most astounding array of figures. A nation lives only through its literature, and its mental life is immortal. The capricious tyranny of Dionysius might well inspire fear in those whose lives and fortunes were subject to his passions and whims; but it can exercise no control over us. It Idied with the feeble arm of him who wielded it. But the power of Plato passed not away with his corporeal frame. Homer still sings, Socrates still speaks to us. Greece yet

lives in her literature, more real to our minds, nearer to our affections, than many European kingdoms. The true monarchs of a country are those whose sway is over thought and emotion. They are

"The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule

Our spirits from their urns."

America abounds in the material of poetry. Its history, its scenery, the structure of its social life, the thoughts which pervade its political forms, the meaning which underlies its hot contests, are all capable of being exhibited in a poetical aspect. Carlyle, in speaking of the settlement of Plymouth by the Pilgrims, remarks that, if we had the open sense of the Greeks, we should have "found a poem here; one of nature's own poems, such as she writes in broad facts over great continents." If we have a literature, it should be a national literature; no feeble or sonorous echo of Germany or England, but essentially American in its tone and object. No matter how meritorious a composition may be, as long as any foreign nation can say that it has done the same thing better, so long shall we be spoken of with contempt, or in a spirit of impertinent patronage. We begin to sicken of the custom, now so common, of presenting even our best poems to the attention of foreigners, with a deprecating, apologetic air; as if their acceptance of the offering, with a few soft

and silky compliments, would be an act of kindness demanding our warmest acknowledgments. If the Quarterly Review or Blackwood's Magazine speaks well of an American production, we think that we can praise it ourselves, without incurring the reproach of bad taste. The folly we yearly practice, of flying into a passion with some inferior English writer, who caricatures our faults, and tells dull jokes about his tour through the land, has only the effect to exalt an insignificant scribbler into notoriety, and give a nominal value to his recorded impertinence. If the mind and heart of the country had its due expression, if its life had taken form in a literature worthy of itself, we should pay little regard to the childish tattling of a pert coxcomb who was discontented with our taverns, or the execrations of some bluff seacaptain who was shocked with our manners. The uneasy sense we have of something in our national existence, which has not yet been fitly expressed, gives poignancy to the least ridicule launched at faults and follies which lie on the superficies of our life. Every person feels, that a book, which condemns the country for its peculiarities of manners and customs, does not pierce into the heart of the matter, and is essentially worthless. If Bishop Berkeley, when he visited Malebranche, had paid exclusive attention to the habitation, raiment, and manners of the man, and neglected the conversation of the metaphysician, and, when he returned to England, had entertained Pope, Swift, Gay, and Arbuthnot with satirical descriptions of the "complement extern" of his eccentric host, he would have acted just as wisely as many an English tourist, with whose malicious pleasantry. on our habits of chewing, spitting, and eating, we are silly enough to quarrel. To the United States, in reference to the popgun shots of foreign tourists, might be addressed the warning which Peter Plymley thundered against Bonaparte,

in reference to the Anti-Jacobin jests of Canning: Tremble, oh thou land of many spitters and voters, "for a pleasant man has come out against thee, and thou shalt be laid low by a joker of jokes, and he shall talk his pleasant talk to thee, and thou shalt be no more!"

In order that America may take its due rank in the commonwealth of nations, a literature is needed which shall be the exponent of its higher life. We live in times of turbulence and change. There is a general dissatisfaction, manifesting itself often in rude contests and ruder speech, with the gulf which separates principles from actions. Men are struggling to realize dim ideals of right and truth, and each failure adds to the desperate earnestness of their efforts. Beneath all the shrewdness and selfishness of the American character, there is a smouldering enthusiasm which flames. out at the first touch of fire,-sometimes at the hot and hasty words of party, and sometimes at the bidding of great thoughts and unselfish principles. The heart of the nation is easily stirred to its depths; but those who rouse its fiery impulses into action are often men compounded of ignorance and wickedness, and wholly unfit to guide the passions which they are able to excite. There is no country in the world which has nobler ideas embodied in more worthless shapes. All our factions, fanaticisms, reforms, parties, creeds, ridiculous or dangerous though they often appear, are founded on some aspiration or reality which deserves a better form and expression. There is a mighty power in great speech. If the sources of what we call our fooleries and faults were righly addressed, they would echo more majestic and kindling truths. We want a poetry which shall speak in clear, loud tones to the people; a poetry which shall make us more in love with our native land, by converting its ennobling scenery into the images of lofty thought;

which shall give visible form and life to the abstract ideas of our written constitutions; which shall confer upon virtue all the strength of principle and all the energy of passion; which shall disentangle freedom from cant and senseless hyperbole, and render it a thing of such loveliness and grandeur as to justify all self-sacrifice; which shall make us love man by the new consecrations it sheds on his life and destiny; which shall force through the thin partitions of conventionalism and expediency; vindicate the majesty of reason; give new power to the voice of conscience, and new vitality to human affection; soften and elevate passion; guide enthusiasm in a right direction; and speak out in the high language of men to a nation of men.

ers.

TALFOURD.*

AMONG the many gifted minds who have been influenced by the spirit which Wordsworth infused into the literature of the present age, there is hardly one who approaches nearer, in the tone and character of his writings, to the bard of Rydal Mount than Thomas Noon Talfourd, the poet and essayist. He belongs to that class of authors, who manifest so much purity and sweetness of disposition, that our admiration for their talents is often merged in our love for their qualities of heart. Criticism shrinks from a cold analysis of their powWherever they find a reader, they find a friend. A spirit of affectionate partisanship mingles with most criticisms on their writings. All who have partaken of their intellectual companionship have a deep sympathy in their personal welfare. We may be almost said to joy in their joy, and grieve in their grief. If they be not bound to us by the ties of consanguinity, they are still the brethren of our minds and hearts. Oceans cannot separate them from our love. National differences cannot alienate them from our affections. Wherever they go, they have the "freedom of the city." Wordsworth, Lamb, Dickens, Talfourd, Frederika Bremer, allowing for their intellectual diversities, and the different

* Critical and Miscellaneous Writings of T. Noon Talfourd, Author of "Ion." Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1842. 12mo. pp. 354.— North American Review, October, 1843.