Sadly and full of reverence let us cast A glance upon Tradition's shadowy ground, Led by the few pale lights, which glimmering round, Let Fancy, with her dream-dipped brush, supply. Roof of bark and walls of pine, Through whose chinks the sunbeams shine, On the ample floor within; Where upon that earth-floor stark, With the bear's hide, rough and dark, Window-tracery, small and slight, And the night-stars glimmered down, Gloomed behind the changeless shade, In the open fore-ground planted, Here the mighty Bashaba, To the great sea's sounding shore; Passaconaway seems to have been one of these chiefs. His residence was at Pennacook.—Mass. His. Col., vol. iii., pp. 21–2. "He was regarded," says Hubbard, “ as a great sorcerer, and his fame was widely spread. It was said of him that he could cause a green leaf to grow in winter, trees to dance, water to burn, &c. He was, undoubtedly, one of those shrewd and powerful men whose achievements are always regarded by a barbarous people as the result of supernatural aid. The Indians gave to such the names of Powahs or Panisees." "The Panisees are men of great courage and wisdome, and to these the Devill appeareth more familiarly than to others."-Winslow's Relation. 1 Nightly down the river going, O'er the waters still and red; And the squaw's dark eye burned brighter, For that chief had magic skill, And a Panisee's dark will, Over powers of good and ill, Powers which bless and powers which ban— Wizard lord of Pennacook, Chiefs upon their war-path shook, When they met the steady look Tales of him the grey squaw told, And the fire burned low and small, All the subtle spirits hiding Misty cloud or morning breeze; Of all things which outward sense These the wizard's skill confessed, Wind and cloud, and fire and flood; Not untrue that tale of old! Subject to their kingly will; Moves the strong man still. Still, to such, life's elements, Time and change their vassals making, Over midnight skies. Still, to earnest souls, the sun Lights the battle-grounds of life; III. THE DAUGHTER. THE Soot-black brows of men—the yell The Powah whispering o'er the dead! In her young beauty passed the mother of his child. Three bow-shots from the Sachem's dwelling There trailed the vine in Summer hours The tree-perched squirrel dropped his shell On velvet moss and pale-hued flowers, Woven with leaf and spray, the softened sunshine fell! The Indian's heart is hard and cold It closes darkly o'er its care, And, formed in Nature's sternest mould, Is slow to feel, and strong to bear. The war-paint on the Sachem's face, Unwet with tears, shone fierce and red, And, still in battle or in chase, Dry leaf and snow-rime crisped beneath his foremost tread. Yet, when her name was heard no more, And small, light moccasin she wore, Their sunset dance and moon-lit play; No other fair young head upon his bosom lay. A lone, stern man. Yet, as sometimes A life of Love and Hope, and felt His cold and rugged nature through The softness and the warmth of her young being melt. A laugh which in the woodland rang Eyes by his lodge-fire large and dark, Small fingers stringing bead and shell With these the household-god* had graced his wigwam well. Child of the Forest!-strong and free; O'er the heaped drifts of Winter's moon Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way; And dazzling in the Summer noon The blade of her light oar threw off its shower of spray ! Unknown to her the rigid rule, The dull restraint, the chiding frown, The weary torture of the school, The taming of wild nature down. Her only lore, the legends told Around the hunter's fire at night; Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled, Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell, unquestioned in her sight. Unknown to her the subtle skill With which the artist-eye can trace In rock and tree and lake and hill The outlines of divinest grace ; Unknown the fine soul's keen unrest Which sees, admires, yet yearns alway; Too closely on her mother's breast To note her smiles of love the child of Nature lay! It is enough for such to be Of common, natural things a part, In our cold homes of Art and Thought, Grieve like the stranger-tended child, Which seeks its mother's arms, and sees but feels them not. The garden rose may richly bloom To cloud the light of Fashion's room In lonelier grace, to sun and dew The sweet-briar on the hill-side shows Its single leaf and fainter hue, Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose ! Thus o'er the heart of Weetamoo Their mingling shades of joy and ill Rose on the ground of her young dreams The light of a new home-the lover and the wife! * "The Indians," says Roger Williams, "have a god whom they call Wetuomanit who presides over the household.” CRITICISM IN AMERICA. Nu PERIODICAL literature certainly flourishes in this country, if no other kind of writing may be said to be in vogue. Newspaper literature forms a chief, if not the most important educational element in our national civilisation, and forms the staple reading of our people. Magazine literature also attracts a large body of the more educated classes, to whom it is more particularly address ed; while the Quarterly Reviews find considerably the best encouragement of the three, from their size, rare appearance, superior pretensions, and air of scholarship. For our own part, we love each and all of these: from the paragraph in the daily journal up to the elaborate and exhaustive analysis of the Quarterlies. As the Press is, then, so powerful an engine-one so available in every cause, and to be rendered so effective on any side-we consider it not an useless task to mark certain of its peculiarities, and not altogether to conceal certain of its equally obvious defects. It is too late in the day to talk after the fashion of scientific discovery, of the critical character of the age. The fact is well known, arising, too, from a natural cause. In its present refined period of literary advancement, the world can afford (for a season) to repose on its former glories. It is by no means necessary to invent, when we have so much of real excellence already on our hands. The dramatist and the poet, the writer of fiction and the moral theorist, may well remain silent, since they cannot hope to surpass their predecessors in the same line. For history there is ever need, and no less for criticism: the one to record, and the other to judge. And for the minor kinds of literature, the occasion is perpetual in our Magazine writing, peculiarly adapted as that is to the taste of the present day. Articles have, in a measure, superseded books, as critics have, in a great degree, taken the place of book makers. There is and must be ever, according to Bacon, much "reading by deputy," and hence the necessity of good Reviews. Some books must be "tasted," according to the same profound authority, and by VOL. XV. NO. LXIV. whom more skilfully than by the professed literary tasters-the regular critics? An able scholar will condense into an attractive essay, the subject matter of a long, and probably dull, treatise: for the reviewers, as a general rule, understand the art of composition much better than most of the authors they undertake to criticise. Macaulay, for instance, will give in an elaborate article much more than the essence of the book he is reviewing. He will tranfer to his close, compact and brilliant pages, the manners and customs, the characters and events, of the period, and in fine present a striking if not a grand historical picture. We say that we have enough of poetry and the drama-we mean, of course, for the present. Let us master what we have; how very few have done that or ever will. Before calling for more new plays and poems, let us read and re-read the old standard works in this department of writing. Of this much we may be sure, that we have already classic models existing; can we be equally certain that contemporary authors will give us as good? We would be far from underrating true genius because it happens to be modern. It cannot be depressed. But we refer rather to the vain attempts of clever men, who may not be allowed to rival the great old masters of Art and Letters. Yet more especially do we refer to the unjust and querulous complaints of those who expect a new race of great writers in each succeeding age, whatever be its character, or whatever other channels there may be opened for conveying the energies of genius into different provinces of intellectual endeavor. The above we take to be a fair argument for the cultivation of periodical criticism; whose peculiar object, viewed in this light, should be to place the merits of old authors (many excellent ones are almost obsolete), in the best and truest light; to give proper credit to what is genuine in later writers, and not to fail, in particular, to exercise all the severity of critical justice against pretenders and presumptuous interlopers in the realms of literature. A certain false leniency, that 17 } |