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acteristic poets. Few excel him in warmth of temperament. Old John Dennis, the Gifford of Queen Anne's time, describes genius as caused "by a furious joy and pride of soul on the conception of an extraordinary hint. Many men have their hints, without their motions of fury and pride of soul, because they want fire enough to agitate their spirits; and these we call cold writers. Others, who have a great deal of fire, but have not excellent organs, feel the forementioned motions, without the extraordinary hints; and these we call fustian writers." Whittier has this "furious joy" and "pride of soul," even when the "hints" are not extraordinary; but he never falls into absolute rant and fustian. A common thought comes from his pen "rammed with life." He seems, in some of his lyrics, to pour out his blood with his lines. There is a rush of passion in his verse, which sweeps everything along with it. His fancy and imagination can hardly keep pace with their fiery companion. His vehement sensibility will not allow the inventive faculties fully to complete what they may have commenced. The stormy qualities of his mind, acting at the suggestions of conscience, produce a kind of military morality which uses all the deadly arms of verbal warfare. When well intrenched in abstract right, he always assumes a hostile attitude towards the champions or exponents of abstract wrong. He aims to give his song 66 a rude martial tone, a blow in every thought." His invective is merciless and undistinguishing; he almost screams with rage and indignation. Occasionally, the extreme bitterness and fierceness of his declamation degenerate into mere shrewishness and scolding. Of late, he has somewhat pruned the rank luxuriance of his style. The "Lines on the Death of Lucy Hooper,'

"Raphael," "Follen," "Memories," among the poe.ns in his last published volume, are indications that his mind is not without subtle imagination and delicate feeling, as well as truculent energy. There is much spiritual beauty in these little compositions. It is difficult to conceive how the man who can pour out such torrents of passionate feeling, and who evidently loves to see his words tipped with fire, can at the same time write such graceful and thoughtful stanzas as these:

"A beautiful and happy girl,

With step as soft as summer air,
And fresh young lip and brow of pearl,
Shadowed by many a careless curl

of unconfined and flowing hair:

A seeming child in everything,

Save thoughtful brow and ripening charms,
As Nature wears the smile of Spring

When sinking into Summer's arms.

"How thrills once more the lengthening chain
Of memory at the thought of thee!
Old hopes, that long in dust have lain,
Old dreams, come thronging back again,
And boyhood lives again in me;

I feel its glow upon my cheek,

Its fulness of the heart is mine,
As when I learned to hear thee speak,
Or raised my doubtful eye to thine.

"I hear again thy low replies,

I feel thy arm within my own,
And timidly again uprise
The fringéd lids of hazel eyes,

With soft brown tresses overblown.

Ah! memories of sweet summer eves,
Of moonlit wave and willowy way,

Of stars and flowers and dewy leaves,

And smiles and tones more dear than they!

"And wider yet in thought and deed

Our still diverging paths incline,
Thine the Genevan's sternest creed,
While answers to my spirit's need
The Yorkshire peasant's simple line :
For thee the priestly rite and prayer,

And holy day and solemn psalm;
For me the silent reverence, where

My brethren gather, slow and calm."

Whittier has the soul of a great poet, and we should not be surprised if he attained the height of excellence in his art. The faults of his mind, springing from excessive fluency and a too excitable sensibility, exaggerated as they have been by the necessities of hasty composition, have prevented him from displaying as yet the full power of his genius. It is by no means unlikely, that, when he has somewhat tamed the impetuosity of his feelings, and brooded with more quiet intensity over the large stores of poetry which lie chaotically in his nature, he may yet produce a work which will rival, and perhaps excel, the creations of his most distinguished contemporaries. He has that vigor, truthfulness, and manliness of character, that freedom from conventional shackles, - that careless disregard of Mr. Prettyman's notion as to what constitutes the high, and Miss Betty's notion as to what constitutes the low, native energy and independence of nature, form the basis of the character of every great genius, and without which poetry is apt to be a mere echo of the drawing-room, and to idealize affectations instead of realities.

that which

We are glad to perceive that Mr. Griswold has done some justice to the poetical powers of Mrs. Maria Brooks, author of "Zóphiël, or the Bride of Seven."

This lady has generally written under the name of Maria del Occidente. Her poems evince mental qualities, which, if they had been employed on themes or incidents more in accordance with popular feeling than those she has chosen, would have given her the first place among American poets of her own sex. Her mind has a wider sweep, and is more poetical in its tendencies, than that of any of her female contemporaries. In fancy and passion, she has hardly been excelled by any American writer. Her mind is stored with knowledge, her sense of harmony is exceedingly fine, and her command of language is almost despotic. She possesses great fertility of fancy, and a luxurious sense of the beauty of outward objects. Nature to her is "an appetite and a passion." In the description of tropical scenery, there is a delicious richness, a dreamy beauty, and a "mazyrunning soul of harmony" in her verse, which not only bring the scene vividly to the eye, but render it percepti ble to the other senses. She has great warmth and occasional intensity of feeling, and gives it free and bold expression. Her poem of "Zóphiël," first published in London, in 1833, is a remarkable production. It has been much praised in England, but seems to be little known in this country; and by many it is still considered the work of an Englishwoman. When republished in Boston, it was hailed by most of the critics with admiring ignorance or pert stupidity. Some were astonished to find a woman of the nineteenth century evincing more knowledge of Plato and Hafiz than of Bulwer or Hannah More; others were shocked, that she should so far wander from the "legitimate sphere" of female composition as to attempt something more than the versification of sermons, or the vivification of com

monplaces. Though the subject is, on the whole, deli. cately treated, there are a few stanzas which might have been omitted with advantage to the general refinement of expression. These were darted upon by persons endowed with a sharp scent for indelicacy, and represented, with certain mysterious nods, winks, and the other signs of prudery's freemasonry, as samples of the poem; and, accordingly, the most unjustly neglected work of genius ever published in the United States came near obtaining the dubious honor of circulating over the whole land as a book "which no young lady should read." We think that Mr. Griswold's selections from "Zóphiël," although they cannot give a full impression of its merits, prove that it contains poetical qualities which would reflect no discredit upon poets of far greater popularity.

Mrs. E. Oakes Smith, of New York, has written a number of short poems of much beauty, purity, and spirituality. "The Sinless Child" and "The Acorn " manifest qualities of mind and heart which are worthy of a more thorough development. They display depth of feeling and affluence of fancy, and are singularly pure and sweet in their tone. "The Sinless Child," though deficient in artistical finish, contains many passages of a high order of poetry, and is stainless as its subject. It gives evidence, also, of a capacity for a more extended sweep over the domain of thought and emotion. Mrs. Smith is not merely a smooth and skilful versifier, indulging occasionally in a flirtation with poetry, to while away the time, but one whose productions are true exponents of her inward life, and display the freshness and fervor which come from individuality of character and feeling. She speaks of what she knows and of

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