Next after geography, philosophical declamation seems to be Mr. B.'s favourite employment for his muse. Of the many pages through which he indulges this propensity, some are filled with original and ingenious theories, many with commonplace rant (as Sir Archy M'Sarcasm would say) “varra true and varra novel," and more, by far the greater part, with the cant of the Darwinian and Parisian schools. We presume that, at this time of day, few of our readers have much further curiosity on this subject. We will, however, refer them to the disquisition on the causes of the dissimilarity of men in different climates, contained in the beginning of the second book, as exhibiting no unfavourable specimen of our author's powers of reasoning in verse.

Mr. B. appears to have but an imperfect command of the inferior and mechanical arts of poetry. His rhymes are deficient in variety and richness, and often grossly inaccurate; and his versification is sometimes disfigured by the most feeble and prosaic lines, such as these:

And again,

Mark modern Europe with her feudal codes,
Serfs, villains, vassals, nobles, kings and gods,
Wage endless wars; not fighting to be free,
But cujum pecus whose base herd they'll be.

Wide over earth his annual freshet strays,

And highland drench with lowland drains repays.

Many of his most poetical passages are debased by unlucky vul arisms, or ludicrous minuteness of description. The fiend Cruelis introduced with very powerful effect, and the personification is supported with great ability till she displays her" slow-poisonous drugs, and loads of putrid meat," while

Disease hangs drizzling from her slimy locks,
And hot contagion issues from her box.

The simile of the archer Tell is marred by a ludicrous alliteration, the arrow flies from the hand of the patriot father, and "picks off the pippin from the smiling boy." In another passage, the poet, in the true spirit of the bathos, makes channels to "tap the redundant lakes." All this surprises us not a little. In the present state of literature, every writer, if he has matter, is seldom deficient in style; almost every one who rhymes, rhymes

with tolerable elegance. That a writer of Mr. Barlow's powers should fail in these minutiæ is singular indeed.

There is a strange incongruity in the versification and style of the Columbiad. Some portions of it seem to be modelled on the manner of Dryden and the fathers of English song; while the rest glitters with all the trick and prettiness of the school of Darwin. All the verses, however, whether of ancient or modern structure, move along with apparent labour and effort. The sense seems to follow the rhyme, not the rhyme the sense. Every couplet appears to have been separately laboured, and then the whole strung together as conveniently as might be. Hence the sense is often broken and disjointed, and we are even sometimes at a loss for the grammatical construction of the sentence. This, however, although the general, is not the universal character of our poet's verses. He occasionally bursts forth in short but vigorous flights, some of which, had they been found in Absalom and Architophel, would not have dishonoured Dryden in his noblest efforts. Take for instance the following burst of patriotic indignation in his narrative of the expedition against Quebec, headed by the traitor Arnold:

Ah! gallant troop! deprived of half the praise,
That deeds like yours in other times repays;
Since your prime chief (the favorite erst of fame
Hath sunk so deep his hateful hideous name.
That every honest muse with horror flings
The name unsounded from her sacred strings;
Else what high tones of rapture must have told
The first great actions of a chief so bold,
'Twas his, 'twas yours, to brave unusual storms,
To tame rude nature in its drearest forms, &c.

We cannot dismiss Mr. Barlow as a poet without first taking him to task for some petty offences against the purity of the English language. The first misdemeanor in this way is of NewEngland origin; we mean the using neuter verbs as actives, and vice versa. Thus "Nature broods the mass," for broods over; Columbus "sweats the cold earth," for sweats upon; Egyptian gardens "grow the vegetable god," and the "lordling knave filches whom he can."* With the same latitude nouns are trans

• In this last instance the verb filch seems used instead of plunder, certainly incorrectly.

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muted into verbs, as to bulwark-to base-to scabbard-to bluff. The poet's next offence, doubtless at the instigation of the Devil, against the peace of English scholars and their dignity, is a most violent propensity to the introduction of strange new-fangled words words from which Lexiphanes himself would have shrunk back in dismay. In place of the honest old English word "sad" he astounds us with trist and contristed. Then he thunders upon us with his crasse, condependent, cosmogyre, cosmogyral, colon (not in a grammatical or anatomical sense, but in a French idiom, for cultivator, colonist) croupe, role, fluvial, multifluvian, brume, impalm, beamful, fulminents, imbeaded, ludibrious, and many more, which, to pronounce, would require the lungs of Stentor, and the mouth of Garagantua.

We have now, we trust, with much impartiality, delivered our opinion of the poetical merits of the Columbiad. We will not elevate our American bard to the rank of the Dii majorum gentium of poetry, nor degrade him to the level of the heroes of the Dunciad. We place his work "behind the foremost, and before the last," on the same shelf with Wilkie's Epigoniad, Hoole's Arthur, and Pye's Alfred; and perhaps but little below the Madoc of Southey, the Conquest of Canaan of Dwight, and the Exodiad of Cumberland and Burgess. The notes to the Columbiad are full of strange and curious matter; these may perhaps furnish a subject for some future review.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.
LAURA.-A new Novel.

We took up this book, as we generally do modern novels, with the expectation of finding an ordinary love adventure insipidly told, or wrought up with far-fetched words and laboured sentences into a production still more insupportable; but we must confess that we never have been more agreeably disappointed. It is true, the story has nothing in it marvellous or extraordinary; it neither surprises nor rivets the attention by intricacy of plot. The heroine, a young female, endowed with beauty, uncommon powers of mind, and a glowing imagination, loses her mother, her only friend, at

the age of fifteen, and while deploring her loss becomes accidentally acquainted with a gentleman who discerns her worth, falls in love with her, and finds his attachment returned. Pressed by cold relatives to a marriage at which her feelings revolt, she prefers putting herself, to escape from it, under the protection of her lover. From this first false step further imprudencies arise, and misery and destruction, as usual, are the consequences. No tale can be more simple; the occurrences are such as every observer of life too frequently meets with; but they are related with a choice of expression so happy, in a language so elegant and melodious, and at the same time so chaste and unaffected, that we cannot discover the sentence which could be spared, or the word that seemed to be sought for. The thoughts of the author appear to be neatly and harmoniously conceived in the first instance, and such is the genius pervading the whole narrative that we could read it, and actually have read it, again and again, with that exquisite pleasure with which we would attend the execution of a first rate piece of music, though often heard previously, or stand for hours fascinated before the same beautiful picture.

We forbear making extracts, for were we to begin we should not know when to stop; nor do we think it requisite, for we cannot doubt that the book to be read needs only to be known, and that the American public, by showing a due sensibility on the occasion, will encourage a writer of whom it ought to feel proud.

This writer, as we have since perceived by the advertisement, is the same lady who published about a year ago a collection of letters written from St. Domingo. We recognize the style and the talents, which had already obtained our admiration; but the work before us is more finished, and we sincerely hope that the fair author may diligently prosecute a career of mental exertion for which she seems so eminently qualified.

How she acquired or retained the purity of taste to which this narrative is indebted for all its beauties, in an age when writers, from want of superior abilities seem reduced to seek in eccentricity and deviation from nature the means of awakening interest; when most of the fashionable novels disgust by a bombastical assemblage of unmeaning words, appearing themselves astonished how they came together, and are rendered only somewhat less obnoxious by being crammed with the spoils of better times, as a

VOL. I.

H

French ragout is with forced balls-we are at a loss to conceive. But we are glad that the fact exists, and while we have availed ourselves of this opportunity of thus expressing the praise due to merit, we feel confident that it will be reechoed by every one who peruses this charming performance.

B.

THEATRICAL.

Miss Pope and Signora Storace.

Miss Pope and Signora Storace, two actresses in the Drury Lane Theatre, who for many years have been favourites of the British metropolis, retired from the stage in May last, to spend the remainder of their days in the enjoyment of that fortune which their youth had acquired.

Miss Pope, in early life, is said to have been a successful representative of the liveliest parts in lower comedy. Churchill particularly mentions her excellence in Cherry, Corinna, and two or three more such parts. Though she was not remarkably excellent in elegant comedy, probably from her want of those physical requisites of voice and person, which are necessary for the Lady Townlys and the Lady Teazles; yet, in what is called genteel comedy she was almost always admirable. She also excelled in some parts of vulgar comedy; but the species of character in which her most complete merit evinced itself, was that of pert, forward, intriguing chambermaids. There is no one of the common emotions discernible in persons of this class, which did not appear to have been studied by Miss Pope; and the effect of her study was an exquisite resemblance of nature. The secession of Miss Pope is considered a great, and, at present, irreparable loss to Drury Lane Theatre.

Signora Storace took leave of the stage in a musical address written by Coleman. She was so affected that she fainted, and was carried off amid loud peals of applause from all parts of the house. Many of the spectators thinking she was still acting, gave her credit for more theatrical skill than genuine feeling.