light as that of the prettiest made shell, beside those whose every line and hue tells a history of the action of winds and waves and the secrets of one class of organizations.

But, do we, therefore esteem Mr. Longfellow a wilful or conscious plagiarist? By no means. It is his misfortune that other

men's thoughts are so continually in his head as to overshadow his own. The order of fine development is for the mind the same as the body, to take in just so much food as will sustain it in its exercise and assimilate with its growth. If it is so assimilated— if it becomes a part of the skin, hair and eyes of the man, it is his own, no matter whether he pick it up in the woods, or borrow from the dish of a fellow man, or receive it in the form of manna direct from Heaven. "Do you ask the genius," said Goethe, "to give an account of what he has taken from others. As well demand of the hero an account of the beeves and loaves which have nourished him to such martial stature."

But Mr. Longfellow presents us, not with a new product in which all the old varieties are melted into a fresh form, but rather with a tastefully arranged Museum, between whose glass cases are interspersed neatly potted rose trees, geraniums and hyacinths, grown by himself with aid of in-door heat. Still we must acquit him of being a willing or conscious plagiarist. Some objects in the collection are his own; as to the rest, he has the merit of appreciation, and a re-arrangement, not always judicious, but the result of feeling on his part.

Such works as Mr. Longfellow's we consider injurious only if allowed to usurp the place of better things. The reason of his being overrated here, is because through his works breathes the air of other lands, with whose products the public at large is but little acquainted. He will do his office, and a desirable one, of promoting a taste for the literature of these lands before his readers are aware of it. As a translator he shows the same qualities as in his own writings; what is forcible and compact

he does not render adequately; grace and sentiment he appreciates and reproduces. Twenty years hence, when he stands upon his own merits, he will rank as a writer of elegant, if not always accurate taste, of great imitative power, and occasional felicity in an original way, where his feelings are really stirred. He has touched no subject where he has not done somewhat that is pleasing, though also his poems are much marred by ambitious failings. As instances of his best manner we would mention "The Reaper and the Flowers," ""Lines to the Planet Mars," "A Gleam of Sunshine," and "The Village Blacksmith." two ballads are excellent imitations, yet in them is no spark of fire. In "Nuremberg" are charming passages. Indeed, the whole poem is one of the happiest specimens of Mr. L.'s poetic feeling, taste and tact in making up a rosary of topics and images. Thinking it may be less known than most of the poems we will quote it. The engraving which accompanies it of the rich old architecture is a fine gloss on its contents.

NUREMBERG.

His

In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow lands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.
Quaint old town of toil and traffic-quaint old town of art and song-
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng;
Memories of the Middle Ages, when the Emperors, rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time defying, centuries old;
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted in their uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.
In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden, planted by Queen Cunigunda's hand.
On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days,
Sat the poet Melchior, singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.
Every where I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art-
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture, standing in the common mart;
And above cathedral doorways, saints and bishops carved in stone,

By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.

In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,

And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;

In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a Pix of sculpture rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.
Here, when Art was still Religion, with a simple reverent heart,
Lived and laboured Albert Durer, the Evangelist of Art;
Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.
Emigravit is the inscription on the tomb-stone where he lies;
Dead he is not, but departed, for the Artist never dies.

Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,
That he once has trod its pavement-that he once has breathed its air!
Through those streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,
Walked of yore the Master-singers, chanting rude poetic strains.
From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,
Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.

As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he to the mystic rhyme,

And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;
Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom
In the forge's dust and cinders-in the tissues of the loom.

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.
But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;
Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Paschman's song,

As the old man grey and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.
And at night the swarth mechanic comes to drown his cank and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankards in the master's antique chair.
Vanished is the ancient splendour, and before my dreamy eye
Wave these mingling shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.
Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard;
But thy painter, Albert Durer, and Hans Sachs, thy cobbler bard.
Thus, oh, Nuremberg! a wanderer from a region far away,

As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay;
Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a flow'ret of the soil,

The nobility of labour, the long pedigree of toil.

This image of the thought gathered like a flower from the crevice of the pavement, is truly natural and poetical.

Here is another image which came into the mind of the writer as he looked at the subject of his verse, and which pleases accor

dingly. It is from one of the new poems, addressed to Driving Cloud, "chief of the mighty Omahaws."

Wrapt in thy scarlet blanket I see thee stalk through the city's

Narrow and populous streets, as once by the margin of rivers

Stalked those birds unknown, that have left us only their foot-prints.
What, in a few short years, will remain of thy race but the foot-prints?

Here is another very graceful and natural simile:

Another

A feeling of sadness and longing,

That is not akin to pain,

And resembles sorrow only

As the mist resembles rain.

I will forget her! All dear recollections,

Pressed in my heart like flowers within a book,

Shall be torn out and scattered to the winds.

The drama from which this is taken is an elegant exercise of the pen, after the fashion of the best models. Plans, figures, all are academical. It is a faint reflex of the actions and passions of men, tame in the conduct and lifeless in the characters, but not heavy, and containing good meditative passages.

And now farewell to the handsome book, with its Preciosos and Preciosas, its Vikings and knights, and cavaliers, its flowers of all climes, and wild flowers of none. We have not wished to depreciate these writings below their current value more than truth absolutely demands. We have not forgotten that, if a man cannot himself sit at the feet of the muse, it is much if he prizes those who may; it makes him a teacher to the people. Neither have we forgotten that Mr. Longfellow has a genuine respect for his pen, never writes carelessly, nor when he does not wish to, nor for money alone. Nor are we intolerant to those who prize hot-house bouquets beyond all the free beauty of nature; that helps the gardener and has its uses. Excelsior!!

But still let us not forget

SWEDENBORGIANISM.

NOBLE'S APPEAL IN BEHALF OF THE VIEWS HELD BY THE NEW (or Swedenborgian) CHURCH. Second edition, 1845. Boston: T. H. Carter & Co.-Otis Clapp.

ESSAYS BY THEOPHILUS PARSONS. Boston: Otis Clapp, School-st. 1845. THE CORNER STONE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM, by B. F. BARRETT. New York: Bartlett and Wellford, Astor House; John Allen, 139 Nassau-street, 1845.

THE claim to be the New Church, or peculiarly the founders of a New Jerusalem, is like exclusive claims to the title of Orthodox. We have no sympathy with it. We believe that all kinds of inspiration and forms of faith have been made by the power that rules the world to cooperate in the development of mental life with a view to the eventual elucidation of truth. That ruling power overrules the vanity of men, or just the contrary would ensue. For men love the letter that killeth better than the spirit that continually refreshes its immortal life. They wish to compress truth into a nut-shell that it may be grasped in the hand. They wish to feel sure that they and theirs hold it all. In vain! More incompressible than light, it flows forth anew, and, while the preacher was finishing the sermon in which he proclaimed that now the last and greatest dispensation had arrived, and that all the truth could henceforward be encased within the walls of a church-it has already sped its way to unnumbered zones, planted in myriad new-born souls the seeds of life, and wakened in myriads more a pulse that cannot be tamed down by dogma or doctrine, but must always throb at each new revelation of the glories of the infinite.