the tones of the Secretary, the voice of Clifford, Miss Mason gave utterance to her suspicions in a voice hushed to a whisper- a suppressed murmur, which Clifford could not be supposed to hear: while throughout the entire scene, she evinced the true feeling of the character the utter anguish of heart at Clifford's apparent indifference, the contrast between the deep humility of her love, and the proud respect which she owed herself-more forcibly by the subdued and trembling emotion of her voice and manner, than could possibly have been effected by the less natural method of violent expression which we have sometimes witnessed. We consider Miss Mason's conception of this scene, at least, entirely original, and she is entitled to much credit for its justness and natural truth. Should this lady, through all her characters, maintain the high opinion which has been formed of her from the performance of Julia, she can hardly fail to become a favorite with the American public.

C.

THE AMERICAN THEATRE, BOWERY.-'Norman Leslie,' dramatised from Mr. FAY'S well-known novel of that name, has for nearly a month drawn crowded auditories at this theatre. It has several defects, but more of popular attractions. There is in its compass much stirring action, for the most part well represented; and the scenery is highly creditable to the artist of the establishment.

HOW TO WRITE A ROMANCE. An admirable satire upon a certain class of fictitious works, is given by CAPTAIN MARRYAT, in the last number of the Metropolitan Magazine. It represents, in the form of a dialogue, an author writing a romance, after the old-school model, per order of a London book-seller, who has informed him that there is a great reaction, in the literary world, in favor of such efforts. The principal scene of the novel is laid in a castle, perched so high in the air that the highest-soaring eagle appears like a wren below. Connected with the castle, are subterranean passages, leading to a cave at high-water mark, on the sea-beach, covered with bushes, and just large enough at the entrance to admit of a man squeezing himself in. The heroine has never seen her lover, to whom, however, she is most devotedly attached, and suffers every thing for his sake. She is confined in various dungeons, for three or four years, where she is half starved, sleeps upon wet straw, among sundry reptiles, is attempted to be ruined by villains, and slays several would-be ravishers. The hero is the captain of a band of robbers, but the reason of his connexion with them is a profound secret, as is also the incentive to implicit obedience on the part of his followers. There is no regular plot, but abundance of castles, dungeons, corridors, creaking doors, good and bad villains, clanking of armor, daggers for gentlemen, and stilettos for ladies - dark forests, and brush-wood-drinking scenes, eating scenes, and sleeping scenes robbers and friars, purses of gold, instruments of torture, etc. The writer describes his style as the intellectual and ethereal. 'You observe,' he says, 'that it never allows probabilities or even possibilities to stand in its way. The dross of humanity is rejected: all the common wants and grosser feelings of our natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion.' Corporeal attributes and necessities are thrown on one side, as they would destroy the charm of perfectibility. Such being the opinions of the author, no surprise will be elicited by the following extract. The heroine is imprisoned (in a dungeon of the castle, four feet square, and six hundred feet under ground,) by the distinguished person who is in love with her. The subterranean passages are so intricate, that he has forgotten the way to her cell; so likewise has the 'colored person' whom he has appointed to attend her:

-

'The beauteous and divinely-moulded form of the angelic Angelicanarinella pressed the dank and rotten straw, which had been thrown down by the scowling, thick-lipped

Ethiop for her repose. She, for whom attendant maidens had smoothed the Sybaritic sheet of finest texture, under the elaborately-carved and sumptuously-gilt canopy, the silken curtains, and the tassels of the purest dust of gold! Each particular straw of this dank, damp bed was elastic with delight, at bearing such angelic pressure; and, as our heroine cast her ineffably-beaming eyes about the dark void, lighting up with their effulgent rays each little portion of the dungeon, as she glanced them from one part to another, she perceived that the many reptiles enclosed with her in this narrow tomb, were nestling to her side, their eyes fixed upon her in mute expressions of love and admiration. Her eclipsed orbs were each, for a moment, suffused with a bright and heavenly tear, and from the suffusion threw out a more brilliant light upon the feeling reptiles who paid this tribute to her undeserved sufferings. She put forth her beauteous hand, whose 'faint tracery' (I stole that from Cooper,)-whose faint tracery had so often given to others the idea that it was ethereal, and not corporeal, and lifting with all the soft and tender handling of first love, a venerable toad, which smiled upon her, she placed the interesting animal so that it could crawl up and nestle in her bosom. 'Poor child of dank, of darkness, and of dripping! exclaimed she, in her flute-like notes, 'who sheltereth thyself under the wet and mouldering wall, so neglected in thy form by thy mother Nature, repose awhile in peace where princes and nobles would envy thee, if they knew thy present lot. But that shall never be; these lips shall never breathe a tale which might endanger thy existence; fear not, therefore, their enmity, and as thou slowly creepest away thy little round of circumscribed existence, forget me not, but shed an occasional pearly tear to the memory of the persecuted, the innocent Angelicanarinella!'

In a favorite chapter of horrors, several lovers of the angelic Angelicanarinella are made to assemble in a dark gallery, where they do not expect to meet any one but the hero, whom they intend to murder, - each one having, unknown to the others, made an appointment with him, on the pretence of telling him a great secret. The following is the dénouement, by which a great number of troublesome personages are suddenly removed out of the way of the author - each one falling, it will be seen, 'without a groan :'

Absenpresentini felt his way by the slimy wall, when the breath of another human being caught his ear: he paused, and held his own breath. 'No, no,' muttered the other, 'the secret of blood and gold shall remain with me alone. Let him come, and he shall find death. In a second, the dagger of Absenpresentini was in the mutterer's bosom: he fell without a groan. To me alone the secret of blood and gold, and with me it remains, exclaimed Absenpresentini. 'It does remain with you,' cried Phosphorini, driving his dagger into his back: Absenpresentini fell without a groan, and Phosphorini, withdrawing his dagger, exclaimed, 'Who is now to tell the secret but me?' 'Not you,' cried Vortiskini, raising up his sword and striking at where the voice proceeded. The trusty steel cleft the head of the abandoned Phosphorini, who fell without a groan. 'Now will I retain the secret of blood and gold,' said Vortiskini, as he sheathed his sword. Thou shalt,' exclaimed the wily Jesuit, as he struck his stiletto to the heart of the robber, who fell without a groan. With me only does the secret now rest, by which our order might be disgraced; with me it dies,' and the Jesuit raised his hand. 'Thus to the glory and the honor of his society does Manfredini sacrifice his life.' He struck the keen-pointed instrument into his heart, and died without a groan."

'At this most monstrously-appalling sight, the hair of Piftlianteriscki raised slowly the velvet cap from off his head, as if it had been perched upon the rustling quills of some exasperated porcupine (I think that's new)-his nostrils dilated to that extent that you might, with ease, have thrust a musket bullet into each his mouth was opened so wide, so unnaturally wide, that the corners were rent asunder, and the blood slowly trickled down each side of his bristly chin while each tooth loosened from its socket with individual fear. Not a word could he utter, for his tongue, in its fright, clung with terror to his upper jaw, as tight as do the bellies of the fresh and slimy soles, paired together by some fish-woman; but if his tongue was paralysed, his heart was not; it throbbed against his ribs with a violence which threatened their dislocation from the sternum, and with a sound which reverberated through the dark, damp, sub

terrene

But we pause leaving the reader to reflect upon the many bethumbed romances he has seen in the hands of admiring boarding-school girls, or sentimental young men, to say nothing of 'benign ceruleans,' the incidents of which were not one whit less improbable, nor the language less inflated, than the foregoing. The names of the characters so fashionably-foreign, and musically dulcet - should by no means be lost sight of.

6

'THE LAUREL.'-Through inadvertence, we have omitted to notice in its appropriate department a neatly-executed volume, of some two hundred and fifty pages, from the press of Mr. E. R. BROADERS, of Boston, entitled, The Laurel: a Gift for all Seasons.' It is a collection of poems, by native authors, and considering its compass, is by far the best yet published. The editor, whose name is not given, has executed his task with good taste and correct judgment, and his labors deserve well at the hands of the public. We annex two or three brief extracts from the preface, for the wellexpressed truths which they convey:

'The fact is, that the causes of our deficiency in works of poetry, as well as in other departments of literature, are to be looked for, not in any imaginary want of the outward elements of inspiration, or of the inward sympathies that feel and appreciate them, and the genius which gives to them expression, but in the circumstances by which we are surrounded, and under which we grow up, and in the general necessity, by which we are impelled to action. So many opportunities of honorable enterprise are presented to our young men, and such are the diverting prospects held out to them, that they often lose, in the excitement of politics or the bustle of trade, those poetic aspirations which they may at one time have cherished. In this new country, where the most lavish resources of nature and of art are daily being developed,

'All is in busy, stirring, stormy motion,

And many a cloud drifts by, but none sojourns.'

'We have no time to 'strictly meditate the thankless muse.' A new rail-road may interfere with the progress of a new poem, and the turmoil of an election may not chime with the melody of verse. A good poet in this country often subsides into a secondrate politician; or he may turn his attention from the speculations of fancy to speculations in stocks. One of our most enchanting bards is in the 'cotton trade and sugar line;' another is a cashier in a bank; and another (proh pudor !) is a partisan editor.

'It would be absurd to deny, that all the sources of inspiration, and all the external influences which can operate upon a poet, abound in unlimited exuberance in this country. Nature has been most lavish of her wonders. Our ancient and magnificent forests, in one of which, to borrow an idea from John Neal, a whole nation of Europe might lose itself-our inland oceans, where fleets might wander, and have wandered for weeks, without coming in sight of each other our mountains bristling with dark woods- our stupendous cataracts, our immense prairies, rolling their waves of verdure as the sea rolls its billows, and like the sea bounded on all sides by a level horizon - our princely and abounding rivers our line of sea-coast, indented with noble bays, sublime in storm and beautiful in calm - all these natural characteristics cannot be regarded as deficient in the elements of the loftiest poetry.'

Would that those of our writers who are prone to adopt affected innovations, and to import their subjects as well as forms of speech, could feel as they ought the force of the paragraph last above quoted! With all the obstacles that exist in this country to a successful cultivation of the divine art, we may assert, without fear of contradiction, that (to use an expressive but not over-elegant phrase,) the 'general run' of American poetry, within the last five years, has been superior to the trans-atlantic average. Our present writers have less of the affected, the super-celestial, and the meretricious, about them, than the mass of their brethren across the water. And if they would enter yet more deeply into the poetic resources of the glorious land they inhabit, we should have a still smaller number of copyists of foreign thought, and second-hand modes of expression writers who, instead of permitting their words to be suggested by the sentiments, display

"In studied phrase, and ornate epithet,
And rounded period, poor and vapid thoughts,
Which peep from out the cumbrous ornaments
That overload their littleness.'

Take our best authors-prose-writers and poets-ay, and artists, also — and it will be found that their purest inspiration has been derived from scenes and events connected with their own land. In no country is the poetical spirit more rife than in America; and this in despite of utilitarian tendencies, and the miserable efforts of incom28

VOL. VII.

petent censors, who have sat in the seat of the scorner, 'winnowing the corn, but to feed upon the chaff.'

Most of the selections in this little volume are familiar to the public, and their authors generally and favorably known. There are some productions, however, which we do not remember to have seen before, and with the writers of which we shall desire more acquaintance.' Mr. SHERRY, whose name as a poet, now for the first time meets us, introduces himself with proper credentials, as the annexed fragments from a lovepassage, may bear witness:

'She loved me, often promised that her love

Should cling to me, while she should cling to life;
She called upon the burning stars above,

And whispered something of that sweet word, wife;
But what is endless love, except where cash is?
The fabled fruit of blooming gilded ashes.

'Do you like letter-reading? If you do,

I have some twenty dozen very pretty ones;
Gay, sober, rapturous, solemn, very true,
And very lying stupid ones, and witty ones;
On gilt-edged paper, blue perhaps or pink,
And frequently in fancy colored ink.

'And then the seals-a silver crescent moon,
With half a line of melting French or Latin;
The flower which has an eye as bright as noon,
And leaf as delicate as softest satin,
Called the Forget-me-not, but known as well
By twenty names I cannot stop to tell-

'A leaf with half a dozen words, that mean

I only change in death;' a gentle dove,
With an Italian motto-you have seen

Fifty just like them, if you've been in love
And had occasion to write billet-doux,

Or had them written in return to you.

'Do you like trinkets? I have chains and rings,
And ringlets of her own dark, glossy hair,
Lockets, and favors, and the little things
That gentlemen in love are wont to wear;
Among the rest, a pair of hearts-in token

Of her own faithlessness, one heart is broken!"

He parts with the 'delicious little arrangement of flesh and blood,' on a lovely autumn evening, after an interchange of solemn vows, little thinking, as he says (the entire line is Burns's, Mr. Sherry,) that parting was his last :

'I knew there was a rival in the case,

A very rich and very stupid fellow;
With bushy whiskers on an ugly face,
And a complexion not a little yellow;
Six feet in height, and of a stately carriage,
And of an age to make a prudent marriage.

'But that did not diminish my surprise,

When, on the very afternoon succeeding,
A black-sealed billet met my startled eyes,

Filled to the brim with entertaining reading;

It was, indeed, most singularly phrased,
And left me quite peculiarly amazed.

'She was extremely sorry, on her soul,

Hoped I might still continue as a brother,
But circumstances, she could not control,
Forced her, alas! to marry with another;
And friends, regardless of her deep affection,
Had interfered to sever our connexion.

'I am not of the family of Stoics,

And thought at first of nothing short of death;
And fell into the most insane heroics,

And raved till altogether out of breath;
Then took a little walk to make my mind up,
On some fit means my short career to wind up.'

The reader will share our pleasure on learning, that notwithstanding the awful squinting toward felo de se conveyed in the last stanza, Mr. Sherry yet lives to writeand for aught we know, writes to live.

We are sorry to perceive one or two glaring errors in some of the best selections of the work. How could the editor, for example, in the 'Hymn to Nature,' substitute heavy for hearing, in the following line:

God of the wild and heaving deep!'

It is made to disfigure a most sublime and beautiful poem, (by the Rev. Mr. PEABODY,) two stanzas of which we subjoin:

God of the forest's solemn shade!

The grandeur of the lonely tree,
That wrestles singly with the gale,
Lifts up admiring eyes to thee;
But more majestic far they stand,

When side by side their ranks they form,
To wave on high their plumes of green,
And fight their battles with the storm!

'God of the rolling orbs above!

Thy name is written clearly bright
In the warm noon's unvarying blaze,

Or evening's golden shower of light.
For every fire that fronts the sun,
And every spark that walks alone
Around the utmost rerge of heaven,
Were kindled at thy burning throne!

We should be glad to revive in the minds of our readers the remembrance of many of the fine poems in this collection, which once enjoyed an honorable newspaper celebrity, but are now doubtless thrust aside by things more intimately connected with this working-day world. The touching stanzas by Miss LOUISA P. SMITH, (subsequently Mrs. SAMUEL JENKS SMITH, who deceased in this city three or four years since,) those by RockWELL, LONGFELLOW, PRENTICE, and several others, less familiar, perhaps, to the reader are equal to any fugitive efforts in the volume. We must close with the annexed oddlypathetic poem, by O. W. HOLMES, Esq., a fine prose-writer, and no mean poet :

We are glad to perceive that it is the intention of the editor, should the present volume meet an adequate acceptance at the hands of the public - which we cannot doubtto issue another, which shall embody a still greater amount of American poetry, worthy of being embraced in such a collection.