the author; if so, it is a great one; if not, we must give the people amongst whom the story arose the credit of having a great deal of poetry in them. The effect of these warnings on Lee's mind, the desertion of his companions, his maniac wanderings around the shore and hanging about the cliffs, which he knows must be the scene of his fatal end, are among the finest passages

of the poems.

We should know Mr. Dana at once for a student of ocean scenery. There is a spirited freedom, a boldness, in his descriptions of the water, which marks them as original sketches from nature.

We shall close our extracts with a few stanzas, descriptive of the effects of remorse and supernatural warning on Lee's mind :

“Who's yonder on that long, black ledge,

Which makes so far into the sea?
See! there he sits, and pulls the sedge-

Poor, idle Matthew Lee!
So weak and pale? A year and little more,
And thou didst lord it bravely round this shore!
“ And on the shingles now he sits,

And rolls the pebbles 'neath his hands;
Now walks the beach; then stops by fits,

And scores the smooth, wet sands;
Then tries each cliff, and cove, and jut, that bounds
The isle; then home from many weary rounds.

They ask him why he wanders so,
From day to day, the uneven strand ?
-'I wish, I wish that I might go!

But I would go by land;
And there's no way that I can find-I've tried
All day and night!-He look'd towards sea, and sigh'a
“ It brought the tear to many an eye,

That, once, his eye had made to quail.
Lee, go with us, our sloop rides nigh ;

Come! help us hoist her sail.'
He shook.—You know the spirit-horse I ride!
He'll let me on the sea with none beside !"
“ He views the ships that come and go,

Looking so like to living things.
0! 'tis a proud and gallant show

of bright and broad-spread wings
Flinging a glory round them, as they keep
Their course right onward through the unsounded deep.
" And where the far-off sand-bars lift

Their backs in long and narrow line,
The breakers shout, and leap, and shift,

And send the sparkling brine
Into the air; then rush to mimic strife:-
Glad creatures of the sea! How all seems life!
“ But not to Lee. He sits alone;

No fellowship nor joy for bim.
Borne down by wo, he makes no moan,

Though tears will sometimes dim
That asking eye.-0, how his worn thoughts crave-
Not joy again, but rest within the grave.
“ A sweet low voice, in starry nights,

Chants to his ear a plaining song..
Its tones come winding up those heights,

Telling of wo and wrong ;
And he must listen till the stars grow dim,
The song that gentle voice doth sing to him.
“O, it is sad that aught so mild

Should bind the soul with bands of fear;
That strains to sooth a little child,

The man should dread to hear!
But sin bath broke the world's sweet peace--unstrung
The harmonious chords to which the angels sung.
“ In thick, dark nights he'd take his seat

High up the cliffs, and feel them shake,
As swung the sea with heavy beat

Below-and hear it break
With savage roar, then pause and gather strength,

And then, come tumbling in its swollen length." The execution is equal; and we have, in consequence, been puzzled where to begin and where to conclude our extracts. In consequence of the crowding of thought, the author sometimes startles by abruptness; and, in one or two instances, has compressed his language into obscurity. But to those who are often annoyed by diluted thought, and wearied by connecting passages, this closeness is an agreeable change-like the change from a sirocco to a north-wester, there is something bracing in it.

The changes of home contrast agrecably with the story that precedes it. The koren is here subordinate; the poet addresses rather the heart than the imagination. Instead of leading us at a regular pace through the scene of his narrative, with here and there a remark, he often pauses and pours out his heart, as his story awakens and touches him. The affection of two young, humble individuals, their union deferred until the lover shall have earned the means of subsistence, his departure in quest of gain, and return in disappointment, and, lastly, his final departure and death in absence, are the topics of a poetical tale, which is told in a manner full of interest. There is, indeed, a shade of melancholy over the story from the outset, which warns us that the author has no pleasing conclusion in store for us. But every one must have felt, when the spirits are gone, how the glad, bright sky, and laughing earth, seem to persuade us to cheerfulness; and, unless prostrated by a recent blow of misfortune, and deadened until sick of the very light, how the mind of the sorrower is comforted and even excited with the beauty that surrounds us. The beauty that is in the forest, on the cloud, and in all animated creatures, again and again entering our hearts, en

deavours to restore ruined peace, and lay a foundation for happiness and a healthy susceptibility of enjoyment. Thus the author has relieved the melancholy of the tale, by beautiful descriptions of natural objects and pleasing circumstances, which are employed or come in sight in the course of the story. Even in his descriptions of objects associated with the memory of loss and grief, a sense of the beautiful seems to have survived his sorrow; and, in bidding farewell to the scenes of his youth, he goes to seek nature, where her features shall not call to mind the loved and departed of his early days.

We have no design of tracing the story, and giving glimpses of descriptions in quotations. We offer the reader rather the entire picture of one of the changed inhabitants of the village :

“We reach'd a shop. No letter'd sign display'd
The owner's name, or told the world his trade.
But on its door crack'd, rusty hinges swung,
And there a hook or well worn borseshoe hung,
The trough was dry; the bellows gave no blast;
The hearth was cold; no sparks flew red and fast;
Labour's strong arm had rested. Where was he,
Brawny and bare, who toil'd, and sang so free?

“But soon we came where sat an aged man.
His thin and snow-white locks the breezes fan,
While he his long staff finger'd, as he spoke
In sounds so low, they scarce the stillness broke.

“Good father !' said my guide. He raised his head,
As asking who had spoke; yet nothing said.
“The present is a dream to his worn brain;
And yet his mind does things long past retain.'

“My friend then question'd him of former days,
Mingling with what he ask'd some little praise.
His old eyes clear'd; a smile around them play'd,
As on my friend his shaking hand he laid,
And spoke of early prowess. Friends he named;
And some he praised they were but few be blamed,

« « Dost thou remember Dalton?' ask'd my guide.

« Dalton !-Full well !-His little son beside.
A waggish boy!-- It will not from my thought-
His curious look as I my iron wrought.
And, as the fiery mass took shape, his smile
Made me forget my labour for awhile.
Before he left us, and when older grown,
He told of one who out from heaven was thrown,
Who forged huge bolts of thunder when he fell
One-eyed his workmen, and his shop a hell;
So call'd me Vulcan'

««• Vulcan !-John ! art thou?
What! long-arm’d John with moist and smutty brow?'

“He gazed on me, half wondering and half lost.
Something it could not grasp his mind had cross'd,
A moment's struggle in his face betray'd

The effort of the brain; and then he said,
Eager and quick-What! come ?-Where, where's the boy?
-Ănd looks the same!-"Twill give his parents joy!'
Then talk'd he to himself. His eyes grew dead;
He felt his hands; nor did he raise his head,
Nor miss us as we parted, on our way

Along the street where the close village lay.”
In the Husband's and Wife's Grave, the author's mind, tak-
ing a sad tone from the instance of mortality before him, dwells
on the mournful change which has taken place, calls up each cir-
cumstance of interrupted affection, and laments the impotence of
the purest love to preserve the union of two kindred souls. But
although he begins in sorrow, he rises into joy as he tells us the
dread but glad tidings of immortality. The pure and holy spirit
of our religion is with him filling our hearts with the idea of an
all-loving God; and as he sings the promise of our faith, death
becomes to our clear eye a pleasing image—the grave, a monu .
ment of hope :

“O, listen, man!
A voice within us speaks that startling word,
Man, thou shalt never die ! Celestial voices
Hymn it unto your souls: according harps,
By angel fingers touch'd when the mild stars
Of morning sang together, sound forth still
The song of our great immortality:
Thick clustering orbs, and this our fair domain,
The tall, dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas,
Join in this solemn, universal song:
-0, listen, ye, our spirits ; drink it in
From all the air ! 'Tis in the gentle moonlight;
'Tis floating 'midst day's setting glories ; Night,
Wrapt in her sable robe, with silent step
Comes to our bed and breathes it in our ears :
Night, and the dawn, bright day, and thoughtful eve,
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,
As one vast mystic instrument, are touch'd
By an unseen, living Hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee.
-The dying hear it; and as sounds of earth
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls
To mingle in this heavenly harmony."

“Why call we then the square-built monument,
The upright column, and the low laid slab,
Tokens of death, memorials of decay?
Stand in this solemn, still assembly, man,
And learn thy proper nature; for thou see'st,
In these shaped stones and letter'd tables, figures
Of life : More are they to thy soul than those
Which he who talk'd on Sinai's mount with God,
Brought to the old Judeans—types are these,
of thine eternity.

“ I thank Thee, Father,
That at this simple grave, on which the dawn
Is breaking, emblem of that day which hath
No close, Thou kindly anto my dark mind

Hast sent a sacred light, and that away
From this green hillock, whither I had come

In sorrow, Thou art leading me in joy. There are several fugitive pieces, of beauty. We are fond of such poetry. We think there is a unity of idea and strength of language in one of these creations of an excited moment, which the meditated members of a connected undertaking are apt to want. There are no legitimate children of dulness begotten by expectation of friends on an anniversary, nor the elaborations of a happy thought; they are the expressions of the thoughts and feelings, awakened by peculiar circumstances, or single incidents or descriptions of objects in nature, with such remarks as the associations of the poet may have suggested, all executed with a simplicity and beauty which make them like gems in our cabinet.

Mr. Dana is no harper on a tune which has been found to please the public ear--no follower of some popular poet. In all the traces of his study of poetry, (and the volume is full of proofs of a wide and deep study,) we detect no strain of imitation or of mannerism. He has been walking through the gardens of poetry, and appears, not with a sprig gathered here and a flower plucked there, but redolent with the fragrant essence of the bloom which has been around him. An artist-like feeling in the construction of his story, and the management of the characters he has to deal with, shows his familiarity with the creations of the minds that have gone before him. A mastery of our language, both as the vehicle of thought, and the medium of a various and harmonious versification, proves a laborious preparation for the work he has undertaken. These powerful instruments have been employed by a genuine poetic mind, and we have great pleasure in expressing our feeling of the result.

ART. VI.-A Treatise on Gymnastics: taken chiefly from the

German of F. L. Jaun. 8vo. Northampton, Massachusetts: 1828.

The work which we have designated at the head of this article, is a translation from the German treatises of Jahn and Eiselen, with such omissions and additions, as the experience of the translator has shown him to be necessary. For instance, a chapter has been added on the use of the dumb-bells, or armstärker, (arm-strengtheners,) as they are called in Germany. The gentleman to whom we are indebted for the translation, is peculiarly qualified for the task. He was, for a number of years, a scho