NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS.

BORN JAN. 20, 1807, PORTLAND, ME.

"Pencilings by the Way," "Inklings of Adventure," and "Letters from under a Bridge," are among his principal prose-writings. He is best known for his sacred poetry, and as editor of "The Home Journal."

THE DYING ALCHEMIST.

THE night-wind with a desolate moan swept by,
And the old shutters of the turret swung
Screaming upon their hinges; and the moon,
As the torn edges of the clouds flew past,
Struggled aslant the stained and broken panes
So dimly, that the watchful eye of death
Scarcely was conscious when it went and came.

The fire beneath his crucible was low;
Yet still it burned: and, ever as his thoughts
Grew insupportable, he raised himself
Upon his wasted arm, and stirred the coals
With difficult energy; and when the rod
Fell from his nerveless fingers, and his eye
Felt faint within its socket, he shrank back
Upon his pallet, and with unclosed lips
Muttered a curse on death! The silent room
From its dim corners mockingly gave back
His rattling breath; the humming in the fire
Had the distinctness of a knell; and, when
Duly the antique horologe beat one,
He drew a phial from beneath his head,
And drank. And instantly his lips compres
And, with a shudder in his skeleton frame,
He rose with supernatural strength, and sat
Upright, and cómmuned with himself:—

And yet it is: I feel,

Of this dull sickness at my heart, afraid!
And in my eyes the death-sparks flash and fade;
And something seems to steal
Over my bosom like a frozen hand,
Binding its pulses with an icy band.

Yet thus to pass away;

To live but for a hope that mocks at last;
To agonize, to strive, to watch, to fast,
To waste the light of day,

Night's better beauty, feeling, fancy, thought,
All that we have and are, for this, for naught!

Grant me another year,

God of my spirit! - but a day, to win
Something to satisfy this thirst within!

I would know something here!

Break for me but one seal that is unbroken!
Speak for me but one word that is unspoken!

Vain, vain! My brain is turning
With a swift dizziness, and my heart grows sick,
And these hot temple-throbs come fast and thick,
And I am freezing, burning,

Dying! O God! if I might only live!
My phial -ha! it thrills me! I revive!

Ay, were not man to die,

He were too mighty for this narrow sphere!
Had he but time to brood on knowledge here,
Could he but train his eye,

Might he but wait the mystic word and hour,
Only his Maker would transcend his power!

Earth has no mineral strange,
The illimitable air no hidden wings,
Water no quality in covert springs,
And fire no power to change,

Seasons no mystery, and stars no spell,
Which the unwasting soul might not compel.

Oh but for time to track

The upper stars into the pathless sky;
To see the invisible spirits eye to eye;
To hurl the lightning back;

To tread unhurt the Sea's dim-lighted halls;
To chase Day's chariot to the horizon-walls!

And more, much more! for now
The life-sealed fountains of my nature move, –
To nurse and purify this human love;

To clear the godlike brow

Of weakness and mistrust, and bow it down,
Worthy and beautiful, to the much-loved one!

This were indeed to feel

The soul-thirst slacken at the living stream;
To live-O God! that life is but a dream!
And death- Aha! I reel,

Dim, - dim, I faint! — darkness comes o'er my eye! Cover me! save me! God of heaven! I die!"

'Twas morning, and the old man lay alone.
No friend had closed his eyelids; and his lips,
Open and ashy pale, the expression wore
Of his death-struggle. His long silvery hair
Lay on his hollow temples thin and wild;
His frame was wasted, and his features wan
And haggard as with want; and in his palm
His nails were driven deep, as if the throe
Of the last agony had wrung him sore.

The storm was raging still; the shutters swung
Screaming as harshly in the fitful wind;
And all without went on, as aye it will,
Sunshine or tempest, reckless that a heart
Is breaking, or has broken, in its change.

The fire beneath the crucible was out;
The vessels of his mystic art lay round,
Useless and cold as the ambitious hand
That fashioned them; and the small rod,
Familiar to his touch for threescore years,
Lay on the alembic's rim, as if it still
Might vex the elements at its master's will.

And thus had passed from its unequal frame
A soul of fire, -a sun-bent eagle stricken
From his high soaring down, - an instrument

Broken with its own compass.

Oh, how poor

Seems the rich gift of genius when it lies,
Like the adventurous bird that hath outflown
His strength upon the sea, ambition-wrecked!-
A thing the thrush might pity as she sits
Brooding in quiet on her lowly nest!

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

BORN IN 1819, CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

Mr. Lowell resides in Cambridge. He has been Professor of Modern Languages and Belles-Lettres in Harvard University since the resignation of Prof. Longfellow. Of him the editor of the English edition of his "Biglow Papers" says, I can not help thinking, that (leaving out of sight altogether his satirical works), fifty years hence, he will be recognized as the greatest American poet of our day. Greece had her Aristophanes; Rome, her Juvenal; Spain, her Cervantes; France, her Rabelais, her Molière, her Voltaire; Germany, her Jean Paul, her Heine; England, her Swift, her Thackeray; and America has her Lowell." We have decided to select from "The Biglow Papers," not simply because they were written by a political satirist of the first rank, but because they have reference to an important period of the nation's history; and, besides their wholesome humor, the study of the Yankee dialect will not be unprofitable to the pupil, as he will there find faults of articulation into which he may unconsciously have fallen.

PRINCIPAL PRODUCTIONS.

"The Biglow Papers;" "" Sir Launfal; ""Under the Willows," and other Poems; "The Cathedral;" and "Among my Books," prose-work.

NOTE."Sam Slick," by Thomas C. Haliburton, "Major Jack Downing's Letters," by Seba Smith, "Letters of Petroleum V. Nasby," by John Locke, "Pho-, nixiana," by John Phoenix, "Letters of Doesticks," by Mortimer Thompson, and Orpheus C. Kerr," by R. H. Newell, are other productions, humorous and satirical, of American society and politics.

66

NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS.

From the Oldfogrumville Mentor.

"We have not had time to do more than glance through this handsomely-printed volume; but the name of its respectable editor, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guaranty for the worth of its contents. The paper is white,

the type clear, and the volume of a convenient and attractive size. . . . In reading this elegantly-executed work, it has seemed to us that a passage or two might have been retrenched with advantage, and that the general style of diction was susceptible of a higher polish. . . . On the whole, we may safely leave the ungrateful task of criticism to the reader. We will barely suggest, that in volumes intended, as this is, for the illustration of a provincial dialect, and turns of expression, a dash of humor or satire might be thrown in with advantage. . . . The work is admirably got up. . . . This work will form an appropriate ornament to the center-table. It is beautifully printed on paper of an excellent quality."

From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive Tocsin (a Tryweakly Family Journal).

...

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66 Altogether an admirable work. . . . Full of humor boisterous, but delicate; of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos cool as morning dew; of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the cimeter of Saladin. A work full of mountain-mirth,' mischievous as Puck, and lightsome as Ariel. We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective. . . . We might indulge in some criticisms; but, were the author other than he is, he would be a different being. As it is, he has a wonderful pose, which flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Ganymede) to the highest heaven of invention.' We love a book so purely objective. . . . Many of his pictures of natural scenery have an extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity. . . . In fine, we consider this as one of the most extraordinary volumes of this or any age. We know of no English author who could have written it. It is a work to which the proud genius of our country, standing with one foot on the Aroostook and the other on the Rio Grande, and holding up the star-spangled banner amid 'the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds,' may point with bewildering scorn of the punier efforts of enslaved Europe.. We hope soon to encounter our author among those higher walks of literature in which he is evidently capable of achieving enduring fame. Already we should be inclined to assign him a high position in the bright galaxy of our American bards."

...

From the Onion Grove Phoenix.

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"A talented young townsman of ours, recently returned from a Continental tour, and who is already favorably known to our readers by his sprightly letters from abroad which have graced our columns, called at our office yesterday. We learn from him, that having enjoyed the distinguished privilege, while in Germany, of an introduction to the celebrated Von Humbug, he took the opportunity to present that eminent man with a copy of 'The Biglow Papers.' The next morning he received the following note, which he has kindly furnished us for publication. We prefer to print verbatim, knowing that our readers will readily forgive the few errors into which the illustrious writer has fallen through ignorance of our language.

"HIGH-WORTHY MISTER, —I shall also now especially happy starve, because I have more or less a work of one those aboriginal Red-Men seen in which have I so deaf an interest ever taken fullworthy on the self shelf with our Gottsched to be pset.

"Pardon my in the English-speech unpractice!

"VON HUMBUG.'

"He also sent with the above note a copy of his famous work on ' Cosmetics,' to be presented to Mr. Biglow; but this was taken from our friend by the English custom-house officers, probably through a petty national spite. No doubt it has by this time found its way into the British Museum. We trust this outrage will be exposed in all our American papers. We shall do our best to bring it to the notice of the State department. Our numerous readers will share in the pleasure we experience at seeing our young and vigorous national literature thus encouragingly patted on the head by this venerable and world-renowned German. We love to see these reciprocations of good feeling between the different branches of the great AngloSaxon race."