duction to the geometry, an explanation of the algebraical signs, and the theory of proportions, taken, with improvements, from Lacroix's Geometry. A small part of the origi nal of Legendre is omitted. The only portion we regret, is a few propositions on regular polyedrons, which are very simple, and would be likely to interest beginners.

It is rare to find a mathe

For the convenience of the student, the plates of this volume are separate from the volume itself. The whole work is executed with great care. matical book, from the English or French presses, so uniformly free from errors.

Mehillips

ART. XVIII.-Poems by William Cullen Bryant. Cambridge,
Hilliard & Metcalf. pp. 44.

Or what school is this writer? The Lake, the Pope, or the Cockney; or some other? Does he imitate Byron or Scott, or Campbell? These are the standing interrogatories in all tribunals having the jurisdiction of poetry, and it behoves us to see that they are administered. He is then of the school of nature, and of Cowper; if we may answer for him; of the school which aims to express fine thoughts, in true and obvious English, without attempting or fearing to write like any one in particular, and without being distinguished for using or avoiding any set of words or phrases. It does not, therefore, bring any system into jeopardy to admire him, and his readers may yield themselves to their spontaneous impressions, without an apprehension of deserting their party.

There is running through the whole of this little collection, a strain of pure and high sentiment, that expands and lifts up the soul and brings it nearer to the source of moral beauty. This is not indefinitely and obscurely shadowed out, but it animates bright images and clear thoughts. There is every where a simple and delicate portraiture of the subtle and ever vanishing beauties of nature, which she seems willing to conceal as her choicest things, and which none but minds the most susceptible can seize, and no other than a writer of great genius, can body forth in words. There is in this poetry something more than mere painting. It does not merely offer in rich colours what the eye may see or the heart feel, or what may fill the imagination with a religious grandeur.

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It does not merely rise to sublime heights of thought, with the forms and allusions that obey none but master spirits. Besides these, there are wrought into the composition a luminous philosophy and deep reflection, that make the subjects as sensible to the understanding, as they are splendid to the imagination. There are no slender lines and unmeaning epithets, or words loosely used to fill out the measure. The whole is of rich materials, skilfully compacted. A throng of ideas crowds every part, and the reader's mind is continually and intensely occupied with 'the thick coming fancies.'

The first poem is in the majestic and flexible stanza of Spenser; the last is in the common heroic blank verse; and in both there is a powerful sway of versification, and a sure and ready style of execution. The others are shorter than these. They have great freedom and propriety of language, and are abundantly rich in sentiment, and marked by the utmost fineness and delicacy of perception. We are not endeavoring to speak favorably of this poetry, we wish only to speak of it justly, and those who read it and apprehend its beauties will say, that we do it no more than justice.

The first poem, entitled The Ages, was spoken before the Phi Beta Kappa society of Harvard University at its last anniversary. It is an outline of the different stages of society, with some general prospect of what may be hoped for hereafter.

Has Nature, in her calm majestic march,

Falter'd with age at last? does the bright sun
Grow dim in heaven? or, in their far blue arch,
Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done,
Less brightly? when the dew lipp'd spring comes on,
Breathes she with airs less soft, or scents the sky
With flowers less fair than when her reign begun ?
Does prodigal autumn, to our age, deny

The plenty that once swell'd beneath his sober eye?"

The pictures of man, in a savage and semi-barbarous state, are given with great strength of colouring. The views are broad and full of light, and the tone of the versification deep, solemn, and powerful. The reader is borne away with an irresistible influence, while his mind is entirely filled and satisfied.

'Lo! unveiled

The scene of those stern ages! What is there?
A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air

Moans with the crimson surges that intomb

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Cities and banner'd armies; forms that wear
The kingly circlet, rise, amid the gloom,

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O'er the dark wave, and straight are swallow'd in its womb.'

The striking features of the national character and state of society in Greece and Rome are then sketched with distinct and bold strokes. A notice of the reformation follows, when the web, that for a thousand years had grown o'er prostrate Europe, crumbled, as fire dissolves the flaxen thread. These are proper topics, for the ideas and principles derived from these sources are the elements of which modern society, or rather modern mind and character, are compounded. Though they are necessarily touched upon but generally, yet there is no vagueness or obscurity; the images are illustrative, and grand, and commensurate with the subject; and it is hardly too much to say, that they are as close, as intelligible, and as full fraught with meaning, as are those of Spenser himself. The imagery and poetry of this part are not more beautiful and great, than the thoughts are just and philosophical. We will cite one passage more from this part of the poem.

Those ages have no memory-but they left

A record in the desert-columns strewn

On the waste sands, and statues fall'n and cleft,
Heap'd like a host in battle overthrown;
Vast ruins, where the mountain's ribs of stone
Were hewn into a city; streets that spread

In the dark earth, where never breath has blown
Of heaven's sweet air, nor foot of man dares tread
The long and perilous ways-the cities of the dead;

And tombs of monarchs to the clouds up pil'd--
They perish'd-but the eternal tombs remain-
And the black precipice, abrupt and wild,-
Pierc'd by long toil and hollow'd to a fane ;-
Huge piers and frowning forms of gods sustain
The everlasting arches, dark and wide,

Like the night heaven when clouds are black with rain.
But idly skill was task'd and strength was plied,
All was the work of slaves, to swell a despot's pride.'

In the conclusion the writer turns to his own country, which he puts before you as it was when

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O'er mound and vale, where never summer ray
Glanc'd, till the strong tornado broke his way,
Through the grey giants of the sylvan wild :'

And as it is now, that

'towns shoot up, and fertile realms are till'd;
The land is full of harvests and green meads;
Streams numberless, that many a fountain feeds,
Shine, disembower'd, and give to sun and breeze
Their virgin waters; the full region leads

New colonies forth, that toward the western seas
Spread, like a rapid flame among the autumnal trees.'

There is a more cheerful splendor in this part, which succeeds gratefully to the sterner character of the preceding. But there is kept up to the end the same sweeping power of words, and lofty tone of thought-the same radiance of imagery and intense inspiration. This whole poem occupies but a short space in a book, but it is of materials of large dimensions, and beams with a lustre that will not, we believe, grow dim.

Perhaps some may wish us to mention that the sense is not invariably suspended at the conclusion of the lines, and in two instances, we think there are two, does not conclude with the stanza. There are some instances of trisyllabic feet, such as are found in Spenser and Byron and others, who have written. in the same stanza. Whether these are beauties or defects is hardly worth the inquiry in such a production, where they are buried and lost in so much that is great and superlatively beautiful.

The other pieces are short, and all of them, except three, have been published in this journal, and one of these three has appeared in the Idle Man. But the author has altered and added to some of them in this volume. Those who had singled out Thanatopsis, and put it in their number of admirable things, will be concerned to learn that the author has made considerable additions and some alterations. But he has not, we think, marred his work, and in its new form it will deserve to be a favorite no less than before. It now concludes thus;

'So live, that when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan, that moves

To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

New Series, No. 8.

50

Of the shorter pieces, that to a Waterfowl is thought by some the best. It has, perhaps, conceptions of greater nov elty and strength, but we can imagine nothing finer than the Inscription for the Entrance into a Wood, Green River, and the Yellow Violet. We will quote a part of the first, which many of our readers probably do not recollect.

ART. XIX.—An Essay_concerning the Free Agency of Man, or the Powers and Faculties of the Human Mind, the Decrees of God, Moral Obligation, Natural Law, and Morality. Montpelier, Vt. 12mo. pp. 215. 1820.

To every reader, who carefully notices the title page of this book, it must appear surprising, that so many subjects of such extent and difficulty could all be despatched in a thin duo