sometimes, but never without a respect for his judgment, and never without feeling that we owe it to the public in all cases to give a reason why we do not assent to the conclusions of so candid and discriminating a judge. His freedom from prejudice is acknowledged by European critics, as well as by our own. The Westminster Review bears this testimony to his independence: 'Mr. GRISWOLD, we may premise, is not one of those Americans who displease their readers, and forfeit their credit at the outset, by indiscriminate and unbounded laudation of every product of their country. His tone is calm and temperate, and he has not shrunk from the disagreeable duty of pointing out the blemishes and failings of that which, as a whole, is the subject of his eulogy. He lays his finger, though tenderly, upon the sores which a less honest advocate would have hidden out of sight.' And the London Examiner says: 'We must not forget to thank Mr. GRISWOLD for his good taste and good feeling. It would be difficult to over-praise either.' Beside all this, Dr. GRISWOLD has a great advantage, in the affectionate and trustful respect with which he is regarded by almost the entire circle of American authors. He is a man altogether too decided and out-spoken not to have enemies among the baser sort; but it may be safely said that all who know him, as we have known him, for almost twenty years- for nearly the entire period of our connection with the KNICKERBOCKER -see in him a man of that nobility of temper, that generosity, sincerity, and unselfishness, which caused the lamented HORACE BINNEY WALLACE to descant so warmly on the excellence of his social virtues. The advantage possessed by such a character in acquiring information touching personal histories need not be stated. Every body is quite willing to communicate papers and reminiscences to so true a gentleman, of such known honorableness and discretion.

The first section of the book is a careful review of the Colonial poets, from the landing of the Pilgrims till the beginning of the Revolution. The author observes in the beginning of this extended historical summary:

THE literary annals of this country before the Revolution present few names enti tled to a permanent celebrity. Many of the earlier colonists of New-England were men of erudition, profoundly versed in the dogmas and discussions of the schools, and familiar with the best fruits of ancient genius and culture, and they perpetuated their intellectual habits and accomplishments among their immediate descendants; but they possessed neither the high and gentle feeling, the refined appreciation, the creating imagination, nor the illustrating fancy of the poet, and what they produced of real excellence was nearly all in those domains of experimental and metaphysical religion, in which acuteness and strength were more important than delicacy or elegance. The 'renowned' Mr. THOMAS SHEPHERD, the 'pious' Mr. JOHN NORTON, and our own 'judicious' Mr. HOOKER, are still justly esteemed in the churches for soundness in the faith and learned wisdom, as well as for all the practical Christian virtues, and in their more earnest 'endeavors,' they and several of their contemporaries frequently wrote excellent prose, an example of which may be found in the 'attestation' to COTTON MATHER'S 'Magnalia,' by JOHN HIGGINSON, of Salem, which has not been surpassed in stately eloquence by any modern writing on the exodus of the Puritans. In a succeeding age, that miracle of dialectical subtlety, EDWARDS, with MAYHEW, CHAUNCEY, BELLAMY, HopKINS, and others demonstrated the truth that there was no want of energy and activity in American mind in the direction to which it was most especially determined; but our elaborate metrical compositions, formal, pedantic, and quaint, of the seventeenth century and the earlier part of the eighteenth, are forgotten except by curious antiquaries, who see in them the least valuable relics of the first ages of American civilization. "The remark has frequently been quoted from Mr. JEFFERSON, that when we can boast as long a history as that of England, we shall not have cause to shrink from a comparison of our literatures; but there is very little reason in such a suggestion, since, how

ever unfavorable to the cultivation of any kind of refinement, are the necessarily prosaic duties of the planters of an empire in wilderness countries, in our case, when the planting was accomplished, and our ancestors chose to turn their attention to mental fuxuries, they had but to enter at once upon the most advanced condition of taste, and the use of all those resources in literary art acquired or invented by the more happily situated scholars to whom had been confided in a greater degree the charge of the Eng lish language. When, however, the works of CHAUCER, SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, and MILTON were as accessible as now, and the living harmonies of DRYDEN and POPE were borne on every breeze that fanned the cheek of an Englishman, the best praise which could be awarded to American verses was, that they were ingeniously grotesque. There were displayed in them none of the graces which result from an aesthetical sensibility, but only such ponderous oddities, laborious conceits, and sardonic humors, as the slaves of metaphysical and theological scholasticism might be expected to indulge when yield. ing to transient and imperfect impulses of human nature."

It is rich in the 'grotesque and arabesque,' in all the quaint, and curious, and grim, that marked our literature from one to two hundred years ago. With MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH'S 'Day of Doom,' an elaborate poem, in which the most ultra-Calvinistic notions are set forth with great vividness, but in which the relenting poet finds it difficult to deposit in brimstone the multitude of infant sinners, and so decides that, although

'IN bliss

They may not hope to dwell;
Still unto them HE will allow
The easiest room in hell!'

our readers are pretty well acquainted; and the amusing oddities of MATHER BYLES and JOSEPH GREEN have been sufficiently quoted. The following is by a clergyman in Philadelphia, the Rev. NATHANIEL EVANS, missionary in that region, just one hundred years since, from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel:

ORPHEUS of old, as poets tell,
Took a fantastic trip to hell,

To seek his wife, as, wisely guessing,

She must be there, since she was missing.
Downward he journeyed, wondrous gay,
And, like a lark, sang all the way;
The reason was, or they belied him,
His yoke fellow was not beside him.
Whole grottos, as he passed along,
Danced to the music of his song.
So I have seen, upon the plains,
A fiddler captivate the swains,
And make them caper to his strains.
TO PLUTO'S court at last he came,
Where the god sat, enthroned in flame,
And asked if his lost love was there-
EURYDICE, his darling fair?

The fiends who listening round him stood,
At the odd question laughed aloud:
This must some mortal madman be,
We fiends are happier far than he.'

But music's sounds o'er hell prevail;

Most mournfully he tells his tale,
Soothes with soft arts the monarch's pain,
And gets his bargain back again.

Thy prayers are heard,' grim PLUTO cries,
On this condition take thy prize:
Turn not thine eyes upon the fair,
If once thou turn'st, she flies in air.'
In amorous chat they climb the ascent:
ORPHEUS, as ordered, foremost went;
(Though when two lovers downwards steer,
The man, as fit, falls in the rear.)
Soon the fond fool turns back his head ·
As soon, in air, his spouse was filed!
If 't was designed, 't was wondrous well;
But, if by chance, more lucky still.
Happy the man, all must agree,
Who once from wedlock's noose gets free;
But he who from it twice is freed,
Has most prodigious luck indeed!'

Of course the Rev. NATHANIEL was not married: more 's the pity. The first poet of these 'free and independent United States' was PHILIP FRENEAU, of whom the author gives a most interesting biography of eight or ten columns, in which his careful and accurate research is conspicuously displayed. There are in the volume from sixty to seventy new biographies, one of which is of ST. GEORGE TUCKER, a partisan poet of great celebrity in his time, who wrote the following touching song of old age:

'DAYS of my youth, ye have glided away;
Hairs of my youth, ye are frosted and gray:
Eyes of my youth, your keen sight is no more;
Cheeks of my youth, ye are furrowed all o'er;
Strength of my youth, all your vigor is gone;
Thoughts of my youth, your gay visions are flown.

'Days of my youth, I wish not your recall;
Hairs of my youth, I'm content ye should fall;
Eyes of my youth, you much evil have seen;
Cheeks of my youth, bathed in tears you have been;
Thoughts of my youth, you have led me astray;
Strength of my youth, why lament your decay?

'Days of my age, ye will shortly be past;
Pains of my age, yet awhile you can last;
Joys of my age, in true wisdom delight;
Eyes of my age, be religion your light;
Thoughts of my age, dread ye not the cold sod;
Hopes of my age, be ye fixed on your God.'

Hereof Dr. GRISWOLD relates the following anecdote:

'WHEN Dr. WOLCOTT's satires on GEORGE the Third, written under the name of 'PETER PINDAR, obtained, both in this country and in England, a popularity far beyond their merits, Judge TUCKER, who admired them, was induced to publish in FRENEAU'S 'National Gazette' a series of similar odes, under the signature of 'JONATHAN PINDAR,' by which he at once gratified his political zeal and his poetical propensity. His object was to assail JOHN ADAMS and other leading federalists, for their supposed monarchical predilections. His pieces might well be compared with WOLCOTT's for poetical qualities, but were less playful, and had far more acerbity. Collected into a volume, they continued to be read by politicians, and had the honor of a volunteer reprint from one of the earliest presses in Kentucky. His 'Days of My Youth' so affected Mr. ADAMS in his old age, that he declared he would rather have written it than any lyric by MILTON or SHAKSPEARE. He little dreamed it was by an author who in earlier years had made him the theme of his satirical wit.'

Though the following song may be familiar, it is so exquisitely turned that we cannot refrain from copying it. It was written in the beginning of this century, by Dr. JOHN SHAW, of Maryland:

WHO has robbed the ocean cave

To tinge thy lips with coral hue?
Who, from India's distant wave
For thee those pearly treasures drew?
Who from yonder orient sky

Stole the morning of thine eye?

"Thousand charms thy form to deck,
From sea, and earth, and air are torn;
Roses bloom upon thy cheek,

On thy breath their fragrance borne:
Guard thy bosom from the day,
Lest thy snows should melt away.

'But one charm remains behind,

Which mute earth could ne'er impart;

Nor in ocean wilt thou find,

Nor in the circling air, a heart:
Fairest, wouldst thou perfect be,
Take, oh! take that heart from me!

This song has been very much praised, and one of our Southern contemporaries, in a comparative view of Northern and Southern literature, has challenged reference to any song by one of our Northern poets to match it. We shall not direct attention to the self-singing melodies of General MORRIS, under these circumstances, but merely suggest that, admirable as the song in question is, it is appropriated almost entirely from some lines by WILLIAM

LIVINGSTON, of New-Jersey - a Revolutionary patriot and bard, whose life has been ably written by THEODORE SEDGWICK, Esq. Upon this point doubters may satisfy themselves by consulting Mr. SEDGWICK's work, pages 117 and 118, upon which the original of Dr. SHAW's brilliant lyric may be found. Dr. GRISWOLD seems not to have detected this curious literary felony. Of JOHN M. Harney, who died in 1825, and who wrote the celebrated poem of 'Crystalina,' and some minor pieces of great merit, a full biographical and critical account is presented. The following morceaux prove that HARNEY was a poet. The first describes a sight his hero saw in the kingdom of OBE

RON:

THE shores with acclamations rung,

As in the flood the playful damsels sprung:
Upon their beauteous bodies, with delight,
The billows leapt. Oh! 't was a pleasant sight;
To see the waters dimple round for joy,
Climb their white necks, and on their bosoms toy.
Like snowy swans they vexed the sparkling tide,
Till little rainbows danced on every side.
Some swam, some floated, some on pearly feet
Stood sidelong, smiling, exquisitely sweet.'

The next is still finer:

'IN robes of green, fresh youths the concert led.
Measuring the while, with nice, emphatic tread
Of tinkling sandals, the melodious sound
Of smitten timbrels; some, with myrtles crowned,
Pour the smooth current of sweet melody
Through ivory tubes, some blow the bugle free,
And some, at happy intervals, around,

With trumps sonorous, swell the tide of sound;
Some, bending raptured o'er their golden lyres,
With cunning fingers fret the tuneful wires;
With rosy lips, some press the syren shell,
And, through its crimson labyrinths impel
Mellifluous breath. with artful sink and swell:
Some blow the mellow, melancholy horn,

Which, save the knight, no man of woman born
E'er heard, and fell not senseless to the ground,
With viewless fetters of enchantment bound.'

We were aware that 'Major JACK DOWNING,' SEBA SMITH, had written 'Powhattan, a Metrical Romance,' but did not know that from his prolific pen there had ever flowed any thing so graphic and powerful as 'The Burning Ship at Sea :'

From his briny ocean-bed,

When the morning sun awoke, Lo! that gallant ship had fled! And a sable cloud of smoke

Was the monumental pyre that remained;
But the sea-gulls round it fly,
With a quick and fearful cry,
And the brands that floated by

Blood had stained.'

We may not indulge further in poetical quotations, but must give a few specimens of the author's critical handling. He says of FITZ-GREENE HalLECK, with equal justice and elegance:

'It was Lord BYRON's opinion that a poet is always to be ranked according to his execution, and not according to his branch of the art. The poet who executes best,' said he, is the highest, whatever his department, and will be so rated in the world's esteem.' We have no doubt of the justness of that remark: it is the only principle from which sound criticism can proceed, and upon this basis the reputations of the past have been made up. Considered in this light, Mr. HALLECK must be pronounced not merely one of the chief ornaments of a new literature, but one of the great masters in a language classical and immortal for the productions of genius which have illustrated and enlarged its capacities. There is in his compositions an essential pervading grace, a natural brilliancy of wit, a freedom yet refinement of sentiment, a sparkling flow of fancy, and a power of personification, combined with such high and careful finish, and such exquisite nicety of taste, that the larger part of them must be regarded as models almost faultless in the classes to which they belong.'

Of RALPH WALDO EMERSON:

'His genius, in whatever forms it may be exhibited, is essentially poetical; and though he defies classification as a philosopher, few will doubt that he is eminently a poet, even in his poetry. As a thinker, he disdains the trammels of systems and methods; his utterances are the free developments of himself: all his thoughts appearing and claiming record in the order of their suggestion and growth, so that they have, if a more limited, also a more just efficiency. In poetry, he is as impatient of the laws of verbal harmony, as in discussion, of the processes of logic; and if his essential ideas are made to appear, so as not to seem altogether obscure to himself, he cares little whether they move to any music which was not made for them. In his degree, he holds it to be his prerogative to say, 'I am: let the herd who have no individuality of their own, accommodate themselves to me, and those who are my peers have respect for me.' If you cannot sing his songs to the melodies of MILTON, OF SPENSER, or POPE, or TENNYSON, study till you discover the key and scale of EMERSON; then all will be harmonious, and no doubt you will find your compensation.'

Of poor CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN:

'IN what I have written of General MORRIS, I have endeavored to define the sphere and dignity of the song: but whatever may be thought of it as an order of writing, I am satisfied that Mr. HOFFMAN has come as near to the highest standard or idea of excellence which belongs to this species of composition, as any American poet has done in his own department, whatever that department may be. Many of his productions have received whatever testimony of merit is afforded by great and continued popular favor; and though there are undoubtedly some sorts of composition respecting which the applause or silence of the multitude is right or wrong only by accident, yet, as regards a song, popularity appears to me to be the only test, and lasting popularity to be an infallible test of excellence.'

And of another of the 'KNICK'S' friends:

'MR. LELAND's poems are for the most part in a peculiar view of satirical humor. He has an invincible dislike of the sickly extravagances of small sentimentalists, and the absurd assumptions of small philanthropists. He is not altogether incredulous of progress, but does not look for it from that boastful independence, characterizing the new generation, which rejects the authority and derides the wisdom of the past. He is of that healthy intellectual constitution which promises in every department the best fruits to his industry.'

By the way, we must quote of 'Meister KARL' one characteristic specimen, which he ought to have sent for a first appearance to us: