them emotions familiar to their own bo- ous. It should minister to no weak sentiment, but foster high, manly and beautiful serious views. It should identify itself with the domestic affections, and tend to solemnize rather than merely adorn existence. Such are the natural echoes of American life, and they characterize the poetry of Bryant. Bryant's love of Nature gives the prevailing spirit to his poetry. The feeling with him seems quite instinctive. It is not sustained by a metaphysical theory as in the case of Wordsworth, while it is imbued with more depth of pathos than is often discernible in Thompson. The sentiment with which he looks upon the wonders of creation is remarkably appropriate to the scenery of the New World. His poems convey, to an extraordinary degree, the actual impression which is awakened by our lakes, mountains, and forests. There is in the landscape of every country something characteristic and peculiar. The individual objects may be the same, but their combination is widely different. The lucent atmosphere of Switzerland, the grouping of her mountains, the effect of glacier and waterfall, of peaks clad in eternal snow, impending over valleys whose emerald herbage and peaceful flocks realize our sweetest dreams of primeval life-all strike the eye and affect the mind in a manner somewhat different from similar scenes in other lands. The long, pencilled clouds of an Italian sun-setglowing above plains covered with brightly-tinted vegetation, seem altogether more placid and luxuriant than the gorgeous masses of golden vapor, towering in our western sky at the close of an autumnal day. These and innumerable other minute features are not only perceived but intimately felt by the genuine poet. We esteem it one of Bryant's great merits that he has not only faithfully pictured the beauties, but caught the very spirit of our scenery. His best poems have an anthem-like cadence, which accords with the vast scenes they celebrate. He approaches the mighty forest, whose shadowy haunts only the footstep of the Indian has penetrated, deeply conscious of its virgin grandeur. His harp is strung in harmony with the wild moan of the ancient boughs. Every moss-covered trunk breathes to him of the mysteries of time, and each wild flower which lifts its pale buds above the brown and withered leaves, whispers some thought of gentleness. We feel, while musing with him amid the solitary woods, as if blessed with a companion peculiarly fitted to interpret their teachings; and while intent in our retirement upon his page, we are sensible, as it were, of the presence of those sylvan monarchs that crown the hill tops and grace the valleys of our native land. No English park formalised by the hand of art, no legendary spot like the pine grove of Ravenna surrounds us. It is not the gloomy German forest with its phantoms and banditti, but one of those primal, dense woodlands of America, where the oak spreads its enormous branches, and the frost-kindled-leaves of the maple glow like flame in the sunshine; where the tap of the woodpecker and the whirring of the partridge alone break the silence that broods, like the spirit of prayer, amid the interminable aisles of the verdant sanctuary. Any reader of Bryant, on the other side of the ocean, gifted with a small degree of sensibility and imagination, may derive from his poems the very awe and delight with which the first view of one of our majestic forests would strike his mind. The kind of interest with which Bryant regards nature is common to the majority of minds in which a love of beauty is blended with reverence. This in some measure accounts for his popularity. Many readers even of poetical taste, are repelled by the very vehemence and intensity of Byron. They cannot abandon themselves so utterly to the influences of the outward world as to feel the waves bound beneath them "like a steed that knows his rider;" nor will their enthusiasm so far annihilate consciousness as to make them "a portion of the tempest." Another order of imaginative spirits do not greatly affect the author of the Excursion from the frequent baldness of his conceptions; and not a few are unable to see the universe through the spectacles of his philosophy. To such individuals the tranquil delight with which the American poet expatiates upon the beauties of creation is perfectly genial. There is no mystical lore in the tributes of his muse. All is clear, earnest and thoughtful. Indeed, the same difference that exists between true-hearted, natural affection, and the metaphysical love of the Platonists, may be traced between the manly and sincere lays of Bryant and the vague and artificial effusions of transcendental bards. The former realizes the definition of a poet which describes him as superior to the multitude only in degree, not in kind. He is the priest of a universal religion; and clothes in appropriate and harmonious language sentiments widely felt and cherished. He requires no interpreter. There is nothing eccentric in his vision. Like all human beings the burden of daily toil sometimes weighs heavily on his soul; the noisy activity of common life becomes hopeless; scenes of inhumanity, error, and suffering grow oppressive, or more personal causes of despondency make "the grasshopper a burden." Then he turns to the quietude and beauty of Nature for refreshment. There he loves to read the fresh tokens of creative beneficence. The scented air of the meadows cools his fevered brow. The umbrageous foliage sways benignly around him. Vast prospects expand his thoughts beyond the narrow circle of worldly anxieties. The limpid stream upon whose banks he wandered in childhood, reflects each fleecy cloud and soothes his heart as the emblem of eternal peace. Thus faith is revived; the soul acquires renewed vitality and the spirit of love is kindled again at the altar of God. Such views of nature are perfectly accordant with the better impulses of the heart. There is nothing in them strained, unintelligible or morbid. They are more or less familiar to all, and are as healthful overflowings of our nature as the prayer of repentance or the song of thanksgiving. They distinguish the poetry of Bryant and form one of its dominant charms, Let us quote a few illustrations: Never rebuked me for the hours I stole From cares I loved not, but of which the world Deems highest, to converse with her; when shrieked The bleak November winds, and smote the woods, And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades That met above the merry rivulet, cent tar. Mere instinct or habit will thus make the rude and illiterate see with better eyes than their fellows. interest, how quickly does affection When a human object commands such detect every change of mood and incipient want-reading the countenance as if it were the very chart of destiny. And it is so with the lover of nature. By virtue of his love comes the vision, if not "the faculty divine." Objects and similitudes seen heedlessly by others, or passed unnoticed, are stamped upon his memory. Bryant is a graphic He has none of the excessive detail of poet, in the best sense of the word. Hogarth. His touches, like his themes, Crabbe, or the homely exactitude of are usually on a grander scale, yet the minute is by no means neglected. It is his peculiar merit to deal with it Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still wisely. Enough is suggested to con -they seemed Like old companions in adversity. Nothing quickens the perceptions like genuine love. From the humblest professional attachment to the most chivalric devotion, what keenness of observation is born under the influence of that feeling which drives away the obscuring clouds of selfishness, as the sun consumes the vapor of the morning! I never knew what varied associations could environ a shell-fish, until I heard an old oyster merchant discourse of their qualities; and a landsman can have no conception of the fondness a ship may inspire, before he listens, on a moonlight night, amid the lonely sea, to the details of her build and workings, unfolded by a compla vey a strong impression, and often by the introduction of a single circumstance, the mind is instantly enabled to complete the picture. It is difficult to regard. The following scene from "A select examples of his power in this Winter Piece" is as picturesque as it is true to fact: Thou sees't no cavern roof, no palace Raise thine eye,— There the blue sky, and the white drifting vault; cloud Look in. Again the wildered fancy dreams Of spouting fountains frozen as they rose He Bryant is eminently a contemplative poet. His thoughts are not less impressive than his imagery. Sentiment, except that which springs from benevolence and veneration, seldom lends a glow to his pages. Indeed, there is a remarkable absence of those spontaneous bursts of tenderness and passion, which constitute the very essence of a large portion of modern verse. has none of the spirit of Campbell, or the narrative sprightliness of Scott. The few humorous attempts he has published are unworthy of his genius. Love is merely recognized in his poems; it rarely forms the staple of any composition. His strength obviously consists in description and philosophy. It is one advantage of this species of poetry that it survives youth, and is by nature progressive. Bryant's recent poems are fully equal if not superior to any he has written. With his inimitaspeculation or a reflective strain of moble pictures there is ever blended high ral comment. Some elevating inference or cheering truth is elicited from every scene consecrated by his muse. A noble simplicity of language, combined with these traits, often leads to the most genuine sublimity of expression. Some of his lines are unsurpassed in this respect. They so quietly unfold a great thought or magnificent image, that we are often taken by surprise. What a by the idea, striking sense of mortality is afforded He would make us feel the hoary age of the mossy and gigantic foresttrees, and not only alludes to their annual decay and renewal, but significantly adds, "The century-living crow Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died." Sweep over with their shadows, and beneath, The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye; Instances like these might be multiof simple diction, and to prove that the plied at pleasure to illustrate the efficacy grand ideas, uttered without affectation, elements of real poetry consist in truly and in a reverent and earnest spirit. A beautiful calm like that which rests on the noble works of the sculptor, breathes from the harp of Bryant. He traces a natural phenomenon, or writes in melodious numbers, the history of some familiar scene, and then with almost prophetic emphasis, utters to the charmed ear a high lesson or sublime truth. In that pensive hymn in which he contrasts man's transitory solemn and affecting as are the images, being, with nature's perennial life, monition at the close: they but serve to deepen the simple "So live, that when thy summon comes, to join Dark hollows seem to glide along and The innumerable caravan that moves chase The sunny ridges." He speaks of the beaver as rearing "his little Venice." The lonely place where the murdered traveller met his doom, is indicated in a brief stanza: "The red-bird warbled as he wrought The unconscious flight of time, as years advance, is finely illustrated thus: "Slow pass our days In childhood, and the hours of light are long Betwixt the morn and eve; with swifter lapse They glide in manhood, and in age they fly; Till days and seasons flit before the mind As flit the snow flakes in a winter storm, Seen rather than distinguished.” To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not like the quarry slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams." In "The Fountain," after a descriptive sketch that brings its limpid flow before us, how exquisite is the chroand its flowery banks almost palpably nicle that follows! Guided by the poet, we behold that gushing stream, ages past in the solitude of the old woods, when canopied by the hickory and plane, the humming-bird playing amid its spray, and visited only by the wolf, who comes to "lap its wa |