MEN.

You term them rightly;
For they were rivals, and their mistress Harmony.
Some time thus spent, the young man grew at last
Into a pretty anger, that a bird

Whom art had never taught clefs, moods or notes,
Should vie with him for mastery, whose study

Had busied many hours to perfect practice:

To end the controversy, in a rapture

Upon his instrument he plays so swiftly,

So many voluntaries, and so quick,

That there was curiosity and cunning,

Concord in discord, lines of differing method
Meeting in one full centre of delight.

AMET. Now for the bird.

WE would be willing to 'give something handsome' to know who is the author of the review of The New Timon,' in the last number of the North-American Review.' He is a rare spirit and a true critic, whoever he may be. He has a proper contempt for literary charlatans, of every degree; and is especially and justly severe upon those indifferent authorlings who have vainly attempted to create a market for their own small wares, by prating about a 'national literature,' to which their 'American writings' could have contributed nothing save discredit. We quote a few passages:

'MANY respectable persons are greatly exercised in spirit at the slow growth of what they are pleased to call a national literature. They conjecture of the forms of our art from the shape of our continent, reversing the Platonic method. They deduce a literary from a geographical originality; a new country, therefore new thoughts. A reductio ad absurdum would carry this principle to the extent of conforming an author's mind to the house he lived in. These enthusiasts wonder, that our mountains have not yet brought forth a poet, forgetting that a mouse was the result of the only authentic mountainous parturition on record. Others, more hopeful, believe the continent to be at least seven mouths gone with a portentous minstrel, who, according to the most definite augury we have seen, shall "string" our woods, mountains, lakes and rivers, and then "wring" from them (no milder term, or less suggestive of the laundry, will serve) notes of "autochthonic significance.' We have heard of one author, who thinks it quite needless to be at the pains of a jury of matrons VOL. XXIX. 62

on the subject, as he makes no doubt that the child of Destiny is already born, and that he has discovered in himself the genuine Terra Filius.'

The critic has a true sense of the necessity of more originality on this side of the water. He remarks with equal force and truth, that

'AT present, every English author can see a distorted reflection of himself here; a something like the eidolons of the Homeric Hades, not ghosts precisely, but unsubstantial counterparts. He finds himself come round again, the Atlantic Ocean, taking the function of the Platonic year. Our authors are the best critics of their brethren (or parents) on the other side of the water, catching as they do only what is exaggerated in them. We are in need of a literary declaration of independence; our literature should no longer be colonial. Let us not be understood as chiming in with that foolish cry of the day, that authors should not profit by example and precedent; a cry which generally originates with some hardy imitator, the stop thief! with which he would fain distract attention from himself. It is the tower-stamp of an original mind, that it gives an awakening impulse to other original minds.'

How perfectly true are the remarks we have italicized! We are at once reminded of Puffer Hopkins,' and the charge lately brought against DICKENS of having plagiarized from that author!! * Is not the following a capital bit of satire?

'THE 'mystery of our being' has become a favorite object of contemplation. Egoism has been erected into a system of theology. Self has been deified like the Egyptian onion,

Nascuntur in hortis

Numina.'

Poets used to look before and after. Now, their eyes are turned wholly inward, and ordinarily with as useful result as was attained by the Brahmin who spent five years in the beatific inspection of his own navel. Instead of poems we have lectures on the morbid anatomy of self. Nature herself must subscribe their platform of doctrine, 'for substance, scope, and aim, but without qualication. If they turned their eyes outward for a moment, they behold in the landscape only a sinaller image of themselves. The mountain becomes a granite Mr. Smith, and the ocean (leaving out the salt) a watery Mr. Brown; in other words a Mr. Brown with the milky particles of his composition deducted. A new systema mundi is constructed, with the individual idiosyncracy of the poet for its base. And, to prolong the delight of swallowing all this sublime mystification, euraptured simplicity prays fervently, with the old epicure, for the neck of a crane. Fortunately, that of a goose will suffice.'

THE following remarks upon Anacreon Moore,' and the correspondence to which they are introductory, will arrest the attention of our readers: The most striking features of MOORE's personal character have ever been his independence and his patriotism. It is notorious that the court, the government, and even the PRINCE REGENT himself, sought often and vainly to win MOORE's partisanship, or at least his silence. But neither the prospect of preferment, nor the seductions of fashion, nor yet the personal blandishments of the 'first gentleman of Europe,' could induce the bard of Erin to become the tool of party, or to forego the free expression of opinion in his contributions to the newspapers, and in those unequalled satires, where wit and imagination gave such a sting to truth, that political abuses, fashionable follies and regal vices simultaneously felt its power. Through all this, above it all, amid all changes, 'in season and out of season;' heightening every jest and deepening every touch of pathos; sparkled and burned, with unequalled brightness, MOORE's love for his degraded and unhappy country. Her degradation, her faults and her crimes, were not included in his too partial view. He saw but her wrongs, her loveliness and her tears. And when some great name did shed a passing gleam of brightness upon the dark record of Ireland's ' sorrow and shame,' in what rainbow-hues was its light reflected and multiplied by the sparkling gems of MOORE's lyric poetry! He loved his country, and he loved and praised those who had dared and suffered in her

SEE the last 'Democratic Review,' in a ridiculous article, which we understand was previously placed in type for the Literary World,' but peremptorily cancelled by the proprietors.

cause. His verse is no where so lofty, so sublime, as when, with the boldness of truth, it dares defend the character and the motives of those men whom their country's wrongs had roused to deeds which tyranny branded as treason, but which he fearlessly worships as PATRIOTISM.

'Let not this independence and this boldness be underrated. We speak of the 'Reign of Terror' in France with the shudder which the phrase itself enforces; but be it remembered, there was also a 'Reign of Terror' in England. Privy-Councilwarrants were almost as rife in England, less than half a century since, as ever lettres de cachet, or those nameless warrants of the Terrorists (comprising imprisonment and death in a word,) had ever been in France. The breath of sedition,' if not stopped forever by the hangman, was more elaborately suffocated in the dungeons of Newgate. The English government were so vigilant, so suspicious and so vindictive, that men who called rebellion 'patriotism,' who denounced the measures of government as 'tyranny,' and the ' venial errors' of royalty as 'vices' and 'crimes,' wrote with Newgate in view at least; to say nothing of the trifling addenda of a running-noose and the 'new drop' scene. That THOMAS MOORE might have possessed worldly wealth and rank in exchange for the wealth of his genius and the nobility of independence, (even if he did not incur positive danger by his fearless course,) no one who knows his history can doubt; and it was with a full persuasion of this truth that the following letter, and the lines which accompany it, were some two years since addressed to Mr. MOORE. The writer dares not ask from the readers of the KNICKERBOCKER so favorable an estimate of these unpretending verses as Mr. MOORE's kindness has induced him to express; and, (although their publication has been repeatedly and strenuously urged,) if Mr. MOORE's very interesting reply were at all suited for separate publication, the present writer would have published that by itself, and foregone the gratification of seeing his own name so flatteringly associated with that of Mr. MOORE, rather than appear ostentatiously to obtrude himself upon the public in such illustrious fellowship:

DEAR SIR:

то THOMAS MOORE, ESQUIRE.

London, 28th June, 1845.

'Retaining a vivid recollection of the courtesy which you extended to me last winter, and of the pleasure which I derived from my brief association with you, I have sought the opportunity, of which I now avail myself, to solicit your acceptance of a curious and somewhat rare record of the peculiar greatness of WASHINGTON. Of his principles and his actions, you Sir must, I feel assured, entertain a high and thorough appreciation; and I therefore venture to hope that this little volume may prove acceptable to you.

This is my excuse for laying it before you; but I fear that I can neither find nor invent an apology half so valid for my presumption in prefixing to it an inscription in verse. I can say in my own defence only, that I am far from imagining myself to possess any real poetic talent; and that I have prefixed a few verses to this volume, merely as an unassuming expression of the grounds upon which I have based a belief that the offering itself might interest you.

'Still, it is presumptuous to address, in verse, a Master of the art; but I am sure that no one more readily than yourself will admit that certain classes of ideas find more appropriate and fluent utterance in that form than in any other.

The position which the public voice and the public feeling have so long accorded to you, will redeem from all suspicion of insincerity the expression of the profound admiration and respect with which I esteem it an honor to subscribe myself,

LINES

REFERRED TO BY MR. MOORE, AND INSCRIBED IN A VOLUME OF MEMORIALS OF WASHINGTON."

'MY DEAR GOULD:

Sloperton, Chippenham, July 1st, 1845. 'I regret exceedingly that it was not till after your departure I discovered the curious and interesting gift which you so kindly, and at the same time so modestly, left behind for me.

'I assure you I shall value it most highly, not only for its own intrinsic worth, but for the graceful and only too flattering verses which accompany it.

Much as I have written of English poetry, I am ashamed to say how very little of it I have ever read; prose having been always my favorite line of study. I may therefore plead guilty to being far less versed in American poetry than I ought to be. But if your Parnassus can boast many such denizens as the author of the graceful lines which you have done me the honor of addressing to me, I shall certainly be tempted, though my own poetical days are over, to refresh my memory of them with a taste of yours; and as in my youth I drank of the waters of your Niagara, regale myself now with the torrentia flumina of your poetry.

'Believe me, dear GOULD, yours very truly, 'To ROBERT HOWE GOULD, ESQ.

'THOMAS MOORE.'

We are throwing light' upon a great many subjects, and thus performing an acceptable service to the public, by announcing that the dépôt of the Carcel Mechanical Lamp is removed from John-street to Number 377 Broadway; and there we would suggest that the reader should call, to see how far the Beautiful can be carried. The exquisite ornamental forms and figures, of the most admirable materials, now employed in decorating the different varieties of the Carcel lamp, would certainly seem to have reached their acme. The force of art, one would think, could no farther go. .. THE felicitous application of a quotation is oftentimes almost akin to the actual inspiration of genius. The veteran GEORGE GRIFFIN, in a speech shortly after the war, made use of the following admirable expression: At this dark hour, our little navy, a remnant of federalism, plucked up by the locks the drowning honor of our country.'・・・ Washington and his Generals,' by Rev. J. T. HEAD

6

LEY, author of 'NAPOLEON and his Marshals,' has just been published by Messrs. BAKER AND SCRIBNER. We shall notice this excellent work hereafter. Four thousand copies were ordered before the book was out of the press! We quite agree with the 'Courier and Enquirer' daily journal, that the reviews of GRISWOLD'S 'Prose-Writers of America,' which have appeared in the Democratic Review' and The Literary World,' are very shabby, very weak, and show only uneasy malice.' We understand that the 'Southern Literary Messenger' has been hired, by a species of literary dicker' of no particular value, to republish one or both of those notices. It is well remarked by the Boston Courier,' that Mr. GRISWOLD and the public know too well how this independent criticism' is prepared and managed, 'to be at all affected by malevolence in the mask of candor, or to have any difficulty in detecting the whine of whipped conceit or the howl of mortified vanity in the disguise of affected sneer. Mr. GRISWOLD's book has been executed honestly, ably and well; and is a valuable contribution to the original literature of the country.' ONE seldom hears, now-a-days, in the metropolis, complaints of the Sunday newspapers. We believe it is now generally conceded that a well-conducted Sunday journal has a valuable conservative influence over a large class of readers, who would be less creditably engaged were they not attracted by the character and variety of its contents. These papers, too, have been constantly growing better. The Atlas,' one of the oldest, in its excellent engravings, and great amount and variety of matter, has secured that public favor which it has labored long and well to deserve; The Mercury, with its amusing illustrations, its scorn of humbugeousness, its trenchant satire, and its most original Dow sermons, has experienced similar good fortune; while The Times,' the veteran NOAH's sheet, with its keen observation of the antics of society, and its exposition of fashionable or domestic folly and affectation; and 'The Dispatch,' a large and well-filled paper, and already a very popular candidate for the suffrages of the reading public, derive a liberal support, without at all affecting the circulation of those contemporaries which have been longer in the field. We have an elaborately-pencilled catalogue of the exhibition of The National Academy of Design;' but preparation for May-day has compelled us to postpone our comments upon the pictures until our next. The exhibition is an excellent one. .. WHATEVER may be said of our own departments in the present number, it will be conceded, no doubt, that we have bestowed little editorial 'tediousness' upon the reader. There is quite other than literary gossip to be encountered by the Gothamite house- ! holder, compelled to fall in with the caravan of movers on May-day; and our readers may on this ground felicitate themselves upon an escape, for one month at least. Still, we must have our say' hereafter, on several matters of which we intended to speak at this present. 'YOUR anecdote of BURCHARD,' writes a Buffalo correspondent,

' reminds me of another, touching the same individual. Some years ago he was holding a series of meetings in Windsor, (Vt.;) and among other attendants on them was a medical student, whom I shall call WINCKS. He was a hearer from curiosity. One evening, toward the close of a meeting, he was observed by BURCHARD, and was addressed as follows: WINCKS! they say you come here for sport!' 'Who told you so?' was the prompt and loud inquiry. I shall not tell,' said BURCHARD. 'Then,' replied WINCKS, 'I shall think you made the story up.' In a few moments afterward, BURCHARD descended from the pulpit, and edging along toward WINCKS, asked him in a low but audible voice if he would not go forward into the anxious-seat. 'Not I,' was the ready reply.' Then,' said BURCHARD, with a smile, 'give us a quid of tobacco!"