affairs look better than we have known them for many months. There will probably be a speedy return of prosperity, in spite of those who are willing to prevent it if they cannot be intrusted with the construction and control of the channels through which it is to flow. Such men there are in all parties, from mad Bentonites to ultra Bankites; but they are few, or at all events a minority. There is an evident disposition among thinking men to coalesce on points of great importance, and several of these will be carried. Congress talks less than usual, and seems about to act much more than usual; and we sincerely hope and believe with most salutary effect.

There is one point, just touched in the President's Message, which is of high importance, and the consideration of which by Congress is matter of pressing duty. It is the passage of a general Bankrupt law. Till such a law is passed, our laws for the collec tion of debt are nearly a dead letter; a man pays so long as it is for his interest to pay, and when he thinks he can gain more by keeping his property than his credit, he can make a fraudulent assignment, and the creditor has no remedy. The debtor's son or his brother becomes his trustee for his benefit, and judgments and executions are laughed to scorn. This trustee, no doubt, often cheats the debtor; but, on the average, such transactions are profitable; and, that they are not so frequent as to destroy all credit and confidence, is a proof that much honorable feeling and real conscien tiousness exist in the trading community. But the existing system is a pit-fall for both creditor and debtor, and all honest men who consider it from either point of view, would wish, we think, to see it greatly modified, and made uniform and efficient throughout the United States.

M.

usted

chit

CRITICAL NOTICES.

The Scourge of the Ocean; a story of the Atlantic. By an Officer of the United States Navy. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1837. WE wish such books as this were never written, and pray fervently we may never see another like it. Such things-they deserve no better name-do more discredit to our literature than a hundred ill-conceived volumes upon a bad philosophy, or a thousand weak essays upon the times-matters-and men. Such works, too, do any thing but immortalize the periods, some events of which they intend to set forth; and make one almost sicken over the story of years, that really condense an uncommon deal of romance mingled with their realities. We like to see American history made good use of, and its worthy and startling passages brought into a relief that will at once do some good to us as a peopleand to the world-and some honor to the times which it illustrates. But books of this order—of which we have had too many in our country-are not destined to do it the credit we should aim after. The story here is a poor one-told without any meaning or emphasis-and with no illustration whatever of any principle or moral which is calculated to better any one, or make the pages tolerable. Some of the sea descriptions are the only fair things in the volumes, and they are not new, or presented with any particular claim to regard. The sea language, though it may be genuine, is too often spun out to an unchristian length and full of unchristian expressions. The attempts at wit-to which there is never an arrival-are miserable; and the profanity which disgraces so many of the pages, is often horrid, and always disgusting. The manufacture of the pirate, or whatever the hero may be called-is a failure; and the whole thing poor taste, and sadly weak in the joints. We think the writer may engage in far better business than writing sea stories; and may write more to his honor, in another line, if he will first digest his matter well. But let us have no more of these stories of the Atlantic.

in

Poems: by William Thompson Bacon. Boston: Weeks, Jordan and
Co. 12mo. PP. 134.

OUR Magazine is indebted to Mr. Bacon' for a very elegant presentation copy
of his volume of metrical experiments. We wish that we could say as much in
praise of the author's lines as we can of the dress in which they have been arrayed
by the printer and binder. This we cannot do; although it is apparent, that with
all the faults and with but few of the excellencies of the school in which he is an
enthusiastic disciple, many of his verses evince a clear perception of the beautiful

in Nature, and an apprehension of true sentiment, which is not common even among our most approved lyrists.

The cacoethes scribendi is nothing in comparison with the cacoethes imprimendi. Young writers, after an undue indulgence of the first passion, are overpowered by the latter. With regard to their first effusion, they are as silly as the milk-maid in the spelling book, who exulted in the idea of purchasing a green silk-dress from the proceeds of the sale of the snowy fluid which she carried in a pail upon her giddy head. Deceived by the encomiums of partial friends and their own fanciful conjectures, their brains become unsettled, till at last, being betrayed into print, down comes their pail of milk, with all their imaginary schemes of happiness."

Our author's preface is "the soul of wit;" it is as brief as an epicure's grace before meat. We give it without condensation.

"These poems are the result of my leisure at college, and published for experiment. If the public find any thing worth the reading in them, they can be followed up by another volume."

This little kite has a long tail in the Notes at the end of the volume, where divers explanations are made in nonpareil, as it were, behind the reader's back, instead "of pushing them, as it were, into the reader's face" in long primer at the commencement. The reader will find it worth his while to turn round and peruse these notes; for though he will have discovered from his poems that our author is an imitator of Wordsworth, yet he will there read a candid confession of the fact, and, moreover, that Mr. Bacon is a devoted admirer of the greatest of the living English poets. This evinces an admirable taste, and a clear discrimination of the loftier attributes of poetry. He who can truly appreciate the excellence of exalted genius, deserves a credit inferior only to that of the possessor of genius himself.

We learn, by numeration, that there are twenty-four pieces in the beautiful little volume before us. They all possess for us the charm of novelty, with the exception of "Fanny Willoughby," which we remember to have seen in the newspapers. In this, humor is blended with pathos, not altogether unsuccessfully. It will go very well in any short-metre tune from the Bridgewater collection, and admirably in Yankee Doodle. Try this stanza :--

says the facetious author of Hudibras. In the verses just quoted there seem to be more rudders than ships-" why," "I," "kill," "will," "I,” “will,” “kill.” Repetition is a sin which sorely besets these "poems." Here are other instances from the next page:

"I do not mean I have not felt

The pulse of pleasure sometimes move;

I do not mean I have not knelt,

And found how sweet it was to love.

We can assure Mr. Bacon that such stanzas cannot aspire to be called even an imitation of Wordsworth's peculiarities-they are broad caricatures.

Our author's blank verse is much superior to his rhyme. His ear is sometimes defective, and he often strikes a flat instead of a sharp note. This is by no means a fault peculiar to himself; it has even been charged upon his illustrious archetype. Nothing can be more beautiful than the vein of philosophy which pervades all of Wordsworth's pathetic pieces. The poems which he has written referring to the period of old age, are a blending of the most touching tenderness with the purest and best reflections. Any attempts to imitate this inimitable virtue of his fancy must fail. The step between pathos and absurdity is shorter than that from the sublime to the ridiculous. Mr. Bacon has taken many a step of this kind in his volume. There is a little poem, however, in which he has so successfully "trodden in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor," that we give it nearly entire. It has beauties which redeem a multitude of glaring faults. These faults are here but partially designated; it grieves us to be in the least unkind to the pretty volume before us, but we could not say less than we have said; and how could we say more, when we wish to utter only praise?

"THE WOOD ROBIN.

Stranger! if thou art saddened with the ills
That crowd upon thy pathway, if thy heart
Has ever felt th' ingratitude of earth,
And made thee wish to leave it, and if thou
Art one still pure in feeling, and canst find
A bliss in solitude, or aught that's there-
Come to these woods, and I will sing to thee
A song, a song I learned among them once,
When but a boy, a time when Poesy
Was worshipp'd as we worship a sweet dream,
That stole us from some heart-felt wretchedness.

"Ere yet the golden sun his course renews,
And soft day-break doth glimmer in the east,
Clear, deep, and mellow shrills the robin's note,
And hails the opening day. From some tall bough,
The highest of the elm, or gaudy maple,

He pours his plaint, and to the ear of morn

Makes gladsome music. From his couch the woodman

Starts at the well-known summons and goes forth;

And as he hies him to his task, more loud

The song comes through the arches of the grove.

And now, while loudly the sonorous axe

Bursts through the congregated mass of clouds,
And sends his gladd'ning glory o'er the world.
Meanwhile the woodman pauses o'er his task,
Shading with brawny hand his swarthy brow,
And, circling all the wood with his keen eye,
He spies at last the little chorister

Perch'd on the neigh'bring hill-top, or the ash.
His ruddy breast

When pois'd on high, struck by th' unrisen sun,
Glows from its altitude, and to the sight
Presents a burning vestiture of gold;

And his dark pinions, softly spread, improved
By contrast, shame the black-bird's jetty plumes.
Less wild than others of the tuneful choir,
Oft on the tree that shades the farmer's hut
Close by his door, the little architect

Fixes his home-though field-groves and the woods,
Where small streams murmur sweetly, loves he most.
Who seeks his nest, may find it deftly hid
In fork of branching elm, or poplar shade;
And sometimes in the crook of ancient fence,
And sometimes on the lawn; though rarely he,
The one that sings the sweetest, chooses thus
His habitation. Seek for it in deep

And tangled hollows, up some pretty brook,
That, prattling o'er the loose white pebbles, chides
The echoes with a soft monotony

Of softest music. There upon the bough
That arches it, of fragrance-breathing birch,
Or kalmia branching in unnumber'd forms,
He builds his moss-lined dwelling. First he lays
Transverse, dried bents pick'd from the forest walks
Or in the glen, where downward with fell force
The mountain torrent rushes-these all coated
With slime unsightly. Soon the builder shows
An instinct far surpassing human skill.
And lines it with a layer of soft wool,

Pick'd from the thorn where brush'd the straggled flock;
Or with an intertexture of soft hairs,

Or moss, or feathers. Finally, complete-
The usual list of eggs appear-and lo!

Four in the whole and softly tinged with blue.
And now the mother bird, the live-long day
Sits on her charge, nor leaves it for her mate,
Save just to dip her bill into the stream,
Or gather needful sustenance. Meanwhile,
The mate assiduous guards that mother-bird
Patient upon her nest; and at her side,
Or over head, or on the adverse bank,
Nestled, he all the tedious time beguiles,

Wakes his wild notes, and sings the hours away.

"But soon again new duties wake the pair:

Their young appear. Love knocking at their hearts,
Alert they start, as by sure instinct led,
(That beautiful divinity in birds!)
And now they hop along the forest edge,
Or dive into the ravines of the woods,
Or roam the fields, or skim the mossy bank
Shading some runnel with its antique forms,
Pecking for sustenance. Or now they mount
Into mid-air, or poise on half-shut wing,
Skimming for insects in the dewy beam
Gaily disporting, or, now sweeping down

Where the wild brook flows on with ceaseless laughter,