once more,

He dasht in dust the living lamp he bore. Dazzled with her own glare, decoy'd and sold

For homebred faction and barbarick gold, Greece treads on Greece, subduing and subdued,

New crimes inventing, all the old renew'd; Canton o'er canton climbs; till, crush'd

and broke,

All yield the sceptre and resume the yoke." p. 296-7.

These and other instances awake in the mind of Columbus some sad forebodings, that the returning tide of violence and superstition may again blot out the intelligence which seems so firmly established.

"Tho two broad continents their beams combine

Round his whole globe to stream the day divine,

Perchance some folly, yet uncured, may spread

A storm proportion'd to the lights they shed,

Veil both his continents, and leave again Between them stretch'd the impermeable main;

All science buried, sails and cities lost, Their lands uncultured, as their seas un

crost.

Till on thy coast, some thousand ages hence,

New pilots rise, bold enterprise commence,

Some new Columbus (happier let him be, More wise and great and virtuous far than me)

Launch on the wave, and tow'rd the rising day

Like a strong eaglet steer his untaught way,

Gird half the globe, and to his age unfold A strange new world, the world we call the old.

From Finland's glade to Calpe's stormbeat head

He'll find some tribes of scattering wild men spread;

But one vast wilderness will shade the soil,

From Baltick streams, from Elba's opening side,

From Rhine's long course and Texel's la bouring tide,

From Gaul, from Albion, tired of fruitless fight,

From green Hibernia, clothed in recent light, Hispania's strand that two broad oceans lave,

From Senegal and Gambia's golden wave, Tago the rich, and Douro's viny shores, The sweet Canaries and the soft Azores, Commingling barks their mutual banners hail,

And drink by turns the same distending gale.

Where Asia's isles and utmost shorelands bend,

Like rising suns the sheeted masts ascend; Coast after coast their flowing flags unrol, From Deimen's rocks to Zembla's ice. propt pole,

The last scene of the vision is the grand congress of sages, who are to assemble from all corners of the world, in the central plains of Egypt, to consult for the happiness of the federated universe; and, finally, to abjure all the prejudices by which men are now divided and debased. A statue is erected to the genius of human kind, and

"Beneath the footstool all destructive things,

The mask of priesthood and the mace of kings,

Lie trampled in the dust; for here at last Fraud, folly, errour, all their emblems

cast.

globes and stars,

Our readers, we suspect, have now enough of this performance. As a great national poem, it has enormous-inexpiable—and, in some respects, intolerable faults. But the author's talents are, evidently, respectable. And, severely as we have been obliged to speak of his taste and his diction, in a great part of the volume, we have no hesitation in saying, that we consider him as a giant, in comparison with many of the puling and paltry rhymsters, who disgrace our English literature by their occasional success. As an epick poet, we do think his case is desperate; but, as a philosophical and moral poet, we think he has talents of no ordinary value; and, if he would pay some attention to purity of style, and simplicity of composition, and cherish in himself a certain fastidiousness of taste-which is not yet to be found, we are afraid, even among the better educated of the Americans we have no doubt that he might produce something which English poets would envy, and English criticks applaud. In the mean time, we think it quite certain, that his present work will have no success in this country. Its faults are far too many, and too glaring, to give its merits any chance of being distinguished; and, indeed, no long poem was ever redeemed by the beauty of particular passages; especially if its faults were owing to affectation, and its beauties addressed rather to the judgment than to the heart or the imagination. If it will be any comfort to Mr. Barlow, we will add, that we doubt very much

whether any long poem of the epick character will ever again be very popular in Europe. All such works have necessarily so much of imitation about them, as nearly to extinguish all interest or curiosity in the reader, and, at the same time, to lead to dangerous comparisons. The style and title of an epick poem, immediately puts us in mind of Homer, Virgil, and Milton; and who can stand against such competitors? We even suspect, if we must tell the whole truth, that the works of those great masters themselves were better suited to the times that produced them, than to the present time. Men, certainly, bore long stories with more patience of old, than they do now. Witness the genealogies and monkish legends and romances which delighted our remoter ancestors, and through which even vanity is now scarcely sufficient to drag a few of their descendants. Epick poetry is the stage beyond these; and though the inimitable merit of the composition, as well as traditionary fame, will ensure the immortality of a few great models, we doubt, very much, whether it would be in the power, even of equal talents, to add another name to that illustrious catalogue. In the present state of society we require, in poetry, something more natural or more impassioned, and, at all events, something less protracted and monotonous than the sober pomp and deliberate stateliness of the epick.

There is one thing, however, which may give the original edition of Mr. Barlow's poem some chance of selling among us: and that is, the extraordinary beauty of the paper, printing, and embellishments. We do not know that we have ever seen a handsomer book issue from the

press of England; and, if this be really and truly the production of American artists, we must say, that the infant republick has already attained to the very summit of perfection in the mechanical part of bookmaking. If her home sale can defray the expense of such a publication as the present, it is a sign that a taste for

literature is spreading very widely among her inhabitants; and whenever this taste is created, we have no doubt that her authors will improve and multiply, to a degree that will make all our exertions necessary to keep the start we now have of them.

THESE two sizeable volumes contain a selection from the letters written by Mrs. Montagu while under the age of twenty three. Now, considering that this celebrated lady lived to be upwards of eighty, and probably did not grow less communicative as she grew older and better known, it certainly was not without some alarm, that we ventured to calculate, by this scale, the probable bulk of the whole publication. We have read through this introductory part of it, however, without any extraordinary impatience; and trust that, when the time comes, we shall be endowed with strength sufficient to do the same duty to the successive parts which may be awaiting us.

A considerable portion of the letters now before us are published, we should suppose, rather as curiosities, than on account of their intrinsick excellence. Several of them, and by no means the worst in the collection, were written, it seems, while the author was under fifteen years of age; and would certainly be considered as extraordinary performances, even in this age of premature womanhood and infant accomplishment. The subsequent letters, indeed, scarcely keep the promise that is held out by those early effusions. They are not at all more lively or more natural; and are all the worse, we think, for being

more plentifully garnished with moral reflections and morsels of elaborate flattery. If the correspondence does not improve faster in its subsequent stages, we fear greatly that there will be no climax in the reader's admiration.

The merit of the pieces before u's seems to us to consist mainly in the great gayety and vivacity with which they are written. The wit, to be sure, is often childish, and generally strained and artificial; but still it both sparkles and abounds: and though we should admire it more, if it were better selected, or even if there were less of it, we cannot witness this profuse display of spirits and ingenuity, without receiving a strong impres sion of the talents and ambition of the writer.

The faults of the letters, on the other hand, are more numerous. In the first place, they have, properly speaking, no subjects. They are all letters of mere idleness, friendship, and flattery. There are no events; no reasonings; no anecdotes of persons who are still remembered; no literature; and scarcely any original or serious opinions. The whole staple of the correspondence consists of a very smart and lively account of every-day occurrences and every-day people; a few common places of reflection and friendship; and a consi

derable quantity of little, playful, petulant caricatures of the writer's neighbours and acquaintances. All this has a fine, familiar effect, when interspersed with more substantial matter, or when it drops from the pen of a man of weight and authority; but whole volumes of mere prattlement from a very young lady, are apt, however gay and innocent, to produce all the symptoms of heavier reading.

A second, and perhaps a greater fault, is want of nature and simplicity; and this, in so far as we can judge, pervades the whole strain of the correspondence. There is an incessant effort to be witty or eloquent, which takes away from the grace of success, and makes failure ridiculous. There is no flow from the heart; no repose for the imagination; no indolent sympathy of confidence. Every thing is gilded and varnished in the most ostentatious manner, and exposed in the broadest light. It is not the learning only, or the ridicule, that is introduced for effect; all the familiarity must be brilliant, and all the trifling picturesque. It is evident, in short, that Mrs. Montagu wrote rather from the love of her own glory, than from any interest in the subjects of her correspondence; and the less we can sympathize with this feeling, the less we shall be delighted with her performance.

The last, and the most serious want we shall notice in this girlish correspondence, is the want of heart and affection. We naturally reckon upon a little romance in the confidential epistles of a damsel of eighteen; or, at any rate, upon some warmth of attachment: but, in these letters, though we have plenty of eloquent professions of friendship, we confess that we have looked in vain for this common bloom of sensibility. There is no softness, no enthusiasm, nothing which could, for one moment, be mistaken for the language of tenderness or emotion. Yet these are letters to chosen

friends and early associates; and embrace the period in which the writer became a wife and a mother. It is not enough that the letters of a woman should be lively and witty. Female gayety loses both its charm and its dignity, when it is not shaded with softness. Even female intellect is not quite respectable without it. The readers of Mad. de Sevigné complain, indeed, of the vehemence and anxiety of her attachment to her daughter; yet, importunate as that feeling is, we verily believe that it gives the chief charm to her correspondence. The image of that warm and watchful affection is constantly impressed upon our recollection; it redeems all the levities, and gives an interest to all the details of her letters; and carries us, with ready good nature, into all the anecdotes which appear to have amused a creature at once so sprightly and so kindhearted. Mrs. Montagu, on the other hand, no doubt appears very good-natured and obliging; but without any devotedness of affection, or much concern, beyond that of admiration and amusement. On the whole, we think her professions of friendship and serious morality, the least attractive parts of her performance. Her ludicrous descriptions and witty remarks, except that they are always too elaborate, are often tolerably successful; but the most entertaining of all, we think, are her lively personalities; those half malicious, half playful delineations of common acquaintance, by which the merriment and the jealousies of polite society have been chiefly maintained, ever since the period of its first formation.

Those who like the prattlement of young ladies, must naturally have some curiosity to know how they prattled seventy years ago. These volumes will certainly gratify that curiosity; and, indeed are so completely devoted to its gratification, that we scarcely know upon what