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

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NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS (1806-1867) was a prolific and popular American writer, who excelled in light descriptive sketches. commenced author m 1827 with a volume of fugitive pieces, which was well received, and was followed in 1831 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 1843 he published Terpsichore,' a poem; in 1-46, Urania;' in 1850, Astræa, 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 Dartmouth College; and in 1847 succeeded to the chair of Anatomy in Harvard University. In 1819 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 it necessaries.

Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable. Say, rather, it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's plumage, which enables him to sued 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 opinions. 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 perfectly well that if they were not the most stupid or the most selfish of human beings, they would become non-compotes at once.

What a comfort a dull but kindly person is, to be sure, at times! A ground-glass sbade over a gas-lamp does not bring more solace to our dazzled eye 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 say br ght things on all possible subjects, but their zigzags rack you to death. After a jolting half-hour with these jerky companions, talking with a dull friend affords 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

18 is 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 phrases, I back them down, metaphorically speaking, stern foremost, into their native element of out-of-doors. The Buccaneer's Island.-By DANA.

The island lies nine leagues away.
Along its solitary shore.

Of craggy rock and sandy bay,

No sound but ocean's roar,

Save where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home,
Her shrill cry coming through the sparkling foam.

But when the light winds lie at rest,
And on the glassy heaving sea,

The black duck, with her glossy breast,
Sits swinging silently-

How beautiful! no ripples break the reach,
And silvery waves go noiseless up the beach.

And inland rests the green warm dell;
The brook comes tinkling down its side;
From out the trees the Sabbath bell
Rings cheerful far and wide,

Mingling its sound with bleatings of the flocks,
That fed upon the vale among the rocks.

Nor holy bell, nor pastoral blat,
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 murdered men;
Pirate and wrecker kept their revels then.

Thirty-five.-By WILLIS.

O weary heart! thou 'rt half-way home!
We stand on life's meridian height-
As far from childhood's morning come,
As to the grave's forgetful night.
Give Youth and Hope a parting tear-
Look onward with a placid brow-
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 and Memory on?
Oh, lonely looks the downward track-
Joy's music hushed-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 leave us here!
Have we to charm when Youth is flown?—
Midway to death left sad and lone!

Yet stay!-as 'twere a twilight star
That sends its thread across the wave,

I see a brightening light, from far.

Steal down a path beyond the grave!
And now-bless God! its golden line

Comes o'er-and lights my shadowy way-
And shews the dear hand clasped in mine!
But, list what those sweet voices say:
The better land's in sight.

And, by its chastening light,

All love from life's midway is driven.

Save her whose clasped hand will bring thee on to heaven!'

The American Spring.-By HOLMES.
Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storius;
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 nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden-drift, or sky, or sun:
The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast
The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest;
The violet gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;

The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering, with his cup of gold,
Swelled with new life the darkening clm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky;
On all her boughs the stately chestnut cleaves
The gummy shroud that wraps her embryo leaves;
The housefly, stealing from his narrow grave,
Drugged with the opiate that November gave,
Beats with faint wing against the snowy pane,
Or crawls tenacious o'er its lucid plain;
From shaded chinks of lichen-crusted walls
In languid curves the gliding serpent crawls;
The bog's green harper, thawing from his sleep,
Twangs a hoarse note and tries a shortened leap:
On floating rails that face the softening noons
The still shy turtles range their dark platoons,
Or toiling, aimless, o'er the mellowing fields,
Trail through the grass their tesselated shields.
At last young April, ever frail and fair,
Wooed by her playmate with the golden hair,
Chased to the margin of receding floods,
O'er the soft meadows starred with opening buds,

In tears and blushes sighs herself away,

And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May.
Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze,

Her clustering curls the byacinth displays,
O'er her tall blades the crested fleur-de-lis
Like blue-eyed Pallas towers erect and free,

With yellower flames the lengthened sunshine glows,
And love lays bare the passion-breathing rose;
Queen of the lake, along its reedy verge
The rival lily hastens to emerge,

Her snowy shoulders ghstening as she strips,

Till morn is sultan of her parted lips.

Then bursts the song from every leafy glade,
The yielding season's bridal serenade:
Then flash the wings returning Summer calls
Through the deep arches of her for st halls;
The blue-bird breathing from his azure pluines,
The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle 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 peremptory note;

Tue crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate
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 while blooming Nature calls,

While from heaven's face the long-drawn shadows roll,
And all its sunshine floods my opening soul!

H. 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 to 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 1842, 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

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Thus:

Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches,
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,
And the rushing of great rivers

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Through their palisades of pine-trees,
And the thunder in the mountains,
Whose innumerable echoes
Flap like eagles in their evries;
Listen to these wild traditions,
To this Song of Hiawatha!

In 1858 appeared 'Miles Standish;' in 1863, Tales of a Wayside Inn;' in 1866. Flower de Luce;' in 1867, a translation of Dante; in 1872, The Divine Tragedy,' a sacred but not successful drama, embodying incidents in the lives of John the Baptist and Christ; and

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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 collected editions of his Poems, some of them finely 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.

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