pirate, and has passages of vivid, dark painting resembling the style of Crabbe.

NATHANIEL Parker Willis (1806-1867) was a prolific and popular American writer, who excelled in light descriptive sketches. He commenced author i 1827 with a volume of fugitive pieces, which Was well received, and was followed in 1931 and 1835 by two volumes of similar character. In 1835 he published two volumes of prose, Pencillings by the Way,' which formed agreeable reading, though censurable on the score of personal disclosures invading the sanctity of private life. On this account, Willis was sharply criticised and condemned by Lockhart in the Quarterly Review. Numerous other works of the same kind—Inklings of Adventure' (1836), “Dashes of Life' (1845), Letters from Watering-places' (1849), People I have Met' (1850), &c., were thrown off from time to time, amounting altogether to thirty or forty separate publications; and besides this constant stream of authorship, Mr. Willis was editor of the New York Mirror' and other periodicals. Though marred by occasional affectation, the sketches of Willis are light, graceful compositions.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1809) contributed various pieces to American periodicals, and in 1836 published a collected edition of his Poems'. In 1813 he published Terpsichore,' a poem; in 1-46, Urania;' in 1850, 'Astræk the Balance of Allusions,' a poem; and in 1858, “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Fable,' a series of light and genial essays, full of fancy and humour, which has been successful both in the old and the New World Mr. Holmes is distinguished as a physician. He practised in Boston; in 1836 took his degree of M.D. at Cambridge; in 1838 was elected Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Darimouth College; and in 1847 succeeded to the chair of Anatomy in Harvard University. In 18 19 he retired from general practice. Some of the quaint sayings of Holmes have a flavour of fine American humour :

Give me the luxuries of life, and I will dispense with its necessaring.

Talk about couceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the oceat; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable. Siv, rather, it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's pln mage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him, and the wave in which he dips.

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind over-tasked. A weak mind does not accumulate force enough to hurt itself. Stupidity often saves a man from going mad. Any decent person ought to go mad, if he really holds such and such opinious. It is very much to his discredit in every point of view, if h. does not. I am very much ashamed of some people for retaining their reason, when they know pxrfsctly well that if they were not the most siupid or the most selfish of human beings, they would become non-com potes at once.

What a confort a dull but kudly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass sbadu over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled «ye than such a one to our minds. There are men of esprit who are excessively exhausting to some people. They are the talkers that have what may be called the jerky minds. They Rayhr ght things on all possible subjects, har their zigzags rack you to death. After a joltiug half-hour with these jerky companions, talking with a dml frieud affor ls great relief. It is like taking a car in your lap after holding a squirrel.

Don't you know how hard it is for some people to get out of a room after their

1820 18 over? We rather think we do They want to be off, but they don't know how to manage it. One would think they had been built in your room, and were waiting to be launched. I have contrived a sort of ceremonial inclined plane for such visitors, which, being lubricated with certain smooth phruses, I back them down, metapborically speaking, stern foremost, into their native element of out-of-doors.

The Buccancer's Island.-By Dana.
The island lies pine leagacs away.
Along its so itury shore.
Of craggy rock and sandy bay,

No sound but ocean's roar,
Save where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home,
Her sbrill cry comiug through the sparkling foam.

But when the light winds lie at rest,
And on the glassy leaving sea,
The black duck, with her glossy breast,

Sits swingiuy silently-
How beautifull no ripples break the reach,
And silvery waves go nois less up the beach.

And inland rests the gren warm dell;
The brook comes tinkling down its side;
From out the trees the Sabbath bell

Rings cheerful far and wide,
Mingling its souud with bicutings of the docks
That fed upon the vale aiuon; the rockie

Nor holy bell, nor pastoral bl at,
In former days within the vale;
Flapped in the bay

the pirate's sheet:
Curses were on the gale;
Rich goods lay on the sand, and mordered men;
Pirate and wrecker kept their reveis then.
Thirty-five.-

By WILLIS.
O wenry heart! thou 'rt half-way home!

We stand on life's meridian keight-
As far from cbildhood's morning come,

As to the grave's forgetful niglat.
Give Youth and Hope a parting tear-

Look onward with a placid hrow-
Hope promised but to bring us here,

And Reason takes the guidance now-
One backward look the last-the last !
One silent tear-for Youth is past!
Who goes with Hope and Passion back?

Who comes with me aud Memory on?
Oh, lovely looks the dovriward track-

Joy's music lushed-Hope's roses gone!
To Pleasure and her giddy troop

Farewell, without a sigh or tear!
But heart gives way. and spirits droop,

To think that Love may eave us here!
Have we uo eharm when Youth is flown 1-
Midway to death left sud and lone!
Yet stay !-as 'twere a twilight star

That sends its thread across the wave
I see a brightening light, from

Steai down a pith is youd the grave!

And now-bless God! its golden lino
LL 144

Comes o'er-and lights my shadowy way-
And shews the dear hand clasped in mine!
But, list what those eet voices say:

• The better land 's in richt,

And, by its chastening light,
An love from life's midway is driven,
Suve her whose clapped band will bring thee on to heaven!'

The American Spring.-By HOLMES.
Winter is pnst; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted stors;
Doub ful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest porslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hnes from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden-drift, or sky, or sun:
The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast
The frozen trophy torn from Winte r'a crest;
The violet gazíny on the arch of blue
Till ber own iris wears its deepened lue;
The spendthriít crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering, with luis cnp of gold,
Swelled with new life the darkening em on high
Prints her thick buds avaiust the spotted sky;
On all her honghs the sutely chestnut cleaves
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves;
The bonectly, stealing from his narrow grave,
Drngged with the opiate that November gave,
Beats with faiut wing against the snowy pane,
Or crawls teuacious o'er its lucid plain ;
From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls
In languid curves the gliding serpent crawls;
The boy's green harper, thawing from his sleep,
Twanga a hoarse note and trics a shortened leap:
On floating ruils that face the softening 1100ns
The still shy turtles range their dark platoons,
Or toiling, aimless, o'er the mellowing fields,
Trail through the grass their tegeelau d shields.
At last young April, ever frail and fair,
Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair,
Chused to the wargin of receding Hoode,
O'er the soft meadows started with opening buds,
In teurs and blushes sighs herself away,
And hides her check beneath the powers of May.
Then the prond tulip lights her beacon blaze,
Her clustering curls the hyacinth displays,
O'er her tull blades the crested fleur-de-lis
Like blue-eyed Pallas towers erect and free,
With yellower Aumes the lengthened suushine glows,
And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose;
Qneen of the lake, along its recdy verge
The rival lily hasteps to emerge,
Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips,
Till morn is sultan of her parted lips.
Then bursts the song from every leafy glade,
The yielding season's bridal seienadi:
Then flaslı ine wings returning Summer calls
Through the deep arches of her for et halls ;
The blue-bire breathinu froin his ozure pluies,
The fragrance borrowed where the myrue blooma

The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down,
Clad in his remuant of autumnal brown ;
The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire,
Rent by the whirlwind from a blazing spire.
The robin jerking his spasmodic throat
Repeats, staccato, his perumptory note;
Tue crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mato
Poised on a bulrush tipsy with his weight.
Nay, in his cage the lone canary sings.
Feels the soft air, and spreads his idle wings.
Why dream I here within these caging walls,
Deaf to her voice wbile blooming Nature calla,
While from heaven's face the long-drawn ebadows roll,
And all its sunshine floods my opening soui !

1. W. LONGFELLOW. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, a distinguished American author both in prose and verse, was born in Portland, Maine, in 1807. Having studied at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, the poet, after three years' travelling and residence in Europe, became Professor of Modern Languages in his native college. This appointment he held from 1829 to 1835, when he removed to the chair of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard University, Cambridge. While a youth at college, Mr. Longfellow contributed poems and criticisms io American periodicals. In 1833 he published a translation of the Spanish verses called “Coplas de Manrique,' accompanying the poem with an essay on Spanish poetry: In 1835 appeared his Outre-Mer, or Sketches from beyond Sea,' a series of prose descriptions and reflections somewhat in the style of Washington Irving. His next work was also in prose, ‘Hyperion, a Romance' (1839), which instantly became popular in America. In the same year he issued his first collection of poems, entitled “Voices of the Night.' In 1841 appeared • Ballads, and other Poems;' in 1812, Poems on Slavery: in 1843, The Spanish Student,' a tragedy; in 1845, The Poets and Poetry of Europe;' in 1846, “The Belfry of Bruges;' in 1847, 'Evangeline,'a poetical tale in hexameter verse; in 1849, Kavanagh,' a prose tale; and “The Seaside and the Fireside,' a series of short poems; in 1851, “The Golden Legend,' a medieval story in irregular rhyme; and in 1855, The Song of Hiawatha,' an American-Indian tale, in a still more singular style of versification, yet attractive from its novelty and wild melody Thus: · Ye who love the haunts of Nature, Torongh their palisades of pine-trees, Love the sunshine of the meadow, And the thonder in the mountains, Love the shadow of the forest,

Whose innumerable echoes Love the wind among the branches, Flap like eagles in their evries; And the rain-shower and the snow-storm, Listen to these wild traditions, And the rushing of great rivers

To this Song of Hiawatha! In 1858 appeared Miles Standish;' in 1863, “Tales of a Wayside Inn;' in 1866. Flower de Luce;' in 1867, translation of Dante; in 1872, 'The Divine Tragedy,' a sacred but not successful drama, em bodying incidents in the lives of John the Baptist and Christ; and the same year, “Three Books of Song;' in 1875. “The Masque of Pandora.' . Other poems and translations have appeared from the fertile pen of Mr. Longfellow; and several collecied editions of his Poems, some of them tinely illustrated and carefully edited, have been published. He is now beyond all question the most popular of the American poets, and has also a wide circle of admirers in Europe. If none of his larger poems can be considered great, his smaller pieces are finished with taste, and all breathe a healthy moral feeling and fine tone of humanity. An American critic (Griswold) has said justly that of all their native poets he best deserves the title of artist.

Excelsior.
The shades of night were falling fast, But still he answered with a sigh,
As through an Alpine village paseed

Excelsior!
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice,
A banner with the strange device, *Beware the pine-tree's withered branch I
Excelsior

Beware tbe awful avalanche!'

This was the persant's last good-night. His brow was sad; his eye beneath, A voice replied far up the heigbt, Flashed like falchion from its sheath ;

Excelsior 1
And like a silver clarion rang,
The accents of that arkeown tongue At break of day, as heavenward
Excelsior!

The pious monks of Saint Bernard

Uttered the oft-repeated prayer, In happy homes he saw the light

A voice cried through the startled alr, Of boasehold fires gleam warm and bright;

Excelsior!
Above, the spectral glaciers shone,
And from his lips escaped a groan, A traveller, by the faithful hound,
Excelsior!

Half-buried in the snow was found,

Still grasping in his hand of ice *Try not the Pass !' the old man said; That banner with the strange device, “Dark lowers the tempest overhead,

Excelsior
The roaring torrent is deep and wide!'
And loud the clarion voice replied, There in the twilight cold and gray,
Exceisior!

Lifeless, but beautiful, be lay,

And train the sky, serene and far, "O stay,' the maiden said, and rest A voice fell, like a falling star, Thy weary bead upon this breast !

Excelsior! A tear stood in his bright blue eye,

A Psalm of Life. Tell me not, in mourful dumbers, Still, like muffled drums, are beating . Life is but an empty dream!'

Funeral marches to the grave.
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem. In the world's broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,
Life is real! Life is earnest !

Be not like dumb, driven cattle ! And the grave is not its goal;

Be a hero in the strise. • Dost thou art, to dust returnest,' Was not spoken of tbe soul.

Trust no future, howe'er pleasant !

Let the dead Fast bury its dead; Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,

Act-act in the living Present!
Is our destined end or way:

Heart witbio, and God o'erbead !
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Lives of great med all reinind us

We can make onr lives sublime, Art is long and Time is fleeting,

And. deporting. Jeave behind us Aud our hearts, though stout aud brave, Foot-prints on the sands of Time: