SONNETS.

TO A WESTERN MOUND.

Tомв, cenotaph, sarcophagus, or urn!
And wert thou then of sacred use, or made
For tower of martial trust against the stern,
When Havoc slipt his war-dogs on this glade,
Ere the race fell, or fled, which none shall learn,
Themselves in dust, their temples undecayed?
Were thy foundations for an altar laid
Magnificent and vast, a realm's concern?

What are thy years? Prove they the Bramin's creed
Of ages piled on ages? Wert thou when

God loosed the fountains of the mighty deep,

And choked the wave with shoals of sinful men?

Or is thine era later, and the sleep

Of the whole land, man's own infuriate deed?

J.

ON THE SAME.

I THINK I see the men of ancient days,
The worshippers beneath the greenwood tree,
Commemorating some proud jubilee,

And thereupon the joyful myriads raise

These barrows. Hush! I hear the minstrel's lays!
They are not of the South, they want the glee
Of Southern verse; more like the songs of praise
The Scalds of Norway sang, when revelry
Was in the halls of Odin. These high mounts
Avouch deliverance from a Haco's yoke;
Where the invader had his weapons broke,
The conquerors spring the never-dying founts
Of valor, in memorials to their race

Of their own glory, and their foes' disgrace.

J.

SPRING BREEZES.

YE joyous breezes, I trace your way

O'er the meadows decked in their bright array;

The flowerets are bending your steps to greet,
New blossoms are springing beneath your feet,
While the rosebud her freshest fragrance flings,
And woos ye to rest your wearied wings.

But on ye pass,—for no charm ye stay,—
Still onward ye hold your gladdening way;
Your breath has rippled the mountain stream,
And a thousand suns from its surface gleam;
Your voice has wakened the wild bird's note,
And fragrance and melody round ye float.

Ye joyous breezes, still on ye go,
Your breath is passing o'er beauty's brow,
Your wings are stirring her radiant hair,
Your kiss is brightening her cheek so fair,
And the innocent thoughts of her heart rejoice
With the mirthful tones of your wild, sweet voice.

"Is our path then marked by so much of mirth? Alas for the folly, the blindness of earth!

Is there not mingled a voice of wail

With the sweetest tones of the young spring gale? If like infancy's joyous laugh we rise,

Pass we not onward like manhood's sighs?

"Though flowers may gladden our path to-day,

When to-morrow we come they have passed away;
And the cheerful smile and the rosy hue
From the cheek of beauty have faded too,
And our gentle whispers no more impart
A feeling of joy to her youthful heart.

"We but do the will of our Master here,
Our joy is found in a holier sphere;

We are born in Heaven,-
‚—can our purer breath
Pass mirthfully over the fields of Death?

For what is earth, with its transient bloom

And fleeting charms, but a flower-wreathed tomb?"

IANTHE.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

1

The Philosophy of Language Illustrated; an entirely New System of Grammar, wholly divested of Scholastic Rubbish, of Traditionary Falsehood and Absurdity, and reduced to the Principles of Fact and Common Sense, according to the Real Nature, Genius, and Idiom of the English Tongue. Designed for Colleges, Academies, and District Schools in the United States. By JOHN SHERMAN. Trenton Falls, Oneida County, New York. Danby & Maynard. 1826. 12mo. pp. 324. HERE, again, we have a "true English Grammar,"* from one of those zealous grammarians, who occasionally come before the public to set up a new system of their own, or to propose some change in the old, and who belabor, without mercy, all those who have been unfortunate enough to have written on the subject of grammar before them. The very title of the work has a fearfully belligerent aspect, and hurls defiance in the teeth of the enemy. The Dedication, also, gives manifest proof of the author's want of respect for ancient prejudices and traditionary absurdities. It is placed, not according to the old manner, at the beginning, but at the end of the work, and with the greatest propriety in the world, since nobody writes his dedication till he has finished his book. We dare say, that it was mere inadvertence in the author which prevented the Preface from being placed at the end of the work also.

It will be recelected, that our venerable philologist, Mr. Webster, skirmished a good deal among the grammarians in his younger days, and, like the rest of that discourteous brotherhood, was not always disposed to pay much deference to the opinions, or even to the understanding, of those with whom he differed. And now we have a younger and still more hardy knight of the quill bearding that respectable veteran in the very fortress which he formerly maintained with so much valor and heroic contempt of the enemy. The following passage is a sample of the manner in which our author is wont to speak both of the merits of his predecessors and his own.

"We see here, that these leading-strings (as.I have most modestly termed them) are actually CABLES with an ANCHOR at the end, sufficiently ponderous to moor a first rate man-of-war. Hence, from Wallis to Webster, not a single ship of the grand squadron has either dragged her anchor or parted her cable. So fast moored has been the whole fleet in the mud of Latin and Greek, that no one has had the ability to weigh anchor and put out of port. Webster himself, who complains that his learned predecessors are in leading

* See page 201.

strings, remains as fast moored as any of them. His profound etymology, instead of proving a redeeming spirit, has added another cable and another anchor to his ship, so that he stands moored fore and aft. Least of all is there any hope of an etymologist. It is well that I am not a man of learning. Had this been my exaltation, I should have overlooked truth by an angle of at least forty-five degrees; should have been in the same predicament with my learned predecessors; and, as a writer of grammar, should have retailed, unblushingly, the same obviously absurd and palpable errors, As the case is now, my country reaps the benefit of my being a plain, unlettered man; just as in the arts, it owes its inventions to plain practical mechanics, rather than to philosophical literati." pp. 140, 141.

Notwithstanding this confidence of the author in the success of his system, we cannot conscientiously flatter him with the prospect of its speedy or universal adoption, any more than we could hold out a similar expectation to those three hundred ingenious persons, who, within the year in which this book was published, took out patents at Washington for those "inventions in the arts," of which the author speaks, from the lithontriptor down to the tincture for curing corns. Yet the book is not without its value to those who delight in minute speculations on the analysis of sentences, and we recommend its perusal to those who are dissatisfied with the old methods. The author, it is true, often strikes at random, but at other times he aims his blows with considerable effect. He gives a new classification of the parts of speech, and new names to such of the old ones as are retained in his system, and if he has done nothing more, he has at least shown how easy it is to do this.

The following specimen of his mode of reasoning on these subjects will amuse the reader. It should be mentioned, that the author puts all nouns in the possessive case by themselves, as a distinct part of speech, and calls them possessives. He is speaking of the example, "John's house," and argues from the definition that a noun is the name of a person or thing.

"Latin and Greek scholars! I am fully aware, from my own experience, of the Alpine prejudice you have here to surmount. But let me conjure you to abandon prejudices, and allow your good sense and intelligence to triumph. You do know for certainty, that the word John's, with the apostrophe, is not the name of any thing, and cannot possibly be the name of any thing in heaven or on earth. Bow, then, to the omnipotence of fact, and become the open professors of what you see to be indisputable truth." p. 35.

Vivian Grey. Part II. Philadelphia. Carey, Lea, & Carey. 1827. 2 vols. 12mo. THE Continuation of "Vivian Grey" is very much like the First Part. It exhibits the same extravagance and want of principle, the same careless, dashing style, the same crude conceptions, the same affectation, now of sentiment and now of profound reflection. It shows talent, indeed, and contains some striking ideas, but the whole mass is extremely ill concocted. This novel and "Almack's" attempt to interest the world in scenes and personages essentially worthless. Most novelists hitherto have taken for granted that there was a large fund of virtuous principle in human nature, and that a story constructed entirely out of vice, frivolity, and passion unchecked by principle, would afford a false view of society. The authors of these two novels, however, think otherwise, and have hardly hinted that the world consists of aught but knaves and fools.

The scene of this part of "Vivian Grey" is laid in Germany, whither the hero has been driven by the painful result of his premature ambition. It is divided into four books. In the first, he baffles a couple of sharpers, who had formed designs upon the pockets of himself and his friend. The scene of the exposure is considerably like one in "Granby," though by no means equal to it.

In the same book, also, he falls in love. The lady, being in a delicate state of health, is so overcome by the declaration of his passion, that she instantly expires. What becomes of Vivian thereupon, we are not immediately informed. In a subsequent part of the volume, indeed, there are some hints of a burning fever, &c.; but the chapter succeeding the lady's death, opens with our hero riding through a forest at midnight. In the course of his ride, he comes to a castle, where a scene of drunken conviviality is acted so outrageously extravagant, that the reader is almost inclined to suppose it a dream, or else that the writer is favoring us with a German tale of diablerie. In the next book, Vivian again falls in love, after a week's acquaintance, with an Austrian arch-duchess incog. The mutual passion of the parties being unfortunately discovered, he is obliged to quit the little duchy where he is residing, post-haste. In the fourth book, he is cheated by a knavish innkeeper; and we take our leave of him at the end of the second volume, thrown from his horse, and lying senseless, amid such a conflict of the elements, as the world does not witness once a century. The principal personages besides the hero are Essper George and Mr. Beckendorff. The former is a mountebank, who, out of gratitude to Vivian, becomes