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COXCOMBS.

FROM 'KYTTEN HAWTEN,' AN UNPUBLISHED POEM BY J.

H. BRIGHT, ESQ.

I.

HIGH on the quarter-deck the master stood,

His slender frame form'd less for use than show:

A soft blue eye, light hair, of gentle mood,

And small thin hands and feet, a forehead low;

He looked a figure for a lady's beau

The neat appendage of the drawing-room;

A quite convenient thing, when Miss must go

To purchase ribbons, laces, and perfume:

You'll find such when 't is fair, in Broadway, in full bloom.

II.

This leads me to digress upon the way

In which those objects live on land; 'they toil
Not, neither do they spin;' and yet more gay
No gilded butterflies e'er go. They spoil
The finest epigram, though smooth as oil,
Which genius ever penn'd; and when it closes,
You wonder where the wit is! They so maul
The sense, in reading, it no point discloses.

They credit Shakspeare, when they quote from Job, or Moses.

III.

They 're at the fountain-head of all the news
That's worthy of repeating; and know well
The latest cut for coats, and whether shoes
Or boots are most genteel; can also tell
Who's to be married, who will be the belle
The coming winter: and they too can dance,
Ride horse-back, sing, and fence, and cut a swell;'
But will be sadly non-pluss'd, if perchance

You ask them -is the Rhine in Germany or France?

IV.

Of appellations they 've a score or two;

'Sweet fellow,' is most common in these times :
I've known one call'd to tie a lady's shoe.
In albums oft they murder sense, and rhymes,
Or if they've wit, as is the case sometimes,
Purloin a glowing sentiment from Moore,
Which o'er their names in borrow'd lustre shines.
To men of sense they're a 'confounded bore;'
But sentimental girls the painted things adore.

V.

I mean not all: thank Heaven! for there are some
Would 'cut' the perfumed coxcomb in the street;
These weave a charm about the name of home,
And in the desert bid fair blossoms greet
The traveller's eye. They are of earth the wheat,
The precious grain, the gold without alloy;
In their embrace truth, virtue, friendship meet :
All that the warm heart yearneth to enjoy,
And all that charms the eye of the love-dreaming boy.

VI.

They are the magnets of the erring soul,
The stars to guide man on his devious track:
Nor can he spurn at woman's wild control,
Which to the path of duty lures him back:
Presents a shield to ward off the attack
Of fierce temptation; and dispels the gloom
Which gathers in his noon-sky, thick and black.
What though she sink unlaurell'd to the tomb ?
Her deeds, like perish'd roses, leave a rich perfume.

LITERARY NOTICES.

HOME AS FOUND. By the Author of 'Homeward Bound,' 'The Pioneers,' etc.' In two volumes, 12mo. pp. 582. Philadelphia: LEA AND BLANCHARD.

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We shall devote but brief space to a notice of this work, than which we have seen nothing worse from the pen of its author- not even excepting 'The Monikins.' It will be remembered that, in a late number of this Magazine, in closing a notice of 'Homeward Bound,' we expressed the hope that its author would hereafter forget the unpleasant wranglings of the past, and that 'the fine genius of our countryman, now in the prime of life and manhood, would play out its variations, unfettered by kindled prejudices, and untrammelled by awakened remembrance of real persecution or fancied wrong.' We regret to say, that our anticipations were not well founded. Indeed, the warmest personal friend of Mr. COOPER cannot but deeply regret the publication of the work under notice. As a novel proper, it is, to say nothing of more venial faults, plotless and desultory — utterly 'without form and void.' Our author seems to anticipate this verdict, in his preface; and hazards an apology for his failure, which can in no wise avail him. It will not do for the author of the 'Pioneers,' 'The Spy,''Lionel Lincoln,' etc., who has derived so much repute from his labors on American ground, to turn round, at this late day, and, as an excuse for giving us the lees of his good wine, pronounce our country 'the most barren field on earth for a writer of fiction.' It is true, that if Mr. COOPER's fame were to depend upon the volumes before us, it would ultimately be found vastly to resemble infamy. He evidently sat down to his task with all his vanities and grievances, imaginary or real, thick clustering about him; and no reader can resist the conclusion, that the discharge of ink was necessary to avoid a most plethoric congestion. Scenes and conversations, in which American society is elaborately caricatured, make up the staple of the work. The writer indulges liberally in satirical digressions, and is not at all scrupulous about the tie which connects them together. The spirit of the book could not well be worse. It is full of nuts for the tories of England, and all enemies of republican equality and institutions, every where. Doubtless, as our author has often averred, there is something too much of national boasting among us. It has been well remarked, that there is enough of honest triumph for the republic, in her actual position, and reasonable prospects, without sending up our writers and statesmen to the high places of the American Pisgah, to enjoy the prospective subjugation of the globe. But on the other hand, is there need of underrating? Is there need of native dogmatism and arrogance, in treating of our people? Is there cause for an American to represent the mass of his countrymen as fools or clowns? - to speak slightingly of our scenery, and disparagingly, nay, contemptuously, of our society, in particular and in the mass? But we must pause. A long notice of these volumes would be out of all proportion to their importance; and we gladly leave them to the oblivion which awaits them, and from which nothing can rescue them.

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THE MOTLEY BOOK: A SERIES OF TALES AND SKETCHES.-By the late BEN. Smith. With Illustrations. One volume. pp. 190. J. AND H. G. LANGLEY, Chatham-street. We have already alluded to this work, in the fragmentary form in which it first appeared; and now that the' tales and sketches' are collected by the author into a volume, where they may be read consecutively, we find no cause to modify the conscientious verdict which we have heretofore rendered against them. The author's head is capacious enough of dreams and similitudes of humor; but there is no naturalness in his descriptions, and no distinctness in his pictures. His observation of men and things, is cursory and superficial; and there is a perpetual tendency with him to exaggeration or dilution of thought; until the reader is sometimes led to doubt whether he always affixes any very precise ideas to the language he employs. Under such a process, even the best of scenes or ideas would become as flat as champaigne in a decanter. We will illustrate the justice of our comments, by a single extract from a sketch entitled 'Greasy Peterson,' a grocer, described, with characteristic vraisemblance, as 'a smooth, unctious, fish-faced being,' which we shall take the liberty to place by the side of a natural picture, drawn by a master of the humorous, and ask the reader to compare the 'odd patch-work fancy' of our motley author, with the clear limning, which he has elsewhere aped, but signally aped in vain :

'Greasy Peterson vulgar mortals have named thee, knowing not the true sweetness and blessedness of thy life in its even flow. Judged by thy garments, thou art in truth a poor-devil. Ablue coat, patched like the sky with spots of cloudy black, oil-spotted drab breeches, cased in coarse overalls of bagging, are not the vestments in which worldly greatness clothes itself, or worldly wisdom is willing to be seen walking streets and highways. True, thou hast a jolly person and goodly estate of flesh and blood under such habiliments. Glide on, glide on, Oleaginous Robert-like a river of oil, and be thy taper of life quenched silently as pure spermaceti! Robert Peterson, Esq., greengrocer and tallow-chandler, possessed the most incongruous face that ever adorned the head of mortal. His nose thrust itself out, a huge promontory of flesh, at whose base two pool-like eyes sparkled small, clear and twinkling, while a river of mouth ran athwart its extreme projection, flowing almost from ear to ear, with only a narrow strip of ruddy cheek intervening. Within, greasy Bob possessed a mind as curiously assorted as his countenance. It was composed of fragments of every thing, bits of knowledge of one kind and another strangely stitched together, and forming an odd patch-work brain, whose operations it was a merry spectacle to observe.

'Good morning, neighbor Peterson,' said as mall, pie-shaped fruiterer from next door, 'Good morning! I hope we shall have fine weather, now the wind has shifted his tail to the Nor'-west.'

Who ever saw a 'fish-faced' or a 'pie-shaped' man, or one, elsewhere mentioned, with features 'like a dried codfish, suddenly animated? Compare the foregoing obscure and plethoric picture - a single specimen from a numerous class, of kindred genus and characteristics with the subjoined, by IRVING, whose drawings in this kind seem always, in contrast with those of other would-be humorists, (we except NEAL, the charcoal-sketcher,) like a Michael Angelo in a picture-gallery. The passage is familiar to the reader, being a sketch of Ichabod Crane, and his steed 'Gunpowder,' as they sat off for old Baltus Van Tassel's party:

'The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scare-crow eloped from a cornfield. It is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plough-horse, that had outlived almost every thing but his viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with

burrs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge from his name, which was Gunpowder. He had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his master's, the choleric Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken-down as he looked, there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the country. Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and as the horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called, and the skirts of his rusty black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail.'

We have expressed our conviction, and given the grounds for our belief, that the forte of the writer of these 'motley' outlines, is not the humorous; and we say it in all kindness, and with a due remembrance, that it is to our own pages that 'BEN. SMITH' is indebted for the small amount of capital in literary repute, upon which he subsequently began to trade. We may believe, moreover, that were some judicious friend to clip, amend, and emend, as in the case of the trifle which gives our author his nom de guerre, it would be the better for the writer's success. He is far more felicitous in serious compositions. The 'Potters' Field,' for example, is very spirited and pathetic, and shows the true vein of our author; the same is true of the little sketch entitled 'The Unburied Bones.' And we cannot but hope, that he will for ever renounce, for this species of composition, the things of shreds and patches,' which he must needs imagine to possess, what they assuredly do not, the spirit of genuine wit and humor. We need not say, that Mr. SMITH has our best wishes for his success, in any pursuit which involves no waste of his energies upon a species of literature, which, though not perhaps foreign to his taste, is certainly beyond his grasp.

VELASCO; A TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS. By EPES SARGENT. pp. 110. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

THE author of this play - which has already received the stamp of public approbation, having been performed with entire success, before the critical audiences of the ' literary emporium'-informs us, in a brief introduction, that its basis is historical, although many of its scenes and situations are purely imaginary. All that may seem strange or unnatural,' says Mr. SARGENT, 'in the conduct of the drama, is in strict accordance with popular tradition. The general action of the piece is derived from incidents in the career of Rodrigo Diaz, the cid, whose achievements constitute so considerable a portion of the historical and romantic literature of Spain.' Until now, however, the subject has never been successfully introduced upon the English stage. As the play, when produced at the Park Theatre, will fall under the province of our theatrical reporter, we shall avoid sluicing off any portion of its interest, by attempting a synopsis or analysis of its character; but leaving this task to abler hands, we may, in a few words, express our convictions of its general merits. The whole is, to our conception, managed with judgment and good taste. The unity of the drama is well preserved throughout, while the plot or business of the piece advances gradually and naturally. Unlike too many native productions, of a similar description, it is not glaringly unequal in portions of the acts or scenes - half ice and half fire; but the subordinate interests are well maintained, and not remotely accessary. The language of passion is bold and figurative, yet for the most part brief and concise. There is little or nothing of disproportioned and injudicious ornament; and in these days of rant and fustian, to avoid these, deserves no small praise. We can well imagine, as we read, what fine effect must have been given to

portions of this drama, by that accomplished artiste, Miss ELLEN TREE, with her musical voice, graceful action, and queenly presence.

The few desultory selections, for which only we have space, and to which we hasten, will convince the reader of the justice of our encomiums. The subjoined is the spirited opening of the third scene. The locale is a wild glen, in a violent storm, with thunder and lightning. The hero enters from the rocks in the back-ground:

VELASCO.

'I lay my brow against the marble rock,
I hold it throbbing to the dewy grass;
There is no coolness in the summer rain!
The elements have lost their attributes.
The oaks are shiver'd round me, in the blaze
Of the near lightning, as it bursts the folds
Of its black cerements, but no gracious bolt
Blasts me or scathes! A wilder storm is here!
The fiery quiver of the clouds will be
Exhausted soon; the hurricane will sink;
And, through the vista of the western clouds,
The slant rays of the setting sun will stream;
And birds, on every glistening bough, will hail
The refluent brightness, and the freshen'd air;
But when will pass away from this sad heart
The cloud of grief, the tempest of remorse!
When will the wingéd hopes, that glanced and sang
In joy's melodious atmosphere, return,
To welcome back the gladness of the soul!
This spot! What fatal instinct led me here!

It is our trysting-place; and-ha! what form
Breaks through the shadowy gloom? 'tis Izidora!
She sees me she advances-knows she yet

The fearful truth? Oh! were this trial spared me!'

The annexed passage is not less felicitous, and will convey to the reader some idea of the subdued yet expressive fervor which characterizes the more passionate portions of the performance. The scene is an apartment in the royal palace, into which the heroine enters, sumptuously attired in her bridal robes:

IZIDORA.

'I will believe that I am borne along

To this day's purpose in the arms of Fate!
For, though my better angel warns me back,
With earnest gesture and imploring eyes,
Yet am I weak, resistless as a child!

Shout on, glad voices! Swell your acclamations!
It is my bridal day - a day of joy!

My heart is lifted on those waves of sound,
And thrills with the first gladness it has known
Since since -

[Shouts are heard.

Away! away! thou fiend, remembrance!
Is there no spell can lay thee? Thou art hideous,

Yet there's a fascination in thy horror,

That bids me gaze and gaze till I am frenzied.
Ah me! on what a base is reared the joy,

A single flash of memory can shiver!

What have I done? Brief is the time elapsed
Since, with the ashes of his great forefathers,
All that is mortal of my sire was blended.
And now, death's sable livery is changed
For bridal pomp the wail of lamentation
For shouts of mirth, and nuptial harmonies!
And he, I wed, is -reason cannot breathe it !
Yet in that little space- that sand of time-
What weary lives of anguish have been crowded!

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