How much superior is the sentiment of the Grecian to that of the American! WRITING There are two reasons why we remember an idea better when we write it, than when we do not. The first is that the thought than all. Batthyány is dead, Csányi is dead, Perényi, Damjanics, Aulich,-the gallows has been the fate of all these, but Kossuth, Perczel, Dembinsky yet live and let the raven brood of Hapsburg" yet "guard her blood-stained laurels," for these men still exist, and the spirit of Hungary, though broken for a time, may again rise iu re-must be fully developed before we commit it to newed strength and mould for her a destiny and an empire which shall throw into shadow all the nations that now attempt to crush her. C-, Virginia, 1850. E. C. EXTRACTS FROM MY MSS. BY J. A. TURNER. OLD AGE.-What a contrast is there between the sentiment expressed in the first stanza of Phillip Freneau's lines to an old man," and that expressed by Anacreon in his lines "on an old man"! The former expresses himself thus:— Why dotard, wouldst thou longer groan The latter thus: Φιλω γέροντα τερπνόν, Τρίχας γέρων μεν εστί, Τας δε φρένας νεάζει. paper-for in order to express an idea clearly we must have a clear conception of it. Then it is more fully impressed upon the mind, and therefore less liable to be forgotten. The second reason is that when we commit a thought to paper it is generally intended for the eye of others, and, in order to make it intelligible to them, we are often compelled to add another idea explanatory of the first, or in some manner modifying it. Then whenever we think of the second idea in future time the first comes up by association. Thus it is that the probabilities of remembering any idea or thing increase in a certain ratio to the number of ideas or things grouped with it. N. P. WILLIS.-I am sorry to see that this popular author has got to writing his name N. Parker Willis. I dislike to give up the old way, plain N. P. Willis. Besides this, even the respect due to the author of "Pencillings by the Way" cannot prevent his modern fashion of inditing his name from bringing to mind the thought of soft hands and soft brains, notwithstanding the examples of J. Fennimore Cooper, E. Bulwer Lytton, T. Babington Macaulay, and others in the literary world, and J. McPherson Berrien and others of the political world. Some few exceptions aside, the manner of writing one's name censured here, is the habit of "nice young men" with coats unpaid for, false whiskers and hats on one side of the head-delicate, feminine young poetasters, who adopt Carlyle's froth about "spirit-homes," "dream-lands," and such other follies, without The following is Moore's beautiful paraphrase the strength which often pervades the under of the lines of the convivial bard: How I love the festive boy, Here is a more literal translation, and one which better conveys the full sense of Anacreon, although it is not so beautiful as that of Erin's minstrel : I love the youthful-hearted sage, current of thought in the great crack-brained English Mystic. THEORY AND PRACTICE.-We often hear the expression, in reference to any plan or proposition, "it is good in theory, but bad in practice," or "it will do in theory, but not in practice." Now there is no greater error than this. Whatever is good in theory is good in practice, and whatever is bad in theory is bad in practice. The converse of each of these propositions is also true. Theory is only the conception of practice, and practice is only the acting of theory. Hence it is incorrect to say, "it is good in theory but bad in practice." We should rather say, "it seems to be good theory, but practice proves that it is not so." NACHASH.-I believe with Dr. Clarke that this Hebrew word which we translate serpent, does width is one and a half inches, and the average not mean in reality snake, but something which length two inches. By multiplying I find that wore the shape of man-for instance, a species each sonnet averages three square inches, ordiof monkey, or even Satan himself, wearing the nary type. My idea of a sonnet then is, three "human form divine." A perusal of the Doc-square inches of poetic ice, beautiful in proportor's theory, found in his note on the chapter of tion as the water of the gem is pure, turgid or Genesis, giving an account of the seduction of medium. My rule for appreciating a sonnetteer the first woman, will amply compensate for the shall be to like him in an inverse ratio as the time employed in reading it. square inches of paper he occupies increase. If all would fix upon this rule of estimating such as "sounetteering Bowles," the sonnet would then SATIRE IN AMERICA.-Nothing is so much have at least one use: it would serve to encourneeded in this country as pungent satire; and age the study of the pure mathematics. nothing would accomplish so much good. We need it in our art, science, literature, religion and politics. The whole country may be compared CHICKEN POETS.-There is a class of writers to a huge windmill, as every thing goes by puf- of verse who deserve the foregoing title. In fing. We need a Briareus of satire who would writing a lyric for instance, in the first stanza dip his pen in gall, and write down the spirit of they start off as if the wings of their Pegasus demagoguism which pervades every thing, from would bear them without a failure to the summit the ermine itself, and the pulpit even, to a box of of Parnassus. But the first thing you know the Brandreth's pills. wax which fastens on the pinions of their winged pony is melted, as if by the fire of the first stanza, THE SONNET.—If there is anything on the and, like poor Icarus, down they tumble into the mare tenebrarum of rhyming nonsense and dullface of the earth I despise it is the sonnet, which is, according to Webster, "A short poem of four-ness. They remind me of chickens for two reateen lines, two stauzas of four verses each, and sons; 1st, because they are chicken-hearted. As two of three each, the rhymes being adjusted by to my second reason, I must premise a little beI have seen a hen, when a a particular rule." If this definition is not death fore I can give it. hawk made a strike at one of her chickens, fly to every idea of the divine art, it seems to me that any artizan may take his implements and up at him fully as high as the roof of a shed. She would start as if "borne on equal wing" manufacture poetry according to the bill of parwith the hawk. But soon she would come ticulars. It matters not how small your idea is, you must Homeopathize it until it forms a dilution of fourteen lines. It matters not how big your idea is, or how many you have, you must compress them into a space of fourteen lines, even though they be as much crowded as an omnibus containing a half dozen modern belles "fixed up." But even after this squeeze you must pack in "two stanzas of four verses each, and two of three each, the rhymes being adjusted, according to a particular rule." (I have to look back, and copy the quotation, for I had rather undertake to cleanse the Augean stables of rhyme than commit it to memory.) The Sonnet reminds me of the manners of Chesterfield-cold, formal, lifeless. It reminds me of just so many square inches of ice as would occupy the amount of space produced by multiplying its length on paper into its breadth. Curiosity prompts me to see what the average superficial contents of a sonnet are. Griswold's volune of American poetry is the nearest book of verse to me. I take it, and, opening it at random, fall upon some sonnets on page 497, written by James Russell Lowell. I apply my dividers to several of them, and find by an application of the compasses to Gunter's scale that the plump down upon the ground because she was Cold was the sod on the maiden's breast For he then had heard that she was dead And his heart filled up with sadness. EPIGRAM FROM THE FRENCH. From the German of Herder. THE TRANSLATOR HAS ATTEMPTED IN SOME DEGREE TO IMITATE THE RHYTHM OF THE ORIGINAL. Don Alonzo Perez Guzmann der Getreue. "Don Alonzo! Don Alonzo! Auf die Zinnen tritt der alte Oder lieber bleich und blutig Sehn sein Haupt auf unsern Spiessen?" Seines Sohnes Haupt jeszt rollet- Darum wird auf ew'ge Zeiten HERDER. Don Alonzo Perez Guzmann the True. "Don Alonzo! Don Alonzo! Answer quickly, now and here." Silent hears the aged father, His now silver-whitened beard; Hence, all rolling ages through, J. J. S. THOUGHTS UPON ENGLISH POETRY. century, we find, The Muster for the first Crusade, and also accounts of The Brutus, an imaWhat are some of the subjects which have ginary son of Eneas, Alexander the Great, Arbeen oftenest selected by the British Muse? We thur and Roland, King Robert of Sicily, The would be apt to suppose that war, as it has been King of Tars, and other heroes traditional and one of the chief occupations of men, would be imaginary. But Chaucer the first great English one of the most fruitful themes of the poet. Here poet, chooses domestic, not heroic subjects; and is the mighty array of nation against nation, and the poem of Spenser, his first great successor, the joining of the stormy battle, and here the though in form a tale of chivalry, is in fact great spectacle of one mind swaying multitudes a moral and religious allegory. Shakespeare, according to its will. In war we have daring though evidently possessing a love for the pomp and weakness, goodness and crime, triumph and and circumstance of glorious war, could as a defeat, joy and horror, the sublimest scenes that dramatist, use it only as an occasional addition can be presented to our view, and the strongest and ornament to his plot. Dryden in his plays feelings that cau agitate the breast of man. So has some warlike scenes, but his general poetry we find that the two great epics of antiquity, are is of a cast entirely different. We hear no note stories of war. But English Poetry has not of war in the strains of Pope and his cotempoloved to sing the praises of Mars. In the Anglo raries, if we except Addison's Campaign, nor in Saxon and Norman poetry, and in the English the writings of the succeeding period, with one metrical ballads of the early part of the 14th exception also-Glover's Leonidas. From 1780 general the earlier poetry is more amatory than the more modern, though that of our own period, that is from 1780 to the present time, has more love in it, than the poetry of the two periods immediately preceding, that is from 1689 to 1727, and from 1727 to 1780. Of the great poets, perhaps Dryden, Pope and Cowper have the least gallantry in their strains. One of the earliest love-pieces in the language, by some dated in 1400, is the Nut Brown Maid, to the present time, we have Cowper, and Crabbe, | Saxon, Norman, or Dane-all have loved, and and Campbell, and Rogers, and Wordsworth, all have told their love in verse. The governand Coleridge, exhibiting the intellectual and ment might be regal or republican,—the religion moral characteristics of man, but avoiding scenes Catholic or Protestant-civil war might rend the of strife. One modern poet, however, we have, land, or the arts of peace might flourish, but still of greatest name, who loved this theme and Love was a flower that the cold could not blight, has handled it with power-Sir Walter Scott. nor the burning heat destroy-it sprang up everyScott's purpose was not to give an analytic ac- where-on hill top and in the vale, was cherished count of man in general, but to present a bold by all, the highborn and the humble liver, and no and glowing picture of the men of a particular poet could pretend to the baptism of Castaly age, and the age selected by him was that when who did not wear this flower, in a wreath around knighthood was the profession of every gentle- his brow. From Chaucer to Moore, all our poets man, and war the principal occupation of almost great and small, have taken Love as their subevery monarch. Besides, he was of his own ject, in chief, or in part, and many have treated nature chivalrous and martial, and he revelled in it nobly and delicately, and many impurely. In the pictures which his imagination drew of the daring, and the physical prowess of the old knights, and the gallantry of the cavaliers. Hence, in his battle pieces, whether the contest is between Roderic Dhu and Fitz James, or between England and Scotland, and in his numerous war-songs, there is a tumultuous glow of thought and expression, not to be met with in other writers. Byron chose for his heroes, personages much engaged in desperate strife and wild adventure, but the description of actual afterwards imitated, but not equalled, by Prior, combat, does not form an important part in any of his poems. It is somewhat remarkable, that military glory should have been so seldom the theme, and the warrior so seldom the hero of English poets. There has been no lack of materials. The history of Greece and Rome, crowded with brilliant achievements, lay before them, not unattempted certainly, but certainly unexhausted. Then there are the crusades, which, if we regard their object, the character and station of the principal actors, the scenes connected with them, and the results which flowed from them, are suggestive of poetical sentiments in a degree not approached by any subject at the service of the ancient poets. Add to this, the wars between England and France, and the many memorable battles of which England has been the theatre, and the many renowned heroes to whom she has given birth, and we must admit that English poetry might very naturally have assumed a martial character. It is pleasant that it is otherwise-it is gratifying to reflect that whatever unseemly stains may be upon the robe of the English muse, the hue of blood is not there it is creditable to the national taste, that it has loved other things better than the flaunt ing show of glory. in his Henry and Emma. Perhaps the best ballad in the language upon this theme, is Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina. Burns and Moore have written the best lyrics expressive of the shifting characteristics of this passion. We must not forget one piece, which for simple, heart-melting pathos, is not surpassed by any thing of the like sort in our language-the song or ballad, (for either name is appropriate,) of Auld Robin Gray. This is the sole production, as far as we know, of its author, Lady Anne Barnard. Of the dramatic poets it is sufficient to say that Love has been their unvarying and almost exclusive theme, so that even where the main plot depends upon the development of some other passion or sentiment, as in Addison's Cato, still lovers must bear a part in the play. Perhaps Home's Douglass is the only English drama, in which Love does not appear prominently. Shakespeare shows himself a master in nothing more than in his delineations of the fervour, the purity, and the unchanging nature of this universal passion. The description of outward nature has been another favourite and copious theme, with almost all of our poets. The physical appearance of the mighty earth, under the influence of the vicissitudes of the seasons and of day and nightWhat then are some of the principal topics of the sea in tempest or calm-the sky awful with the numerous volumes which compose our poeti- the flashings and thunderings of the storm, or cal library? First is Love. Love has ever been beautiful in its depths of star-lit beauty—the joy the burden of the poet's song. However differ- of the morning, and the gorgeous magnificence ing in other respects may have been the several of evening at sunset, are ever uttering tones nations that have held possession of the island-which are heard by the dullest ear, though few in any good degree understand their import. [preeminence it owes to the character of its subThe din of life's struggle so resounds about us, ject, we cannot pretend to determine. If no one that we need an interpreter of the voice of nature. else could have so written upon the same subject, This interpreter is the true Poet. His verse neither could Milton have so written upon any robes nature in beauty, as the breath of Spring other subject. Who can say how he would have comes over the forest, and gives verdure, and compared with Homer, if he had sung, not how bloom, and fragrance to what seemed dead and Eden was lost, but how Troy was taken? shapeless before. Thus he is a Creator-not inThe Augustan era, so called, presents us with deed of beauty in nature, but a sense of it in us. no religious poet, though Dryden wrote some There is hardly a poet who has not attempted polemic divinity in vigorous verse, and Addison description, and some have been called the De- wrote in the tone of true poetry, some short scriptive Poets, because description is the basis pieces imbued with the spirit of true piety, conof their poems. Among these the chief are trasting strongly with Pope's Messiah, cold and Drayton in his Polyolbion, Denham in Cooper's glittering as an iceberg, in which the poet utters Hill, Somerville, Thomson, Savage, Goldsmith, the words of the prophet without their fire, like the McPherson, Falconer, Cowper, Darwin, Bloom-sons of Sceva, repeating the adjurations of Paul. field, James Grahame, and James Montgomery. The poets of the Augustan age had not sufficient Besides these, there are a great many who, depth of feeling for religious poets. They treated though not characterized distinctively as De- of man not as man, but as a member of society, scriptive Poets, have shown great powers of de- and of a particular grade of society, obedience scription. Among the moderns, Scott and By- to the conventional laws of which seemed to ron are unsurpassed in giving a perfect picture, them the weightiest responsibility of life. Their though the style of execution of the one differs work in the field of Literature, was to prune and as far as possible from that of the other. Words- weed and dress, not to plant. Not one of them worth's descriptions are much admired by some, dared to look into his own heart and write from and the Hyinn in the Vale of Chamouni, by Cole- it. Even external nature was hardly considered ridge, is a master piece. It is no disparagement presentable, unless with a court-dress thrown to any of the Poets of England, to say that our over her, made up of the finery of the classics. American Bryant is not inferior in descriptive Phoebus shone duly, Luna gave her chaste kisses power to the best of them. to the sleeping Endymion, and Zephyrs gently It would seem that no subject ought to be more breathed on Flora's beds of flowers. Before resuitable than Religion, for Poetry. It comes ligious poetry could appear, there was needed a home to man and enters his heart-it has the in- man who would have no sympathy with all terest of truth, and a magnificent variety far ex-this-who would be too real in his feelings to ceeding that which can be found within the do-be satisfied with the delineations of artificial main of Fiction. Only Religion calls forth ado- life, and too earnest to be precise. Young was ration, and nothing is more emotional. Sublim- not this man. The religious sentiment of his ity and Beauty are its corner-stones, the strength verse is profound, but it is not entirely natural— of Faith, the light of Hope, and the tenderness his sorrow is moving, but it is decked out in most of Charity are its ornaments, while its promise elaborate sable. But such a man was Cowper. of the life which now is, and of that which is to The character of his promptings he describes come, binds, by a golden chain, the realities of when he says: earth to the mysteries of Heaven. "Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet The ancient poets and ancient artists, sculptors, and painters, drew their best inspiration from their religion, and the greatest modern painters, have rested their claims to the admiration of posterity, upon works of which the subjects were scriptural. But our English Poets have hardly ventured into this field. We find in the 8th century Cadmon the Saxon, writing The Creation, in strains which have been compared to those of Paradise Lost, and in 1610 Giles Fletcher, whose Christ's Victory and Triumph, furnished some Cowper's writings had great effect upon the hints for Paradise Regained-we have too, Cra- poetry of his time. Without meaning it, or shaw, and Vaughan, as religious poets. Then thinking of it, he was the leader in a revolution— we come to Milton himself in 1667. Let it al- without any theory of writing, he introduced a ways be remembered, that the greatest poem in new style of writing. But it is not as a poet in the world is a religious poem. How much of its general that we are considering him, but only as |