in the character of arguments to the several chapters. These verses are generally good, but rarely excellent. Instead of sparkling like jewels upon the plainer stuff of the robe, they are fairly quenched into pebbles by the superior brilliancy of the cloth of gold to which they are attached. Mr. Bartol is one of a few highly imaginative writers of prose, in whose abstinence from verse the world may seem to have lost true poets. But his imperfect success strengthens a suspicion we have long felt in regard to this disappointment, that with such writers the choice of another form of expression is not accidental, but the result of a wise instinct. Verse is as natural and inevitable to the poet, as imaginative thought and poetic feeling. There is a music in his tongue which was never learned. It is noticeable, too, that poetic or musical prose is not a good augury for the poetry of the same author. Burns and Byron, Southey and Wordsworth, wrote admirable prose; but it was not at all rhythmic in its flow; while Wilson and Bulwer, the modern writers of distinction who aim most at music in their prose, - Dickens has hardly attempted verse, are but indifferent rhymers. The poetic prosewriters those who have all the elements of poetry in their style except its measure - are a class by themselves. They are not good prose-writers; we do not read Taylor and Wilson for their style, as we do Barrow and Goldsmith. But they are admirable writers, whose style is exquisitely adapted to their own ideas and genius. True prose must not want measure, and balance, and sweetness for the ear. But it ought not to have the cadences and regular pauses of verse, and the moment its rhythm begins to give conscious pleasure, it is running into excess, and will soon give conscious pain. As a prose style we cannot recommend our author's for imitation, but as his own style it is admirable. The filial piety and domestic tenderness which breathe through the opening poem save it from criticism, which, indeed, it bears better than most of the verses which follow it. The author had the misfortune, on his return from his tour, to find his father rapidly sinking into the grave. This gives rise to several touching references in his work, which makes it almost elegiac in its character. We quote tionably, his paragraphs sometimes fall short of their mark, because overloaded with meaning and imagery. His words are thoroughly intentional, and usually possess a ballast which settles each of them into its place. At times, however, this intense significance becomes obtrusive. Indeed, the frequent use of words in their original or etymological, instead of their popular sense, though highly favorable to raciness, is inartistic, and gives both opacity and hardness to style. Mr. Bartol is much too fond of what may be called serious punning, a trick by which the sense of a passage turns upon the sound or the original meaning of some word in the current of his text. Whether a decided quaintness of manner is so true a product of his nature as to be permanently characteristic of him, we are not quite prepared to say. But we think he writes best when he has least of it. With a highly musical ear, giving great rhythmic flow to his sentences, there seems a certain monotone or refrain about them, as if he had compelled himself always to sing in one key, and that a minor key. There is too an inversion of particles, a kind of lefthanded or back-handed form of sentence, to which he is prone, which we respectfully present as a serious defect in the directness, beauty, and melody of his style. In copiousness and cumulative force we hardly know the modern superior of our writer. Wilson has not more abandonment to his thought, nor De Quincey more determination to wrest fit words to express it from the reluctant grasp of our tongue. The mania for short sentences, which threatens to render the universal gait of our current literature a hard trot, makes no victim of our author; nor does he indulge the indolence of his readers by bringing his meaning down to the humblest capacity. Having thoughts worthy of the highest intelligence, he demands a strict attention, and has no compunctions about plunging his readers into the thicket of a paragraph which Jeremy Taylor could not have made more dense or more fragrant. Exuberance is the author's prime characteristic. Not content with giving us a prose-poem in the work itself, Mr. Bartol has scattered a series of verses through the volume, "In glorious reaches of my journey led, "I gazed o'er all the mighty endless plan, "Something between me and the grave is gone; But now more pleasant thither looks my road, The following is full and good: The sons of men upon this whirling ball! "Still brooding over beauty, thou dost bend, "For no fond favors, Father of mankind! p. 34. This on the Sea - if we except the seventh and eighth lines is good: "Beauty, terror of the world; Glorious and gloomy thing; Charms and threats together hurled In the compass of thy ring: Keen exultings on thy shore Answering anguish through thy deeps; Pleased one listening to thy roar, Which another minding weeps: Infant's breathing, not so light As thy ripple on the sand; Before the world built wondrous by God's hands; - p. 156. But this on Country is perhaps the best of all: "Dear soil! whose growth is mingled in my blood, The tints so fast on Egypt's walls shall fade; But not the surer colors thou hast laid. As body joins in one with soul, no bound Between thee and my yearning breast is found. So let the precious early influence last Till Memory's self be something in the past."-p. 270. Dr. Talbot of Boston has contributed to Mr. Bartol's volume a very pleasant paper, giving an account of his own ascent of Mont Blanc. Stripping the undertaking of many imaginary perils, he has left enough of danger to make most travellers pause at the foot of the mountain. For a candid and unexaggerated description of this formidable enterprise, we know nothing better than Dr. Talbot's. Its appearance here makes an appreciable addition to the worth of this work, and that is praise enough. We honor the generosity which could transfer so valuable a property to another man's possession, and the modesty which did not disdain to mingle the rays of a borrowed interest with its own glory. ART. III. Report on Insanity and Idiocy in Massachusetts, by the Commission on Lunacy, under Resolve of the Legislature of 1854. Boston. 1855. THE necessity of making further provision for the insane induced the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1854, to create a commission for the purpose of collecting information on various points connected with the subject. The duties of this commission were stated under the following heads : "To ascertain the number and condition of the insane in the State, distinguishing as accurately as may be between the insane, properly so considered, and the idiotic or non compos; between the furious and the harmless, curable and incurable, and between the native and the foreigner, and the number of each who are State paupers. "To examine into the present condition of the Hospitals of the State for the insane, and see what number of patients can properly, with due regard to their comfort and improvement, be accommodated in said Hospitals. "To see what further accommodations, if any, are needed for the relief and care of the insane. "And, generally, to examine and report the best and most approved plans for the management of the insane, so far as the size and character of Hospitals, and the number of patients proper to be under one supervision, are concerned. "To examine into the present condition of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, and ascertain what kind and amount of repairs are needed, and at what probable cost, and consider the expediency of disposing of the said Hospital and the lands connected therewith, or any part thereof, and of recommending a site for the erection of a new Hospital or Hospitals. "To report the estimated proceeds of the sale of the present Hospital and grounds therewith connected at Worcester, if they deem such a sale desirable. "To accompany their report with plans, specifications and estimates of cost of any new Hospital which they may recommend." - pp. 9, 10. |