Among thy gallant sons that guard thee well,
Thou laugh'st at enemies: who shall then declare
The date of thy deep-founded strength, or tell
How happy, in thy lap, the sons of men shall dwell?

Bryant by his contemplative gentleness and gravity reminds one of Klopstock; fantasy and free caprice are found in neither. You wander with them through arcades of verdure which shadow slow and quiet waters; a few waters only gleam in the rare sunlight. In the poems of Bryant, reprinted in London, 1840, 1842, the sermonizing tono predominates.

The summer day is closed-the sun is set:

Well they have done their office, those bright hours,
The latest of whose train goes softly out

In the red West. The green blade of the ground
Has risen, and herds have cropped it: the young twig
Has spread its plaited tissues to the cun;

Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown
And withered; seeds have fallen upon the soil,
From bursting cells, and in their graves await
Their resurrection.

In bright alcoves,

In woodland cottages with barky walls,

In noisome cells of the tumultuous town,

Mothers have clasped with joy the new-born babe.
Graves by the lonely forest, by the shore

Of rivers and of ocean, by the ways

Of the thronged city, have been hollowed out

And filled, and closed. This day hath parted friends
That ne'er before were parted; it hath knit

New friendships; it hath seen the maiden plight

Her faith, and trust her peace to him who long
Had wooed and it hath heard, from lips which late

Were eloquent of live, the first harsh word,

That told the wedded one her peace was flown.

Farewell to the sweet sunshine! One glad day
Is added now to Childhood's merry days,
And one calm day to those of quiet Age.
Still the fleet hours run on; and as I lean,
Amid the thickening darkness, lamps are lit,

By those who watch the dead, and those who twine
Flowers for the bride. The mother from the eyes
Of her sick infant shades the painful light,
And sadly listens to his quick-drawn breath.

Oh thou great Movement of the Universe,
Or Change, or Flight of Time-for ye are one!
That bearest, silently, this visible scene
Into night's shadow and the streaming rays
Of starlight, whither art thou bearing me?
I feel the mighty current sweep me on,
Yet know not whither. Man foretells afar

The courses of the stars; the very hour

He knows when they shall darken or grow bright:
Yet doth the eclipse of Sorrow and of Death
Come unforewarned.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister not now exercising his profession, merits a more particular mention, though he has published but two small volumes of verse and prose. He is the most original man produced by the United States up to this day.

He is not like Channing, nor Prescott, nor Irving. Dr. Channing, known by a reniarkable essay upon Milton and Napoleon, wants clearness and measure in his thought, and sacrifices to sonorous pomposity, those serious advantages of prose, solidity and concentration. The charming style of Washington Irving has both monotony and mannerism. Prescott, author of a good History of Isabella the Catholic, procured in Spain original and authentic documents from which he has made a wise and complete composition, not overdrawn,

and powerful; ono is interested additionally in a work, dictated by a blind father to his daughter who has arranged the materials under the paternal direction. Irving is of the school of Addison, Channing imitates Burke, Prescott, is modeled upon Robertson, Emerson resembles Carlyle without copying him; his ideas are analagous though often more hazardous; the reconciliation of the reforming and conservative minds, morality carried into industry, human dignity restored to the blind masses, and the hideous sentiment of envy driven back to its lurking place. Emerson has published in prose, only a little volume called "Essays"-which, when they fell into the hands of Carlyle so struck him by the analogy of their thought with his own, that he published the little volume in London, where it met with considerable

success.

Some of Emerson's poems are charming. A little piece "To the Bee," delicious in its way, is almost worthy of Milton. Through wood and valley goes the bee, happy, active, disdaining whatsoever is malevolent and ugly, seeking the sunlight, the odorous solitudes, the hidden perfumes, the murmur of running brooks, humming through sheen and fragrance. Nothing is more vivid than this picture, a mystic sense and a concealed view of philosophy wind through the luxurious gracefulness of the images. The very rhythm and melody reproduce the golden flight of the bee through the rich foliage.

Thou in sunny solitudes,
Rover of the underwoods,
The green silence dost displace

With thy mellow, breezy bass.

Nor will we destroy by a translation so delicate a combination of music, form, color and philosophy.

More varied than Bryant and Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, now professor of Modern Literature at IIarvard University, was brought up in Europe and has travelled in Sweden and Denmark. The modern Scandinavian genius seems to have exercised great influence over his thought. Severe intellectual beauty, a peculiar sweetness of expression and rhythm distinguishes his verse, especially tho "Voices. of the Night."

He is a "moonlight" poet, say the Americans, and attracts the soul by his sad, sweet grandeur. The effect of his verse is often strange, and the colors are so transparent that scntimental romance would willingly claim the merit of them."

No one among the Anglo-Americans has spared higher into the middle air of Poesy than Longfellow, whose most touching poem we will shortly analyze.

Little passion, and great calm, approaching to majesty; a sensibility stirred in its very deeps are exhibited in moderated vibration and rhythm; only the Swedish poems of Tegner can give an idea of the gentle melody and thoughtful emotion. Longfellow appears to us to occupy the first rank among the pocts of his country; a distinct savor characterizes him; as you read him you seem to feel the permanent mournfulness of the mighty sounds and shadows of the endless prairie and the woods which have no history.

CHAPTER VI.

EVANGELINE: AN ACADIAN HISTORY.

SECTION I.

HISTORY OF THE ACADIAN COLONY.

"THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest."

commence.

THUS does Evangeline, that singular poem by Longfellow, The scene and the actors belong, as the début shows, to the primeval solitudes of the New World. Evangeline is a romance, written in hexameter verse and in English upon a subject historical and French, and adorned with romantic and metaphysical colors by an American of the United States.

It is the end and the beginning of two literatures; the cradle and decline of two poetries; a faint new dawn above an ancient ruin. So go human things, by destruction and resurrection, by complication, alliance, and affinity.

Desirous of renewing its intellectual patrimony, without repudiating the wreck of its antique heritage, the Anglo