We

forth only remain the shroud, the winding-sheet, and the worm. are never more to be what we have been never to come back to this varied world. It is this unreturning thought, that fills us with dread; the thought that we shall never come back to those whom we left here so faultless, so beautiful, and young - that we shall never again revisit this green earth - never stray among its founts and flowers — never hear the glad voices of the waking grove, or the sweet dirge of the murmuring shore, never see the fresh morn break forth in breathing beauty from its purple pavilion, or the evening star go up upon its watch. It is this that strikes a saddening chill to the heart, and makes us shrink from the untried hereafter. Happy he, who, in this hour of final and lonely departure, hath the presence of HIM, whose countenance lights up that desolate way,- who, in the earnest of his own triumph over the powers of darkness, and in the assurance of his unfailing love, hath taken

'from death its sting,

And from the grave its victory!'

C.

A FRAGMENT.

It was a summer's eve. The God of Day
Lay, like a wearied artist, on his couch
Curtain'd with gold and purple, yet would look
Oft through the vistas of its floating folds,
With lingering gaze upon the fairy-land,

Where, through the fleeting hours, his pencil free
Had roam'd with magic touch, until it grew
'Neath his enchanted eye, a matchless work,
Bright with Elysian beauty; every tint

Was wet with freshness, while a mellow shade
Hung o'er the whole as a transparent veil,

And spread such melting softness o'er each charm,
It seem'd a world, half human, half divine.
One spot was ripe with beauty: The green turf
Wore a rich velvet mantle, wrought with gems,
Thrown by the passing shower. The wooded bank
Was redolent with perfumes, breath'd from buds
That, woo'd by the soft breezes, just looked forth,
To catch their whisper'd tones, then sank again,
Beneath the liquid foliage: the wing'd tribes
Of Nature's roving children, tireless stray'd,
Like a refracted sunbeam, of all hues,
And pour'd their gladsome minstrelsy around.
And yet it was not perfect: the deep harp,
However tun'd to harmony, doth need
An intellectual touch to wake it up,
Unto a faultless measure. Even so,

With Nature's self, in its most witching time,

When tones are more than mortal, and all scenes

Are full of light and beauty; when its spells

Are bound with strongest links, and the full sense
Luxuriates in a sort of charmed life,
E'en then it is not perfect, if one touch
Of sorrow or disease, one thralling yoke,
Whether of disappointment, wrong, or crime,
Weigh on the drooping spirit, -
that dark spot,
Like a thin cloud upon the sun's broad disc,
Will cast a shadow o'er the extended whole!

Charleston, (S. C.,) December, 1835.

M. E. L.

LITERARY NOTICES.

THE AMERICAN IN ENGLAND. By the author of A Year in Spain.' In two vols. 12mo. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

THE announcement of a book of travels in England, by the accomplished author of A Year in Spain,' was received by the literary public with no common interest. A comparatively long interval had elapsed since the appearance of his first work, which had been fairly incorporated with our national literature; and we looked forward confidently to another and similar addition to it from the same source. At the same time, we were well aware how difficult a task it is to write a second time after a first successful effort, and how the excellencies which are admired in a first production, are often unheeded in a second. This arises from the common expectation of finding each succeeding work superior to its predecessor, and the habit of judging rather by the increase of merit, than by any positive standard. The world become fastidious, when an author commences his career with a work of extraordinary worth, and, like a man who begins his dinner with the most delicious viands, refuse afterwards to partake of meaner intellectual fare.

But to the present work. Our author, 'feeling,' as he says in his preface,' an irresistible impulse to perpetrate a book,' left New-York on the first of November, 1833, in the packet ship Hannibal; and after touching at Portsmouth, landed at Gravesend, whence he proceeded to London. Nearly half of the first volume is taken up with the incidents of the voyage, and the remainder of the work, with the exception of a chapter on Portsmouth, and an account of a short excursion to Islington and Brighton, is devoted to a description of the metropolis. The writer, for reasons which he rather pointedly assigns in his preface, has declined to avail himself of various sources of information presented to him by his introduction to the domestic circles of those whose acquaintance he was enabled to cultivate; and has confined himself strictly to a description of such external scenes, and obvious peculiarities of national manners, as meet the eye of the ordinary traveler. We shall not debate with him the soundness of his reasons for so doing; though we are not ourselves aware of any impropriety necessarily accompanying a delineation, by a traveler, of characters or scenes in private life, but consider the fault to lie in the unskilfulness or malice of those who cannot amuse and instruct the world, without wounding individual sensibilities. The style of the book is flowing, and the language bears the marks of careful correction. We should think, from the turn of the periods, that the author was an especial admirer of Washington Irving, though he is no imitator. Still, we miss that charming naïveté and delightful off-hand manner, which characterized the Year in Spain,' and find their absence inadequately supplied by an air of self-complacency, which, as it seems to us, occasionally obtrudes itself on the reader, and a few attempts at philosophizing on trivial subjects, scattered throughout the work. We must likewise object to the particularity of many of the descriptions, especially that of Drury-Lane Theatre and the audience, wherein sentences occur, which we are

compelled to denominate coarse. old maids of Islington, together with the remarks of the author upon English ladies in general. We also dislike to see, in a book of travels, a long and minute description of squares and houses, in the guide-book style, wherein

We find the same fault in the dissertation on the

'Street nods to street, each alley has its brother,

And half the volume just reflects the other.'

Had a European, by some fortunate chance, succeeded in entering Pekin, such a course might be excusable; but thus to set forth London in print, as the fruit of a trans-atlantic séjour, seems to us a work of supererogation. It is in connection with this enumeration of minutiæ, that we would allude to the equivocal interpretation put upon it by the Quarterly Review, and the inference drawn from Mr. Willis's details of the domestic conveniences, so minutely set forth in his First Impressions;' and would hint to the author, that he is equally liable to the censure of the British reviewer, on the same grounds. As a specimen of misplaced and unsound philosophizing upon a comparatively trivial subject, we would instance the reflections of the writer upon the iron turnstile of Waterloo-Bridge. He cannot surely be ignorant of the fact, that our gasometers have been for years constructed on an analogous principle, which has not as yet, to our knowledge, been discovered to be adverse to the genius of our republican institutions; and that many similar contrivances might be pointed out as in common use throughout our country. We are surprised, too, at the delineation of the character of Charles I., which contradicts all history. Even Clarendon, with his acknowledged partiality, does not so laud him; though to our mind the article of Macaulay, in the Edinburgh Review, gives the only just portrait of this insincere and self-willed monarch that has yet been seen in print; and strips him of all the borrowed plumes in which the mistaken sympathy of the world had bedizened him.

But our brief space is nearly exceeded, and we are forced to conclude with the remark, that if no new laurels are gained by this work, it is the fault of the subject, and not of the author. There are some topics upon which the most eloquent fail to please, and some countries so worn down,

'Continuo passu Prætereuntium,'

that, to the traveler who chooses to follow in the beaten track of thousands, hardly a solitary blade of grass will present itself. Let it then be sufficient praise, that the author has not failed, but that he has accomplished all that could be reasonably expected, under the circumstances of his tour; above all, when he had voluntarily debarred himself from the two most attractive paths by which travelers can journey, and had contented himself with gleanings of the comparatively uninteresting. We may surely venture to hope, that one who has made so readable a work, on the tritest of subjects, may, at some time not far distant, choose one worthy of his talents, and find, on German or Italian ground, those assistances to genius, and auspicious influences, denied him in the gloomy streets of London, and the sombre, unpicturesque character of its inhabitants.

BRIDGEWATER TREATISE. ROGET. Animal and Vegetable Physiology. In two large volumes. pp. 871. Philadelphia: CAREY, LEA AND BLANCHARD.

A WORK whose merits are incontrovertible, and which should be in the library of every thorough scholar and divine in our country. Such elaborate volumes could not have been produced without deep research, sound wisdom, and untiring industry.

ALNWICK CASTLE, WITH OTHER POEMS. In one vol. large octavo. pp. 98. New-York: GEORGE DEARBORN.

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK! Show us an American, with patriotism or poetry in his soul, who does not honor the name. For ourselves, we always feel, when reading his metrical compositions, as if respiring in mountain air. We have known our blood flow quicker at his Marco Bozzaris; we have experienced the renovating effects of his satirical elixir, in 'Fanny,' and 'The Croakers;'- we have been melted with his pathos; solemnized by the didactic energy of his more serious effusions; and with all that he has written, except one trifle for a Philadelphia Souvenir - which was unworthy of his genius and fame we have been charmed and delighted. Of late, his lyre has been so mute, that we feared he had ceased to be numbered with the quick, and been clean minished from among the children of men. But we have here evidence that he is yet in the flesh: besides, we now and then impress with ours his incarnate hand. We regard him, sometimes, with a feeling akin to indignation. What right has he to establish the light which God has so copiously given him, under a bushel? How can he answer to his conscience for concealing it from the world? Why does he dream, in the very flush and vigor of his greener years, the visions

Of hoary age,

Of gold laid up in store;

Of sums, noted down on the figured page,
And counted o'er and o'er?'

Why rests the keen and polished shaft in its quiver? Let him answer these queries satisfactorily, if he can. The best reason he ever gave for his course, is contained in a line of Alnwick Castle,' if we mistake not, where he speaks of this sublunary sphere as a bank note world.' That is the rub. He dreameth of silver, and eke of the yellow and more costly metal, or their paper representatives; and the Hesperia of his fancy is a Pays d'Or. He believes in the potency of 'pewter,' and the enjoyments that flow from the multitudinous possession of 'tin.' Thus he crucifies all the unwritten creations of his splendid imagination, and his bright dream dies by the leger. The reading public are the losers here; and though they would give ready dollars for his writings, they cannot render' a penny for his thoughts.' Is it not too provoking, that his airy castles should be thus sacrificed at the shrine of real estate; that while he might give us on paper the beauty of an Eden, he is wedded to things of earth; thinking seldom of the Heaven whence he derives his inspiration, unless he muses upon it as a golden city-all bullion throughout, from the roof to the flags ?'

Another grievance is, that his admirers have often been tantalized by the premature birth of some rumor that a volume was about to be brought to press from his pen. Then the general ear stood erect-the popular eye dilated. Shortly, the abortive on dit would expire, and disappointment ensue. This has been the case so often and so long, that we can scarcely look upon the beautiful book before us as any thing but the product of supernatural agency. To praise it, would be ridiculous iteration. Every intelligent American is well acquainted with Halleck's powers; and if there be one so far behind his age as to be ignorant thereof, we counsel him to acquire this volume, which we like so well ourselves, that we have long had the most of its contents by heart. Our memory is constantly haunted with sweet snatches from them, and we can heartily commend to others a luxury which nothing would induce us to forego.

A SERMON, ON OCCASION OF THE LATE FIRE, IN THE CITY OF NEW-YORK. (Published by Request.) BY REV. ORVILLE DEWEY, Pastor of the Church in Mercer-street. New-York: DAVID FELT AND COMPANY.

LIMITED as we are, both in regard to time and space, we are compelled to notice, with a brevity which cannot do it justice, the excellent Discourse named above. Although it requires little eulogy, beyond the extracts we present, we cannot forbear to remark, that for expansive and benevolent views, generous Christian inculcations, and appropriate and impressive diction, we have seldom seen its superior. In the stores and compass of a well-disciplined intellect - in fluency, if we may so phrase it, of mind—in the rare power of opening with a skilful hand those folds of the human heart which require so nice a touch,- we consider Mr. Dewey second only to Dr. Channing, if indeed, in these respects, he be not equal to that distinguished writer and divine. As in the writings of Channing, so in those of Mr. Dewey, there are no servile imitations of ancient taste- no mannerism -- nothing recondite-no mere erudition of words. The style of each, though in some things widely different, is alike nervous and graceful. A felicitous introduction of subsidiary topics the faculty of retracing or expanding thoughts—and a rich and copious flow of language, are equally common to both.

The sermon before us is from the text: 'All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth; because the Spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it. Surely the people is grass,' etc. The impotence of man, the omnipotence of GOD, the uncertainty of all earthly possessions, and the value of the only possessions that are certain, form the prominent divisions of the Discourse. From the first, we take the annexed passage:

"It has been often said that man is the lord of this lower creation; that he holds empire over nature. In this age, which has, doubtless with some degree of propriety, been called 'the age of machinery,' such assumptions are likely to occupy a large space in men's thoughts; and they are in danger of forgetting, in the signal success of their inventions and devices, how impotent, after all, they really are. We hear but too much, I am afraid, or at least too much in the tone of boasting, of man's wonderful control over the elements how that he has learned to stretch forth his mysterious wand of power over the sea; how he has lifted his pointed sceptre to the heavens, and disarmed the lightning, and caused its fiery bolt to fall harmless at his feet; how, in fine, he has conquered nature, and compelled its mightiest agents, fire, water, air, earth, to do his bidding."

After showing that knowledge, and the elements of nature, only lead man to find the limit where his control must cease, and point to the unknown and the infinite that lie beyond it, the author proceeds:

"Nature, then, though in its milder moods it is subject to a certain control, is commissioned, also, to teach man other lessons than those of self-confidence. When the ocean-storm crosses not his path, he proudly steers his vessel across the deep, and it obeys him, as a steed that knows its rider;' the mighty ship, which treads the waves beneath it, and leaps from one ocean chasm to another, he seems to hold, as it were, in his very hand. But let the storm come in its fury, and he finds that one wave can overwhelm him; that he offers his breast to a power- nay, that he offers the ribbed bows of his ship to a power, that no more regards him, than it does the frailest shell on the shore. When the skies are calm and serene, man's peace is strong within him; yes, and amidst the ordinary agitations of the elements, he can feel security; but I have marked-and with me it was a moral reflection - I have marked, that every now and then, there comes a storm which seems to bear, in its blackening bosom, other messages; which makes man feel, that the wing of the tempest may sweep him away, or that one lightning-flash may blast and consume him in a moment. We are not left to imagine that our lordship over the creation shall own no superior Lord. The elements that are in most familiar use, will sometimes show us how completely they are beyond our power. That element which it is our special boast in modern times, that we have caged, and confined, and compelled to work for us in its dark prison-hold—how often does it break forth, and spread horror and death