the readers of poetry among us to need quotation. We shall extract one or two pieces, which may be less known, but not undeserving of praise. Mr Kettell merely informs us of Milton Ward, that he published a volume of poetry at Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1826. Most of it was composed at the age of fifteen. The following is one of his earliest pieces.' If it be true, that the Lyre was written by a boy of fifteen, it displays a mind of uncommon promise. We have not often seen a pleasanter exercise of the fancy, or a specimen of more graceful and easy versification.

• THE LYRE.

THERE was a Lyre, 't is said, that hung

High waving in the summer air;
An angel hand its chord had strung,

And left to breathe its music there.
Each wandering breeze, that o'er it flew,
Awoke a wilder, sweeter strain,
Than ever shell of Mermaid blew
In coral grottoes of the main.
When, springing from the rose's bell,
Where all night he had sweetly slept,
The zephyr left the flowery dell

Bright with the tears that morning wept,
He rose, and o'er the trembling lyre,
Waved lightly his soft azure wing;
What touch such music could inspire!
What harp such lays of joy could sing!
The murmurs of the shaded rills,

The birds, that sweetly warbled by,

And the soft echo from the hills,

Were heard not where that harp was nigh.

When the last light of fading day

Along the bosom of the west

In colors softly mingled lay,

While night had darkened all the rest,

Then, softer than that fading light,
And sweeter than the lay, that rung
Wild through the silence of the night,
As solemn Philomela sung,

That harp its plaintive murmurs sigh'd
Along the dewy breeze of even;
So clear and soft they swell'd and died,
They seem'd the echoed songs of heaven.

Sometimes, when all the air was still,
And not the poplar's foliage trembled,
That harp was nightly heard to thrill
With tones, no earthly tones resembled.
And then, upon the moon's pale beams,
Unearthly forms were seen to stray,
Whose starry pinions' trembling gleams
Would oft around the wild harp play.
But soon the bloom of summer fled-

In earth and air it shone no more;
Each flower and leaf fell pale and dead,
While skies their wintry sternness wore.
One day, loud blew the northern blast-
The tempest's fury raged along—
Oh! for some angel, as they pass'd,

To shield the harp of heavenly song!
It shriek'd-how could it bear the touch,
The cold, rude touch of such a storm,
When e'en the zephyr seem'd too much
Sometimes, though always light and warm.
It loudly shriek'd-but ah! in vain-
The savage wind more fiercely blew;
Once more-it never shriek'd again,
For every chord was torn in two.
It never thrill'd with anguish more,
Though beaten by the wildest blast;
The pang, that thus its bosom tore,

Was dreadful-but it was the last.
And though the smiles of summer play'd
Gently upon its shattered form,

And the light zephyrs o'er it stray'd,

That lyre they could not wake or warm.'
VOL. III. pp. 340, 341.

George P. Morris, the editor of the New York Mirror and Ladies' Literary Magazine,' has written a pretty and delicate piece, well adapted to grace the pages of a ladies' magazine, and we believe it will not be thought out of place in our

own.

WOMAN.

'AH!-woman-in this world of ours,

What gift can be compared to thee?
How slow would drag life's weary hours,

Though man's proud brow were bound with flowers,
And his the wealth of land and sea,

If destined to exist alone,
And ne'er call woman's heart his own.
My mother!-at that holy name,

Within my bosom there's a gush
Of feeling, which no time can tame,
A feeling which, for years of fame,
I would not, could not crush,
And sisters!-they are dear as life-
But when I look upon my wife,

My life-blood gives a sudden rush,
And all my fond affections blend,
In mother-sisters-wife-and friend.

Yes, woman's love is free from guile,
And pure as bright Aurora's ray—
The heart will melt before its smile,
And earthly passions fade away.
Were I the monarch of the earth,

And master of the swelling sea,
I would not estimate their worth,

Dear woman, half the price of thee.' VOL. III. p. 351. We are strongly tempted to extract Mrs Hale's 'Light of Home,' and 'The Gifts,' but we must content ourselves with referring our readers to them as specimens of just and delicate feeling, and conclude our quotations with the following stanzas by Mr Pierpont. We think them among the best for the occasion, which has called forth so many verses.

6 INDEPENDENCE.

'DAY of glory! welcome day!
Freedom's banners greet thy ray;
See how cheerfully they play
With thy morning breeze,

On the rocks where pilgrims kneel'd,
On the heights where squadrons wheel'd,
When a tyrant's thunder peal'd,

O'er the trembling seas.

God of armies! did thy "stars
In their courses" smite his cars,
Blast his arm, and wrest his bars
From the heaving tide?
On our standard, lo! they burn,
And, when days like this return,
Sparkle o'er the soldier's urn,

Who for freedom died.

God of peace!-whose spirit fills
All the echoes of our hills,
All the murmurs of our rills,
Now the storm is o'er ;-
O, let freemen be our sons;
And let future Washingtons
Rise, to lead their valiant ones,
Till there's war no more.

By the patriot's hallow'd rest,
By the warrior's gory breast,
Never let our graves be press'd
By a despot's throne;
By the pilgrims' toil and cares,
By their battles and their prayers,
By their ashes,-let our heirs

Bow to thee alone.'

VOL. II. pp. 270, 271. We cannot refrain from mentioning, in the language of encomium, the Shakspeare Ode, by Charles Sprague. It shines, in this collection, unrivalled for brilliancy, variety, and power. There are, indeed, few lyrical compositions equal to it.

One of the best parts of Mr Kettell's work is the very full catalogue of American poetry at the end of the third volume. Whoever examines it will have no doubt of the fertility of our poetical soil, nor of the increasing rapidity of its production.

ART. XI.-Memoir of De Witt Clinton, with an Appendix containing numerous Documents illustrative of the principal Events of his Life. By DAVID HOSACK, M. D. F. R. S. New York. 1829. 4to. pp. 530.

THE work of Dr Hosack is a handsome quarto volume of five hundred pages and more, one hundred and thirty-five of which are occupied with a Memoir of Governor Clinton, and the remainder, being an appendix, printed in a smaller type, comprises a collection of documents illustrative of the events of Mr Clinton's life, accompanied by a map of the Erie and Northern Canals with the adjacent territory, and miniature prints of the heads of some of the most active promoters of the great works of internal improvement in New York. The work appears to be a tribute of friendship, as well as an inte

resting historical and biographical record. The Memoir is a public discourse, delivered before the citizens of New York on the eighth of November, 1828, in compliance with a vote of a previous general meeting, and published at their request.

Mr Charles Clinton, the grandfather of De Witt, emigrated from the county of Longford, Ireland, with his family and a number of his friends, in 1729. They took passage at Dublin, in a vessel commanded by one Rymer, a savage brute, who killed one of his men in the course of the voyage, by striking him with a pipe stave, and starved some of the passengers by needlessly and purposely protracting the voyage to a period of about five months. Mr Clinton lost his wife, two daughters, and a son, before landing in America. After the vessel made land, which was recognised to be the coast of Virginia, the captain again put out to sea, notwithstanding the urgent remonstrances of the passengers, whom he gave explicitly to understand, that he should continue at sea until he had absolutely starved them all to death, unless they would redeem themselves from this sentence by giving additional passage money; to which, not knowing what better to do, they consented, and the survivors were accordingly finally landed on Cape Cod. The company afterwards established themselves at Little Britain in Orange, then Ulster county, New York, about eight miles east from Hudson river, and sixty from the city of New York, where their descendants remain to this day, and where De Witt Clinton was born on the second of March, 1769, forty years after the emigration of his grandfather's family from Ireland. The family have borne a respectable, and some of its members a distinguished rank, in this country, both before and since the revolution. Two of the second generation, uncles to De Witt, were physicians; one, vicepresident of the United States; and James, his father, rose though various military grades to the rank of general in the American army of the revolution. After the establishment of independence, he retired to domestic life, at his residence in Orange county, from which he was, however, occasionally called by various important civil appointments in the state of New York, during a long life of seventy-six years which terminated in 1812. He married a De Witt.

De Witt Clinton acquired the rudiments of his classical education under the Rev. Mr Moffatt, the presbyterian clergyman of his native town, and at the academy of Kingston,