In 1822 Mrs. Sigourney published Traits of the Aborigines, an historical poem, in five cantos. A collection of her miscellaneous poems was made about the same time in London, under the title of Lays from the West. In 1824 she published a volume in prose, A Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years Since. These were followed in rapid succession by Letters to Young Ladies and Letters to Mothers, a collection of poems* and of prose tales, and Poetry for Children. In 1836 Zinzendorff and Other Poemst appeared. The opening and chief production of the collection introduces us to the beautiful vale of Wyoming, and after an eloquent tribute to its scenery and historic fame, to the missionary Zinzendorff, doubly noble by ancestral rank and self-sacrificing labor, engaged in his missionary exertions among the Indians. We meet him striving to administer consolation by the couch of the dying chief; beneath the widespreading elm addressing the multitude on the subject of his mission, the welfare of their souls; at his quiet devotions in his tent, watched by assassins who shrank back from their purpose as they saw the rattlesnake glide past his feet unharming and unharmed, so calm and absorbed was the good man in his duty, the messengers of death returning to the grim savage prophet who had sent them on their errand, with the reply, that the stranger was a god. The poem closes with the departure of Zinzendorff at a later period from the infant city of Philadelphia, and an eloqnent tribute to missionary labor, combined with an exhortation to Christian union.

The remaining poems are descriptive of natural scenery, commemorative of departed friends, versifications of scripture narratives, or inculcative of scripture truth. A warm sympathy with missionary effort, and with philanthropic labor of every description, is manifest in all.

In 1841 Pocahontas and Other Poems appeared. The Pocahontas is one of the longest

Philadelphia, 1834, 12mo., pp. 288.

+ New York, 12mo., pp. 800.

New York, 12mo., pp. 284.

(extending to fifty-six stanzas of nine lines each) and also most successful of the author's productions. It opens with a beautiful picture of the vague and shadowy repose of nature, which the imagination conceives as the condition of the New World prior to the possession of its shores by the Eastern voyagers. We have then presented the landing at Jamestown, and the worship in the church quickly raised by the pious hands of the colonists. The music which formed a part of their daily service of common prayer attracts the ear of the Indian, and thus naturally and beautifully brings Powhatan and his daughter on the scene. The rescue of Captain Smith is but slightly alluded to, the writer preferring to dwell upon the less hackneyed if not equally picturesque scenes before her, in the life of her heroine. We have her visit of warning to the English, her baptism, reception in England, marriage, quiet domestic life, and early death, all presented in an animated and sympathetic manner, frequently interrupted by passages of reflection in Mrs. Sigourney's best vein. The remaining poems are similar in character to the contents of the volumes already noticed.

Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands, published in 1842,* is a volume of recollections in prose and poetry, of famous and picturesque scenes visited, and of hospitalities received during an European tour in 1840. The greater portion of the "Memories" are devoted to England and Scotland. The poems are descriptive, reflective, and occasionally in a sportive vein. During this sojourn in Europe, two volumes of Mrs. Sigourney's poems were published in London. Among the

peared in 1846. In 1848 a choice edition of the author's miscellaneous poems was published, with illustrations from the pencil of Darley. In 1850, the death of her only son, and, with the exception of a daughter, only child, a youth of much promise, at the early age of nineteen, was followed by the publication of The Faded Hope, a touching and beautiful memento of her severe bereavement. Mrs. Sigourney has since published, The Western Home, and Other Poems, and a graceful volume of prose sketches entitled, Past Meridian.

Mrs. Sigourney has been one of the most voluminous of American female writers, having published from forty to fifty different volumes.*

Her most successful efforts are her occasional poems, which abound in passages of earnest, well expressed thought, and exhibit in their graver moods a pathos combined with hopeful resignation, characteristic of the mind trained by exercise in self-knowledge and self-control. They possess energy and variety. Mrs. Sigourney's wide and earnest sympathy with all topics of friendship and philanthropy is always at the service of these interests, while her command of versification enables her to present them with ease and fluency.

INDIAN NAMES.

"How can the red men be forgotten, while so many of our states and territories, bays, lakes, and rivers, are indelibly stamped by names of their giving?"

Ye say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave,
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;

That 'mid the forests where they roamed
There rings no hunter's shout,

But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.

"Tis where Ontario's billow

Like Ocean's surge is curled,

Where strong Niagara's thunders wake
The echo of the world.

Where red Missouri bringeth

Rich tribute from the west,

And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps
On green Virginia's breast.

Ye say their cone-like cabins,

That clustered o'er the vale,

Have fled away like withered leaves,
Before the autumn gale,

• The following is a complete list of the titles of Mrs. Sigourney's works, in the order of their publication:-Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse; 1815. Biography and Writings of A. M. Hyde; 1816. Traits of the Aborigines: a Poem; 1822. Sketch of Connecticut; 1824. Poems; 1827. Biography of Females; 1829. Biography of Pious Persons; 1882. Evening Readings in History. Letters to Young Ladies. Memoir of Phebe Hammond. How to be Happy; 1833. Sketches and Tales. Poetry for Children. Select Poems. Tales and Essays for Children. Zinzendorff and Other Poems; 1884. History of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; 1885. Olive Buds; 1836. Girl's Reading Book. Letters to Mothers; 1888. Boy's Reading Book; 1889. Religious Poems, Religious Souvenir, an annual, edited by Mrs. Sigourney, for 1889 and 1840. Pocahontas and Other Poems: 1841. Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands. Poems: 1842. Child's Book. Scenes in My Native Land; 1844. Poems for the Sea. Voice of Flowers. The Lovely Sisters; 1845. Myrtis and Other Sketches. Weeping Willow; 1846. Water Drops; 1847. Illustrated Poems; 1848. Whisper to a Bride; 1849. Letters to Pupils; 1850. Olive Leaves. Examples of Life and Death; 1851. The Faded Hope. Memoir of Mrs. Harriet Newell Cook; 1852. The Western Home and Other Poems. Past Meridian. Sayings of the Little Ones, and Poems for their Mothers; 1854.

66

But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.

Old Massachusetts wears it,
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it,
Amid his young renown;
Connecticut hath wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathed it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.
Wachuset hides its lingering voice
Within his rocky heart,
And Alleghany graves its tone
Throughout his lofty chart;
Monadnock on his forehead hoar
Doth seal the sacred trust,

Your mountains build their monument
Though ye destroy their dust.

Ye call these red-browed brethren
The insects of an hour,

Crushed like the noteless worm amid
The regions of their power;

Ye drive them from their fathers' lands,
Ye break of faith the seal,

But can ye from the court of Heaven
Exclude their last appeal?

Ye see their unresisting tribes,
With toilsome step and slow,
On through the trackless desert pass,
A caravan of woe;

Think ye the Eternal's ear is deaf?

His sleepless vision din?

Think ye the soul's blood may not cry
From that far land to him!

POETRY.

Morn on her rosy couch awoke,
Enchantment led the hour,

And mirth and music drank the dews
That freshened Beauty's flower,

Then from her bower of deep delight,

I heard a young girl sing,

Oh, speak no ill of poetry,

For 'tis a holy thing."

The sun in noon-day heat rose high,
And on with heaving breast,

I saw a weary pilgrim toil

Unpitied and unblest,

Yet still in trembling measures flowed
Forth from a broken string,

"Oh, speak no ill of poetry,

For 'tis a holy thing."

"Twas night, and Death the curtains drew, 'Mid agony severe,

While there a willing spirit went Home to a glorious sphere, Yet still it sighed, even when was spread The waiting Angel's wing, "Oh, speak no ill of poetry, For 'tis a holy thing."

JAMESTOWN CHURCH.

Yet, 'mid their cares, one hallowed dome they reared,

To nurse devotion's consecrated flame; And there a wondering world of forests heard, First borne in solemn chant, Jehovah's name; First temple to his service, refuge dear From strong affliction and the alien's tear, How swelled the sacred song, in glad acclaim:

Might not such incense please thee, Lord of love? Thou, who with bounteous hand dost deign to show

Some foretaste of thy Paradise above,

To cheer the way-worn pilgrim here below? Bidd'st thou 'mid parching sands the flow'ret meek

Strike its frail root and raise its tinted cheek,
And the slight pine defy the arctic snow,
That even the skeptic's frozen eye may see
On Nature's beauteous page what lines she writes
of Thee?

What groups, at Sabbath morn, were hither led!
Dejected men, with disappointed frown,
Spoiled youths, the parents' darling and their
dread,

From castles in the air hurled ruthless down,
The sea-bronzed mariner, the warrior brave,
The keen gold-gatherer, grasping as the grave;
Oft, 'mid these mouldering walls, which nettles
crown,

Stern breasts have locked their purpose and been still,

And contrite spirits knelt, to learn their Maker's will.

Here, in his surplice white, the pastor stood,

A holy man, of countenance serene,

Who, 'mid the quaking earth or fiery flood
Unmoved, in truth's own panoply, had been
A fair example of his own pure creed;
Patient of error, pitiful to need,

Persuasive wisdom in his thoughtful mien,
And in that Teacher's heavenly meekness blessed,
Who laved his followers' feet with towel-girded
vest.

Music upon the breeze! the savage stays

His flying arrow as the strain goes by; He starts! he listens! lost in deep amaze,

Breath half-suppressed, and lightning in his eye. Have the clouds spoken? Do the spirits rise From his dead fathers' graves, with wildering

melodies?

Oft doth he muse, 'neath midnight's solemn sky, On those deep tones, which, rising o'er the sod, Bore forth, from hill to hill, the white man's hymn to God.

LIFE'S EVENING.

"Abide with us, for it is now evening, and the day of life is
far spent."
BISHOP ANDREWS

The bright and blooming morn of youth
Hath faded from the sky,
And the fresh garlands of our hope

Are withered, sere, and dry,

O Thou, whose being hath no end,
Whose years can ne'er decay,
Whose strength and wisdom are our trust,
Abide with us, we pray.

Behold the noonday sun of life

Doth seek its western bound,
And fast the lengthening shadows cast
A heavier gloom around,
And all the glow worm lamps are dead,
That, kindling round our way,
Gave fickle promises of joy-

Abide with us, we pray.

Dim eve draws on, and many a friend
Our early path that blessed,
Wrapped in the cerements of the tomb,
Have laid them down to rest;
But Thou, the Everlasting Friend,
Whose Spirit's glorious ray

Can gild the dreary vale of death,
Abide with us, we pray.

THE EARLY BLUE-BIRD.

Blue-bird! on yon leafless tree,
Dost thou carol thus to me,
"Spring is coming! Spring is here!"
Say'st thou so, my birdie dear?
What is that in misty shroud
Stealing from the darkened cloud?
Lo! the snow-flake's gathering mound
Settles o'er the whitened ground,
Yet thou singest, blithe and clear,
"Spring is coming! Spring is here!"
Strik'st thou not too bold a strain?
Winds are piping o'er the plain,
Clouds are sweeping o'er the sky,
With a black and threatening eye;
Urchins by the frozen rill
Wrap their mantles closer still;
You poor man, with doublet old,
Doth he shiver at the cold?
Hath he not a nose of blue?
Tell me, birdling-tell me true?

Spring's a maid of mirth and glee,
Rosy wreaths and revelry;
Hast thou wooed some winged love
To a nest in verdant grove?
Sung to her of greenwood bower,
Sunny skies that never lower?
Lured her with thy promise fair,
Of a lot that ne'er knows care?
Prithee, bird in coat of blue,
Though a lover-tell her true.

Ask her, if when storms are long,
She can sing a cheerful song?
When the rude winds rock the tree,
If she'll closer cling to thee?
Then, the blasts that sweep the sky,
Unappalled shall pass thee by;
Though thy curtained chamber show,
Siftings of untimely snow,
Warm and glad thy heart shall be,
Love shall make it spring for thee.

TALK WITH THE SEA.

I said with a moan, as I roamed alone,

By the side of the solemn sea,— "Oh cast at my feet which thy billows meet Some token to comfort me. 'Mid thy surges cold, a ring of gold

I have lost, with an amethyst bright, Thou hast locked it so long, in thy casket strong, That the rust must have quenched its light. "Send a gift, I pray, on thy sheeted spray,

To solace my drooping mind,

For I'm sad and grieve, and ere long must leave This rolling globe behind."

Then the Sea answered, "Spoils are mine,

From many an argosy,

And pearl-drops sleep in my bosom deep,

But naught have I there for thee!"

"When I mused before, on this rock-bound shore,

The beautiful walked with me,

She hath gone to her rest in the churchyard's breast
Since I saw thee last, thou sea!
Restore! restore! the smile she wore,

When her cheek to mine was pressed,
Give back the voice of the fervent soul

That could lighten the darkest breast!" But the haughty Sea, in its majesty

Swept onward as before,

Though a surge in wrath from its rocky path,
Shrieked out to the sounding shore-
"Thou hast asked of our king, a harder thing
Than mortal e'er claimed before,
For never the wealth of a loving heart,
Could Ocean or Earth restore."

When

JONATHAN MAYHEW WAINWRIGHT. J. M. WAINWRIGHT was born at Liverpool, England, February 24, 1792. His father, an Englishman by birth, had settled in America after the Revolution and married a daughter of Dr. Mayhew, the celebrated clergyman in Boston of that era. His residence in England, at the time of his son's birth, was not permanent, and the family not long after returned to America. The future Bishop graduated at Harvard in 1812, and subsequently was Tutor of Rhetoric and Oratory in that Institution. He early chose the Ministry of the Episcopal Church as his calling. minister at Hartford, Ct., in 1819, he published Chants, adapted to the Hymns in the Morning and Evening Service of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and afterwards, in 1828, issued a volume of Music of the Church, and again, in 1851, in conjunction with Dr. Muhlenberg, The Choir and Family Psalter; a collection of the Psalms of David, with the Canticles of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Episcopal service, arranged for chanting. He was always a devoted lover of music. When Malibran visited America, she sang on several occasions in the choir of Grace Church, with which Dr. Wainwright was long connected as pastor, in New York. His employments in the official duties of his church were various. He left New York for a time to be Rector of Trinity Church, in Boston. When he was chosen Provisional Bishop of New York in 1852, he was connected with Trinity Parish in the city. He would have been elected to that office in the previous year had he not cast his own vote against himself. He was indefatigable in the duties of his Bishopric during the severe heats of 1854, and in the autumn of that year,

September 21, he died, prostrated by an attack of severe remittent fever. His chief literary works were two volumes of descriptive foreign travel, published in 1850 and the following year, after his return from a tour to the East. They bear the titles, The Pathways and Abiding Places of Our Lord, illustrated in the Journal of a Tour through the Land of Promise and the Land of Bondage; its Ancient Monuments and Present Condition, being the Journal of a Tour in Egypt. The style is pleasing and flowing, and the devotional sentiment uniformly maintained. Dr. W. also edited for Messrs. Appleton two illustrated volumes, The Women of the Bible, and Our Saviour with Prophets and Apostles.

Dr. Wainwright was engaged in a defence of Episcopacy, in a controversy with the Rev. Dr. Potts of the Presbyterian Church of New York, which grew out of a remark let fall by Rufus Choate, at the annual celebration of the New England Society, in New York, in 1843, in which the orator complimented a people who had planted "a state without a king, and a church without a bishop." At the dinner which followed, Dr. Wainwright, an invited guest, took exception to the saying, and was challenged to the controversy by Dr. Potts.

The discourses published by Dr. W. were few. In 1829 he published a thin octavo of Sermons on Religious Education and Filial Duty. His social influence was great. Courtly and easy in his manners, and taking part in the active interests of the day, he was universally known, and a general favorite in the city in which he resided. He assisted in the formation of the University of the city of New York. His reading in the Church services was much admired, his voice being finely modulated, with a delicate emphasis. As a preacher his style was finished in an ample rhetorical manner.

EDWIN C. HOLLAND.

EDWIN C. HOLLAND, a lawyer of Charleston, S. C., published in 1814 a volume of Odes, Naval Songs, and other occasional Poems, suggested for the most part by the war with England pending during their first publication in the Port Folio. His style is fluent, and occasionally somewhat too ornate and grandiloquent. One of the most spirited compositions is his prize poem

THE PILLAR OF GLORY.

Hail to the heroes whose triumphs have brightened
The darkness which shrouded America's name;
Long shall their valour in battle that lightened,
Live in the brilliant escutcheons of fame:

Dark where the torrents flow,
And the rude tempests blow,
The stormy clad spirit of Albion raves;
Long shall she mourn the day,
When in the vengeful fray,
Liberty walked like a god on the waves.
The ocean, ye chiefs, (the region of glory,

Where fortune has destined Columbia to reign,)
Gleams with the halo and lustre of story,
That curl round the waves as the scene of her
fame:

There, on its raging tide,
Shall her proud navy ride,
The bulwark of Freedom, protected by Heaven;

There shall her haughty foe
Bow to her prowess low,

There shall renown to her heroes be given.
The pillar of glory, the sea that enlightens,
Shall last till eternity rocks on its base;
The splendour of Fame, its waters that brightens,
Shall light the footsteps of Time in his race:
Wide o'er the stormy deep,
Where the rude surges sweep,
Its lustre shall circle the brows of the brave;
Honour shall give it light,
Triumph shall keep it bright,

Long as in battle we meet on the wave.

Already the storm of contention has hurled,

From the grasp of Old England, the trident of war; The beams of our stars have illumined the world, Unfurled our standard beats proud in the air:

Wild glares the eagle's eye,
Swift as he cuts the sky,

Marking the wake where our heroes advance;
Compassed with rays of light,
Hovers he o'er the fight;

Albion is heartless, and stoops to his glance.

WILLIAM H. TIMROD

WAS born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1792. In straitened circumstances and of a limited education, and while following the trade of a mechanic, he wrote verses which were received with favor. His conversational abilities are also remembered by his friends with pleasure. In the year 1836 he went to St. Augustine as the captain of a militia corps of Charleston, which had volunteered to garrison that town for a certain period against the attacks of the Indians. In this expedition he contracted, from exposure, a disease which resulted in his death two years afterwards.

TO HARRY.

Harry! my little blue-eyed boy!
I love to hear thee playing near,
There's music in thy shouts of joy
To a fond father's ear.

I love to see the lines of mirth
Mantle thy cheek and forehead fair,
As if all pleasures of the earth
Had met to revel there.

For gazing on thee do I sigh

That these most happy hours will flee,
And thy full share of misery
Must fall in life to thee.

There is no lasting grief below,

My Harry, that flows not from guilt-
Thou can'st not read my meaning now,
In after times thou wilt.

Thou'lt read it when the churchyard clay
Shall lie upon thy father's breast,
And he, though dead, will point the way
Thou shalt be always blest.

They'll tell thee this terrestrial ball,
To man for his enjoyment given,

Is but a state of sinful thrall

To keep the soul from Heaven.

My boy! the verdure-crowned hills,

The vales where flowers innumerous blow, The music of ten thousand rills,

Will tell thee 't is not so.

God is no tyrant who would spread
Unnumbered dainties to the eyes,

Yet teach the hungering child to dread
That touching them, he dies.
No! all can do his creatures good

He scatters round with hand profuseThe only precept understood—

"Enjoy, but not abuse."

Henry Timrod, the son of the preceding, is a resident of the city of Charleston. His verses, which keep the promise of his father's reputation, have usually appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger with the signature "Aglaus."

THE PAST-A FRAGMENT.

To-day's most trivial act may hold the seed
Of future fruitfulness, or future dearth-
Oh, cherish always every word and deed,
The simplest record of thyself has worth.
If thou hast ever slighted one old thought,

Beware lest Grief enforce the truth at lastThe time must come wherein thou shalt be taught The value and the beauty of the Past.

Not merely as a Warner and a Guide,

"A voice behind thee” sounding to the strife— But something never to be put aside,

A part and parcel of thy present life. Not as a distant and a darkened sky Through which the stars peep, and the moonbeams glow

But a surrounding atmosphere whereby

We live and breathe, sustained 'mid pain and woc. A Fairy-land, where joy and sorrow kiss

Each still to each corrective and reliefWhere dim delights are brightened into bliss, And nothing wholly perishes but grief. Ah me! not dies-no more than spirit diesBut in a change like death is clothed with wingsA serious angel with entranced eyes

Looking to far off and celestial things.

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.

THE ancestors of JOHN HOWARD PAYNE Were men of eminence. His paternal grandfather was a military officer and member of the Provincial Assembly of Massachusetts; and Dr. Osborn, the author of the celebrated whaling song, and Judge Paine, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, were of the family. His father was educated as a physician under General Warren, but soon abandoned the profession, owing to the unsettled state of affairs caused by the Revolution, and became a teacher, a calling in which he attained high eminence. Mr. Payne was the child of his second wife, the daughter of a highly respected inhabitant of the ancient village of East Hampton, Long Island, where his tombstone bears the simple epitaph, "An Israelite, indeed, in whom there was no guile." The oft-repeated story is first told of him, that sending a present of cranberries to a friend in England, he received, with the news of their arrival, the information that the fruit "had all turned sour upon the way." Payne's father, after an unsuccessful mercantile venture, became a resident of East Hampton, and the principal of the Clinton Academy, an institution of high reputation throughout the island, which owed its foundation to the reputation of Mr. Payne as a teacher. He afterwards removed to New York, where John Howard Payne was born June 9, 1792. He was one of