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She too is strong, and might not chafe in vain
Against them, but shake off the vampire train
That batten on her blood, and break their net.
Yes, she shall look on brighter days, and gain
The meed of worthier deeds; the moment set
To rescue and raise up, draws near-but is not yet.

Wit and humour are rarely attempted by the American muse, and then generally with slender success. We might have said that a court and a circle of gay nobility were requisite for this light species of composition, did we not recollect the names of Shakspeare and Burns. The American mind seems, however, to have a sort of earnest and determined reality, ill suited to these playful effusions. Bryant has attempted repeatedly a sort of light irony, which is well conceived, but somewhat rudely developed. The following, from "Address to a Musquito," may be given as an instance, with the remark, that the insinuation against the fair leaders of fashion in New York, of a taste for artificial adornment, has been made from other quarters :

At length thy pinions flutter'd in Broadway;
Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks kiss'd
By wanton airs, and eyes whose killing ray

Shone through the snowy veils like stars through mist;
And fresh as morn, on many a cheek and chin,

Bloom'd the bright blood through the transparent skin.

Oh, these were sights to touch an anchorite!
What do I hear thy slender voice complain?

Thou wailest, when I talk of beauty's light,

As if it brought the memory of pain:

Thou art a wayward being-well-come near,

And pour thy tale of sorrow in my ear.

What say'st thou-slanderer !-rouge makes thee sick?
And China bloom at best is sorry food;

And Rowland's kalydor, if laid on thick,

Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood.

Go! 'twas a just reward that met thy crime

But shun the sacrilege another time.

The same train is followed up perhaps more happily in another poem, "Spring in Town.”

-Here are eyes that shame the violet,
Or the dark drop that on the pansy lies,
And foreheads, white, as when in clusters set,
The anemones by forest fountains rise;

And the spring-beauty boasts no tenderer streak,
Than the soft red on many a youthful cheek.
And thick about those lovely temples lie

Locks that the lucky Vignardonne has curl'd,
Thrice happy man, whose trade it is to buy,

And bake, and braid those love-knots of the world;
Who curls of every glossy colour keepest,
And sellest, it is said, the blackest cheapest.

Then, henceforth, let no maid nor matron grieve
To see her locks of an unlovely hue,
Frouzy or thin, for liberal art shall give
Such piles of curls as nature never knew.
Eve, with her veil of tresses, at the sight

Had blush'd, outdone, and own'd herself a fright.

James G. Percival may be ranked immediately under Bryant, to whom indeed he is preferred by some, but we think with very little reason. He appears, however, to be a man of more varied attainments, and in this respect superior to almost any other of his countrymen. He was born in 1795, at Berlin, Connecticut; where his father, an intelligent physician, carefully watched over his mental culture. Having soon mastered all that was to be learned at a village-school, he devoted himself to private study, shunning the society of schoolfellows, and spending his time in his apartment, or in the depth of the woods. He thus acquired a vast store of knowledge, yet contracted also a recluse and sensitive disposition, which was unfavourable to his progress in life. He is represented as most completely looking the poet, with feeling, melancholy, and enthusiasm traced in his features, a startled timidity in his air, and an eye bright with mysterious fire. After completing his studies at Yale College, he was appointed in 1824 professor of chemistry in the military academy at West Point. From ill health, or, by some accounts, from an incident which wounded his too sensitive pride, he threw up the situation, and has since depended almost wholly on the scanty remuneration obtained in his country for literary employment. He translated Malte-Brun's geography, and laboured hard upon the great etymological dictionary of Dr Webster. He resides at Newhaven,

and has recently been appointed to make the geological survey of Connecticut.

Percival's good poems are bold, lofty, energetic, and full of thought, but little polished, and presenting occasional rudenesses and blemishes which Bryant has carefully avoided. What is more, there is a want of imagery, softness, and variety; the language is too abstract and speculative; the merit being rather perhaps that of oratory than of poetry. The picture of his youthful emotions in the contemplation of nature, though we can only extract a part, will be read, we think, with no little interest :

Well I remember, in my boyish days,

How deep the feeling, when my eye look'd forth
On nature, in her loveliness and storms;

How my heart gladden'd, as the light of spring
Came from the sun, with zephyrs, and with showers,
Waking the earth to beauty, and the woods
To music, and the atmosphere to blow,
Sweetly and calmly, with its breath of balm.
Oh! how I gazed upon the dazzling blue
Of summer's heaven of glory, and the waves,
That roll'd, in bending gold, o'er hill and plain;
And on the tempest, when it issued forth,
In folds of blackness, from the northern sky,
And stood above the mountains, silent, dark,
Frowning, and terrible; then sent abroad
The lightning, as its herald, and the peal,
That roll'd in deep, deep volleys, round the hills,
The warning of its coming, and the sound,
That usher'd in its elemental war.

And, Oh! I stood, in breathless longing fix'd,
Trembling, and yet not fearful, as the clouds
Heaved their dark billows on the roaring winds,
That sent, from mountain top and bending wood,
A long hoarse murmur, like the rush of waves,
That burst, in foam and fury, on the shore.
Nor less the swelling of my heart, when high
Rose the blue arch of autumn, cloudless, pure
As nature, at her dawning, when she sprang

Fresh from the hand that wrought her; where the eye
Caught not a speck upon the soft serene,
To stain its deep cerulean, but the cloud
That floated, like a lonely spirit, there,
White as the snow of Zemla, or the foam
That on the mid-sea tosses, cinctured round,
In easy undulations, with a belt

Woven of bright Apollo's golden hair.

Nor, when that arch, in winter's clearest night,
Mantled in ebon darkness, strew'd with stars
Its canopy, that seem'd to swell, and swell
The higher, as I gazed upon it, till,
Sphere after sphere evolving on the height
Of heaven, the everlasting throne shone through,
In glory's effulgence, and a wave,

Intensely bright, roll'd, like a fountain, forth
Beneath its sapphire pedestal, and stream'd

Down the long galaxy, a flood of snow,

Bathing the heavens in light, the spring that gush'd
In overflowing richness from the breast

Of all-maternal nature. These I saw,

And felt to madness; but my full heart gave

No utterance to the ineffable within.

The address "To the Eagle" is one of the most finished and characteristic of his pieces :—

Bird of the broad and sweeping wing,
Thy home is high in heaven,

Where wide the storms their banners fling,

And the tempest clouds are driven.

Thy throne is on the mountain top;
Thy fields, the boundless air;

And hoary peaks, that proudly prop
The skies, thy dwellings are.

Thou sittest like a thing of light,
Amid the noontide blaze:

The midway sun is clear and bright;
It cannot dim thy gaze.

Thy pinions, to the rushing blast,

O'er the bursting billow, spread,

Where the vessel plunges, hurry past,

Like an angel of the dead.

Thou art perch'd aloft on the beetling crag,

And the waves are white below,

And on, with a haste that cannot lag,

They rush in an endless flow.

Again thou hast plumed thy wing for flight

To lands beyond the sea,

And away like a spirit wreathed in light,
Thou hurriest, wild and free.

Lord of the boundless realm of air,

In thy imperial name,

The hearts of the bold and ardent dare

The dangerous path of fame.

Beneath the shade of thy golden wings,

The Roman legions bore,

From the river of Egypt's cloudy springs,
Their pride, to the polar shore.

He has celebrated on several occasions, and with considerable power, the praises of liberty. The poem entitled "New England" may be given as a good example; but we prefer quoting several stanzas from that entitled "Liberty to Athens."

The flag of Freedom floats once more
Around the lofty Parthenon;
It waves, as waved the palm of yore,
In days departed long and gone;
As bright a glory, from the skies,

Pours down its light around those towers,
And once again the Greeks arise,

As in their country's noblest hours;
Their swords are girt in Virtue's cause,
MINERVA'S sacred hill is free-

Oh! may she keep her equal laws,

While man shall live, and time shall be.

The pride of all her shrines went down ;
The Goth, the Frank, the Turk, had reft
The laurel from her civic crown;

Her helm by many a sword was cleft:
She lay among her ruins low-

Where grew the palm, the cypress rose,
And, crush'd and bruised by many a blow,
She cower'd beneath her savage foes;
But now again she springs from earth,
Her loud, awakening trumpet speaks;
She rises in a brighter birth,

And sounds redemption to the Greeks.

It is the classic jubilee

Their servile years have roll'd away;
The clouds that hover'd o'er them flee,
They hail the dawn of Freedom's day;
From heaven the golden light descends,
The times of old are on the wing,
And Glory there her pinion bends,

And Beauty wakes a fairer spring;
The hills of Greece, her rocks, her waves,
Are all in triumph's pomp array'd;
A light that points their tyrants' graves,
Plays round each bold Athenian's blade.

Richard H. Dana was born in 1787, of a good family, and son of an eminent lawyer, who became chief-justice of Massachusetts. He himself was bred to the bar, but, like others smitten by the muses, soon relinquished that profession, and even a seat in the legislature, de

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