Vegetation outgushes from hedges and bushes, Fields and gardens now are gay With hearts'-ease, columbines, jonquils, And lady-smocks, “all silver white," Makes in its widely-spreading flush And throws a gleaming, rouge-like streak Ply their endless, giddy mazes, His thrilling heart of song is pouring, As if 'twere bursting with delight. And hark! to the cuckoo. O, sound of entrancement! O, wandering, viewless, mysterious bird! Thy music derives a more touching enhancement From the dreams it awakes than the sounds that are heard. It is sweet to be told that the Spring has uprisen, That Winter is pass'd with his sorrow and strife, But sweeter by far when our thoughts break their prison, And who that has heard, as he walk'd by the wild wood, These are April's lessons-Nature Cries aloud to every creature, "Throw aside your carking cares, Cease to traffic, drudge, and labour, Miser! think not of your heirs; Warrior! sheath awhile your sabre; Listen to the pipe and tabor;- Marking, too, with grateful eye, The liberal bounty of the earth, Men of wealth! be men of worth LIVING LITERARY CHARACTERS, NO. VII. Thomas Colley Grattan. (With an engraved Likeness.) LORD Byron has pronounced himself the Napoleon of literature; and Mr. Kean was for some time regarded as the Byron of the stage. Sir Walter Scott is universally recognized as the Shakspeare of Scotland; Mr. Cooper is, in like manner, the American Scott; and, if we did not feel this list of "distinctions without differences" to be already sufficiently long, we would add another name to it, by designating Mr. Grattan the Flemish Sir Walter. The literary kings of the present day are not Alexanders; they are far wiser heroes. They do not sit down in despair to wail over their exhausted worlds; they leave tears to their readers; and, instead of wearing out their eyes in weeping for new conquests, find more honourable occupation for them in a ceaseless and untiring search after materials for future triumphs. It is easy to say that they are fighting their battles over and over again, and winning victories already achieved; that they are either discovering what had been found years ago, or digging up, as rare and valuable, what former adventurers had rejected as worthless; that, instead of penetrating at once into the fruitful world of nature, they wander about without aim or meaning, and lose themselves in the barren mazes of romance; that they do not create fiction, but mutilate facts; and that they seize upon the treasures of the historian, only to stamp them with the impress of a false die, and to pass them upon our credulity and ignorance as their own. This is the language of those who look upon the march of novel-writing as the march of nonsense; and who think, because the quantity is so vast, the quality must necessarily be weak. In their eyes, every tale that comes forth is an echo of that which went before it-the shadow of a shade. Three volumes are to them the three weird sisters, uttering sounds that have only the mockery of a meaning, and vanishing into the air, whereof they are made. All this may be truth, but it is only part of the truth; if they are weak, they are only relatively so. To compare the common run of productions of this class with the finest works of our few great novelists, is, of course, to sink them at once into insignificance; but, compared with the average productions of any period of our literature, so far from being deficient, we think they will be found to contain a principle of superior strength and vitality, eminently characteristic of the genius and intelligence of the age. So much, indeed, of this power exists among the romance-writers of the day, that we cannot but lament that they should, like the rest of the existing children of literature, condescend-or, perhaps, we ought to say, be compelled-to write for gold instead of glory, and to forsake the higher ground of moral cultivation, for a field, in which the first, and too often the only aim, is to create amusement, or to charm away an idle hour. Among those who have endeavoured to reach this higher ground, and who have thrown over their fictions a less puerile allurement, and a less perishable power than the rest, Mr. Grattan may unquestion ably claim a distinguished station. Like one or two of his great rivals, he has enjoyed the advantage of travelling in a comparatively uncultivated track, and of thus discovering a little world of his own, over which he reigns absolute: such as his dominion is, he has it to himself. Some writers carry their researches into the remotest recesses of history, and seek for novelty and interest in exact proportion as the scene is distant from that of modern life: Mr. Grattan has not wandered so far, and yet he has fared as well. He has found sources of interest nearer home, among places and persons that were much less known to us than many that were more remote and unimportant. Not contented with a cursory glance at the ground he was thus to occupy, or a superficial investigation of its different aspects and peculiarities, he at once hit upon the best mode of securing the perpetual possession of his conquest, by taking up his abode on it. Tourists we had had, in numbers, that must have almost excited the idea of a new invasion in the wondering provinces of the Continent; an army of journalists," the mob of gentlemen who write with ease,' whose very quartos, when they returned to us, would have furnished materials enough to have built a bridge between the two countries. But, unluckily, they all told us the same thing, in different ways; and that thing generally happened to be either the precise one we did not care about, or that with which we were previously acquainted. They were too hurried and too happy to look beneath the surface. They saw only columns and cathedrals, bridges and triumphal arches, inns and high-roads, bad dinners and diligences, waiters and drivers that spoke French, and a variety of similar things, that glittered in description, and "looked green" in congenial prose. Architecture is under the deepest obligations to them, and the innkeepers owe them the value of an immortality that lived for at least three months. The National Debt of France is equal in magnitude to our own, if her people entertain a proper sense of gratitude to all these pen-and-ink visitors that have so indefatigably be-journalized her. The only defect in the system was, that, although we may be a nation of shopkeepers, the French are not a nation of innkeepers; and that, consequently, a few unimportant particulars, such as the general character of the people, their morals and manners, their humours and habits, their passions and prejudices, still remained to be described. The Author of "Highways and Byways" was among the first to supply this description; and he supplied it with a graphic power of representation that at once stamped the truth and identity of his pictures. While Lawrence was painting the continental kings, Grattan was perpetuating the far more interesting lineaments of the people. A residence of several years in the French capital, and in the departments, afforded him facilities seldom enjoyed, and still more seldom taken advantage of. He had the art of making himself at home among a foreign people; partaking of their sports and pastimes; conforming to their customs; observing not only the more prominent, but the finer springs of action, the nicer shades of feeling and opinion, that form the character of a community; and growing, at length, into a state of moral naturalization among them. These advantages of personal collision and intercommunion with the subjects of his story, would have |