forms which nature seems to have designed for them. But these remarks apply particularly to poetry. This power of giving permanent form to thoughts and feelings is a part of the "gift divine." It is the appropriate office of the poet to arrest these thoughts and feelings which float in chaos through the minds of men, and cause them to come forth in forms of beauty which all shall recognize and own. The thought expressed in the oft-quoted line, "The child is father of the man," was common to other minds; Wordsworth was the first to give it an utterance in a way to make all other persons adopt the utterance as their own. The words of Burns, "A man's a man for a' that," are very simple and express a sentiment which must have been often felt before, but till then had never been spoken in a common language which all could read. It had remained like metal in the ore; Burns put his royal stamp upon it and made it current coin. We have taken our illustrations from single, short lines for the sake of convenience, but we might refer to entire poems. Were not the thought and the word in Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, born together as one perfect creation? This gift of language is a sure test of a genuine poet. It is to us a far more mysterious power, as it is developed in perfection, for instance in Shakspeare, than that power, which gives birth to the thoughts of the poet, for the latter are often common to all men and derive their preeminence alone from the expression. There is no poet of modern times, perhaps, who has excelled Campbell in this respect -no one who has produced so many lines which live in the minds of men. Many of them have become a part of the language itself. We will refer to two instances only.

With respect to the lines,

""Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before”—

the following anecdote is preserved. The happy thought first pre-
sented itself to his mind the previous summer.
He had gone
early to bed, and still meditating on the wizard's "warning," fell
fast asleep. During the night he suddenly awoke, repeating,-

"Events to come cast their shadows before."

This was the very thought for which he had been hunting during the whole week. He rang the bell more than once with increased force. At last, the servant appeared. The poet was sitting with one foot in the bed and one on the floor, with an air of mixed impatience and inspiration. He called for a light, and seizing hold of the pen, wrote down the "happy thought," but as he wrote, changed the words "events to come" into coming events," as it now stands in the text. That slight change seems to us to have made

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the difference between the line being known to every one and being known only by those who are acquainted with the whole poem. Without it, it would have been like a beautiful portrait with some feature imperfect.

The familiar line,

"Like angel's visits, few and far between,"

has an interesting history. The thought seems to have been first introduced into poetry by a poet of the seventeenth century, John Norris,

"How fading are the joys we dote upon

Like apparitions seen and gone!

But those which soonest take their flight
Are the most exquisite and strong-
Like angels' visits short and bright,

Mortality's too weak to bear them long."

Blair has borrowed this thought in his poem of the "Grave," and thus expresses it,

Like those of angels-short and far between.”

But he has marred the line by introducing the demonstrative pronoun, and in substituting "far between " for "bright," he has not only sacrificed the most expressive epithet, but he has destroyed the appropriate connection there was before between the two epithets, for the visits might as well be "long" and "far between," as "short and far between," and indeed with even greater propriety. Burns next took up the theme, and he gives the line thus,

"Like the visits of good angels, few and far between."

But the epithet "good" is almost tautological, at least no one would miss its absence. It was at this point in its history, that Campbell found the line and changed it as we now have it,

"Like angel-visits, few and far between."

By using the compound "angel-visits," he secures greater compactness and avoids the harshness of the possessive case, and by substituting the epithet "few" for "short," he gives a somewhat greater appropriateness to the two epithets, so that he seems to have improved upon Blair and Burns, but as between him and Norris, the question is doubtful-the epithet "bright" is so beautiful when spoken of an angel's visit. If we look, however, at the whole stanza, we shall assign the palm of victory to Campbell.

The martial lyrics, "Ye Mariners of England," "Hohenlinden," "The Battle of the Baltic," and others, are too well known to au

thorize any remarks. "Ye Mariners of England," is to us a perfect poem. Although Campbell wrote so many battle pieces, he was no friend to war, and in a few odes he has succeeded in the difficult task of surrounding civic heroes with a halo of glory not inferior in brilliancy to that which encircles the brow of the warrior. We will refer as an example to the ode entitled "Men of England,” and will quote three stanzas,—

"What are monuments of bravery,
Where no public virtues bloom,
What avails in lands of slavery,
Trophied temples, arch, and tomb?

"Pageants! Let the world revere us
For our people's rights and laws,
And the breasts of civic heroes
Bared in Freedom's holy cause.

"Yours are Hampden's, Russel's glory,
Sidney's matchless shade is yours—
Martyrs in heroic story

Worth a hundred Agincourts."

There is a class of odes which take a higher flight, such as, "The Last Man," and "O'Connor's Child." On the whole we think that "O'Connor's Child" is the best of Campbell's poems, as it unites more perfectly than any other both beauty, sublimity and pathos.

In 1836, Campbell published an edition of his poems, in which he inserted those only upon which he would rest his claim to be remembered. This selection was made with wonderful judgment and self-denial. There are not more than two poems, "The Dirge of Wallace," and "Love and Madness," about the admission of which there could be any question, while of all the poems printed by Dr. Beattie in the Memoirs, there is not one that should not have been rejected, though there are a few that needed only the final polish. His critics, Jeffrey and Scott, were constantly calling for long poems, but borne down as he was by the necessary toils of life, did not the poet judge the more wisely? Indeed, will not these short poems— these odes-actually exert a greater influence upon mankind than any of the long poems of his age?-of Southey's? or even of Scott's himself? Scott, indeed, with his usual sagacity and good sense, has so decided the matter. Upon Washington Irving's telling him on a certain occasion, that Campbell was deterred from writing, by the superior brilliancy of Lord Byron's poetry and of his own, Scott replied, "Pooh! how can Campbell mistake the matter so much? Poetry goes by quality, not by bulk. My poems are mere cairngorms, wrought up, perhaps, with a cunning hand, and may pass

well in the market as long as cairngorms are the fashion; but they are mere Scotch pebbles after all. Now Tom Campbell's are real diamonds, and diamonds of the first water." Is not this the sentence which has already been passed on these poets?

We hasten to the closing scene. Worn out by disease, Campbell, with his niece who had lived with him for one or two years, left England and took up his residence at Boulogne in France. Here he was taken dangerously ill. Dr. Beattie with his wife hurried to attend upon him in his last moments. We shall give the account in the words of Dr. Beattie. "June 12th.-By his desire, I again read the prayers for the sick; followed by various texts of Scripture, to which he listened with deep attention; suppressing, as much as he could, the sound of his own breathing, which had become almost laborious. At the conclusion, he said, "it is very soothing." At another time, I read to him passages from the Epistles and Gospels; directing his attention, as well as I could, to the comforting assurance they contained of the life and immortality brought to light by the Savior. When this was done, I asked him, do you believe all this?' 'Oh yes,' he replied with emphasis, 'I do.' His manner all this time was deeply solemn and affecting. Later in the day, he spoke with less difficulty-he said something to every one near him. To his niece, who was leaning over him in great anxiety and anticipating every little want, he said, 'Come-let us sing praises to Christ'-then pointing to the bedside, he added, "Sit here.' 'Shall I pray for you?' she said; Oh, yes,' he replied; 'let us pray for one another!" He died June 15, 1844. He was carried to England, and buried in Westminster Abbey.

If our readers should think we have dwelt too long upon this subject, we have to say by way of apology, that Campbell is the poet of liberty and humanity, and that in spirit he is as much an American as an English poet.

ART. VIII. PLANK ROADS.

History, Structure, and Statistics of Plank Roads in the United States and Canada. By W. KINGSFORD, Civil Engineer on the Hudson River Railroad. With remarks on Roads in general, by F. G. SKINNER, and a Letter on Plank Roads, by the HON. CHARLES E. CLARKE. Philadelphia: A. Hart, late Carey and Hart, 126 Chestnut Street. 1851. pp. 40.

PLANK roads have within a few years become an important part of the general system of intercommunication in the State of New York. We believe they have not been extensively adopted elsewhere, though we see no reason why this cannot be done, and with equal advantage. We have thought that a few remarks on this subject would not be out of place in the New Englander. In making them we shall draw somewhat largely upon the pamphlet before us, for which we would make this general acknowledgment.

A plank road consists of two parts. These are the road bed and the superstructure. The road bed does not differ from any well made turnpike road. The superstructure is composed of two parts, the "stringers," and the planks. The stringers are thick and broad plank, and should be not less than one foot in breadth and two inches in thickness. The stringers are laid longitudinally with the road; if only two are used, they should be placed so far apart that the wheels of vehicles with the ordinary length of axle, will pass over their center, and if a third is added, which is the best way, it should be so placed as to give some support to the tread of the horse. The stringers are imbedded so that their upper surface is on a level with the surface of the road bed. The planks are laid transversely on the stringers, and each one is settled by mauling till it rests flat and plumb on the stringer, and solid on the ground from end to end, so that no space is left for air beneath. The planks are driven close together, and thus form a perfect flooring. This flooring is then covered with sand or fine gravel, which prevents the calks of the horses' shoes from cutting the planks, and the tire of the wheels from wearing them. The grit, moreover, penetrates into the grain of the wood and forms a kind of protective covering, and by filling up the interstices hinders the passage of water in wet weather. The planks are eight feet long. The whole width of the road should be from sixteen to eighteen feet, of which the planked portion will of course occupy eight feet, and should be on one side and not in the center. As in passing, it is necessary for one of the vehicles to turn off upon the unplanked portion, which is called the "turn-off," it is obvious that that portion should be on a level with the planks,