his paper will be taken up by all with the same eagerness and laid down with the same reluctance as he experiences. This error will, however, have had a very short reign. He will see his essay taken up with an air of immovable vacancy, and the leaves turned over carelessly, or with impatience. The stranger will run his eye through this page, dip into a single paragraph of another, catch up a single sentence from a third, and then, laying it aside, return to ordinary business or foreign conversation, with as much tranquillity as if the essay had never been indited. If I send my book to a friend, and request him earnestly to read it, and afterwards meet him with a view to know his opinion of the work, I shall probably be gratified with a high strain of applause. He will assure me that he has carefully perused it, and immediately proceed to comment upon it in such a manner as to prove that he has read no more that a dozen sentences picked out at random, as he hastily turned over the leaves. Some men, on such occasions, will immediately begin to carp, cavil, and blame the writer for omitting facts, which, nevertheless, he had carefully inserted, only they did not lie in that part of the volume which happened to open to his view. A popular poet relates that one of his friends expressed great anxiety to obtain a sight of a new work of his, just then publishing. Accordingly he took some pains, and went to some expense to gratify so laudable and flattering a curiosity. Having procured a copy, he hastened with it to his friend, and, not finding him at home, left the precious volume on his table. They met some weeks afterwards, and the critic began to upbraid the poet for not complying with his request. An explanation ensuing, it appeared that the new book had lain, during this interval not unseen, but unopened on the table. "Truly" says the critic, "I heard you were at my chamber, but it never occurred to me that you had left the book; for which I am sorry, as it was but yesterday that I suffered Betsy to take it: she complained so grievously of wanting paper to put up her hair with." The poet's mortification was heightened by having filled a blank leaf with an epigrammatic dedication to his friend, which he intended as a prodigy, not only of wit, but of penmanship. The volume was forthwith reclaimed from the toilet, but the epigram and one of his choicest epi sodes, had descended from the lady's brows to some receptacle of dust and ashes, from which they were irrecoverable. Poor Mickle was greatly mortified on finding a copy of his translation of the Lusiad, some years after its publication, with the leaves uncut on the hall window of the Nobleman, to whom he had dedicated it. A few instances of this kind, speedily correct the erroneous notions of an author, as to the light in which his works will be viewed by other eyes than his own. Yet this inattention is no 'proof of demerit in a work. It merely proves that every man must take more delight in his own offspring, whether corporeal or intellectual, than others will be capable of taking. Its merit, in his own eyes, may even fall short of that of other people's literary progeny: yet he will meditate it with more complacency and eagerness. Hence it happens that no work ever gave any reader as much pleasure as it gave the author. His perception of its merits is far more lively and exquisite than that of the most eager and enthusiastic of his votaries. When I read a good poem my imagination always suggests the delight which the author must have derived from the composition and perusal of it: a delight compared to which all my emotions must be cold and feeble. When I light upon a weak, silly and dull performance, I console myself with reflecting that there is, or has been at least one person in the world to whom the reading has imparted not merely satisfaction, but rapture; and that is the author himself. It may be thought that the voice of public approbation must tend greatly to heighten and prolong the pleasure of the author, no doubt this effect is sometimes produced, but when he comes to compare the impressions made upon the public, with those made upon his own mind: when he examines the kind and degree of the public approbation, he is more frequently displeased and mortified, than flattered or elated by the praise of his readers, since he finds it so unlike, or disproportionate to his own. feelings. To talk of the feelings of authors, however, seems to be very impertinent on this occasion. The topic can excite interest in none, or even be understood by none but writers themselves, and that number is extremely small. As to regular books, there are not twenty published in a year, throughout this extensive country. Newspapers indeed abound, and many a stripling is tempted to write by the facility which newspapers afford of publishing his lucubrations. As all these have the feelings, the hopes, and apprehensions of the most bulky and ponderous authors, perhaps I have been too hasty in imagining that the topic can come home to the bosoms, and have connexion with the business of few. It is probable, indeed, that in no civilized nation are books of home manufacture so rare, and authors at the same time so numerous. Each of our two hundred newspapers has several diurnal authors in its service. In some cases they amount to some scores, and perhaps it is no immoderate estimate that in America, two thousand persons are in the constant habit of writing and publishing their sentiments. Some of these writers, though they never publish volumes, are yet infinitely copious. I could name several, who, in the course of ten years, have written and published much more than Swift, Johnson, Gibbon, or Voltaire. Their productions indeed. are not precisely of the same value and durability with those of these noted personages. They may boast, however, of having many more contemporary readers and implicit followers, than either of those great names, and if their fame be of short date, yet they may derive comfort from reflecting that it is very wide and very noisy while it lasts. With regard to my own literary history, it is not necessary to be very communicative. I will only mention that my own experience supplies me with very cogent proofs of the difference between an author's feelings and his reader's. I was always fond of scribbling, but though I always thought it necessary to bestow this name upon my own productions, I confess I was not quite willing that other people should follow my example in this particular. I never desired, and, for a long time, was far from expecting to have the name I bestowed upon my own labours, echoed and sanctioned by others. Custom, which reconciles the prisoner to the air of his dungeon and the weight of his fetters, which makes infamy an easy burthen, and pain a tolerable companion, will reconcile an author to the name of SCRIBBLER. He will not only listen with tranquillity to a sound, at first so opprobrious, but he will in time come cheerfully to answer to it, as to his proper name. Things, I confess, have come to such a pass with me, that I shall, henceforth, inscribe the word upon all the lucubra. tions which I have an apportunity of giving to the world. CRITICISM FOR THE PORT FOLIO. "To mark how wide extends the mighty waste "And drag reluctant Dulness back to day." The COLUMBIAD, a Poem, by JOEL BARLOW,-Philadelphia, C. & A. Conrad & Co. Quarto, pp. 470. Printed by Fry & Kammerer. A quarto epic poem-polished by twenty years labour-issuing in all the pomp of typographical elegance from an American press the author an American-the theme, the history of our own country! What an era in our literature! What an epoch in the history of our arts! what a subject for the reviewer! Employed, as the critic in this country has long been, in hunting down party pamphlets and boarding-school novels, fast-day sermons, and "such small deer," it is with proud satisfaction that he at length sees his field enlarged-his subjects rise in dignity and importance. As some young knight of Arthur's Court, who, through lack of fair achievement, yet bore his shield unblazoned and his spurs ungilt, after many a tedious hour of journey, at length espied some Paynim Castle huge and rude, with " donjon high where captives wail," and every promise of adventure meet for knightly prowess, even so, gentle reader, with such feelings does the critic now gaze on the splendid volume before him. Proudly he turns from the detection of vulgar imposture and the ridicule of wild absurdity to meet his nobler task. The subject of the Columbiad is national and patriotic. It was Mr. Barlow's early ambition to raise the epic song of his nationto select from her annals the most brilliant portions of American history-to wreath them into one chaplet of immortal verse, and present the splendid offering with filial reverence to the genius of his country. Mr. B. readily perceived that "most of the events of the revolution were so recent, so important, and so well known as to render them inflexible to the hand of fiction. "The poem, therefore, could not be modelled after that regular epic form which the more splendid works of this kind have taken, and on which their success is supposed in a great measure to depend. The attempt would have been highly injudicious; it must have diminished and debased a series of actions which were really great in themselves, and could not be disfigured without losing their interest." Hence it became necessary for the poet to look around for some interesting tale of history or fiction which might give unity and effect to the mass of unconnected facts, and thus (to borrow an image of Dr. Darwin) form a festoon of roses connecting together his series of miniature history pieces. How Mr. B has succeeded in this part of his work, may be best judged by a slight sketch of the plot, incident and dialogue of his poem. The poem opens with an invocation to Freedom, brief, vigorous and elegant. Columbus is then discovered in a dungeon, into which he had been thrown by the "cold-hearted Ferdinand," where he lies lone, feverish and dejected. His "deep-felt sorrows burst from his breast" in a long lamentation over his sad fate, rather heavy and unnatural. While the hapless man is thus venting his grief, a thundering sound Rolled thro the shuddering walls and shook the ground; And sounds melodious issued from his tongue. This celestial visitor announces himself as Hesper, the guardian genius of the western hemisphere. After administering some consolation to the dejected mariner, he leads him forth to the |