THE FUNERAL OF THE LOVERS.

The days were then at close of autumn still,
A little rainy, and, towards nightfall, chill;
There was a fitful, moaning air abroad;
And ever and anon, over the road,

The last few leaves came fluttering from the trees,
Whose trunks now thronged to sight, in dark varieties.
The people, who from reverence kept at home,
Listened till afternoon to hear them come;

And hour on hour went by, and naught was heard
But some chance horseman, or the wind that stirred,
Till towards the vesper hour; and then 'twas said
Some heard a voice, which seemed as if it read;
And others said that they could hear a sound
Of many horses trampling the moist ground.
Still nothing came-till on a sudden, just
As the wind opened in a rising gust,

A voice of chanting rose, and as it spread,
They plainly heard the anthem for the dead.

It was the choristers who went to meet

The train, and now were entering the first street.
Then turned aside that city, young and old,

And in their lifted hands the gushing sorrow rolled.
But of the older people, few could bear

To keep the window, when the train drew near;
And all felt double tenderness to see

The bier approaching, slow and steadily,
On.which those two in senseless coldness lay,
Who but a few short months-it seemed a day-
Had left their walls, lovely in form and mind,
In sunny manhood he-she first of womankind.
They say that when Duke Guido saw them come,
He clasped his hands, and looking round the room,
Lost his old wits forever. From the morrow
None saw him after. But no more of sorrow.
On that same night, those lovers silently
Were buried in one grave, under a tree;
There, side by side, and hand in hand, they lay
In the green ground: and on fine nights in May
Young hearts betrothed used to go there to pray.

A

The next individual who attracted the notice of the public as a poet, was MR. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792-1822), the eldest son of a baronet in Sussex. poem entitled Queen Mab, published without his consent while he was at college, subjected him to much censure, on account of the atheistical opinions contained in it. This, and other circumstances of his life, tended to embitter a mind which seems to have been altogether of an irregular kind, and perhaps prevented his poetical talents from being fully appreciated. His principal publications are,―The Revolt of Islam; Alastor, or the Spirit

of Solitude; The Cenci, a tragedy; Adonais, a lament for the death of Mr. John Keats; Hellas; Prometheus Unbound. A selection of his best works was published after his death. The greater part of the poetry of Shelley has a mystical grandeur, which alike recommends it to the more enthusiastic lovers of verse, and disqualifies it from giving general pleasure. Some of his smaller pieces, however, have experienced a better reception.

In 1817, Mr. JOHN KEATS (1796-1820), a youth of obscure birth, who had been educated as a surgeon's apprentice, published a volume of poems, the most of which had been written before he attained the age of twenty. They were hailed by many as giving promise of a very high poetical genius; and Mr. Keats next year published a longer piece entitled Endymion, and, in 1820, his Lamia, Isabella, and other Poems. With some youthful faults, the compositions of Keats possessed many merits. He threw a new, striking, and most poetical feeling upon many of the mythic stories and characters of ancient times; and his Eve of St. Agnes is a tale full of rich description and romantic interest. This youthful genius died of consumption, immediately after completing his twenty-fourth year.

In 1820, MR. BRYAN WILLIAM PROCTER, under the fictitious name of Barry Cornwall, published Marcian Colonna, an Italian Tale, with Three Dramatic Scenes, and other Poems; since which time he has appeared as a tragic dramatist, and presented several other poetical volumes. His characteristics are, a beautiful fancy and a beautiful diction; a fine ear for the music of verse, and great tenderness and delicacy of feeling.' A volume of English Songs, published in 1832, shows high qualifications for that kind of poetry, many of the pieces reminding the reader of those delightful little madrigals which enliven the dialogues of the early dramatists.

Since the appearance of Mr. Procter, many other individuuals have come before the public with poetical volumes, or have scattered the fruits of their genius throughout periodical publications. MR. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM, a native of Scotland, has produced some sin

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gularly beautiful imitations of, or rather improvements upon, the old ballad poetry. MISS LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON has shown, in several volumes, an intimate acquaintance with the more romantic and generous feelings of the female breast. MRS. HEMANS is unrivalled in the poetry of the affections, and exhibits occasionally a fine strain of heroism. DR. JOHN BOWRING has presented, since 1821, poetical translations from the Russian, Dutch, ancient Spanish, Polish, Servian, and Hungarian languages; with the literature of which nations the British public were previously almost entirely unacquainted. MR. EBENEZER ELLIOT, of Sheffield, writes poetry relating to political subjects, and the bearing of politics upon domestic circumstances, in a spirit vigorous and fervent, though somewhat harsh. WILLIAM HOWITT and his wife, MARY HOWITT, are at the head of their contemporaries in a feeling for external nature, and a power of describing it. Mr. THOMAS HOOD, who is chiefly known as a punning and comic versifier, in which character he has done much to amuse the public, is also a serious poet of great feeling, imagination, and taste, which he has exemplified in his Plea for the Midsummer Fairies, his ballad of The Dream of Eugene Aram, and other compositions. MR. ALEXANDER ALARIC WATTS is the author of some very pleasing lyrical poetry; and Messrs. Moir, Malcolm, Kennedy, Motherwell, Tennyson, Robert Montgomery, and Moxon, with the Honourable Mrs. Norton, and Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, are among those who, from their efforts at an early period of life, may be expected to rise into distinction in this department of literature.

Poetry, as well as every other branch of polite learning, received an important impulse in the United States, at the commencement of the present period, and especially has this been the fact within the last twenty years. When the minds of the educated men of the country were disengaged from one absorbing topic, the Revolution, they embraced a wider range of literary pursuit. At first, few or none were merely authors; their intellectual efforts were in a great measure connected with the business of professional life. Hence the great mass of American literature, especially during the early por

tion of this period, whatever may be thought of particular productions, was wanting in that polish which we look for in the best and most elaborate efforts of the human mind. Still, the discipline through which the States had passed, was an important preparation and a happy stimulus for intellectual pursuits, and we notice in all classes of writers, and particularly in the poets, an advance on those who went before them, in polish and elegance. Their models were the literary productions of England, and the spirit of imitation is somewhat discernible. The earlier poets would be considered as belonging to the school of Pope. Perhaps an American national literature, original and racy, must be more difficult of attainment from the circumstances of the case, than is ordinarily true of other nations. In one point of view, the literature of every separate people speaking the English tongue, is already formed. The standard authors of Great Britain, particularly from the age of Elizabeth down through that of Anne, have given a character to English literature which it will maintain as long as the tongue shall exist. They have transmitted the language to posterity, in the greatest beauties, perhaps, of which it is susceptible. This fact places America on disadvantageous ground as to a literature of her own, and under the circumstances in which she is situated, the manner of forming it might admit of a question. There would be little hope, that her writers would add much to the idiomatic excellencies of the tongue, its beauty of expression, or those forms of composition which are most appropriate to the display of its harmony and power. In these particulars almost every thing has been forestalled. The form, then, of English literature will scarcely admit of improvement. The most that American writers could do, in this case, to constitute an original literature of their own, would be by introducing into it what possibly may yet remain of unappropriated beauties of diction; by exhibiting its characteristic excellencies of expression under new combinations of thought; and by giving to the whole an aspect and a spirit corresponding with the novel circumstances of the nation.*

* AM. ED.

It has sometimes been a complaint with English writers, that the Americans have corrupted the language. If they have sometimes employed new terms, or used old ones in a new sense, it is no more than what the English themselves have done, and the Americans have the same right to accommodate their diction to their peculiar circumstances, that the English or any other people would claim. Besides, in the nature of the case, the English language, like all others, cannot but undergo partial changes at the least. Like every living language,' says Dr. Webster, 'it is in a state of progression, as rapid now as at any former period. It is fruitless to attempt to fix that which is in its nature changeable, and to fix which beyond the power of alteration, would be the greatest evil that could happen to a living language.' Intelligent persons who have made accurate comparisons of the two nations, English and American, have generally conceded that in no country, not even in the parent land, is the English language spoken with greater purity and correctness, than in the United States. The writers in America-those esteemed there-will not be found among the corrupters of their mother tongue.*

Two or three of the poets whom we are about to name, began to write during the Revolution, but they properly belong to this period, as having lived near to its close, and as having continued the use of their pens long subsequently to that event. JOHN TRUMBULL (1750 -1831), who was a native of Connecticut, is celebrated as the author of M'Fingal, a burlesque poem after the manner of Hudibras, directed against the enemies of American liberty. The first part of it was published in 1775. As it was patriotic in its motive and aim, and its satire singularly keen, it attained to a greater celebrity than any other poem, which the country had at that time produced. It is also meritorious in itself, so far as poems of such a nature can be so considered. It must be acknowledged, that it is the province of poetry less to expose the faults and follies of men, than to commend their virtues, and to be conversant with the sympathies of the heart and the scenery of nature. The Progress of Dulness was an earlier work of the author, in a simi

*AM ED.