not made literature his profession. The reasons why he has not done so are plain. He has common, as well as uncommon, sense; he deems pain and starvation evils which should be avoided; he thinks a good home and the certainty of a dinner better than a garret and heavensoaring imaginations. Such men as Sprague and Halleck have displayed as much wisdom in their conduct as genius in their writings. They certainly would not have written so well, had their muse been stimulated to exertion by hunger, or their fine faculties been let out to some "enterprising " bookseller, and forced into whatever channels of quackery and deceit the demands of "the trade" required. Professional authors are apt either to sneer at a banker or merchant who obtains applause for transient literary offerings, or to attempt to lure him by lying idealities into their own Slough of Despond. There is hardly a hack in Great Britain who has not, either in penny newspaper or sentimental magazine, directed his pop-gun of wit against Samuel Rogers, the banker and poet. Men who get a living, or an epitaph, by the pursuits of literature, seem to think that no person has a right to be clever who is not something of a vagabond. We cannot admit that they are at all competent to decide the question, whether commerce or banking be inimical to poetry. Bank-notes, it is to be regretted, visit their pockets too rarely to make them anything but dogmatists in deciding on their poetical or prosaic nature.

CHARLES SPRAGUE, one of the best poets in Mr. Griswold's multitudinous collection, has always been engaged in pursuits connected with commerce, and his poems are therefore the products of his leisure His poetical compositions may be readily divided into two classes:

those written for special occasions, and in some degree
manufactured to order; and those which commemorate
events in his domestic life, and which accordingly have
more of the heart's spontaneous music. Although those
of the first class display to greater advantage his skill in
versification, and the extent of his intellectual resources,
they are not so instinct with the poetical spirit as his less
ambitious efforts. His prologues are the best which
have been written since the time of Pope. His "Shak-
speare Ode" has hardly been exceeded by anything in
the same manner, since Gray's "Progress of Poetry."
But the true power and originality of the man are mani-
fested in his domestic pieces. "The Brothers," "I see
Thee still," and "the Family Meeting," are the finest
consecrations of natural affection in our literature. The
pathos of Bryant is so deeply tinged with the spirit of
meditation, that it is rather the philosophy of grief than
'ts direct expression. His regrets flow through his
reason and imagination, but those of Sprague seem to
gush directly from the heart. There is a purity, a
sweetness, a true home-like feeling, in the little domestic
pieces of the latter, to which none but a fribble or a
roué can be insensible. They can be read again and
again, with a delight which is ever renewed. The true
soul of human affection is in them, and "
old." A composition which dazzles at first sight by
gaudy epithets, or brilliant turns of expression, or glitter-
ing trains of imagery, may fade gradually from the
mind, and leave no enduring impression; but words
which flow fresh and warm from a full heart, and which
are instinct with the life and breath of human feeling,
pass into household memories, and partake of the
immortality of the affections from which they spring.

waxes not

་

The spiritual tone of these beautiful embodiments of sensibility is exquisitely fine and touching; and the tone. of a poem is, after all, its most enduring excellence. Images, metaphors, subtle and delicate phrases, may glide away from the mind, and yet the soul by which they were animated remain. There is much confusion produced in criticism by not discriminating between the form and the essence of poetry. In "Childe Harold" there is probably displayed more of the radiant vesture of the imagination than in any poem of the present age; yet the tone of one half of that splendid apotheosis of misanthropy and egotism is unpoetical. Its effect is merely to stir and to sting. It leaves an impression on the memory which may be called almost disagreeable. We feel that the author's spiritual life was inharmonious,

that the tone of his mind was not pure. On the other hand, in many of Wordsworth's early compositions, where the versification is harsh or slovenly, and the diction mean and meagre, the tone is often fine and poetical, the "white radiance" of his soul shining through his homeliest verbal expression. To attempt to analyze the tone of a poem would be useless. It is an object of inward perception. It is

It

"The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,

A living voice, a breathing harmony,

A bodiless enjoyment."

may be compared to the murmur of a brook as heard a dream. When good, it is the very music of a soul which contains no jarring string.

in

The tone of Sprague's domestic poems is, as we have already stated, very pure and harmonious. The swelling diction, the wide command of language and imagery

the deliberate and elaborated frenzy, of his long odes, will hardly bear comparison, in point of true poetic excellence, with his quiet pictures of fireside joys and sorrows. The latter illustrate the truth, that gentleness is power. There is more real strength in them than in all the clang and clatter which words can be easily made to produce, when employed by a cunning rhetorician. We extract the little poem of "The Brothers," in illustration of our meaning. No dominion over the mere shows of poetical expression could enable a man, without a full heart, to write anything equal to it.

"We are but two, - the others sleep

Through Death's untroubled night:
We are but two, oh! let us keep

In the lines on the death of M. S. C., there is much

mournful beauty and tenderness.

"I knew that we must part,-day after day
I saw the dread Destroyer win his way;
Feeble and slow thy once light footstep grew,
Thy wasting cheek put on Death's pallid hue,
Thy thin, hot hand to mine more weakly clung,
Each sweet' Good-night' fell fainter from thy tongue.

Then like tired breezes didst thou sink to rest,
Nor one, one pang the awful change confessed.
Death stole in softness o'er that lovely face,
And touched each feature with a new-born grace;
On cheek and brow unearthly beauty lay,
And told that life's poor cares had passed away!

In my last hour be Heaven so kind to me!

I ask no more but this, — to die like thee!"

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We cannot resist the desire to make two more extracts from this little collection of domestic pieces.