source of song."- She somewhere remarks, as an apology for the amatory character of her early writings, that “for a woman, whose influence and sphere is the affections, love is the peculiar province." And so it is-but then she should, like Mrs. Hemans, have extended the sphere of love to the conjugal, parental, filial, and fraternal feelings. Yes, the true love, which glows with the holiest and brightest light in the garland of poesy twined by a female hand, is that which she will find in the domestic circle- the household affections, rather than the tender passion, should be her theme.

As

In her later productions Miss Landon has greatly improved. She addresses other feelings besides love, her style has more simplicity and strength, and the sentiment becomes elevated and womanly-for we hold that the loftiest, purest and best qualities of our nature, the moral feelings, are peculiarly suited to the genius of woman. she is still young, and possesses such fervidness and activity of genius, and the power of judgment which can control the exuberance which such a fancy as hers is inclined to indulge, there is every reason to hope better and richer treasures from her muse, than any yet given to the world.

In prose Miss Landon has succeeded well, though we do not place her in the first rank of the popular novelists of the day. Her "Romance and Reality" is an interesting story, and many of her short sketches and tales, which are gracing the periodicals of the day, are written with a charming naïveté and sprightliness. But the originality, pathos and deep feeling, which characterize much of her poetry, are seldom found in her prose. Nature has gifted her for the lyre, and we hope she will only practice prose writing sufficiently to correct, by its requisite common sense and naturalness, some of the eccentricities and conceits which a vivid imagination, always searching for the wonderful, the beautiful and the exciting, is so apt to indulge.

Though Miss Landon has written much pathetic poetry, depicting the woes of despairing and forsaken lovers, she is not describing her own case. It is said that she is very fond of society, and shines among the fair, fashionable and fascinating of the London world as a "bright particular star;" — and that never has a disappointment of the heart occurred to cloud her vivacity. So, no gentle reader of the "Improvasatrice," "The Venetian Bracelet," "Lost Pleiad," &c. &c - must identify the suffering heroines of those poems with the accomplished writer. But there is one strain-"the Lines on Life," which we have selected, that bear the seal of individual and real feeling. We cannot but think that in these strains Miss Landon has portrayed her own heart; and the sincerity and simplicity of the expression, which always attends real feeling, gives to this poem a strong, and stirring interest which her fancies and fictions, surpassingly beautiful as they are, can never create. She has lived in the sunshine of the world too much, and the "Eastern Tulip" may be the emblem, of her poetical temperament; but that she prizes the "little deep blue violet" so well, shows that her heart and soul are fraught with the love of simple nature, and with those warm and sacred emotions that will, when called forth

And though

"Make the loveliness of home."

"The fire within the poet's heart

Is fire unquenchable,

Far may its usual curse depart,
And light, but not consume, thy heart!
Sweet minstrel, fare thee well!
And may for once the laurel wreath

Not wither all that grows beneath!"

LINES OF LIFE.

Orphan in my first years, I early learnt
To make my heart suffice itself, and seek
Support and sympathy in its own depths.

WELL, read my cheek, and watch my eye,
Too strictly school'd are they,
One secret of my soul to show,
One hidden thought betray.

I never knew the time my heart
Look'd freely from my brow;
It once was checked by timidness,
'Tis taught by caution now.

I live among the cold, the false,
And I must seem like them;
And such I am, for I am false
As those I most condemn.

I teach my lip its sweetest smile,
My tongue its softest tone;
I borrow others' likeness, till
Almost I lose my own.

I pass through flattery's gilded sieve,
Whatever I would say ;

In social life, all, like the blind,
Must learn to feel their way.

I check my thoughts like curbed steeds
That struggle with the rein;

I bid my feelings sleep, like wrecks
In the unfathom'd main.

I hear them speak of love, the deep,
The true, and mock the name;
Mock at all high and early truth,
And I too do the same.

I hear them tell some touching tale,
I swallow down the tear;

I hear them name some generous deed,
And I have learnt to sneer.

I hear the spiritual, the kind,
The pure, but named in mirth;
Till all of good, ay, even hope,
Seems exiled from our earth.

And one fear, withering ridicule,
Is all that I can dread;
A sword hung by a single hair,
Forever o'er the head.

We bow to a most servile faith,
In a most servile fear;

While none among us dares to say
What none will choose to hear.

And if we dream of loftier thoughts,
In weakness they are gone;
And indolence and vanity
Rivet our fetters on.

Surely I was not born for this!
I feel a loftier mood

Of generous impulse, high resolve,
Steal o'er my solitude!

I gaze upon the thousand stars
That fill the midnight sky;
And wish, so passionately wish,
A light like theirs on high.

I have such eagerness of hope
To benefit my kind;
And feel as if immortal power
Were given to my mind.

I think on that eternal fame,
The sun of earthly gloom,
Which makes the gloriousness of death,
The future of the tomb-

And earth, and earth's debasing stain,
Again is on my soul;

And I am but a nameless part

Of a most worthless whole.

Why write I this? because my heart
Towards the future springs,

That future where it loves to soar
On more than eagle wings.

The present, it is but a speck
In that eternal time,

In which my lost hopes find a home,
My spirit knows its clime.

Oh! not myself,- for what am I?—
The worthless and the weak,