And many a deep print On the white snow's tint, Show'd the track of his footsteps to Eveleen's door. The next sun's ray Soon melted away IV. Ev'ry trace on the path where the false Lord But, though glory be gone, and though hope fade away, Thy name, loved Erin! shall live in his songs! Not ev'n in the hour, when his heart is most gay, Will he lose the remembrance of thee and thy wrongs! The stranger shall hear thy lament on his plains, The sigh of thy harp shall be sent o'er the Till thy masters themselves, as they rivet deep, thy chains, Shall pause at the song of their captive, and weep! He whose griefs have, at any time, been soothed by the 'soul-subduing' accents of female kindness, will feel the pulses of his heart quickened by the kindred glow of these wonderfully expressive stanzas. Sweet voice of comfort! 'twas like the stealing Of summer wind thro' some wreathed shell; Each secret winding, each inmost feeling I'd live years of grief and pain An application, which we need not point out, has been made of the following song, in which there breathes an air of 'sober sadness,' that might well suit the reality. I. When first I met thee, warm and young, I saw thee change, yet still relied, But go, deceiver! go, The heart whose hopes could make it Deserves that thou should'st break it! When every tongue thy follies nam'd, Some gleams of future glory. Conspir'd to wrong, to slight thee; Some day, perhaps, thou'lt waken Even now, though youth its bloom has shed, For all thy guilty splendour! And days may come, thou false one! yet, On her who, in thy fortune's fall, With smiles had still receiv'd thee, 'Tis weakness to upbraid thee; Than guilt and shame have made thee. The length of our preceding extracts, leave us room for but few of what Mr. Moore is pleased to term his 'Gospel Melodies.' We cannot but fancy that there is full as much fond regret, as 6 godly sorrow,' in the following melody' entitled Penitence.' 6 Go, let me weep! there's bliss in tears, When he who sheds them, inly feels Some lingering stain of early years Effac'd by every drop that steals. The fruitless showers of worldly wo Fall dark to earth and never rise: While tears that from repentance flow, In bright exhalement reach the skies. Effac'd by every drop that steals. More idly than the summer's wind, There is, in our apprehension, more of poetry, than of good taste, or reverence, in the following address to the Deity. I. Thou art, oh God! the life and light Of all this wond'rous world we see; Its glow, by day, its smile by night, Are but reflections caught from thee. Where'er we turn thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are Thine. II. When day with farewell beam, delays Among the opening clouds of even, And we can almost think we gaze Thro' golden vistas into heaven; Those hues that make the Sun's decline So soft, so radiant, Lord! are Thine. III. When night, with wings of starry gloom, O'ershadows all the earth and skies, Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume Is sparkling with unnumber'd eyes;-That sacred gloom, those fires divine, So grand, so countless, Lord! are Thine. IV. When youthful spring around us breathes, Thy spirit warms her fragrant sigh; And ev'ry flower the summer wreathes Is born beneath thy kindled eye. Where'er we turn, thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are Thine. We have now selected from this publication, not, indeed all that we admire, but what we deem most decidedly excellent in it. We have not paused to comment-probably our readers would not have listened to us if we had-we wisely said every thing we intended to say in the way of criticism, before we commenced with the extracts; well knowing it was our best chance of sufficient occasion for so doing. But commanding attention. What we have it is pleasanter to applaud than to cenomitted is, generally, very far below what sure; and besides, we prefer dissemiwe have copied, and fully justifies our nating what we approve, to circulating preliminary remarks. Did we delight what we condemn. E. in finding fault, we might have shown 1441 ART. 5. The Village; a Poem. With an Appendix. 12mo. pp. 180. Edward Little & Co. Portland. 1816. HIS book, which is about equally Tdivided between the poem and the Appendix, appears to be the production of a young man of extensive reading; and in the dedication, which is to the people, is offered to the world with a laudable and republican modesty. The intentions of the author are undoubtedly good, and, making a fair allowance for that crudeness in the thoughts, which so universally marks juvenile compositions, together with the exception of occasionally a little fanaticism of feeling, the general correctness of his principles does credit to the endowments of his mind, while the warmth of his heart, and the generosity of his sentiments, are befitting his time of life, and worthy the liberality of his education. But though we regard the author with esteem, and think be is a kind of man with whom we should be happy to cultivate a personal acquaintance, yet we cannot perceive, from the present specimen of his talents, that he is much of a poet. His knowledge of history appears, indeed, to be extensive, and will doubtless be of great service to him in the career of his profession, which he gives us to understand is the law-but something more is necessary to constitute a poet than mere memory, though well replenished with facts, or sensibility to the miseries which men have suffered from the prevalence of error and abuse of power, however quick and indignant that sensibility may be. His reading has clearly as sisted him in forming correct views of the general principles by which society should be regulated, and expanded his sympathies, more than it has quickened his invention, or enriched his imagination; and he is obviously deficient in that transforming quality which characterizes genuine poetical talent, to which all the other faculties of the true poet serve as purveyors-and by which, every thing stored in the memory, or submitted to the observation, is at once, as by the touch of Midas, converted into gold. It may have been a useful exercise to the author to try his hand at versification in some of his leisure hours, for the sake of enlarging his vocabulary, but it was unadvised to print. The putting into rhyme of a few unimportant facts and common-place remarks, could not profit the community, as it teaches them nothing, and is injurious to the interests of literature, because it burdens patronage, and abridges the just reward of genuine merit. The secret, however, of this publication is, we suspect, a feeling which the author of 'The Village' shares in common with his countrymen. This feeling is an incorrigible and nettlesome impatience at remaining in obscurity; and there is no trait more conspicuous in the American character. All, in all ranks, are discontented in a state of pupilage, and anxious to be quit of parental control, to see their indentures expire, to obtain their diplomas, and to come of age. The youth of the present day, and especially of our own country, seem to think it incompatible with their dignity, to wait for the time appointed by nature and good taste for assuming the toga virilis ; and if they cannot quicken the pinions of time, and hasten the happy period when they may claim a legal equality discriminative and accurate perception with men, they endeavour to find a re- of the appearances of material nature. medy for the juvenility of their years, In proof of his deficiency in the first in the premature mannishness of their mentioned qualification, we would remanners, and come forward with an fer to the work generally, and the inair of consequence, as if age and expe- difference, not to say wearisomeness, rience had given them a right to assume, which we felt before we finished the when in sober truth, their ignorance re- perusal of it. In proof of his deficiency quires the laborious exertions of some in the other qualification, we would faithful instructor, and their imperti- refer the reader to the first page of nence deserves the rod. [This dispo- the poem. The poem commences sition of our countrymen, though nearly with a prospect of the White Hills of allied to that spirit of enterprise for New Hampshire, in the vicinity of which they are so honourably distin- which it was written, and after saying guished, is, we conceive, peculiarly de- that they look as if all the world had trimental to the character of our litera- been heaped there in confusion by ture, and has, unhappily, been fostered the rushing currents of the deluge, in by the numerous literary institutions, the course of which stale conceit, he on a small scale, with which the land incorrectly makes as if respond to is overrun. The idea of a liberal edu- 'such' and 'so,' and uses the imperfect cation seems to be confined to the ac- tense after it, when he ought to use quisition of a diploma, and one college the pluperfect, he goes on to speak of can confer this as well as another. a thunder storm that convolved' upon Thus, by the multiplication of ill-en- the mountains, and which, with the dowed seminaries, the funds destined help of a pretty strong wind, contrived to the nourishment of learning are disi- to make considerable noise, and do a pated, and multitudes of half-educated good deal of damage among the trees. candidates for public confidence and Notwithstanding the notable effects of honour, are annually turned forth to this storm, however, we must object crowd the professions, to their own dis- to it as not drawn from nature. credit and the injury of the community, thunder storm which could discharge when, with half the expense actually from its cloudy batteries such quantibestowed upon their education, they ties of electric fluid as to make the might fit themselves to become truly tops of the White Hills tremble, would useful and respectable, by assisting to rarely exhibit so much nimbleness and develope the physical resources of gayety of evolution as is ascribed to their country, and by increasing the the one under consideration; which, numbers and elevating the character except that it is rather more blustering, of those middle classes of society, resembles a copious April shower. which constitute the bone and muscle As a specimen of the tameness of his of the state. fancy, and the crudeness of his thoughts, we shall now introduce the author's compendious system of cosmogony, conveyed in the way of question and answer, the most approved method, now-a-days, of teaching all the sciences. The scope of these remarks we are inclined to think will not apply to the author of The Village' in his professional character, but we think they do apply to him as a candidate for the honours of poetry; and to the consideration of his work we will now return. The qualifications for writing poetry, in which the author of The Village' appears to be most particularly deficient, are richness of fancy and a quick A The first question is, how came the White Hills, and all unevennesses on the earth's surface to exist? and the next is, why was not the earth smooth and even? Though the author has once told us that they look as if they fame of those nations which were disowed their origin to the flood, yet he tinguished for the cultivation of letters seems to think that rather a pleasant and the arts, and of which nothing but conjecture than a well-established theo- their memory remains, he says— ry, and proceeds to detail his system in the words following, viz. 'Not so allow'd the all controling laws, To concrete masses scatter'd atoms hurl'd Yon Hills sublime, which greet the sailor's As, far from home, he seeks his native land, Whilst hope elates or apprehension chills, Not such the end of proud Palmyra's name, The solemn dirge the mournful Muses raise, When falls the hero or expires the sage, Not one regret has Art or Science felt, The shroud of darkness mantled all the wild, hand: But busy Art has wav'd her fairy wand, feed.' The author then goes on in a trotting kind of style, which always indi cates a considerable share of self-complacency, and is very well calculated for a long journey, to give the history of the Indians who once dwelt in that part of the country, and after telling us that the warriors of 'Pequawkett,' ('Phœbus, what a name!') got their living by hunting and trapping; and methinking that he was present at an aboriginal battle, and could see the hurtling of the arrows in the air, and after anathematizing all the native tribes for their ferocity, concludes this part of the poem with the vision of a Sachem rising from the grave, who sings a tolerable song, to we know not what tune, and is followed by the author himself with some of the best Lines in the book. Contrasting the silence in which the savage tribes passed from the earth, and the stillness in which they rest, with the never dying myrtle, or the olive, and threatens to Soon we come to the description of a passionate little river called Saco, and relating what havoc it makes among the saw-logs, and spar-timber, and rail-fences, &c. particularly in the spring of the year when its choler rises highest, he gives us a lesson upon lumbering and clearing, in the course of which he notices the impartiality of the axes in that part of the country, which cut down not only the pine trees, but the beeches, and birches and hemlocks. He claims immunity, however, for the maple on account of its sap, and pronounces it worthy of greater homage than the vine, or the |