While sat beneath the green leaves fading, Oft rang most strange and musical; Whose glancing black eyes often stole We know of but few finer pieces of description than this, in our language. It is all the mind asks. We see not how it could be more highly perfected. We might go on multiplying passages to any extent. It is difficult, among so many that might be taken, to seize upon "The storm swept by, and Peace, with soft fair fingers, Where broad Ohio's bending beauty lingers, Calm was the life he led, till, near and far, And envoys from all lands approach with greeting tongue!" and magnificence of sound and of language, beyond any other stanza that I am acquainted with." We have only five or six poems in our language, of any considerable note, in this measure. It is so difficult, that it has been avoided. If we at tend to its construction, we shall find that every verse should be but the expansion of a single thought. The little argument goes on evolv ing and evolving itself, until the last line, long and stately, brings out the grand conclusion. We are inclined to think that the author has failed more in this part of his work, than in any other. There is oftentimes a break, a transition in the thought, that affects us painfully. We are not aware that any poet, with the exception of Byron, ever attempted to make this stanza give utterance to broken, violent, and abrupt thought, with any great suc And even in his hands, there is something unnatural in it. If we notice this stanza in the "Faery Queen," we shall find the thought opening quietly in the beginning, cess. and stretching peacefully along towards the end, like a stream running through a level meadow, with no ripple to break the evenness of its flow. The author, however, has left us the proof that he is competent for the work. Half of the Spenserian verses are good. The one which we have selected is well woven and beautiful. There are many hearts in our land that can feel the beauty and force of the following passage. "The noble, dauntless pioneers Journeying afar new homes to raise Theirs be the highest meed of praise! Hath faced the spear, the cannon's breath, Hath swayed the trembling scales of Fate For mingling with it comes the dream For whom their lives of pain are given; !" While roll thy rivers, spreads thy sky, Or rise thy lifted mountains high, Hesperia, guard their memory!' There are many songs scattered effect in their connexion. along the book, that are beautiful in dier's song in the fourth canto, themselves, and have a pleasing commencing, "Oh, in the bowl we'll drown dull care, And think not of the morrow," The sol flows very sweetly. The sentiments are of course suited to the time and place of their singing. Moray's lament over the body of Owaola, his faithful friend and guide, is simple and touching. "Last of thy race! I will not weep Though sweet the love and passing deep, No! sleep, since all thy kindred sleep, And I will lay thee here, where ceaselessly They were to thee in life most dear, Alas! they have become thy bier, May naught thy solitary sleep molest, The song that steals to the ear of Moray, when confined in fort Mackinaw, we commend to the reader for its tenderness and pathos. The war-song of Tecumseh, in the last canto, breathes the true Indian spirit. In fact, the songs are all more or less marked in this respect. We shall close this part of our subject, "Within a wood extending wide, We give only the opening of the passage, but we cannot commend the whole of it too highly. It ranks among the very highest order of descriptive poetry. In this situation, Tecumseh meets her, and they have their last sad interview. It was a fine fancy of the author, to leave his reader by the lonely tomb of Tecumseh. After journeying so long through the wilderness-following the hero through so many scenes of danger and adventure, it acts like a talisman upon the mind, to stand thus by his solitary grave, embosomed with trees. Whatever defects may be found in this poem, by a critical eye, we have no doubt that its general beauty and fine effect, will be every where acknowledged. It touches the heart. It lingers in the memory. Its sweet and tender spirit grows upon the reader. Its nationality, its truth-like descriptions, its story of deep and abiding love, will win for it favor and heartfelt thanks. To the West it must have a dear and home-like interest. To the Englishman it must present charms, in this picture of a life so far removed from his daily experience. DICKENS' NOTES ON AMERICA.* WHEN it was announced that "Charles Dickens, Esq." intended to visit the United States, our cu riosity was somewhat excited to see the man, who had so suddenly written himself into notoriety and fortune. We had laughed at the adventures of Mr. Pickwick, we had wept over the story of poor Oliver, we had followed with interest "the uprisings and downfallings of the Nickleby family," we had sympathized with little Nell in her childish trials, we had been pleasantly relieved in moments of ennui by some light sketch, half-comical, half-serious, from the pen of Boz, and were thus prepared to receive him with good-natured cordiality. But when we reflected on his moral and religious principles as developed in his writings, and on the unfortunate tendency of those writings in many particulars, we were as fully prepared to treat him with indifference; or at least, to show him no more than the ordinary courtesy due to strangers, should he chance to fall in our way. In fact, after dwelling on these latter considerations, (the force of which may perhaps be exhibited in the sequel of these remarks,) our curiosity so far subsided, that when we were informed that "Charles Dick ens, Esq." had actually arrived in our city, and would receive his friends at the hotel near by, we did not even do ourselves the honor to look him in the face. We were not in the least agitated by the intelligence; we simply responded to it with the unfailing "yes, sir," and pursued our evening vocations with as much nonchalance, as if "Charles Dickens, Esq." had been three thousand miles away. Nor was it an indifference to literary merit, which rendered us so apathetic on this occasion. Had we been favored with such an opportunity of being introduced to the illustrious author of Waverley, we should have embraced it with eagerness, and have considered ourselves honored in the interview. Had we been informed that our own honored Irving was stopping for the night so near us, we should have hastened to tender him our respects, and have felt a pride in exchanging salutations with one who is the ornament of American literature. We had always conceded to Mr. Dickens much merit, as a writer of a certain sort; we had even been ranked among his admirers, for rendering to him the admiration due to genius, but we felt that his literary reputation was insufficient to overbalance that moral obliquity, which made it inconsistent with our self-respect, to be particularly respectful towards him. We were, nevertheless, interested in observing the reception which he met with from our countrymen; and on the whole, it accorded well with our expectations. There were men of learning and honorable distinction, who, willing for a season to overlook his faults, and eager perhaps to give him a favorable impression of American manners and hospitality, made him their guest, and entertained him with marked kindness and attention. Others, of a more thoughtful and cautious temper, stood aloof from the movement that would make Boz, like Lafayette, the nation's guest, feeling that the ordinary attention paid to strangers might suffice for a man with no other distinction than what he had attained as a writer of droll * American Notes for General Circula- sketches and stories of low life. tion. By CHARLES DICKENS. It soon became apparent, however, that the men of fashion and pleasure, the patrons of theaters, balls, and other like scenes of moral culture and innocent amusement, the lovers of wine, cards and billiards -gentlemen par excellence-manifested a peculiar interest in Mr. Dickens, and were disposed to claim him as their own. Accordingly, the Gothamites would allow the lordly distinction of seeing the British lion to none, who could not pay ten dollars for the privilege. They converted the theater, which had long rendered "a beggarly account of empty boxes," into one vast saloon, brilliantly illuminated, decorated with illustrations from the writings of Boz, and crowded with the beauty and fashion, the foppery and coquetry of the city, where, amid the voluptuous swell of music, the giddy dance, and the splendid banquet, Mr. Dickens was introduced to American society. Whether he was satisfied with this specimen of native manners, or whether he was less flattered by such a reception, than he would have been by the quiet attentions of literary men, we are not informed; but immediately afterwards, he made the necessary brevity of his visit, a pretext for declining other invitations to similar entertainments. Whatever may have been his opinion of the mode adopted by the New Yorkers to tender him their respects, there were not a few, who inferred from the personal appearance of "Charles Dickens, Esq.," and his apparent anxiety to be esteemed a man of fashion and to mingle in the scenes of fashionable life, that no other mode could have been selected more in harmony with his character and feelings. And here we cannot resist the temptation to turn aside for a moment, to give our readers a brief account of the origin and education of this same "Charles Dickens, Esq.;" and this we do, for the more particular edification of his Vol. I. 9 "numerous friends" in this country, who were eager to pay their respects to him, under the impression, that he was an English gentleman, who had good humoredly spent his leisure moments, in rambling along the lower walks of life in quest of amusement for the higher classes. We have not been able to trace his pedigree back far enough, to ascertain whether any of his an cestors fought by the side of William the Conqueror, at Hastings, or followed the lion-hearted Richard to Palestine. We have not learned, whether some Dickens of the olden time, was with the chivalry of England, at Cressy, or at Agincourt. Nor have we been able to determine the connection between the house of Dickens, and the Percys, the Howards, or the Russells. All that we can say is, that, according to the best accounts, the father of our hero was, or is, connected with the London press, getting a decent living by gathering or inventing accidents and anecdotes for the newspapers; and that, accordingly, "Charles Dickens, Esq." was educated to the profession of a police reporter. It was in this humble, though honest calling, that he became so familiar with courts and prisons, Bow Street and St. Giles'. Here too was developed that peculiar talent for caricaturing, in which Mr. Dickens excels. Finding that this talent might be exercised to advantage, he wrote and published various humorous sketches, till at length he came before the world as the author of Pickwick. The "Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" had a rapid sale, and Mr. Dickens soon found himself, with an increasing popularity, in the enjoyment of an ample income. All this we, as Americans, regard as more respectable than any mere pedigree, running back even to the Conquest. But Mr. Dickens, unable to bear this sudden turn of fortune with the equanimity that ought |