For some aerial car, to fly O'er many a wild and classic stream And hail each ivy-covered tower, As though it were a friend. * ly boy, but I felt a strong conviction that I must soon resign my Margaret; or rather, that she would soon follow me to a premature grave. Although she still persisted in the belief that she was well, the irritating cough, the hectic flush (so often mistaken for the bloom of health), the hurried beating of the heart, and the drenching night perspirations, confirmed me in this belief, and I sank under this accumulated load of afflic tion. For three weeks I hovered on the borders Through many a shadowy grove, and round of the grave, and when I arose from this bed of Full many a cloistered hall, And corridors, where every step With echoing peal doth fall." Amidst the scenes of past delight Or misery I'd roam, Where ruthless tyrants swayed in might Where princes found a home pain-so feeble that I could not sustain my own weight, it was to witness the rupture of a bloodvessel in her lungs, caused by exertions to suppress a cough. Oh! it was agony to see her thus! I was compelled to conceal every appearance of alarm, lest the agitation of her mind should produce fatal consequences. As I seated myself by her she raised her speaking eyes to mine with a sorrowful, inquiring gaze, and as Where heroes have enwreathed their brows she read anguish which I could not conceal, she With chivalric renown, Where beauty's hand, as valour's meed, I'd stand where proudest kings have stood, Till, wrapt in magic solitude, I feel what they have felt! Oh, for the pinions of a bird To waft me far away, turned away with a look of despair. She spoke not a word, but silence, still, death-like silence pervaded the apartment. The best of medical aid was called in, but the physicians gave no hope: they considered it as a deep-seated case of pulmonary consumption."-p. 55. It would be painful and profitless to our readers or ourselves to pursue the further de. tails of this touching case, which are but variations of the leading theme-short and transient gleams of health amidst dark, deep, and dismal prospects-until at last, after what we Excepting the really beautiful one which may call the usual vicissitudes of such a diswe have printed in italics, these stanzas may ease, borne with exemplary and elevating seem rather vaguely conceived, and negli-Christian patience and illustrated by many gently versified and those we have omitted poetical aspirations, this amiable and gifted are still more so-but as written in the child's tenth, or at latest eleventh, year, we think the whole very interesting. Towards the close of 1835, amidst the anticipations of a joyous Christmas, a new affliction arrived. Two of her brothers were taken ill, and one-Kent-called, we suppose, after Lucretia's benefactor-a beautiful boy nine years old, sank into the grave. Margaret witnessed the last agonies with a patient calm she stood over the 'corpse like a statue.' At last she was led away, and then tears came to her relief. She, as was her wont, sanctified this event in many pious stanzas, of which the best is, we think child slept, as she herself trusted, in the arms of the Redeemer, and rose as we hope into the bosom of the Creator, on the 25th of November, 1838, aged fifteen years and eight months. Her remains repose in the graveyard of the village of Saratoga. In the selection we have made of specimens of her poetry we have been guided by Mr. Irving; and though they are all amongst her earliest productions, and, as we have said, of little intrinsic value, we do not know that we could have done much better for her fame: her later poems, most of them being apparently uncorrected and many evidently unfinished, have, in their present state, a strong tendency to the diffuse and tedious, and there are few of them perhaps that would repay the reader for the space they must absorb; but we think it right to give one at least of her Dedication, to the Spirit of her Sister Lu most mature pieces--and we shall select the cretia,' of a poem, called Leonora-the last Margaret ever wrote: 'Oh thou so early lost, so long deplored! Pure spirit of my sister, be thou near! These stanzas, though rather diffuse, and here and there deficient in rhyme, are tender and elegant; and our readers will have observed two thoughts which seem to us not only beautiful but original; and on the whole, we believe, we may assure them that this last extract is a favourable specimen of Margaret's best poetry. der the indulgence of Providence subsided into the club-foot?* Our readers cannot fail to have observed, both of Lucretia and Margaret, that their advance in poetry was by no means proportioned to their advance in years-their first written and dated verses are nearly as good as the last, and, even when they are positively better, they appear inferior relatively to the circumstances in which they were produced. There is also, it will be observed, tween the style of the two sisters, and in the an almost undistinguishable similarity beindividual pieces of each a constant recurrence of the same ideas and expressions, and a too frequent approach, as we before observed, to the wrong side of the very verge of meaning,' so that they assume, when read consecutively, a growing character of monotony, repetition, vagueness, inflation-and force upon us the reluctant conclusion that they belong rather to versification than poetry, and that the writers were, by the tion, destined to no higher flights. At five very qualities which excite so much admiraand six they were miracles-at ten and eleven wonders--but at fifteen and seventeen *Some ingenious moderns have found reason to suspect that Shakspeare himself, the greatest imaginative genius that ever illustrated our sphere, was club-footed: but however such a fact might strengthen the theory hinted at in the text, we candidly own that we can see no ground whatsoever for the sus. picion. + This appears strongest in Margaret, probably because she came last and had her mind imbued with recollections of her sister, but we do not think that she was naturally inferior to Lucretia. There is a pretty imitation of a Scotch song by her, two verses of which we are tempted to copy as a specimen of her lighter style : Fair as the simmer flower, Mrs. Davidson seems to reproach herself, and Miss Sedgwick--who had become acquainted with Margaret in the last years of her rapid transit-adopts in some degree the same tone-that the case was not judiciously treated. There is no doubt that, with the example of Lucretia before their eyes, and with their opinion of the causes of her premature decay, the treatment of Margaret was, logically speak ing, inconsistent and injudicious: but physically and really, we are satisfied that her friends have nothing to reproach themselves with; and that the process pursued did not accelerate, and that no treatment could have averted, the catastrophe of either of the sisters. They had run their race-in a shorter time than ordinary persons-but they had run it. These girls at fifteen and seventeen had, in the premature exertion of their intellects and the unceasing activity of their pens, lived as long as Miss Landon or Mrs. Hemans-if they had lived longer they might have outlived themselves. There are numerous instances in which nature condenses, as it were, its intellectual as well as its physical bounties into a limited space-but premature bodily growth rapidly decays, and the brilliancy of many a youthful genius, if not closed in death, subsides into mediocrity or even dullness. Ge. nius is itself almost a disease, and who can say of the three greatest geniuses lately removed from this world-Talleyrand, Scott, and Byron bound! --whether the mortal ingredient had not un-And this is published by Miss Sedgwick! Is Jeannie to me. Grief may bedim the while In the dark storm shall prove Perhaps this little piece has more melody than meaning: but Lucretia also had her 'Imitation of the Scotch,' of which we need give but the last couplet: But Norman still lives! his Marion is found; By the adamant chains of blythe Hymen they're their productions did not remarkably surpass two 'lovely and intellectual' countenances. those of many a girl of that age. Those who It would indicate a strange apathy if, after the begin early will end early; and if Lucretia fame of Lucretia, that, at least, of Margaret and Margaret had lived to bodily maturity, had not been taken. they would probably have appeared to recede to mental mediocrity. We cannot better describe our sensations in reading these volumes than by Margaret's own criticism on Mrs. Hemans: ART. IV.-1. An Historical Essay on Architecture. By the late Thomas Hope. 2d edition. London, 1835. 2. She was a woman of deep feeling, lively fancy, and acute sensibilities-but there is one thing I have often remarked: the mind soon wearies in perusing many of her pieces at once. She expresses those sweet sentiments so often, and introduces the same stream of beautiful ideas so constantly, that they sometimes degenerate into monotony. I know no higher treat than to read a few of her best productions, and comment upon and feel their beauties; but perusing her volume is to me like listening to a strain of 4. Remarks on the Architecture of the Mid sweet music, repeated over and over again until it becomes so familiar to the ear that it loses the charm of variety.'—p. 77. This is nearly our opinion of both Marga ret and Lucretia; and our readers will admire not only the justness of the criticism, but the clearness and propriety of the expression. Indeed, there is nothing in either of the volumes more remarkable than the ease and purity of the idiom, both in prose and verse. We have not observed one provincialism; all-including Mrs. Davidson's memoranda-is genuine English. Most educated Americans, we know, speak and write very good English, but that of this family is excellent: it is evident that their contemplative and imitative intellects conversed much more with English authors (Addison and Cowper being especial favourites) than with their country neighbours; and, accordingly, these children of the Saranac write at least as well as if they had been born on the banks of Trent or Severn. On the whole we think that a useful moral as well as physiological lesson may be derived from the history of these two interesting and amiable young creatures:-that the gifts of Providence are dispensed with a certain equitable equality-that early precocity should inspire no confidence, and early mediocrity create no discouragement-that precocity is itself rather a malady than a merit -that a premature exertion of talents is generally a fatal fallacy-and that plants which are forced, by natural or accidental causes, to produce fruits in spring, will either fade away in the summer, or, at best, be barren in the autumn. We are surprised and vexed that in an age so prone to book-embellishments, we should not have been favoured with portraits of these VOL. LXIX. 8 A Glossary of Terms used in Grecian, Roman, Italian, and Gothic Architecture. 3d edition, enlarged. Oxford, 1840. 3. Architectural Notes on German Churches. A new edition. By the Rev. W. Whewell, M. A. Cambridge, 1835. 5. 6. 7. 8. dle Ages, especially of Italy. By R. Willis, M. A., F. R. S., late Fellow of Caius College. Cambridge, 1835. An Attempt to discriminate the Styles of Architecture in England from the Conquest to the Reformation. By Thomas Rickman, Architect. 3d edition. London, 1825. The True Principles of Pointed or Chris- The Rules and Proceedings of the Oxford THE ancient Greek and Roman architecture answers all the perfections required in a faultless and accomplished building, such as for so many ages were so renowned and reputed by the universal suffrages of the civilized world, and would doubtless have still subsisted and made good their claim, and what is recorded of them, had not the Goths, Vandals, and other barbarous nations, subverted and demolished then, together with that glorious empire where those stately and pompous monuments stood; introducing, in their stead, a certain fantastical and licentious manner of building, which we have since called modern, or Gothic. Congestions of heavy, dark, melancholy, and monkish piles, without any just proportion, use, or beauty, compared with the truly ancient; so as when we meet with the greatest industry, and expensive carving, full of fret and lamentable imagery, sparing neither of pains nor cost, a judicious spectator is rather distracted, or quite confounded, than touched with that admiration which results from the true and just symmetry, reguthe great and noble manner in which the august lar proportions, union and disposition; and from and glorious fabrics of the ancients are executed." Such was the opinion of the accomplished! These indeed are not the words of Sir Evelyn of the merits of Gothic architecture. Christopher Wren himself; but they occur Let us now turn to another authority, by whom he is quoted:- 'It was after the irruption and swarms of those truculent people from the north, the Moors and Arabs from the south and east, overrunning the civilized world, that wherever they fixed themselves, they soon began to debauch this noble and useful art; when, instead of those beautiful orders, so majestical and proper for their stations, becoming variety and other ornamental accessories, they set up those slender and misshapen pillars, or rather bundles of staves, and other incongruous props, to support incumbent weights and ponderous arched roofs without entablature; and though not without great industry, as M. D'Aviler well observes, nor altogether naked of gaudy sculpture, trite and busy carvings-'tis such as gluts the eye rather than gratifies and pleases it with any reasonable satisfaction. For proof of this, (without travelling far abroad,) I dare report myself to any man of judgment and that has the least taste of order and magnificence: if, after he has looked awhile upon King Henry VII.'s chapel at Westminster, gazed on its sharp angles, jetties, narrow lights, lame statues, lace, and other cutwork and crinkle crankle-and shall then turn his eyes on the Banqueting-house built at Whitehall by Inigo Jones after the ancient manner; or on what his Majesty's surveyor, Sir Christopher Wren, has advanced at St. Paul's, and consider what a glorious object the cupola, porticoes, colonnades, and other parts present to the beholder; or compare the Schools [i. e. the Divinity School] and Library at Oxford with the Theatre there, or what he has built at Trinity College, in Cambridge-and since, all these at Greenwich and other places-by which time our home-traveller will begin to have a just idea of the ancient and modern architecture:- I say, let him well consider, and compare them judicially, without partiality and prejudice, and then pronounce which of the two manners strikes the understanding as well as the eye with the more majesty and solemn greatness, and accordingly determine to whom the preference is due. Not, as we have said, that there is not something of solid and oddly artificial, too, after a sort; but then the universal and unreasonable thickness of the walls, clumsy buttresses, towers, sharp-pointed arches, doors and other apertures without proportion, nonsensical insertions of various marbles, [tombs?] impertinently placed turrets, and pinnacles thickly set with monkeys and chimeras, and abundance of busy work and other incongruities, dissipate and break the angles of the sight, and so confound that one cannot consider it with any steadiness where to begin or end; taking off from that noble air and grandeur which the ancients had so well and judiciously established. But in this sort have they and their followers ever since filled, not Europe alone, but Asia and Africa besides, with mountains of stone, vast and gigantic buildings indeed, but not worthy the name of Architecture.'-Life of Sir C. Wren, p. 308. in the Memoirs of his Life by his son, and accurately enough represent the taste of the age in which he lived. And we have quoted them for the purpose of marking strongly the change which has taken place, not only in England but in France and Germany, within the last few years, on the subject of Gothic architecture. The works before us exhibit an interest and research in this branch of art, which prove how strongly cultivated minds may be impressed with the character and power of these 'unreasonable,' 'clumsy,' 'dispropor. tioned, nonsensical,'' impertinent,' and 'incongruous' buildings which a former age, not without its science and its taste, deemed unworthy of the name of architecture.' Two societies have been recently established at Oxford and at Cambridge, for the promotion of the same study, and the example has been followed in several other places. The numerous churches which are rising bear marks already of a similar alteration of feeling. And still more may be found in the restorations which have recently been made both in our cathedrals and in collegiate buildings. It is to be hoped that something better is indicated by these facts than a mere caprice of fancy. To those who recognize in art a higher beginning and end than an idle, luxurious indulgence of the eyes, and in Gothic architecture indications of thought and feeling of a very peculiar nature, this return to the habits of other days is full of meaning and interest. It proves at least that we are now capable of discerning some element of good in ages, which for the last two centuries we had been accustomed to call days of darkness, but which were, to say the least, the cradle of many of our noblest institutions. And it is something to see reviving among us that filial feeling towards the years which begot us, which delights to own gratitude for the benefits received from them, and to deal reverently even with their faults, rather than to insult them by a perpetual boast of our own superiority. And if, as assuredly is the fact, there is the closest analogy between the creations of art and the movement of higher instincts within us, we may trace in this altered taste in architecture an alteration in other habits of thought, carrying men back to asscciations and institutions of a higher kind than those in which we have been living. Even if it were only the result of an increased demand for ecclesiastical buildings, and of an instinctive perception that the characteristics of Gothic architecture (how or why it may not be seen) are more congenial to the reli gious spirit of Christianity than those of the Grecian, the fact would be well worth no tice. p. 51. distinction on its author, and no advantage on others; when, like a fire kindled without proper fuel to feed the flame, it again went out, or for We do not say, however, that the mode in many ages smouldered in unperceived obscurity, which the subject has hitherto been studied latent spark, blew it up into a blaze, when the ere fresh wants and fresh means, fanning the is perfectly satisfactory. The theory of it genius to which it first was owing had already has principally been confined to an inquiry long been forgotten in the darkness of the grave. into the origin of the pointed arch-and And thus, for aught we know, it may have fared whatever ingenuity has been displayed here, with the arch. . . . If even by some forwe agree with Mr. Whewell that it does tuitous meeting of materials in peculiar relaseem to have been thrown away. Undoubt- first have been formed in independent Greece, tive situations, the embryo of the arch should edly the pointed arch is the most important it there remained in a manner dormant and if not the primary germ of Gothic architec- sterile; it received no development; it became ture. It is the idea,' or, if we may use the not in her edifices a marked feature, calculated Platonic word, the 'form' from which it by its importance and resources to change and chiefly emanated; and, undoubtedly, it may remodify the whole principle and face of her be found lying before the eyes of men in a architecture.'-Hope on Architecture, chap. vii., great variety of objects-in the arching of avenues, the wattling of huts, the intersection But in the effort to solve what Mr. Wheof circular arches, and the ribbings of a well also terms 'the frivolous and insoluble groined roof. But it lay for ages like every question' of the origin of the pointed arch, other simple fact in nature, each of which to as in searching for the philosopher's stone, common men means nothing, and to the eye many valuable discoveries have been made. of genius alone contains a multitude of ap- Buildings have been minutely examined and plications and deductions, only brought out described, the relations of their details drawn when it comes into contact with certain out; and although perhaps too much of the others, and then becomes as it were fecun- arbitrary and licentious has been shown in dated and productive. A philosophical in- fixing chronological dates, an historical outquirer into the history of science would in- line of the changes which have taken place quire not by whom or at what time an apple in Gothic architecture has been traced with was first seen to drop to the ground, or steam sufficient accuracy to form the groundwork to issue from boiling water, or sand to melt of a still deeper investigation. For this we into glass, or hard bodies to produce corres- are deeply indebted, among others, to Mr. ponding impressions upon soft, but under Rickman. what circumstances these simple facts, drop- One fact seems likely to meet soon with ped like seeds into a suitable soil, became for general acquiescence. From the earliest the first time prolific, and brought forth the Egyptian to the corrupt Tudor Gothic a theory of gravitation, and the steam-engine, chain of successive transitions may be ea and the telescope, and the printing press. No sily established. Each style was a modificasingle fact by itself can produce results. It tion of the one which preceded it, and was is combination, seemingly accidental, on not a new and foreign importation from a towhich all depends; and this is the proper tally different soil. The Egyptian passed subject for examination. And thus the ques- into the Grecian, the Grecian into the Rotion to be asked respecting the pointed arch man, the Roman, as Mr. Hope ingeniously is this:-under what circumstances and from traces it, into the Byzantine, the Lombard, what state of feeling its appropriateness to answer certain purposes, or to represent certain ideas, began to be felt; and having once been felt, led not only to its general adoption, but a very considerable modification of other features in architecture, so as to bring them into harmony with this established type? What Mr. Hope has said of the introduction of the circular arch into Roman architecture may be repeated of the pointed. A fortuitous concurrence of circumstances has made many a man invent that which he had not the means to apply, nay, of which he saw not even the full use and application. Many a discovery has taken place for the first time at a period when, little wanted, it conferred no and what is improperly termed the Norman and the Saxon: these again slided gradually into what is still more improperly called Gothic; and the Gothic, through the various stages which Mr. Rickman and others have pointed out, into the mixed and barbarous farrago of the Elizabethan age. Once establish this point-and attention will be turned from a vague, unprofitable speculation as to what singular coincidence first suggested a new creation to the builder's eyes, into a practical study of facts; and those facts will soon lead to the principles which they contain, and without a knowledge of which the facts are by themselves useless. A second point, not less important, is that |