are sure to reach the kindly heart. We put stress on something beside this. Our author has wrought out some creations of small bulk, but of grand conception. We speak of them as fraught with the same expression as the 'Dying Gladiator' at Rome. He has represented the PEOPLE, as one body, in the throes of that suffering which has so long racked the frame, the big muscle of English labor swelled to the utmost tension, a picture of gigantic agony. We have not the work at hand, nor have we seen it for a year; but carry a distinct impression of its energy, with scarce the remembrance of a word. We know that it was the picture of a man, a something gaunt and terrible in the boldness of outline, asserting in sepulchral monotone a right to live by virtue of hard labor, betwixt 'the day-light and dark.' To conceive a clear image of man's distress is to put one in another's stead, and to follow afar off the grandest example on record. The poor cannot speak; or, could he, there would be nothing so convincing as the coldness of his hearth-side and the silent eloquence of his despair. That would present only an instance; but the poet can embody a universal suffering, and excite an active pity over the whole realm. The majesty of art is proudly vindicated, and no theme has grander elements than the convulsive struggling of the POOR. If all who have a reputation to gain in literature would do as much for this class as Thomas Hood! His very smiles are nothing but the light of heaven beautifully shining through his tears. There is no antagonism; dew and sunshine sparkle together on the same leaf. It is the union of nature. A beam shed on a globule reflects a little world of gorgeous scenery, and a heart must be brim-full to mirror the more perfect images of joy. Does not Hood's 'Song of the Shirt,' with his other writings, illustrate this? Can one chirrup like the grasshopper, to which Anacreon has written his Ode, without being similarly fed? We find that the realms of mirth and pathos are, for the most part, ruled over by the same potentates. He who could go into so fantastic a discourse upon buttons' indited Le Fevre's tender story, and that Tale of a Prisoner, of which the burden is: Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, still thou art a bitter draught; and though thousands in all ages have been made to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account.'

An 'Ode to Melancholy' is before us, which, had the author written nothing else, would have entitled him to the name of poet. It is a master-piece of artful contrivance, whereby the rhyme and rhythm are so arranged, by an inflection of exquisite melody, as to accord with the fitful changing, sighs, and whimpering of a half sick heart. The rise and falling are beautiful as a wind-harp's; the vibrations of the dying note almost impalpably fine. Rather we might compare the effect of it to a day in April. First a gleam of sunshine driven away by hurrying clouds; then a short gusty sobbing, with a few rain-drops; then a wrestling of opposite winds, and eddying of the dry leaves; and, without any great violence, fickle and changeful throughout:

'Он, clasp me, sweet, whilst thou art mine,

And do not take my tears amiss;

For tears must flow to wash away

A thought that shows so stern as this!

Forgive, if somewhile I forget

In wo to come the present bliss:

As frightened PROSERPINE let fall
Her flowers at the sight of Dis,
Even so the dark and bright will kiss.
The sunniest things throw sternest shade,
And there is even a happiness

That makes the heart afraid!

'Now let us with a spell invoke

The full-orbed moon to grieve our eyes;
Not bright, not bright, but with a cloud
Lapped all about her, let her rise
All pale and dim, as if from rest
The ghost of the late buried sun
Had crept into the skies.

The moon! She is the source of sighs,
The very face to make us sad;

If but to think in other times

The same calm quiet look she had,

As if the world held nothing base

Of vile and mean, of fierce and bad;

The same fair light that shone in streams,

The fairy lamp that charmed the lad;
For so it is with spent delights,

She taunts men's brains, and makes them mad.

All things are touched with melancholy,
Born of the secret soul's mistrust,

To feel her fair ethereal wings

Weighed down with vile degraded dust;

Even the bright extremes of joy

Bring in conclusions of disgust,

Like the sweet blossomns of the May,
Whose fragrance ends in must.
Oh, give her then her tribute just,

Her sighs and tears, and musings holy!
There is no music in the life

That sounds with idiot laughter solely;
There's not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chords of Melancholy.'

Much as our author has written, he has perhaps suggested more, and so fulfilled the idea which we had conceived of a high creative faculty. There is no end of the lights and reflections of a true work; with the first inspiration breathed into it there is the inherent principle of a new life. Every thing grand in art is a conception begotten from something previously grand. If we see bridges, battlements and gorgeous scenery among the accidental coals of a winter's hearth, each according to his degree of fancy, what a temple of beauty may be built, like magic, by intenser scrutiny into the fires of Genius! is after all a dead work which does not so expand the mind of the beholder as to carry it somewhat beyond the circumference of itself. In how small a compass may be clasped the works of Shakspeare; yet how illimitably does he carry us beyond the sphere to which his scenes are restricted! What 'spirits' does he conjure from the 'vasty deep!' Every great man is his debtor; and this forms part of immortality. The parent lives in his latest progeny.

That

In conclusion, we believe that the writings of Hood are not doomed to perish; they are too nearly allied to the spirit of that humanity which he loved. We may say of him, in his own words at the grave of Elia:' 'However much of him has departed, there is still more of him that cannot die; for as long as humanity endures and man holds fellowship with man, his spirit will still be extant.' We will add that he has left behind him a name transcending even that of a poet: THE FRIEND OF THE POOR.

THE OLD TIMES.

BY O. D. STUART.

LET them praise the old times, praise them all who may,
With their racks and gibbets, seeking but to slay,
With their swords and cannon, holding bloody sway;
Still the world keeps wagging, wagging on its way,
Surely growing better, wiser every day,
Spite what bigot doubters otherwise may say.

Let them praise the old times, with their cursing creeds,
With their feudal tyrants and their slaughter deeds,
With their millions trampled under foot like reeds;
Still the world keeps wagging, onward still proceeds,
Giving light for darkness, charities for greeds,
Growing better, wiser as the past recedes.

Let them praise the old times, when the tongue was tied,
When the thought was shackled, else was crucified,
When the sword was master, and might deified;
Still the world keeps wagging since good JESU died,
Growing better, wiser, spite of bigot's pride,
Better spite of slander, wiser though belied.

Let them praise the old times, praise them all who can,
With their sneer at progress, making slave of man,
With their crowns and crosiers stalking in the van;
Still the world keeps wagging, running as it ran,
Spite of kingly cursing, spite of priestly ban,
Growing better, wiser with its lengthened span.

Let them praise the old times, when, for JESUS' sake,
Heretics filled dungeons, fed the block and stake;
When the blood of martyrs flowed in freedom's wake;
Still the world keeps wagging, wagging-it shall break
One by one man's fetters, bidding tyrants quake;
Lovers of the old times the most of them should make.

Let them praise the old times-I am for the new;
For the times that welcome aught that 's good or true;
Times that can defend themselves 'gainst the bigot's view;
For the world keeps wagging, spite the sneering crew
Who would pin to whipping-posts surely me and you,
If, as in the old times, they their will could do.

Let them have the old times; give the new to me,
When the hand is braver, and the tongue more free;

When knowledge maketh empire in heaven, earth and sea;

When science is not scoffed, whatever it may be ;

When NEWTON, more than pope or king, is dear to you and me, And FULTON, with his head of steam and scanty pedigree.

Let them have their old time, mumbling over beads,
With knowledge in the cloisters and freedom choked by creeds;
Give to me the new, with its steam and lightning steeds,
With hearts for braver triumphs and hands for braver deeds,
Which follows not a beaten path, but venturously leads,
And evermore, by faith and will, in what it dares succeeds.

Let them have their old times, praise them as they may,
When the many only knew to suffer and obey,
When the highest lesson taught was ever fast and pray;'
Still the world keeps wagging, wagging on its way,
Surely growing better, wiser every day,

Spite what bigot doubters otherwise may say.

TALES OF THE BACK PARLOR.

NUMBER ONE: CONCLUDED.

ASCENDING a flight of stone-steps guarded on either side by two ferocious images, we entered the wide doorway, which swung open at our approach. In the spacious hall into which we were ushered we found the countess herself, who graciously extended to us a welcome which contrasted strangely with the antiquated formality which had been thus far observed. It was a welcome, too, widely differing from that which usually greets the stranger on entering a lordly dwelling in our own time. It was of that free and generous nature, that open and cordial character, which dispels all backwardness and reserve, and places the guest as much at his ease as if he were entering the mansion of his father. Our own age may be in advance of the days of Richard and Saladin in literature, science and art; it may boast of cultivated and tempered refinement, but in my opinion it has proportionately retrograded in genuine, unaffected hospitality.

The countess possessed a remarkable face and figure. Though somewhat advanced in life, her features betrayed none of the marks of long-flown years. The lustre of her eye was yet unfaded, and her neatly-gathered locks were still as thick and glossy as in the days of her maidenhood. She was rather above the usual height, firm and erect in her carriage, and proud and haughty in her air and mien. Not a single article of modern apparel was upon her person; her weeds of mourning were not yet laid aside, but they were cut and fitted in a fashion which I had never seen before.

The furniture and decorations of the room into which we were immediately ushered were such as might have been expected in a building where no invasion had been made upon its antiquity within the memory of its oldest tenant. The room itself was apparently used as the parlor, or rather what we would call the sitting-room of the family; for it was large and commodious, though somewhat cold and gloomy. The