R. H. DANA-N. P. WILLIS-O. W. HOLMES. RICHARD HENRY DANA (born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1787) was author of a small volume, The Buccaneer, and other Poems (1827); which was hailed as an original and powerful contribution to American literature. He had previously published The Dying Raven, a poem (1825), and contributed essays to a periodical work. The Buccaneer is founded on a tradition of a murder committed on an island on the coast of New England by a 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 in 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 at Life (1845), Letters from Wateringplaces (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 1846, Urania; in 1850, Astræa, the Balance of Allusions, a poem; and in 1858, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 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 1849 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 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 shed the rain that falls on him, and the wave in which he dips. Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked. 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 he 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 shade over a gas-lamp such a one to our minds. There are men of esprit who does not bring more solace to our dazzled eye than are excessively exhausting to some people. They are the talkers that have what may be called the jerky minds. They say bright 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 the cat 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 visit 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. for such visitors, which being lubricated with certain I have contrived a sort of ceremonial inclined plane smooth phrases, I back them down, metaphorically speaking, stern foremost, into their native element of out-of-doors. The Buccaneer's Island.-By Dana. Of craggy rock and sandy bay, Save where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home, But when the light winds lie at rest, The black duck, with her glossy breast, How beautiful! no ripples break the reach, And inland rests the green, warm dell; Nor holy bell, nor pastoral bleat, Rich goods lay on the sand, and murdered men; Thirty-five.-By WILLIS. O weary heart! thou 'rt half-way home! And Reason takes the guidance now- Farewell, without a sigh or tear! To think that Love may leave us here! Have we no charm when Youth is flown?Midway to death left sad and lone! Yet stay!-as 'twere a twilight star Steal down a path beyond the grave! Comes o'er-and lights my shadowy way- And, by its chastening light, Then the proud tulip lights her beacon blaze, Her snowy shoulders glistening as she strips, Then bursts the song from every leafy glade, H. W. LONGFELLOW. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, a distin Save hers whose clasped hand will bring thee on to guished American author both in prose and verse, heaven!' The American Spring.-By HOLMES. Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms And hides her cheek beneath the flowers of May. 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. Thus: Ye who love the haunts of Nature, And the rushing of great rivers Through their palisades of pine-trees, Whose innumerable echoes 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 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. Excelsior. The shades of night were falling fast, His brow was sad; his eye beneath, In happy homes he saw the light Of household fires gleam warm and bright; 'Try not the Pass!' the old man said; 'O stay,' the maiden said, 'and rest 'Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! Beware the awful avalanche!' This was the peasant's last good-night. At break of day, as heavenward A traveller, by the faithful hound, There in the twilight cold and gray, A Psalm of Life. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; 'Dust thou art, to dust returnest,' Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act-act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Foot-prints on the sands of Time; Foot-prints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er Life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labour and to wait. The Ladder of St Augustine. The low desire, the base design, The longing for ignoble things; The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth; All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds, The action of the nobler will: All these must first be trampled down We have not wings, we cannot soar; The mighty pyramids of stone That wedge-like cleave the desert airs, The distant mountains, that uprear The heights by great men reached and kept Standing on what too long we bore With shoulders bent and downcast eyes, Nor deem the irrevocable Past To something nobler we attain. God's-Acre. I like that ancient Saxon phrase, which calls God's-Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts Into its furrows shall we all be cast, In the sure faith that we shall rise again With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth. With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod, This is the place where human harvests grow! Lifts up her purple wing; and in the vales Oh, what a glory doth this world put on To his long resting-place without a tear. A Rainy Day. A cold, uninterrupted rain, That washed each southern window-pane, A sea of mist that overflowed The house, the barns, the gilded vane, And drowned the upland and the plain, Through which the oak-trees, broad and high, As a faint pallor in the sky Thus cold and colourless and gray, Full late they slept. They did not hear The famous broadsword of the Squire, In drowse or dream, more near and near CHARLES SWAIN. A native of Manchester, and carrying on business there as an engraver, CHARLES SWAIN (18031874) became known as a poet in the pages of the Literary Gazette and other literary journals. His collected works are: Metrical Essays, 1827; The Mind and other Poems, 1831; Dramatic The Death of the Warrior King. Chapters, Poems, and Songs, 1847; English father's counting-house-contrived to write a draMelodies, 1849; Art and Fashion, 1863; and matic poem, The Roman, published in 1850. In Songs and Ballads, 1868. Some of Mr Swain's 1854 appeared Balder, Part the First; in 1855, songs and domestic poems-which are free from Sonnets on the War, written in conjunction with all mysticism and exaggerated sentiment-have Mr A. Smith; and in 1856, England in Time of been very popular both at home and abroad. War. A man of cultivated intellectual tastes and They have great sweetness, tenderness, and benevolence of character, Mr Dobell seems to melody. have taken up some false or exaggerated theories of poetry and philosophy, and to have wasted fine thoughts and conceptions on uncongenial themes. The great error of some of our recent poets is the want of simplicity and nature. They heap up images and sentiments, the ornaments of poetry, without aiming at order, consistency, and the natural development of passion or feeling. We have thus many beautiful and fanciful ideas, but few complete or correct poems. Part of this defect is no doubt to be attributed to the youth of the poets, for taste and judgment come slowly even where genius is abundant, but part also is due to neglect of the old masters of song. In Mr Dobell's first poem, however, are some passages of finished blank verse: There are noble heads bowed down and pale, Where a wounded warrior lies; Upon his lofty brow, And the arm of might and valour falls, I saw him 'mid the battling hosts, Where banner, helm, and falchion gleamed, When, in his plenitude of power, He trod the Holy Land, I saw the routed Saracens Flee from his blood-dark brand. I saw him in the banquet hour To seek his favourite minstrel's haunt, He loved that spell-wrought strain Then seemed the bard to cope with Time, While horse and foot-helm, shield, and lance, But battle shout and waving plume, Are sights and sounds the dying king It was the hour of deep midnight, When, with sable cloak and 'broidered pall, Dull and sad fell the torches' glare On many a stately crest They bore the noble warrior king To his last dark home of rest. The Italian Brothers. He grew We were twin shoots from one dead stem. Of fancies; neither laughed, nor fought, nor played, And from his icy hills the frequent wolf Threw round his harvest way. Frieze, pedestal, Of reverent leaves, rich works of wondrous beauty The Ruins of Ancient Rome. The hoar unconscious walls, bisson and bare, Wore out the stone, strange hermit birds croaked forth |