Tell me, pale queen of the stilly night,

And ye stars from your thrones of light,
Where are there hearts like thy pure sky,
Where man is not born to die?
"We have brightened at eve, and grown

Through the lapse of untold years,

dim at morn,

And know that the nations of men are born
To perish in grief and tears.

We have seen the worshipped grow faint and gray,
We have seen the good and the wise

And the beautiful silently pass away,

As a cloud in autumn skies."

Oh! it is not for man, frail child of care!
To live, as the stars live, without a change;
The wind is oft hushed in the stirring air,
And the cloud is oft stayed in its onward range,
And man is oft borne, in his prime of years,
To the cold, still dust, with many tears.

I. M.

SONG.

A PALE weeping-willow stands yonder alone,
And mournfully waves in the Zephyr's light breath;
Beneath, in its shadows, is sculptured a stone,
That tells of the maiden, who sleeps there in death.

She came to the village,-a stranger unknown,— Though fair, as the first flower that opens in May, The touches of health from her features had flown, And she drooped, like that flower in its time of decay.

She told not her story-she spoke not of sorrow,
But laid herself down, and, heart-broken, she sighed ;
And, ere the hills blushed in the dawn of the morrow,
Uncomplaining and silent, the sweet stranger died.

Apart and alone, the sad villagers made
A cold quiet tomb in the heart of the vale;
And many a stranger has wept in the shade
Of yon weeping-willow, to hear of the tale.

If any lover of the old Scotch song, The Yellow Haired Laddie, is willing to give up Ramsay's words, in which it is usually sung, for others, less poetical, doubtless, but more consonant to the sentiment of the music, he may, perhaps, be content with the above, till he gets a better.

BILDERDYCK.

SONG.

I HAVE a sprig of myrtle,

Which once you gave to me,

The only gift, save words and smiles,
I ever had from thee.

There's never a twilight passes,
But I gaze on its bright green,
And press to my lips its glossy leaves,
And weep-o'er what has been.

Its sweet white flower has faded,
The petals still are there;

But, ah! how shrunk and withered,
How unlike what they were!

Thy love was like that flower,
When in its pride and spring;

'T is now more like that flower
In blight and withering—

These green leaves are the memories

Of our early love, to me;

The more tears I weep over them
The fresher will they be.

E.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

Letters from the Bahama Islands. Written in 1823-4. Philadelphia. Carey & Lea 18mo. pp. 207.

THIS book is not, as one might from its title be led to imagine, a mere account of the Islands from which the letters purport to be written. It aims at something more, at mingling the incidents of a fictitious tale with the description of the country and its inhabitants. We are sorry for this, since the narrative of the author's residence in the Bahama Islands, which, judging from internal evidence, actually took place, and which would, we doubt not, have furnished matter for a pleasant book, is encumbered, and almost deprived of its interest, by being interwoven with a story, which we cannot think very well contrived nor very skilfully told. The heroine of the tale, who is graced with the well-sounding name of Adela Del Lorraine, is introduced to the reader at the moment of her departure from London for the Bahama Islands, in company with her mother, who has been advised by her physicians to visit the West Indias for her health. A young lady, by the name of Adelaide De Souza, who has somehow or other been placed under the protection of the mother of Adela, accompanies them on the voyage. Among the passengers in the same vessel, is a young man of very solemn aspect and mysterious manners, who smiles but once during the whole passage, and who sings during a storm in such a manner as to keep Adela awake a whole night. After the family have been settled for some time on one of the Bahama Islands, this stranger makes his appearance under the romantic title of the Chevalier Grammont, becomes an inmate of the family, and the lover of Adelaide, and relaxes wonderfully from his gravity. As for Adela, she is of course delighted with her new situation; she is charmed with the serene climate; she is in ecstasies at the rich vegetation and beautiful flowers of the island; she becomes in love with its picturesque rocks and resounding ocean; grows passionately fond of its beautiful moonlight, and learns to despise the multitudes of mosquitoes, sand-flies, centipedes, cockroaches, lizards, and the thousand other agreeable insects and reptiles of the country. She is especially in raptures with the hospitable and sprightly manners of the inhabitants; she goes with them to marooning parties, as they are called, where the gentlemen drink

great quantities of champaigne; she plays at cards and she plays at billiards; she takes sentimental walks by moonlight, and delightful drives after dinner; attends petits soupers and conversaziones, and "charming balls," and writes a great many ecstatic letters about these things to a female friend in America. In the mean, time, however, the illness of her mother increases; and Adela becomes somewhat melancholy. At length, in expectation of approaching death, her mother discloses to her certain unhappy events of her past life, which she had hitherto kept secret. She relates the story of her marriage to the father of Adela, a native of France, but educated in America, and of a strange passion conceived for her by the Chevalier de Courtenaye (nobody certainly understands the art of selecting names for the personages of a novel better than our author), a friend of her husband, and a very discreet and exemplary young gentlemen. Her husband discovers the love of De Courtenaye for his wife, upon which he becomes furious, and drives her from his presence. All this while, Mrs. Del Lorraine is ignorant of the passion with which she had inspired De Courtenaye; but at this critical moment he confesses it to her on his knees, in a very explicit manner, declaring, at the same time, that it was perfectly platonic; that it was founded on her virtues; that it had no other object than to be near her, and to contemplate her perfections; and that he had intended never to reveal it. After this very necessary declaration, he takes leave of her for ever. She goes to France with her infant daughter, who is educated there, under the protection of Count Victor Adolphe Del Lorraine, her husband's brother. The Count dying, she goes to England, to live with her brother, Sir Charles Fitz Clarence (another well-chosen and euphonic name), who, upon being told of the conduct of her husband, resolves, like a valorous knight, to seek him out, and to cut off his head; but is, at length, pacified by the entreaties of his unhappy sister, and consents to put up his sword. At length her mental sufferings prey upon her constitution, and she resolves to try the climate of the West Indies. Soon after this disclosure a letter arrives from De Courtenaye in America, mentioning, that he had discovered the retreat of the father of Adela, now recovered from his insanity, but near the end of his life. Adela stays to close the eyes of her mother; she then sets out for America, and arrives just in time to receive her dying father's blessing. She sees him buried in the midst of the solitudes where he had spent the last years of his life, and then returns to the Bahama Islands, to the society of her friend Adelaide, now happily mar

ried to the Chevalier Grammont, who turns out to be a young De Courtenaye, son of the platonic lover of Mrs. Del Lorraine. It seems to us, that there are several objections to this plot, independent of what some might be harsh enough to call its absurdity, and we regret that the author should have been induced by the desire of writing a novel, to incorporate it with the much better materials in his possession. The author certainly possesses a pretty talent for description, although it is sometimes misapplied. Thus, for example, we cannot greatly admire the scene in which the governor comes into the council-chamber, in his yellow uniform, attended by a "fine flourish of trumpets and the roll of drums," and the clerk comes forward, and, "bowing gracefully and reverentially to the governor," reads, "in a clear and sonorous voice, each act that had been passed by the assembly," to which the governor affixes his name, and then makes a short and handsome speech. But, on the other hand, the description of a West India hurricane, in the night, as it appeared to a West India family, shut up in one of the frail dwellings of that country, is given with a good deal of skill and effect.

Almack's; a Novel. Two Volumes. New York. 1827. J. & J. Harper and Others. 12mo. pp. 295 and 304.

We have never been at Almack's, neither have most of our readers enjoyed that glorification; though it seems that Mr. John Dunn Hunter did. We know not which of the lady patronesses gave Hunter the freedom of the establishment; but it is currently reported, that there was a scuffle among them for the proprietorship of that pseudo-civilized salvage man proper. It is, however, certain, that John came over some of the nobility and gentry very prettily; and we wish most fervently, that we could get him to give us an article on this subject, in connexion with his other adventures; as it would, perhaps, be as useful and ornamental to our journal, as his Narrative was to himself and his lionizers. We are proud of him, as our countryman, for being one of the sublimest humbugs, since the days of Psalmanazar; and our only quarrel with him arises from his having occasioned the quantities of tears, which were shed by beautiful eyes, when he threatened to strip, and turn as wild an Indian as he said he had been before.

Of this, however, en passant, and par parenthèse, to borrow the mosaic jargon of the book we are professing to notice. Knowing nothing of Almack's, nor of the people that frequent it, we can only speak of this performance as a literary work.