of Saalfeld, who in his youth accompanied the army of the emperor into the Netherlands as chaplain, and because he refused to baptize a cannon ball, was thrust by the licentious soldiers into a mortar, in order to be shot into the air, a fate which he escaped only because the powder would not kindle. A second time he was in danger of his life, and a reward of five thousand florins offered for his head, because the emperor was enraged against him for contemptuously tearing the Interim in his pulpit. Catherine allowed him, at the request of the people of Saalfeld, to conceal himself in her castle, where she supported him for many months with the greatest kindness, until he could appear abroad without danger. She died universally honored and lamented, in the fifty-eighth year of her life, and the twenty-ninth of her government. Her remains lie in the church of Rudolstadt.

*

ORIGINAL POETRY.

THE BUTTERFLY.

FROM THE FRENCH OF DE LA MARTINE.

BORN with the Spring, and with the roses dying,
Through the clear sky on Zephyr's pinion sailing,
On the young floweret's opening bosom lying,
Perfume and light and the blue air inhaling,
Shaking the thin dust from its wings and fleeing,
And fading like a breath in boundless heaven,—
Such is the butterfly's enchanted being;

How like desire, to which no rest is given,

Which still uneasy, rifling every treasure,

Returns at last above to seek for purer pleasure.

S.

* An order by which the emperor suspended some privileges granted to the Protestant states of Germany.

THE POOR SCHOLAR.

I saw him starting in his new career;

The hue of health was on his cheek-his eye
Flashed with the fire of genius, while no fear

Cast its dark cloud o'er his aspirings high.
And o'er his brow, fluttering like light and shade,
A thousand bright and glorious fancies played.

And he did seem like one who lightly deemed
Of chance and peril that encircle fame,
One who, where'er the wave-tost jewel gleamed,
Would urge right on with ardor nought could tame;
Ay, one who loved it better, that it lay
Where the vext ocean flung its troubled spray.

Like a young eagle on the mountain height,
Pluming the vigorous wing to fly, he stood
Fearless, though lonely. Beautiful and bright,
Outstretched before him, the wide world he viewed,
And though, from 'midst it ways, the sound of strife
Rose loud, it spoke of energy and life.

Again I saw him—then his cheek was pale,

And bent his form, and dimmed his lightning eye, His strength had gone, as the tree fades when fail

The freshening streams, and blighting winds go by; Gone, too, the generous pride, the fixt intent,

With which to the world's cirque like gallant steed he bent.

But, though he struggled on against the tide,

The goal of promise still did fleet away,

And still did mock him, till his last hope died.

None cried, "God bless him," on his weary way, Looked kind, or stretched a timely hand to save; What marvel then,-the green turf decks his grave.

Yea, death fell on him, for his ills were sore;
Nor was it to his heart ungrateful boon.

As a light billow on the level shore,

Or lamp expiring in the ardent noon, He died unheeded, save by one, and she Had been the mother of his infancy.

E. P..

TO THE MISSISSIPPI.

RIVER of current rapid, wide, and deep!
Sublime, but never beautiful, that throws
Into the Mexic Gulf, the streams which leap
From far-off hills charged with the winter's snows.
They come to greet thee from the leafless woods
And mossy fountains of the Northern Pole,
From mountains which o'erlook the gentle floods

Of the Pacific. Why not bidden roll

Thy waves through vales more cheerful! I would see
Thy banks all flourishing,-the busy mart,

The cultured glebe, the nectarine-loaded tree,

The temple set for sacred use apart,

All these my fettered wish would plant; but, no,

God doomed thy banks to wrath,-flow, mighty river, flow.

J.

CHANGES.

AFTER a troubled life, I trace again

The woodland mazes, in whose secret paths
My childhood days, like happy dreams, pass'd on.
Beautiful scenes! the wild and joyous boy,

That wandered from your dim and quiet haunts
In hope, and strength, and gladness, hath come back

A weary and heart-broken man. His hope!
Alas, the grave hath swallowed it! his strength!

"T was broken in the distant battle-field

His gladness hath given place to bitter tears.

1

Methinks that many years have wrought a change
Even on your calm beauty. The red deer,

Whose bounding hoofs flew down yon darkened glade
Swift as an arrow-flight, are nowhere seen
Under the mossy boughs,-and the meek fawn
And gentle roe are not beside the founts
In their green pastures; haply they have found
The hunter's rifle deadlier than the shafts
From the slight bow that pleased my infancy.

Alas! the green tree at my cabin door,
The huge growth of a century! it lies
On the smooth slope it overhung so long;
The flowers are gone from the broad garden-walks,
And the fair trees are dead! the sycamore
Clothed like a prince in scarlet, the pale birch-
A tall and silvery spire,-the hoary beech,
And the dark, solemn cypress, lie o'erthrown
In ruin, and rank weeds rejoice above.

The cottage door is broken! its thatched roof
Lies on the quenched and long-deserted hearth,
And the dark wall is settling to the ground.
The red-stemmed honeysuckle, that once clasped
Closely the latticed casement, and bloomed thick,
No more gives out the known delicious smell.
The drowsy brook, that whispered at the door
A low strain of unbroken music, plays
By some far lovelier bank; it long hath shrunk
And wandered from its weed-choked channel here.

My brethren come not at my call; the song
My mother sang at twilight is not heard
By the still threshold, and the passing wind
Sighs o'er my father's grave; this lonely place
Hath lost its charm-I leave it to its dead!

VIVIAN.

VOL. II.

39

CRITICAL NOTICES.

The Prairie, a Tale. By the Author of "The Pioneers" and "The Last of the Mohicans." In Two Volumes. Philadelphia. Carey, Lea, & Carey. 1827. 12mo. pp.

528.

THIS book either has been or will be so generally read, that no regular analysis of its plot is necessary to the remarks we have to make, and no quotations from its pages are needed to illustrate them.

The author has not allowed himself a very large abundance of materials out of which to construct his narrative. The action of the piece is religiously confined to the prairie, from which it is named, a vast open country, with an undulating surface, with here and there a few bushes in the hollows, a single heap of rocks, and a river. The events of the story happen to a beehunter and his sweetheart, and a Captain in the United States and his wife. The troubles in which both these couples army are involved are occasioned partly by a family of squatters, consisting of a termagant woman, her gigantic husband and knavish brother, and a troop of overgrown girls and boys; and partly by a tribe of cruel and thievish Indians, the Siouxes, Tetons, or Dahcotahs, for the author calls them indiscriminately by either of these names. On the other hand, these good people have for their friends and helpers in calamity, a stupid, pedantic naturalist, a sagacious old trapper, and a magnanimous and friendly tribe of Indians, the Pawnee Loups. The unlawful detention of the Captain's wife in the squatter family, and her final restoration to her husband, the opposition of this family to the marriage of the beehunter with his sweetheart, their relation; these incidents, diversified with a brief captivity among the Siouxes, and a battle between this tribe and the Pawnees, form the thread of the story. This is not very promising matter, but it is handled by a man of genius, and wrought up, we should think, into all the interest of which it is capable. The author's power of narration and description does not desert him ;-the faculty of setting before the mind of the reader, with a strong distinctness, a kind of visibility, the personages of the story and their actions,-a faculty of immense importance to the writer of fictitious narrative, and one on the possession of which a great deal of the popularity of Mr. Cooper is founded. The present work is not so much distinguished as some of his previous writings, for striking and extra