would be invidious. It is our intention to take up the principal articles in numerical order, and to point out with candour their merits and defects. The late period, however, at which the exhibition opened would not permit us to enter into a critical examination of the various productions in time for publication in the present number of the Port Folio. The criticism will, therefore, be the subject of another communication.

G. M.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

INQUIRIES RESPECTING DENNIE AND BROWN.

We publish the following note, complaining of a want of respect to the memories and of gratitude for the services of two distinguished literary characters-the most rare, and, therefore, the choicest description of men which our country contains-partly as an evidence of the state of public sentiment in relation to them, and partly that we may have an opportunity of making a few observations in reply.

With respect to Mr. Brown, we, as editor of the Port Folio, have but little to say. We are sensible of his talents and multifarious attainments, as well as of his persevering industry in the cause of letters; and regret that his memory has not been, in all respects, more suitably honoured. To his executors and more immediate connexions, however, it belongs, to answer specifically the complaint of our correspondent; and they are, no doubt, prepared to do it satisfactorily. To them, therefore, we resign the task, stating it, at the same time, as a fact which will not be controverted, that they are, in the present instance, responsible to the public for any want of attention to the memory of him whose posthumous concerns were entrusted to their care. We are informed, however, that considerable progress has been already made towards preparing for the press the life and writings of Mr. Brown.

The case of Mr. Dennie is more immediately related to the station which we hold, and appeals, therefore, to our feelings with superior cogency. In relation to that amiable man and accomplish

ed scholar, we are happy in having it in our power distinctly to state, that whatever apparent neglect has been suffered for a time to overshadow his memory, has arisen out of circumstances which could not be controlled, and that nothing unfriendly to his reputas tion has been intended. By those who have had the management of his posthumous affairs, his name and his virtues will ever be cherished with the fondest recollection. Nor will it be long, as we trust, till every ground of complaint, touching the subject of our correspondent's note, will be satisfactorily removed. As far as we are ourselves concerned, we promise unhesitatingly that this shall be the case. Arrangements have been already commenced to prepare for the Port Folio an elegant likeness of Mr. Dennie, to be accompanied by a sketch of his life and character. This article shall be laid before the public with as little delay as may be found compatible with the engagements of those who are entrusted with its execution. We believe we may add, without much risk of deceiving our readers by means of a promise not to be fulfilled, that Mr. Dennie's life on a broader scale, accompanied by such of his writings as best deserve to be permanently incorporated with the literature of our country, will, at no very distant period, be laid before the public. We have, at least, received an assurance that such a measure is positively intended. EDITOR.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

Soon after the decease of your predecessor, Mr. Dennie, the public were informed, through the medium of the Port Folio, that an account of his life and a collection of his works would be published under the direction of his friends. Upwards of a year has now elapsed from the time when this intention was announced, since which nothing has transpired relative to it. I wish to inquire, through you, whether the design is still entertained of doing the proper honour to the memory of that accomplished person, by making his writings more generally known. As one of the first of our citizens, who made letters his profession; as one who wrote wisely and well; and as one who did more for the literary character of his country, than any other of her children, it is surely proper that the public should not be ignorant of the debt of gratitude they owe him. Of the destroyers of mankind there are monuments

and vestiges enough; but of its benefactors, such is the perverseness of our nature there frequently remains no other memorial than the living proofs of their benevolence. This is peculiarly the case with the posthumous character of Mr. Dennie. He wrote from his childhood for the amusement and benefit of mankind. In the fog of a country village, his genius, though sometimes struggling to keep alive, often astonished by the vividness of its flashes. He was doomed to the drudgery of conducting a village newspaper in a land half peopled, without assistance and without patrons. Yet that paper exhibited a series of essays from his pen, pure, animated, and classic, such as would have done honour to the Augustan age of English literature. Transplanted to the more genial soil of a metropolis, his genius flourished in the sunshine of patronage. Although he undertook no extensive work, yet will he be long remembered as the author of those brilliant little pieces, models of fine writing, elegant morality, and correct criticism, which so often adorned the pages of the Port Folio. I am not going to write his life or character. I wish only to recall to the recollection of his friends their unfulfilled promises in regard to his remains. When I speak of Mr. Dennie's remains, I speak in a different sense from what I would of the generality of mankind. Most of the human race leave nothing behind but the covering of clay in which they were wont to "strut and fret," that is huddled into the earth as quickly as possible, and "there an end on't." But the remains of such men as Mr. Dennie are their works, which will delight years after their death and require only to be known to be admired. I hope this will not be longer delayed. For the honour of our country and the encouragement of learned men let not the curse of ingratitude continue to be on us.

THERE was another American author, Mr. Oldschool, not long ago an inhabitant of our city, who has left our world with quite as little respect or remembrance as Mr. Dennie. I mean the late Mr. Brown. Of his private life I know nothing; but of his writings it is saying little to repeat that they show an improved mind, a powerful but sometimes irregular imagination, and often a transcendent command of language. The style of his romantic works resembles, in a very strong degree, that of Godwin. He possessed

also, in common with that energetic writer, the power of exciting sympathy in the breasts of his readers. Of this his Arthur Mervyn is a strong proof. It describes the miseries of one exposed to the epidemic of 1793 in glowing language, it chills one with horror at the recital of that melancholy devastation, it descends even to minute particulars, but it never excites disgust. That he could write with the measured dignity of the historian will be evident to any one who shall peruse the American Register. He, too, was an author by profession-and he, to the disgrace of Philadelphia, lived and died poor. Soon after his death subscription papers were circulated for an account of his life and writings, to be published for the benefit of his family. Why is this also dropt. Can it be possible that in such a country the descendants of Genius and Taste and Talent are denied so trifling a relief. Is it necessary to tell the wealthy niggard that the glory of a nation is the glory of the individuals that compose it, and that this glory is in proportion to the number of illustrious men that country produces and fosters.

Ω

MR. CAMPBELL'S FIRST LECTURE ON POETRY,

DELIVERED AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.

If Mr. Campbell does not stand decidedly at the head of the catalogue of poets in the nineteenth century, he is certainly, in relation to all the more resplendent and substantial qualities appertaining to that character, inferior to none. With a genius equal in all respects to that of Mr. Scott, he pos sesses perhaps superior judgment and learning, combined with a more ample stock of patience, and greater sobriety and steadiness of attention. Although not so completely the favourite of "the million," he has evidently attained to a loftier standing in the estimation of most of the" discerning few," and would seem, therefore, destined to fill a more conspicuous niche in the temple of fame. Scott appears to be courting the favour and approbation of his cotemporaries, while Campbell fixes his regard much more exclusively on the decision of posterity. The former writes more for present popularity and profit, the latter for future and lasting renown.

Mr. Campbell has been, not long since, called to a chair in the royal institution of London. His province is to lecture on poetry, connected, we believe, with criticism and taste. By the more enlightened and refined circles

of the metropolis, this appointment was hailed with an enthusiasm strongly indicative of their exalted opinion of the qualifications of the professor. The `delivery of his first introductory lecture, is said to have been attended by an audience more uniformly distinguished for fashion and taste, than any that had ever been previously assembled on a similar occasion.

The following extract which we take from the Examiner, a well conducted weekly paper, contains the sentiments of one who was present, touching the merit and beauties of the discourse. Although the communication is not clothed in the sobriety of language, nor marked with the discriminating views, of the critic, it notwithstanding portrays to us, in vivid colours, the almost delirious impression which the varied knowledge and fascinating eloquence of Mr. Campbell are capable of producing. It exhibits, moreover, a handsome specimen of the taste and belles-lettres acquirements of the writer.

"Let such teach others, who themselves excel,

"And censure freely, who have written well."

EDITOR.

In an attempt to give some faint idea of Mr. Campbell's most masterly introduction to this course of lectures, we should indeed tremble at our temerity, if it were possible that we could dissent from the universal approbation, which it excited in those who had the good fortune to hear it. We do not however on this occasion feel ourselves called upon custodire ipsum custodem,—to censure the censor, but rather to add our tribute to those murmurs of admiring applause, which so frequently broke in upon "the mute wonder lurking in men's ears," "to catch his 'sweet and honied sentences." The pleasing impression is yet so strong upon our own minds, that we find ourselves more powerfully tempted to dwell upon that impression, than to describe with any miuteness the high excitements which awakened it: we doubt indeed the possibility of affording to our readers any adequate description, unless we could borrow, for the purpose of their own illustration those glowing sentiments and language, which alone could do justice to themselves. We will therefore confine ourselves to a mere outline of the lecture.

Mr. Campbell, after delineating with singular judgment the nature, the province, and the unbounded range of poetry, proceeded to show its great antiquity, and to account for its priority to prose as a settled form of composition, from the necessity of aiding un