawl her earth,
Or breathe Virginia's air,

Or, in New England claim his birth,
From the old pilgrims there,

He is a bastard, if he dare to mock

Old Jamestown's shrine, or Plymouth's famous rock.

PASSAGE DOWN THE OHIO.*

As down Ohio's ever ebbing tide,
Oarless and sailless, silently they glide,
How still the scene, how lifeless, yet how fair
Was the lone land that met the stranger there!
No smiling villages or curling smoke
The busy haunts of busy men bespoke;
No solitary hut, the banks along,

Sent forth blithe labour's homely, rustic song;
No urchin gamboll'd on the smooth, white sand,
Or hurl'd the skipping-stone with playful hand,
While playmate dog plunged in the clear blue wave,
And swam, in vain, the sinking prize to save.
Where now are seen, along the river side,
Young, busy towns, in buxom, painted pride,
And fleets of gliding boats with riches crown'd,
To distant Orleans or St. Louis bound.
Nothing appear'd but nature unsubdued,
One endless, noiseless woodland solitude,
Or boundless prairie, that aye seem'd to be
As level and as lifeless as the sea;
They seem'd to breathe in this wide world alone,
Heirs of the earth-the land was all their own!
"Twas evening now: the hour of toil was o'er,
Yet still they durst not seek the fearful shore,
Lest watchful Indian crew should silent creep,
And spring upon and murder them in sleep;
So through the livelong night they held their way,
And 'twas a night might shame the fairest day;
So still, so bright, so tranquil was its reign,
They cared not though the day ne'er came again.
The moon high wheel'd the distant hills above,
Silver'd the fleecy foliage of the grove,
That as the wooing zephyrs on it fell,
Whisper'd it loved the gentle visit well
That fair-faced orb alone to move appear'd,
That zephyr was the only sound they heard.
Nodeep-mouth'd hound the hunter's haunt betray'd,
No lights upon the shore or waters play'd,
No loud laugh broke upon the silent air,
To tell the wanderers, man was nestling there
All, all was still, on gliding bark and shore,
As if the earth now slept to wake no more.

EVENING.

"T WAS sunset's hallow'd time-and such an eve Might almost tempt an angel heaven to leave. Never did brighter glories greet the eye, Low in the warm and ruddy western sky: Nor the light clouds at summer eve unfold More varied tints of purple, red, and gold. Some in the pure, translucent, liquid breast Of crystal lake, fast anchor'd seem'd to rest, Like golden islets scatter'd far and wide, By elfin skill in fancy's fabled tide, Where, as wild eastern legends idly feign, Fairy, or genii, hold despotic reign.

*This, and the two following extracts, are from the "Backwoodsman."

Others, like vessels gilt with burnish'd gold, Their flitting, airy way are seen to hold, All gallantly equipp'd with streamers gay, While hands unseen, or chance directs their way; Around, athwart, the pure ethereal tide, With swelling purple sail, they rapid glide, Gay as the bark where Egypt's wanton queen Reclining on the shaded deck was seen, At which as gazed the uxorious Roman fool, The subject world slipt from his dotard rule. Anon, the gorgeous scene begins to fade, And deeper hues the ruddy skies invade; The haze of gathering twilight nature shrouds, And pale, and paler wax the changeful clouds. Then sunk the breeze into a breathless calm; The silent dews of evening dropp'd like balm; The hungry night-hawk from his lone haunt hies, To chase the viewless insect through the skies; The bat began his lantern-loving flight, The lonely whip-poor-will, our bird of night, Ever unseen, yet ever seeming near, His shrill note quaver'd in the startled ear; The buzzing beetle forth did gayly hic, With idle hum, and careless, blundering eye; The little trusty watchman of pale night, The firefly, trimm'd anew his lamp so bright, And took his merry airy circuit round The sparkling meadow's green and fragrant bound, Where blossom'd clover, bathed in palmy dew, In fair luxuriance, sweetly blushing grew.

CROSSING THE ALLEGHANIES.

As look'd the traveller for the world below, The lively morning breeze began to blow; The magic curtain roll'd in mists away, And a gay landscape smiled upon the day. As light the fleeting vapours upward glide, Like sheeted spectres on the mountain side, New objects open to his wondering view Of various form, and combinations new. A rocky precipice, a waving wood, Deep, winding dell, and foaming mountain flood, Each after each, with coy and sweet delay, Broke on his sight, as at young dawn of day, Bounded afar by peak aspiring bold, Like giant capp'd with helm of burnish'd gold. So when the wandering grandsire of our race On Ararat had found a resting-place, At first a shoreless ocean met his eye, Mingling on every side with one blue sky; But as the waters, every passing day, Sunk in the carth or roll'd in mists away, Gradual, the lofty hills, like islands, peep From the rough bosom of the boundless deep, Then the round hillocks, and the meadows green, Each after cach, in freshen'd bloom are seen, Till, at the last, a fair and finish'd whole Combined to win the gazing patriarch's soul. Yet, oft he look'd, I ween, with anxious eye, In lingering hope somewhere, perchance, to spy,

Within the silent world, some living thing,
Crawling on earth, or moving on the wing,
Or man, or beast-alas! was neither there
Nothing that breathed of life in earth or air;
"Twas a vast, silent, mansion rich and gay,
Whose occupant was drown'd the other day;
A churchyard, where the gayest flowers oft bloom
Amid the melancholy of the tomb;

A charnel-house, where all the human race
Had piled their bones in one wide resting-place;
Sadly he turn'd from such a sight of wo,
And sadly sought the lifeless world below.

THE OLD MAN'S CAROUSAL.

DRINK! drink! to whom shall we drink?
To friend or a mistress? Come, let me think!
To those who are absent, or those who are here?
To the dead that we loved, or the living still dear?
Alas! when I look, I find none of the last!
The present is barren-let's drink to the past.
Come! here's to the girl with a voice sweet and low,
The eye all of fire and the bosom of snow,
Who erewhile in the days of my youth that are fled,
Once slept on my bosom, and pillow'd my head!
Would you know where to find such a delicate prize?
Go seek in yon churchyard, for there she lies.
And here's to the friend, the one friend of my youth,
With a head full of genius, a heart full of truth,
Who travell'd with me in the sunshine of life,
And stood by my side in its peace and its strife!
Would you know where to seek a blessing so rare?
Go drag the lone sea, you may find him there.

And here's to a brace of twin cherubs of mine,
With hearts like their mother's, as pure as this wine,
Who came but to see the first act of the play,
Grew tired of the scene, and then both went away.
Would you know where this brace of bright
cherubs have hied?

Go seek them in heaven, for there they abide.

A bumper, my boys! to a gray-headed pair,
Who watched o'er my childhood with tenderest care,
God bless them, and keep them, and may they look

down,

MR. ALLSTOx was born in South Carolina, of a family which has contributed some eminent names to our annals, though none that sheds more lustre upon the parent stock than his own. When very young, by the advice of physicians, he was sent to Newport, Rhode Island, where he remained until he entered Harvard College in 1796. In his boy. hood he delighted to listen to the wild tales and traditions of the negroes upon his father's plantation; and while preparing for college, and after his removal to Cambridge, no books gave him so much pleasure as the most marvellous and terrible creations of the imagination. At Newport he became acquainted with MALBONE, the painter, and was thus, perhaps, led to the choice of his profession. He began to paint in oil before he went to Cambridge, and while there divided his attention between his pencil and his books. Upon being graduated he returned to South Carolina, to make arrangements for prosecuting his studies in Europe. He had friends who offered to assist him with money, and one of them, a Scottish gentleman named BOWMAN, who had seen and admired a head which he had painted of Peter hearing the cock crow, pressed him to accept an annuity of one hundred pounds while he should remain abroad; but he declined it, having already sold his paternal estate for a sum sufficient to defray his lookedfor expenses; and, with his friend MALBONE, embarked for England in the summer of 1801.

Soon after his arrival in London, he became a student of the Royal Academy, then under the presidency of our countryman, WEST, with whom he contracted an intimate and lasting friendship. His abilities as an artist, brilliant conversation, and gentlemanly manners, made him a welcome guest at the houses of the great painters of the time; and within a year from the beginning of his residence in London, he was a successful exhibitor at Somerset House, and a general favourite with the most distinguished members of his profession.

In 1804, having been three years in England, he accompanied JOHN VANDERLYN to Paris. After passing a few months in that capital, he proceeded to Italy, where he remained four years. Among his fellow-students and intimate associates here, were VANDERLYN and the Danish sculptor THORWALDSEN. Another friend with whom he now became acquainted, was COLERIDGE. In one of his letters he says: "To no other man do I owe so much, intellectually, as to Mr. COLERIDGE, with whom I became acquainted in Rome, and who has honoured me with his friendship for more than five-and-twenty years. He used to call Rome the silent city; but I never could think of it as such, while with him; for meet him when or where I would, the fountain of

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his mind was never dry, but, like the far-reaching aqueducts that once supplied this mistress of the world, its living stream seemed specially to flow for every classic ruin over which we wandered. And when I recall some of our walks under the pines of the villa Borghese, I am almost tempted to dream that I had once listened to PLATO in the groves of the Academy."

In 1809 ALLSTON returned to America, and was soon after married at Boston to a sister of Dr. CHANNING. In 1811 he went a second time to England. His reputation as a painter was now well established, and he gained by his picture of the "Dead Man raised by the Bones of Elisha"* a prize of two hundred guineas, at the British Institution, where the first artists in the world were his competitors. A long and dangerous illness succeeded his return to London, and he removed to the village of Clifton, where he wrote " The Sylphs of the Seasons," and some of the other poems included in a volume which he published in 1813. Within two weeks after the renewal of his residence in the metropolis, in the last-mentioned year, his wife died, very suddenly; and the event, inducing the deepest depression and melancholy, caused a temporary suspension of his labours.

In 1818 he accompanied LESLIE to Paris, and in the autumn of the following year came back to America, having been previously elected an associate of the English Royal Academy. In 1830 he married a sister of RICHARD H. DANA, and the remainder of his life was tranquilly passed at Cambridgeport, near Boston, where he was surrounded by warm and genial friends, in assiduous devotion to his art. He died very suddenly, on the night of the eighth of July, 1843.

As a painter ALLSTON had no superior, perhaps not an equal, in his age. He differed from his contemporaries, as he said of MONALDI, "no less in kind than in degree. If he held any thing in common with others, it was with those of ages past, with the mighty dead of the fifteenth century. From them he had learned the language of his art, but his thoughts, and their turn of expression, were his own." Among his principal works are "The Dead Man restored to Life by Elisha;" the "Angel liberating Peter from Prison;" "Jacob's Dream;"«Elijah in the Desert;" the "Triumphant Song of Miriam ;" "The Angel Uriel in the Sun;""Saul and the Witch of Endor;" "Spalatro's Vision of the bloody Hand;" "Gabriel setting the Guard of the Heavenly Host;" "Anne Page and Slender;" "Rosalie;" "Donna Marcia in the Robber's Cave;" and "Belshazzar's Feast, or the