Byron's Hebrew Melodies,' and 'Ba- Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis, To compensate for the length of our remarks, and for the severity of our strictures, we shall now make some selections from the volume be fore us, calculated rather to gratify the reader, than to verify our previous positions. The following song is exempt from every blemish, and is one of the most beautiful and naïf in the language. I. Go where Glory waits thee, Oh! still remember me. Oh! then remember me. When, at eve, thou rovest, Oh! then remember me. Once so lov'd by thee, When, around thee dying Oh! then remember me. Oh! still remember ine. Draw one tear from thee: Oh! then remember me.' The Meeting of the Waters,' exhibis a picture of tranquil retirement, Who made cach dear scene of enchantment more dear, And who felt how the best charms of nature improve, When we see them reflected from looks that we love. IV. Sweet vale of Ovoca! how calm could I rest In thy bosom of shade with the friends I love best, Where the storms which we feel in this cold world should cease, And our hearts, like thy waters, be mingled in peace! The little song called 'Eveleen's Bower,' is not only chaste in its style,. and delicate in its allusions and imagery, but moral and religious in its purpose. I. Oh weep for the hour, When to Eveleen's bower, The Lord of the valley with false vows came; From the heavens that night, And wept behind her clouds o'er the maid en's shame. The clouds past soon From the chaste cold moon, And heaven smil'd again with her vestal flame; But none shall see the day When the clouds shall pass away, Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen's fame. II. The white snow lay Where the Lord of the valley cross'd over the moor; And many a deep print On the white snow's tint, Show'd the track of his footsteps to Eveleen's door. The next sun's ray Soon melted away IV. Ev'ry trace on the path where the false Lord But, though glory be gone, and though hope came ; But there's a light above Which alone can remove fade away, Thy name, loved Erin! shall live in his songs! That stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen's Not ev'n in the hour, when his heart is fame. most gay, Will he lose the remembrance of thee I saw thee change, yet still relied, Still clung with hope the fonder, The heart whose hopes could make it Deserves that thou should'st break it! II. When every tongue thy follies nam'd, I fled th' unwelcome story; Conspir'd to wrong, to slight thee; Some day, perhaps, thou'lt waken Even now, though youth its bloom has shed, No genial ties enwreath it, Go-go-though worlds were thine, For all thy guilty splendour! IV. And days may come, thon false one! yet, On her who, in thy fortune's fall, Than guilt and shame have made thee. The length of our preceding extracts, leave us room for but few of what Mr. Moore is pleased to term his Gospel Melodies.' We cannot but fancy that there is full as much fond regret, as 'godły sorrow,' in the following melody' entitled Penitence.' เ Go, let me weep! there's bliss in tears, When he who sheds them, inly feels Some lingering stain of early years Ellac'd by every drop that steals. The fruitless showers of worldly wo Fall dark to earth and never rise: While tears that from repentance flow, In bright exhalement reach the skies. Go, let me weep! there's bliss in tears, When he who sheds them, inly feels Some lingering stain of early years Ellac'd by every drop that steals. Leave me to sigh o'er hours that flew, More idly than the summer's wind, And, while they pass'd, a fragrance threw, But left no trace of sweets behind.The warmest sigh that pleasure heaves Is cold, is faint to those that swell The heart, where pure repentance grieves O'er hours of pleasure lov'd too well! Leave me to sigh o'er hours that flew, More idly than the summer's wind, And, while they pass'd, a fragrance threw, But left no trace of sweets behind. There is, in our apprehension, more of poetry, than of good taste, or reverence, in the following address to the Deity. J. Thou art, oh God! the life and light Of all this wond'rous world we see; Its glow, by day, its smile by night, Are but reflections caught from thee. Where'er we turn thy glories shine, And all things fair and bright are Thine. II. When day with farewell beam, delays Among the opening clouds of even, And we can almost think we gaze Thro' golden vistas into heaven; Those hues that make the Sun's decline So soft, so radiant, Lord! are Thine. III. When night, with wings of starry gloom, O'ershadows all the earth and skies, Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume Is sparkling with unnumber'd eyes;→→ That sacred gloom, those fires divine, So grand, so countless, Lord! are Thine.. IV. When youthful spring around us breathes, Thy spirit warms her fragrant sigh; And ev'ry flower the summer wreathes Is born beneath thy kindled eye. Where 'er we turn, thy glories shine. And all things fair and bright are Thine. We have now selected from this publication, not, indeed all that we admire, but what we deem most decidedly excellent in it. We have not paused to comment-probably our readers would not have listened to us if we had-we wisely said every thing we intended to say in the way of criticism, before we commenced with the exacts; well knowing it was our best chance of sufficient occasion for so doing. But commanding attention. What we have it is pleasanter to applaud than to cenomitted is, generally, very far below what sure; and besides, we prefer dissemiwe have copied, and fully justifies our nating what we approve, to circulating preliminary remarks. Did we delight what we condemn. in finding fault, we might have shown 1040 ART. 5. The Village; a Poem. With an Appendir. T ward Little & Co. HIS book, which is about equally divided between the Poem and the Appendix, appears to be the production of a young man of extensive reading; and in the dedication, which is to the people, is offered to the world with a laudable and republican modesty. The intentions of the author are undoubtedly good, and, making a fair allowance for that crudeness in the thoughts, which so universally marks juvenile compositions, together with the exception of occasionally a little fanaticism of feeling, the general correctness of his principles does credit to the endowments of his mind, while the warmth of his heart, and the generosity of his sentiments, are befitting his time of life, and worthy the liberality of his education. But though we regard the author with esteem, and think he is a kind of man with whom we should be happy to cultivate a personal acquaintance, yet we cannot perceive, from the present specimen of his talents, that he 'is much of a poet. His knowledge of history appears, indeed, to be extensive, and will doubtless be of great service to him in the career of his profession, which he gives us to understand is the law--but something more is necessary to constitute a poet than mere memory, though well replenished with facts, or sensibility to the miseries which men have suffered from the prevalence of error and abuse of power, however quick and indignant that sensibility may be. His reading has clearly as sisted him in forming correct views of the general principles by which society should be regulated, and expanded his sympathies, more than it has quickened Portland. E. 12mo. pp. 180. Ed1816. his invention, or enriched his imagination; and he is obviously deficient in that transforming quality which characterizes genuine poetical talent, to which all the other faculties of the true poet serve as purveyors-and by which, every thing stored in the memory, or submitted to the observation, is at once, as by the touch of Midas, converted into gold. It may have been a useful exercise to the author to try his hand at versification in some of his leisure hours, for the sake of enlarging his vocabulary, but it was unadvised to print. The putting into rhyme of a few unimportant facts and common-place remarks, could not profit the community, as it teaches them nothing, and is injurious to the interests of literature, because it burdens patronage, and abridges the just reward of genuine merit. The secret, however, of this publication is, we suspect, a feeling which the author of The Village' shares in common with his countrymen. This feeling is an incorrigible and nettlesome impatience at remaining in obscurity; and there is no trait more conspicuous in the American character. All, in all ranks, are discontented in a state of pupilage, and anxious to be quit of parental control, to see their indentures expire, to obtain their diplomas, and to come of age. The youth of the present day, and especially of our own country, seem to think it incompatible with their dignity, to wait for the time appointed by nature and good taste for assuming the toga virilis ; and if they cannot quicken the pinions of time, and hasten the happy period when they may claim a legal equality discriminative and accurate perception with men, they endeavour to find a re- of the appearances of material nature. medy for the juvenility of their years, In proof of his deficiency in the first in the premature mannishness of their mentioned qualification, we would remanners, and come forward with an fer to the work generally, and the inair of consequence, as if age and expe- difference, not to say wearisomeness, rience had given them a right to assume, which we felt before we finished the when in sober truth, their ignorance re- perusal of it. In proof of his deficiency quires the laborious exertions of some in the other qualification, we would faithful instructor, and their imperti- refer the reader to the first page of nence deserves the rod. This dispo- the poem. The poem commences sition of our countrymen, though nearly allied to that spirit of enterprise for which they are so honourably distinguished, is, we conceive, peculiarly detrimental to the character of our literature, and has, unhappily, been fostered by the numerous literary institutions, on a small scale, with which the land is overrun. The idea of a liberal education seems to be confined to the acquisition of a diploma, and one college can confer this as well as another. Thus, by the multiplication of ill-endowed seminaries, the funds destined to the nourishment of learning are disipated, and multitudes of half-educated candidates for public confidence and honour, are annually turned forth to crowd the professions, to their own discredit and the injury of the community, when, with half the expense actually bestowed upon their education, they might fit themselves to become truly useful and respectable, by assisting to develope the physical resources of their country, and by increasing the numbers and elevating the character of those middle classes of society, which constitute the bone and muscle of the state. The scope of these remarks we are inclined to think will not apply to the author of The Village' in his professional character, but we think they do apply to him as a candidate for the honours of poetry; and to the consideration of his work we will now return. The qualifications for writing poetry, in which the author of The Village' appears to be most particularly deficient, are richness of fancy and a quick with a prospect of the White Hills of New Hampshire, in the vicinity of which it was written, and after saying that they look as if all the world had been heaped there in confusion by the rushing currents of the deluge, in the course of which stale conceit, he incorrectly makes as if' respond to 'such' and 'so,' and uses the imperfect tense after it, when he ought to use the pluperfect, he goes on to speak of a thunder storm that convolved' upon the mountains, and which, with the help of a pretty strong wind, contrived to make considerable noise, and do a good deal of damage among the trees. Notwithstanding the notable effects of this storm, however, we must object to it as not drawn from nature. A thunder storm which could discharge from its cloudy batteries such quanti ties of electric fluid as to make the tops of the White Hills tremble, would rarely exhibit so much nimbleness and gayety of evolution as is ascribed to the one under consideration; which, except that it is rather more blustering, resembles a copious April shower. As a specimen of the tameness of his fancy, and the crudeness of his thoughts, we shall now introduce the author's compendious system of cosmogony, conveyed in the way of question and answer, the most approved method, now-a-days, of teaching all the sciences. The first question is, how came the White Hills, and all unevennesses on the earth's surface to exist? and the next is, why was not the earth smooth and even? Though the author has |