is this the many-sidedness of a mockingbird. The sentiment of the varied song, as well as the song of the varied sentiment, is ever his own. One of the most pleasing characteristics of this writer's works is their intense humanity. A man's heart beats in his every line. His writings all "Take a sober colour from the eye, That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality." He loves, pities, and feels with, as well as for, his fellow "human mortal." Hence his writing is blood-warm. He is a brother, speaking to men as brothers, and as brothers are they responding to his voice. Byron addressed men as reptiles or fiends; Wordsworth and others soliloquise, careless whether their voice be listened to or not. But no poet can be so much loved who does not speak from the broad level of humanity. If we dare apply the language, "he must be touched with a fellow-feeling of our infirmities, and have been tempted in all points as we are." He must have fallen and risen, been sick and sad, been joyful and pensive, drank of the full cup of man's lot, ere he can so write that man will take his writings to his heart, and appropriate them as part of the great general human stock. A prophet may wrap himself up in austere and mysterious solitude; a poet must come "eating and drinking." Thus came Shakspere, Dryden, Burns, Scott, Goethe; and thus have come in our day Hood and Longfellow. Besides this quality of generous, genial manhood, Longfellow is distinguished by a mild earnestness. No poet has more beautifully expressed the depth of his conviction, that life is an earnest reality-a something with eternal issues and dependencies; that this earth is no scene of revelry, or market of sale, but an arena of contest. This is the inspiration of his "Psalm of Life: "Life is real, Life is earnest, And the grave is not its goal: But to act that each to-morrow Heart within, and God o'erhead! Learn to labour and to wait." - now Glancing again critically at Longfellow's poems, we find that his genius is essentially lyrical. Neither the severity of epic power, nor the subtlety of the dramatic genius, are his. But how swiftly and surely does he respond to those passing impulses which come upon his soul, like winds from the forest, and which, like sudden gusts, are brief, musicalswelling into high rapture, and now dying away in tremulous pathos! Mrs Hemans and Sir Walter Scott once coincided in remarking, that each tree gives forth a peculiar cadence to the wind; and we have ourselves noticed, that from the willow, there issues a dry, hissing, eery sound; from the sycamore, a full murmur, as if the tree were one bee-hive; from the pine, a deep, mellow, lingering tone, as though each cone were an ivory key; and from the oak a strong, sturdy, reluctant rustle, as if it were an unwilling instrument in the hand of the blast. Thus do Longfellow's finer poems play themselves off upon the autumn trees of the Western forest, as upon harps of gold -one being sad and stern- another, quiet and full, as of many murmurs rounded into one calm-a third, soft and long-drawn-and a fourth, rough, abrupt, and tormented into music. Ere speaking of some of his poems in detail, we must permit ourselves a word as but a little thing. "Excelsior!" cries on his "Hyperion." We shall never for- the thinker; "I have passed the tranget the circumstances of its first perusal. scendental, let me have at the divine." We took it, as our pocket companion, Excelsior!" cries the liver; "let me with us, on our first walk down the reach virtue, not merely as a law, but as Tweed, by Peebles, Inverleithen, Cloven- a life." "Excelsior!" cries everywhere ford, Ashestiel, and Abbotsford. It was the young time; "let us onward and upfine, at any special bend of the stream, ward, though it be into the regions of the or any beautiful spot along its brink, storm; we are weary of the past, let us taking it out, and finding in it a con- try what the future will do for us." "Exductor to our own surcharged emotions. celsior!" cry the dying, who feel that death In our solitude, we felt "we are not alone, is but a door into the Infinite; "let us up for these pages can sympathise with us.' and breathe a purer atmosphere!" The course of "Hyperion," indeed, is that Excelsior" is Life and its Psalm perof a river, winding at its own sweet will-sonified. Longfellow has written in it now laughing and singing to itself, in its his glowing hopes of the future, as well sparkling progress, and now slumbering as his theory of the past. That figure, in still, deep pools; here laving corn-fields climbing the evening Alps, in defiance of and vineyards, and there lost in wooded danger, of man's remonstrance, and of and sounding glens. Interest it has much woman's love, is a type of man strug-incident, little; its charm is partly in gling, triumphing, purified by suffering, the "Excelsior" progress of the hero's perfected in death. And it insinuates mind, partly in the sketches of the great strongly the poet's belief in that coming German authors, and principally in the era in human history, when the worth and sparkling imagery and waving, billowy grandeur of man's regenerated life will language of the book. Longfellow, in cast a calm and beauty, at present inconthis work, is Jean Paul Richter, without ceivable, around his death. his grotesque extravagances, or riotous humour, or turbulent force. He seems a much smaller and more simple form of the same genus. Vision of Next to "Excelsior" and the "Psalm of Life," we are disposed to rank "Evangeline." Indeed, as a work of art, it is superior to both, and to all that LongWe have just alluded to "Excelsior," fellow has written in verse. Save "Hyone of those happy thoughts which seem perion," it is his only piece of pure and to drop down, like fine days, from some elaborate art. We began to read it unserener region, which meet instantly the der a certain degree of prejudice at the ideal of all minds, and run on afterwards, measure, which has been so vulgarised by and for ever, in the current of the human | Southey, in his lamentable heart. We can now no more conceive of a Judgment." But soon Southey, "Vision world without "Excelsior" than of a world of Judgment," and all, were forgotten. without the "Iliad," the "Comus," or the Acadia-Arcadia it might be called-and Midsummer Night's Dream." It has the sweet moonlight of Evangeline's face, expressed in the happiest and briefest crowded the whole sky of our imaginaway what many minds in the age had tion. Nothing can be more truly conbeen trying in vain to express. Thou- ceived, or more tenderly expressed, than sands, therefore, were ready to cry out, the picture of that primitive Nova Scotia, "That's my thought; that's my desire; and its warmhearted, hospitable, happy, that's myself; I bear that banner; I fear and pious inhabitants. We feel the air not to die that death!" "Excelsior" of the "Fore-world" around us. The typifies much that is heroic, and high, light of the Golden Age-itself joy, music, and disinterested in the age. "Excel- and poetry-is shining above. There are sior!" cries the student, as he climbs the evenings of summer or autumn tide so steep ascent of science. "Excelsior!" exquisitely beautiful, so complete in their cries the poet, who takes up Parnassus own charms, that the entrance of the moon is felt almost as a painful and su- The picture of the Indian summer is perfluous addition; it is like a candle dis- finer still, with the exception of the conpelling the wierd darkness of a twilight ceit with which it closes: room. Bright with the sheen of the dew, each So we feel, at first, as if Evange-"Array'd in its robes of russet, and scarlet, line, when introduced, were an excess of and yellow; loveliness - an amiable eclipser of the surrounding beauties. But even as the moon, by and by, vindicates her intrusion, and creates her own "holier day," so with the delicate and lovely heroine of This last line contains a poor and forced this simple story—she becomes the centre memory. What an injury to the glorious of the entire scene. She is that noblest forest-tree to compare it to the foolish of characters, a lady in grain. She has and contemptible freak referred to. The borrowed her motions and attitudes from simile is alike far-fetched and worthless. the wind-bent trees; her looks have kin-"I say unto you, that Solomon, in all his dled at the stars; her steps she has un-glory, was not arrayed like one of these." wittingly learned from the moving sha- By a similar conceit (a mode of writing dows of the clouds. On her way home quite unusual with him), has he spoiled from confession, "when she had passed, one of his finest passages:it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music." Thus should all lives be led, all steps be tuned; and thus they shall, whenever Christian Love, instead of Law, shall lead the great dance of human life. Purest of virgins, art thou to be sacrificed? Finest of vessels, art thou to be dashed in pieces? It seems almost cruel in the poet to try her so painfully, and to send her to seek her sole redress in heaven. Meanwhile, apart in the twilight-gloom of a window's embrasure, Sat the lovers, and whispering together, beholding the moon rise Over the pallid sea, and the silvery mist of the meadows, Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, Blossom'd the lovely stars, the forget-menots of the angels." We think every reader must feel that Next to the spectacle of a man destroythe first part of "Evangeline" is far su- ing a noble constitution, or marring fine perior to the second. Evangeline's search faculties, is that of an author deliberately after her lover is beautifully described, spoiling a passage which otherwise had but becomes at last oppressive and pain- touched or trembled on perfection. It is ful. We cry out, in our sorrow and dis- a case of literary felo de se. What busiappointment, for Acadia, with its crow-ness had the idea of a forget-me-not at ing cocks, bursting barns, flowery mea- such a moment? Gabriel Lajeunesse dows, and happy hearts back again. himself, we are certain, enamoured as he was, and even in that most imaginative hour, never could dream of seeing an angel with a knot of stars on his breast while visiting his true love. The descriptions of American scenery in "Evangeline" are, in general, extremely picturesque and beautiful. Witness this, for example: "Now had the season return'd, when the air from the icebound Harvests were gather'd in; and, wild with Such faults are rare in this writer. Once or twice, indeed, he approaches the brink of the bathos, and snatches one of those few, perilous, and precious flowers which bloom along it. Thus, in “Hyperion," he compares a glacier to a gauntlet of ice, thrown down by winter, in defiance of the sun; a thought so beautiful, that you forget the danger which he has encountered and escaped in finding it for you. A striking little copy of verses he has entitled "The Light of Stars." His "bright particular star" is not the "star of Jove, so beautiful and large," nor the star of lovers, Venus, nor the star of suicides, Saturn. It is the star of warriors, "the red light of Mars." We share with him in his feelings. Mars has, to men, more points of interest and sympathy than almost any other planet. One frozen band at least binds us to it. One white signal has been hung out by this near vessel; snow and winter are there. And if, as pled, there be inhabitants, these inhabitants must be somewhat like ourselves. There may be fires, there may be hearths, there may be homes in Mars! There may be struggle, there may be sin, there may be death-there is mystery, there may be victory! What home sounds, what thrilling tones, what an array of signals, what a sheaf of telegraphic rays, from that red planet! Hear Longfellow "Earnest thoughts within me rise, O star of strength! I see thee stand, Within my breast there is no light, But the cold light of stars; We must not overlook a poem entitled "Footsteps of Angels." Who are the angels who visit and imprint his heart? No cherubim-dim to him amid all their blaze of intelligence. No strange seraphs -cold to him amid all their flames of fire. They are the friends of his youth-the loved of his early heart-now sons and daughters of the grave. The eye of his heart sees them; the ear of his heart hears their soft footsteps, and their voices so low and sweet. Have all of us not at times such angel visits? Are we not at this moment summoned to look up, and see and hear them? Ah! we know that strong, deep-furrowed face, that lofty brow, those locks sprinkled with grey, that eye restless with the fire of intelligence, and "Oh God! if it be thus, and thou "Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals But beautiful as songs of the immortals, And both in "Hyperion" and "Evange- We cannot linger much longer with this delightful writer. He has scattered many other delicious drops of song along his course. Such are "Rain in Summer," "To a Child," "To the Driving Cloud," and "The Old Clock on the Stairs." These are all amiable carols, inspirited with poetic life, decorated with chaste image, and shadowed with pensive sentiment, like the hand of manhood laid gently upon the billowing head of a child. The character of a translator's own genius may be gathered with considerable accuracy from his selection of pieces to translate. In general, the graceful bends to the graceful, the pensive sighs back to the pensive, and the strong shadows the strong. Longfellow has not dared any lofty heights, or sounded any dark hollows, of foreign poetry. The exquisite patriarchal simplicities of the Swedish com ballad have attracted his kindred spirit. tain places," where beautiful dreams, and It is not "deep calling unto deep." It lofty, generous aspirations, lift us up, on is one corn-field responding to another, a ladder, into ideal regions, which are yet across the hedge, under one soft westerly to become real; for every such aspiration breeze. Need we do more than allude to is a distinct step upwards to meet our "The Children of the Lord's Supper,' expected New Jerusalem of man, which, both in verse and spirit, is the ing down as a bride adorned for her husmodel of "Evangeline." Thus he cha- band." Every volume of genuine poetry, racterises himself as a translator:-"The besides, constitutes a cool grotto of retranslation is literal, perhaps to a fault. treat. We love, too, even better than In no instance have I done the author the poetry of this volume, its sunny, gea wrong, by introducing into his work nial, human, and hopeful spirit. Perany supposed improvements or embellish-haps there are more depth and power, ments of my own. I have preserved certainly there are more peculiarity and even the measure, that inexorable hexa- strangeness, in Emerson's volume, but meter in which, it must be confessed, the over all of it is suspended a dry, rainless motions of the English muse are not cloud of gloom, which chills and withers unlike those of a prisoner dancing to you. You become, it may be, a wiser, the music of his chains; and perhaps, as but certainly a sadder man. Longfellow Dr Johnson said of the dancing - dog, sheds a chequered autumnal light, under "the wonder is not that she should do which your soul, like a river, flows forit so well, but that she should do it at ward, serene, glad, strong, and singing as all.'" it flows We close our paper with feelings of gratitude and respect for our transatlantic author. It is pleasant, in this melancholy world, to “light upon" such "cer "Let us then be up and doing, ALFRED TENNYSON. THE subject of the following sketch seems | island, but in a modern drawing-room, a signal example of the intimate relation with beautiful women bending round, and which sometimes exists between original moss-roses breathing in their faint fragenius, and a shrinking, sensitive, and grance through the half-opened windows. morbid nature. We see in all his writ- Here, indeed, lies the paradox of our ings the struggle of a strong intellect to author's genius. He is haunted, on the turn and wind the fiery Pegasus" of a one hand, by images of ideal and colossal most capricious, volatile, and dream-driven grandeur, coming upon him from the isle imagination. Tennyson is a curious com- of the Syrens, the caves of the Kraken, bination of impulse, strength, and delicacy the heights of Ida, the solemn cycles of approaching to weakness. Could we con- Cathay, the riches of the Arabian heaven; ceive, not an Æolian harp, but a grand but, on the other hand, his fancy loves, piano, played on by the swift fingers of better than is manly or beseeming, the the blast, it would give us some image of tricksy elegancies of artificial life-the the sweet, subtle, tender, powerful, and "white sofas" of his study the trim changeful movements of his verse, in walks of his garden-the luxuries of fewhich are wedded artificial elegance, ar- male dress-and all the tiny comforts tistic skill, and wild, impetuous impulse. and beauties which nestle round an EngIt is the voice and lute of Ariel; but lish parlour. From the sublime to the heard not in a solitary and enchanted | snug, and vice versa, is with him but a |