scenery, but nowhere in our country such easy countenances, free from care, and so picturesque a population. Every individual gives a smiling greeting, and even the young girl driving her team speaks in a gentle musical

tone.

You go to the woods

LINES.

what there have you seen?

Quivering leaves glossy and green;
Lights and shadows dance to and fro,
Beautiful flowers in the soft moss grow.
Is the secret of these things known to you?
Can you tell what gives the flower its hue?
Why the oak spreads out its limbs so wide?
And the graceful grape-vine grows by its side?
Why clouds full of sunshine are piled on high?
What sends the wind to sweep through the sky?
No! the secret of Nature I do not know

A poor groping child, through her marvels I go!

SONNET.

"To die is gain."

WHERE are the terrors that escort King Death,
That hurl pale Reason from her trembling throne?
Why should man shudder to give up his breath?
Why fear the path, though naked and alone,
That must lead up to scenes more clear and bright,
Than bloom amid this world's dim clouded night?

Is not his God beside, around, above,

Shall he not trust in. His unbounded love?
Oh, yes! Let others dread thee if they will,
I'll welcome thee, O death, and call thee friend,
Come to release me from these loads of ill,
These lengthened penances I here fulfil,
To give me wings, wherewith I may ascend,
And with the soul of God my soul may blend!
HUGH PETERS.

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

Essays and Poems. By JONES VERY. Boston: C. C. Little and James Brown.

THIS little volume would have received an earlier notice, if we had been at all careful to proclaim our favorite books. The genius of this book is religious, and reaches an extraordinary depth of sentiment. The author, plainly a man of a pure and kindly temper, casts himself into the state of the high and transcendental obedience to the inward Spirit. He has apparently made up his mind to follow all its leadings, though he should be taxed with absurdity or even with insanity. In this enthusiasm he writes most of these verses, which rather flow through him than from him. There is no composition, no elaboration, no artifice in the structure of the rhyme, no variety in the imagery; in short, no pretension to literary merit, for this would be departure from his singleness, and followed by loss of insight. He is not at liberty even to correct these unpremeditated poems for the press; but if another will publish them, he offers no objection. In this way they have come into the world, and as yet have hardly begun to be known. With the exception of the few first poems, which appear to be of an earlier date, all these verses bear the unquestionable stamp of grandeur. They are the breathings of a certain entranced devotion, which one would say, should be received with affectionate and sympathizing curiosity by all men, as if no recent writer had so much to show them of what is most their own. They are as sincere a litany as the Hebrew songs of David or Isaiah, and only less than they, because indebted to the Hebrew muse for their tone and genius. This makes the singularity of the book, namely, that so pure an utterance of the most domestic and primitive of all sentiments should in this age of revolt and experiment use once more the popular religious language, and so show itself secondary and morbid. These sonnets have little range of topics, no extent of observation, no playfulness; there is even a certain torpidity in the concluding lines of some of them, which reminds one of church hymns; but, whilst they flow with great sweetness, they have the sublime unity of the Decalogue or the Code of Menu, and

if as monotonous, yet are they almost as pure as the sounds of Surrounding Nature. We gladly insert from a newspaper the following sonnet, which appeared since the volume was printed.

THE BARBERRY BUSH.

The bush that has most briers and bitter fruit,
Wait till the frost has turned its green leaves red,
Its sweetened berries will thy palate suit,
And thou may'st find e'en there a homely bread.
Upon the hills of Salem scattered wide,

Their yellow blossoms gain the eye in Spring;
And straggling e'en upon the turnpike's side,
Their ripened branches to your hand they bring,
I've plucked them oft in boyhood's early hour,
That then I gave such name, and thought it true;
But now I know that other fruit as sour
Grows on what now thou callest Me and You;
Yet, wilt thou wait the autumn that I see,
Will sweeter taste than these red berries be.

On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.
THOMAS CARLYLE. 1841.

By

ALTHOUGH the name of Thomas Carlyle is rarely mentioned in the critical journals of this country, there is no living writer who is more sure of immediate attention from a large circle of readers, or who exercises a greater influence than he in these United States. Since the publication of his article on the characteristics of our time in the Edinburgh Review, and afterwards of the Sartor, this influence has been deepening and extending year by year, till now thousands turn an eager ear to the most distant note of his clarion. To be and not to seem; to know that nothing can become a man which is not manlike; that no silken trappings can dignify measures of mere expediency; and no hootings of a mob, albeit of critics and courtiers can shame the truth, or keep Heaven's dews from falling in the right place; that all conventions not founded on eternal law are valueless, and that the life of man, will he or no, must tally with the life of nature;-this creed indeed is none of the newest! No! but as old and as new as truth

itself, and ever needing to be reënforced. It is so by Carlyle with that depth of "truthful earnestness" he appreciates so fully in his chosen heroes, as also with a sarcastic keenness, an overflow of genial wit, and a picturesque skill in the delineation of examples, rarely equalled in any age of English literature.

How many among ourselves are his debtors for the first assurance that the native disdain of a youthful breast for the shams and charlatanries that so easily overgrow even our free society was not without an echo. They listened for the voice of the soul and heard on every wind only words, words. But when this man spoke every word stood for a thing. They had been taught that man belonged to society, the body to the clothes. They thought the reverse, and this was the man to give distinct expression to this thought, which alone made life desirable.

Already he has done so much, that he becomes of less importance to us. The rising generation can scarcely conceive how important Wordsworth, Coleridge, and afterwards Carlyle were to those whose culture dates farther back. A numerous band of pupils already, each in his degree, dispense bread of their leaven to the children, instead of the stones which careful guardians had sent to the mill for their repast.

But, if the substance of his thought be now known to us, where shall we find another who appeals so forcibly, so variously to the common heart of his contemporaries. Even his Miscellanies, though the thoughts contained in them have now been often reproduced, are still read on every side. The French Revolution stands alone as a specimen of the modern epic. And the present volume will probably prove quite as attractive to most readers.

Though full of his faults of endless repetition, hammering on a thought till every sense of the reader aches, and an arrogant bitterness of tone which seems growing upon him (as alas! it is too apt to grow upon Reformers; the odious fungus that deforms the richest soil), though, as we have heard it expressed, he shows as usual "too little respect for respectable people,” and like all character-hunters, attaches an undue value to his own discoveries in opposition to the verdict of the Ages, the large residuum of truth we find after making every possible deduction, the eloquence, the wit, the pathos, and dramatic power of representation, leave the faults to be regarded as dust on the balance.

Among the sketches, Odin is much admired, and is certainly of great picturesque beauty. The passages taken from the Scandinavian Mythology are admirably told. Mahomet is altogether fine. Dante not inaccurate, but of little depth. Apparently Mr. Carlyle speaks in his instance from a slighter acquaintance than is his wont. With his view of Johnson and Burns we were already familiar; both are excellent, as is that of Rousseau, though less impressive than are the few touches given him somewhere in the Miscellanies. Cromwell is not one of his

best, though apparently much labored. He does not adequately sustain his positions by the facts he brings forward.

This book is somewhat less objectionable than the French Revolution to those not absolutely unjust critics, who said they would sooner "dine for a week on pepper, than read through the two volumes." Yet it is too highly seasoned, tediously emphatic, and the mind as well as the style is obviously in want of the verdure of repose. An acute observer said that the best criticism on his works would be his own remark, that a man in convulsions is not proved to be strong because six healthy men cannot hold him. We are not consoled by his brilliancy and the room he has obtained for an infinity of quips and cranks and witty turns for the corruption of his style, and the more important loss of chasteness, temperance, and harmony in his mind observable since he first was made known to the public.

Yet let thanks, manifold thanks, close this and all chapters that begin with his name.

A Year's Life.

By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Little and James Brown.

Boston: C. C.

1841.

WE are late in a notice of this volume. But not only do we consider this delay complimentary as intimating that we suppose the book still fresh in the public mind, but, in truth, we are timid with regard to all comments upon youthful bards. We doubt the utility whether of praise or blame. No criticism from without is of use to the true songster; he sings as the bird sings, for the sake of pouring out his eager soul, and needs no praise. If his poetic vein be abundant enough to swell beyond the years of youthful feeling, every day teaches him humility as to his boyish defects; he measures himself with the great poets; he sighs at the feet of beautiful Nature; his danger is despair. The proper critic of this book would be some youthful friend to whom it has been of real value as a stimulus. The exaggerated praise of such an one would be truer to the spiritual fact of its promise, than accurate measurement of its performance. To us it has spoken of noble feelings, a genuine love of beauty, and an uncommon facility of execution. Neither the imagery nor the music are original, but the same is true of the early poems of Byron; there is too much dwelling on minute yet commonplace details, so was it with Coleridge before he served a severe apprenticeship to his art. The great musicians composed much that stands in the same relation to their immortal works that those productions perhaps may