way that a civilized being would eat a radish, and without any more previous preparation. They eat it raw; scales, bones, gills, and all the inside. The fish is held by the tail, and the head being introduced into the mouth, the animal disappears with a rapidity that would at first nearly lead

down the throat.

"Raw fish! Shall I ever forget my sensations when I first saw my island beauty de

your one. Oh, heavens! Fayaway, how could you ever have contracted so vile a habit? However, after the first shock had subsided, the custom grew less odious in my eyes, and I soon accustomed myself to the sight. Let no one imagine, however, that the lovely Fayaway was in the habit of swallowing great vulgar-looking fishes: oh, no; with her beautiful small hand she would clasp a delicate, little, golden-hued love of a fish, and eat it as elegantly and as innocently as though it were a Naples

biscuit. But alas! it was after all a raw

fish; and all I can say is, that Fayaway ate it in a more lady-like manner than any other girl of the valley.

"When at Rome do as the Romans do, I held to be so good a proverb, that being in Typee I made a point of doing as the Typees did. Thus I ate poee-poee as they did; I walked about in a garb striking for its simplicity; and I reposed on a community of couches; besides doing many other things in conformity with their peculiar habits; but the farthest I ever went in the way of conformity, was on several occasions to regale myself with raw fish. These being remarkably tender, and quite small, the undertaking was not so disagreeable in the main, and after a few trials I positively began to relish them: however, I subjected them to a slight operation with my knife previously to making my repast."

The appearance of the Typee people produced a deep and favorable impression on the mind of Mr. Melville. He considers them models of grace and beauty; the fair come in for a large share of his admiration, and in regard to them he makes some invidious comparisons which we commend to the notice of his

country women. He is also highly pleased with the freedom enjoyed by the natives. The Typee government is simple. A chief reigns supreme, and his commands are few and willingly obeyed. There are no rigorous laws, nor trouble

far superior to that which is the growth and creature of civilization and religion, Mr. Melville was in despair and rendered unhappy because he could not escape from this paradisaical valley. He could live without labor and be free from care, but he could not get rid of the idea that some fine morning he would be killed and cooked, after he had attained to that degree of obesity which is requisite in order to figure respectably on such an occasion. And therefore we find him making his escape at the first opportunity. A small boat coming into the bay from Nukuheva, he made his escape, aided by a friendly feeling on the part of some of the natives. This was not effected without a vigorous opposition on the part of others. Indeed, a fight ensued, and was in full progress on his account when he departed from their shores; and some savage fellows, stung no doubt by his folly and ingratitude at leaving so much happiness, both present and prospective, followed him a long way into the bay with frantic cries and threats of vengeance.

We take it for granted, as Mr. Melville has now reached home, that he is again duly sensible of the great hardships and evils of civilization, and that he will hasten his return to the society he has so cleverly described in these volumes. The charming Fayaway-the simple-hearted trustful maiden whom he left weeping on the lone island shoreno doubt waits his return with tearful eye and besides this allurement, a score of Typeean gourmands are also waiting, in the shade of lofty cocoa-trees, for their noon-day meal. How can Mr. Melville resist such temptations? If he does return, we can only express the hope, in the language of Sydney Smith to a Missionary friend on his departure for New Zealand, that he may not disagree with the stomach of the man that eats him.

THERE are three kinds of readers and critics of poetry, as there are three very different kinds of poets. Of bards indeed minstrels, scalds, sagas, seers, poets, or by whatever name the early ages, with a species of wonder, designated those who seemed conversant with some Presence of which the mass of humanity had little perception-of minstrels and bards the three orders are plainly enough distinct. For the poet is one who reads Nature more clearly than his fellow-men. But Nature-though in the fullest sense, to the clearest eye, she is one-yet lies in two or three departments, so different as to seem entirely disconnected, except to a deep comprehension of the relations of things. The word is usually accepted as embracing only the universe of material things-those objects and influences alone of which our senses take cognizance. This restriction of the meaning is as false, as it is common. The world of the hearts and minds of men-the great community of human passions and affections, with those complicated relations of society which necessarily grow out of them-is as truly a part of Nature as is the sphere of all external existences. The Power that "laid the foundations of the heavens," in like manner ordered these, with a yet vaster diversity and with a harmony not less wonderful. Nor yet do these two fields of the objects of contemplation exhaust the domains which Nature must be considered as possessing. For the term, whether by its etymological sense or by force of the just comprehension which it ought to have, embraces whatever Is-of attributes, qualities, influences, effects as well as causes, and immaterial, unexplained, as well as material, evident-out of and apart from the "Great First Cause." In other words, everything that is necessarily-by the laws of our being which the Creator ordained a subject of thought to the human mind, exists to human estimation, as a part of the wide field of Nature. If many things are dimly seen, or utterly inexplicable-if possibly higher beings may see them differently from what we do-it is yet nothing to us; for if we

cannot get away from them, all men admitting them, more or less to their contemplation and belief, they become to us realities-which is enough for the argument, if it is not the ground of all reasoning on the subject. But how vast a region of the objects of thought, of the influences of the mind, lies entirely apart from the outward physical world, and equally from the sphere of human passions and affections. The conditions of existence-the always unfathomable mysteries of our nature-our capacities and moods of mind, the "thoughts that wander through eternity"-our relations (as men have universally agreed in believ ing) to Divinity and a spiritual worldthe half recognized elements of inferior creatures-the immense system of absolute truths-the great circle of probabilities almost as persuasive-the shadows that are not shadows, the dreams that all have conspired in dreaming, the imaginings all have been constrained to imagine, lying far off in that thrice-veiled Future, from whose portals no shining feet have come back to us of those whose entrance we have seemed to beholdthese things are in a distinct realm by themselves, and equally with all other qualities and influences that can affect our minds are ordained by Him who "sees the end from the beginning."

Now as the greatness of Nature consists in her embracing at once all that we have enumerated as lying beneath the on-look of Deity-all entities, that are, aside from the Uncreated-whether material or spiritual, bound together in this great whole by certain ties not the less real and eternal, that they are subtil and unseen-so the greatest of poets is he who not only most deeply reads and feels the physical universe, but who penetrates as it were,and compasses with a quick vision that inhabiting co-extended universe of spiritual life, of intelligent existences without which the former, with its infinitude of sights, sounds and odors, were but a vast dumb pageantry, utterly unintelligible and idle, because having neither use nor interpreter. The fine words indeed which Coleridge

"All thoughts, all passions, all desires,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of "

Poesy, and conspire equally to "feed the flame" of a creative genius.

But as Nature is not less herself in a part than she is in the whole of her sovereignty, so the poet is not less truly such, who-from original temperament and cast of intellect, or early associations, or subsequent habitudes of mind-may have been led to familiarize himself with but one of the three great departments which she opens to the exercise of human thought. It is here that a very great error in taste, appreciation and criticism has arisen. Following a partial bent of mental or even physical constitution, often from the mere force of circumstances in the first years of life, one person of finely-strung intellect and a delicate subtilness of sense is rendered keenly alive to the presence of external Nature. He continues conversant with that presence, till love for her forms, aspects, influences, becomes with him a passion. If he happens as is oftener the case with true poetic minds, we imagine, than is usually supposed to have been too rudely educated to know anything of "rhythmic fashions," he will show his unrhymed devotion, by hating the "places where men do congregate," clinging always to some unvisited home, where a wild mountain-range, the dedication of a river to its sweet valley, or the distant marriage of sky and ocean, is sufficient to bind him to it; or he lives as a hunter, or solemn-minded trapper, an irreclaimable life with Nature in the solitudes of forest and prairie. If, on the other hand, he has entered, though but a little way, the avenues of letters-framing measures deftly, and as one who cannot help it--he seeks only to reproduce, like a landscape-painter, and with the colors which Nature herself lends him, the features of loveliness, and the thrilling delight which have made him a worshiper.

Another is found gifted with an acute sensitiveness to the joys and sufferings of men the vicissitudes of the human heart. What is more rare, he may possess, besides, that intense fusion of feeling with imagination, which enables him to invest himself with the passions of others, placing himself at will in fre

love, hate, seraphic rapture, unutterable crime and anguish, to which his own experience is entirely a stranger. In addition to this natural cast of intellect and temperament, his course of life may have thrown him much more into connection with man than with physical Nature. In accordance with those circumstances is the character of his thoughts and writings. The valley-loving streams, and foaming currents seen among wild mountain passes, are of less thrilling interest to him than the rivers of passion that rush through the hearts of men. The crags that beetle above them, visited only by the birds of strongest wing, seem less sublime than those vast spiritual heights, from which the eagles of the mind survey their dominions. Nor is the sea filled with storm and motion, or its tranquil immensity with a clear sky bending above, so mighty to him as the tempestuous depths of the human soul, or its calm boundlessness when the Deity has looked upon it. Even the mere forms and relations of social life, the shell-like fabric of society, engages his intensest interest, gives rise to some of his most powerful strains, because through them the action of humanity makes itself manifest.

Still a third, together with some sensibility to physical influences, some sympathy with the present conditions of human existence, has by nature a contemplative turn, an excursive, acute and philosophical mind. Had he these qualities alone, or to the mastery of his currents of thought, he would be merely a

philosopher, a metaphysician. But if he possesses also the former to some degree sufficient to color his moods of mind-if, especially, he has imagination enough to add wings and brightness to the wide excursions of his intellecthe becomes, not the port of outward Nature, not the plaintive or scornful versifier of the joys and sufferings of humanity, but the daring and powerful inquirer, treading ever on the brink of speculation. He is too clear-sighted to stop satisfied with admiring the universe of things external and material, too strong-souled to be absorbed by the changes of human life. Nature, so called, is to him but a vast hieroglyphic tabernacle; the present lives of men with their griefs and joys, but the playing of puzzled children among its mighty niches and columns. He sees, or thinks that he sees, the world

because of his

"Murmuring bark of Verse."

Thus it is seen, that the three great departments of Nature-that is, of the subjects of human thought-may furnish each a true poet on its own peculiar field. There is yet another sphere which a single faculty of the mind creates, as it were, for itself. It forms no part of Nature, since, by a process the most subtil in our being, it is caught, evolved and combined from all possible subjects of thought and the spirit that "rolls through all things"-in other words from the entire realm, at once, of whatever, material or spiritual, we have represented Nature as possessing. But as the imagination in some degree is necessary to the poet working in any capacity, so that greatest of faculties may so preponderate, overpowering all other qualities of mind and heart, as to make for itself a kind of separate world-a realm of forms and formless shadows, impossible visions, cold and glittering images-that shall be like, yet strangely unlike, all those things, familiar to our thought and sense, of which they are combined. Carried to its height, indeed, this state of the mind becomes insanity-which cannot be judged to be a condition of Nature, or at least only of Nature distorted. Still, to this sphere of unrealities short of insaneness, the poet may so surrender himself as to belong rather to it than to any recognized part of the universe of thought or

matter.

Now it is among the strangest of the many strange things in letters, that poets working in these separate spheres, each under the bent of his own genius and way of life, should not only have no liking or appreciation for their compeers,

but should often deny to each other the name of poet. What the authors do, their respective admirers among critics are usually found adopting-denying all attributes of the true poet to any except the school of their favorites. The latter is not altogether to be wondered at, since partisans commonly go farther than their leaders. And yet that those pretending to be critics should not have a broader appreciation, a deeper insight into the elements of all excellence in all the fields their feeling, if not their knowledge, of human effort-especially that, where should be as universal as the air, the field of poetry! The world has produced but one man, who, as a poet, has trod all the departments of Nature, of which we have spoken, with an equal step and an eye catching equally all appearances and relations whatever. The name of Shakspeare has been connected too often with this assertion to be dwelt upon here. His was the heart, the mind, the soul. He is not more a poet in one aspect than in any other. A few, as Homer, Eschylus, Dante, Milton, Göthe, with, perhaps, two or three more, have in some qualities achieved the highest possible triumphs, without greatly failing in any one. All the rest will be found to have mainly united some two of the departments of Nature, or (more rarely) to have confined themselves exclusively to one. Wordsworth is a remarkable example of the union of the most profound love and appreciation of external Nature with an elevated, calm, and tender philosophy, at times approaching to the Platonic eloquence, and sounding with an extraordinary feeling of wisdom the mysteries of humanity. But he had, with these, an imagination heavy and inert-circling on a level, rarely soaring and a most diluted perception of the power of human passions. Is Lord Byron, then, who in imagination has four times his energy of wing, an appreciation of Nature more absorbingly vivid, though hardly as wide or minute, and a power, both of passion in himself and of its representation in others, to which no one of his great contemporaries, unless Shelley, could make any approach is he and his admirers to ridí

cule a

"Clumsy frowsy poem, The Excursion,'" or set down its author merely as one who "Shows That prose is verse and verse is only prose."

His lordship, on the other hand, exhib

untenanted since the morning of the creation." Following a scarcely perceptible path, they were suddenly stopped by its termination at the verge of a deep ravine. Descending this by the aid of tangled roots and limbs of trees, they found a resting-place for the night on a shelving rock, washed by the waters of the cataract. Cold and dripping with water the morning found them sad but resolute; and after surmounting a variety of difficulties, they at last came in sight of the sea, between which and themselves lay a smiling valley bedecked with all the rich hues of Paradise. But to reach this Ely. sian vale was not an easy task. The only path-if path it might be called-was along or in the channel of a stream which dashed and tumbled through gorges between high rocks and down dark precipices hundreds of feet in depth. We quote a few paragraphs to show with what resolution the deserters surmounted the obstacles in their journey, premising that they had been four days from the ship, and were worn down with hunger and fatigue.

"After an hour's painful progress, we reached the verge of another fall, still loftier than the preceding, and flanked both above and below with the same steep masses of rock, presenting, however, here and there narrow, irregular ledges, supporting a shallow soil, on which grew a variety of bushes and trees, whose bright verdure contrasted beautifully with the foamy waters that flowed between them.

"Toby, who invariably acted as pioneer, now proceeded to reconnoitre. On his return, he reported that the shelves of rock on our right would enable us to gain with little risk the bottom of the cataract. Accordingly, leaving the bed of the stream at the very point where it thundered down, we began crawling along one of these sloping ledges until it carried us to within a few feet of another that inclined downward at a still sharper angle, and upon which, by assisting each other, we managed to alight in safety. We warily crept along this, steadying ourselves by the naked roots of the shrubs that clung to every fissure. As we proceeded, the narrow path became still more contracted, rendering it difficult for us to maintain our footing, until suddenly, as we reached an angle of the wall of rock where we had expected it to widen, we perceived to our consternation that a yard or two further on it abruptly terminated at a place we could not possibly hope to pass.

"Toby as usual led the van, and in si lence I waited to learn from him how he

proposed to extricate us from this new difficulty.

"Well, my boy,' I exclaimed, after the expiration of several minutes, during which time my companion had not uttered a word,' What 's to be done now?'

"He replied in a tranquil tone, that probably the best thing we could do in the present strait was to get out of it as soon as possible.

"Yes, my dear Toby, but tell me how we are to get out of it.'

"Something in this sort of style,' he replied; and at the same moment to my horror he slipped sideways off the rock, and, as I then thought, by good fortune branches of a species of palm tree, that merely, alighted among the spreading shooting its hardy roots along a ledge below, curved its trunk upwards into the air, and presented a thick mass of foliage about twenty feet below the spot where we had thus suddenly been brought to a standstill. involuntarily held my breath, expecting to see the form of my companion, after being sustained for a moment by the branches of the tree, sink through their frail support, and fall headlong to the bottom. To my surprise and joy, however, he recovered himself, and disentangling his limbs from the fractured branches, he peered out from his leafy bed, and shouted lustily, Come on, my hearty, there is no other alternative !' and with this he ducked beneath the foliage, and slipping down the trunk, stood in a moment at least fifty feet beneath me, upon the broad shelf of rock from which sprung the tree he had descended.

6

"What would I not have given at that moment to have been by his side? The feat he had just accomplished seemed little less than miraculous, and I could hardly credit the evidence of my senses when I saw the wide distance that a single daring act had so suddenly placed between

us.

"Toby's animating come on!' again sounded in my ears, and dreading to lose all confidence in myself if I remained meditating upon the step, I once more gazed down to assure myself of the relative bearing of the tree and my own position, and then closing my eyes and uttering one comprehensive ejaculation of prayer, I inclined myself over towards the abyss, and after one breathless instant fell with a crash into the tree, the branches snapping and crackling with my weight, as I sunk lower and lower among them, until I was stopped by coming in contact with a sturdy limb.

"In a few moments I was standing at the foot of the tree, manipulating myself all over with a view of ascertaining the extent of the injuries I had received. To my surprise the only effects of my feat were a