THE POET'S APOLOGY. Many a sad, sweet thought have I, My heart from its study's solitude.—p. 1. The author-Edward Sanford-of the Address to Black Hawk' and the Address to a Musquito,' has a fine taste in finished playful verse and ingenious thought. C. F. Hoffman has many elegant trifles scattered up and down the volume. George P. Morris, too, has an excellent knack at verse in his way; a light, easy rhyme, or an epilogue for theatres. Washington Irving also takes his rank among the Poets, by a kind of courtesy we presume, on Parnassus, for the charming lines he has written in prose. The Falls of the Passaic, however, is not so delicate or appropriate to his happy genius as the little gem of the Dull Lecture, which is redolent of the careless piquancy of the olden song. We give it, though it has been omitted in the present collection. THE DULL LECTURE. BY WASHINGTON IRVING. Frostie age, frostie age Young heade no love will heede, A visit from St. Nicholas, by Clement C. Moore, is one of the most appropriate passages of the New-York Book. THE SAINT OF MANNAHATTA. His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, He had a broad face and a little round belly That shook, when he laugh'd, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump; a right jolly old elf; And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.-p. 219. These lines have lately been illustrated by Weir's painting of St. Nicholas, where we have the very impersonation, the second self, of the jolly Saint, with his happy Dutch visnomy, full of broad enjoyment, twinkling grey eyes, expanded mouth, and warm rubicund nose-a more lumbering Dutch Puck or Robin Goodfellow, just ascending the chimney after his humorsome labours, while the scripture tiles round the fireplace and rich oak mantel throw a ruddy light on this worthy representative of the Russian Calendar. Not less pleasing, though in another way, a thoughtful melancholy mood, are the Lines 'To a Lady,' From a Father to his Children,' 'From a Husband to his Wife,' by the same hand. They combine a ripeness of feeling with an ease of versification that might profitably have been employed on wider subjects. With the Father's reverie from the last-mentioned of these poems we conclude our notice. A HUSBAND TO HIS WIFE. The dreams of Hope that round us play, And yet there are some joys in life Hope comes, with balmy influence fraught, Bless'd hope, beyond earth's narrow space, With all your cherubs clustering round. Reflected images are seen Upon this transient stream of Time, Then let us rightly learn to know 4. Agrarian Stories. Number One. Fanny Forrester. Philadelphia; Joseph Latimer. 18mo. 1837. THIS little story is the first of an intended series. The design is admirable. It is to expose the folly, wickedness, and miserable consequences of the immoral and disorganizing principles that of late years have been so industriously spread among the more ignorant classes. The present number contains the story of a servant girl, brought up in a kind and virtuous family, and afterwards married to a mechanic, who had, unknown to her, imbibed these foolish and hurtful doctrines. His wretched career illustrates the proper influence of these doctrines in sapping the foundations of religion, morality, and industry, and thus destroying individual happiness as well as Law and Public Order. But, much as we commend the design of the proposed series, and deeply as we are interested in every effort made by wise men and true lovers of our country to check the progress of corrupt and destructive principles; just so anxious are we that the work should be well done, done in the way to do the most extended and effectual good. In this respect we fear the writer will fail. He does not seem to understand for whom he writes. The style is wanting in that simplicity and clearness of expression which ought, above all things, to mark writings intended to do good among the less cultivated classes. In this little story of thirty-six pages we marked some forty words and forms of construction which should never have been found in such a tract; such as "adscititious aids"--" inauspicious group" of children--the body "returning through the process of corruption to its original dust"-" profluvium of words," &c., &c. "Cousin Isabelle" ought not to have been made to talk in this way. Her style of conversation is as far from the simple elegance which is the greatest charm of a truly cultivated woman as it is unfitted to do good in the quarter for which the story is intended. In conclusion, we earnestly recommend the author to study Hannah More's Cheap Repository tracts, writ ten with a similar praiseworthy purpose as his own. They are a model for this sort of writing. They did immense good in England; and the writer of the Agrarian Stories, if he can succeed in imitating their clearness and simplicity, truth and spirit, will be a great benefactor to this country. 5. Live and Let Live; or, Domestic Service Illustrated. By the Author of "Hope Leslie," "The Linwoods," "The Poor Rich Man and the Rich Poor Man," &c. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1837. pp. 216. WE respect Miss Sedgwick for the motive and intention of her later writings, and for the most part we admire their tone and spirit. We freely own that the narrowness, injustice, and sectarian bitterness-joined at the same time with an arrogation of superior enlargement and liberality-which marked her "New England Tale," and traces of which appeared in some of her subsequent works, excited our disgust. Of all the cants of this canting world, the cant of religious "liberality," which finds its chief scope in drawing revolting pictures of individuals of a different faith, and setting them forth as true portraits of a whole body, is the most disgusting. There is this to be said, however, in extenuation of Miss Sedgwick's earliest writings, that such a fashion of liberality was exceedingly prevalent in those days among those with whom she thought and lived. They have improved a great deal since then, we are glad to admit it but Miss Sedgwick herself has risen entirely above that narrow spirit into the freer air of a genuine philanthropy and true Christian charity. In her later writings, whatsoever there is of a religious utterance, is the expression of "religion undefiled" by the faults to which we have adverted. But it is not of this that we intended chiefly to speak. We think Miss Sedgwick is entitled to the respect and gratitude of the good and right-minded for the special direction which she has recently given to the exertion of her high talents. Her later writings are eminently useful, in a good and high sense of that much-perverted word: they are calculated to do good in a wide and much-neglected sphere. There There is a sound, wholesome moral tone in them. They are admirably fitted to free the mind from the slavery of fashion, of false and unenlightened opinion; to make us more like rational beings in our desires, aims, and maxims of living; and to diffuse those principles and sentiments which are the nurse of the best virtues, and the security for the truest happiness of life. The first of the series to which we refer was "Home," an excellent little book, though inferior in spirit and interest to those which follow it. Then came "The Poor Rich Man and the Rich Poor Man," full of interesting incident, nice and accurate observation of life and human nature, fine traits of delineation of character, rich humour, and occasional touches of exquisite pathos. It made us laugh, and it made us cry; and, what is more, it made us better; and we are persuaded that it has made thousands better-elevated them in the character of rational and moral beings-made them wiser, freer, happier, by teaching them what there is in life worth living for, and where to look for the purest sources of earthly well-beingnot in things, but in ourselves-in the performance of life's every-day duties, and in the exercise of the affections and charities that centre in a virtuous home. To that has now succeeded the "Live and Let Live,”—written with the same praiseworthy spirit. It is designed to expose and correct the faults of masters and mistresses in their relation to their servants. The story of Lucy Lee, reduced by her father's vices and follies to the necessity of going to service, carries us through the several families in which she successively served. The establishments of the vulgar and niggardly Mrs. Broadson, the good-natured but indolent and thoughtless Mrs. Ardley, the frivolous and fashionable Mrs. Hartell, furnish many a graphic sketch: and give, we fear, an over-true picture of vices and follies that abound in fashionable life, and especially of that heartless inconsideration and indolent selfishness in the treatment of servants from which spring so large a share of the vexations that form the burden of complaint among house-keepers. There is many a page in which the faults and follies of higher life are mirrored with so true a reflection, that we imagine more than one face must have burned with shame at the sight. Finally, in the character and house-keeping maxims of Mrs. Hyde, the author gives us her ideal of a true lady and good mistress; and, on the whole, it is a very good one, though Mrs. Hyde is a thought too much of a pattern woman—the slightest approximation in the world to a precieuse. By a little over-drawing in two or three particulars, the author has made her what Miss Edgeworth calls a little "prejinct." It would be impossible to give a clear view of the contents of this volume by analysis and extracts. We prefer to re |