Vaults set with gems the purchase of a crown, Had. There they dwell, and muse, Whose thoughts connect past, present, and to come, And air-pavilions, rainbow tabernacles, They study nature's secrets, and enjoy No poor dominion. Tum. Are they beautiful, And powerful far beyond the human race? Had. Man's feeble heart cannot conceive it. The sage described them, fiery eloquence Tam. Wondrous! What intercourse have they with men? Had. Sometimes they deign to intermix with man, But oft with woman. Tum. Ha! with woman? Hud. She Attracts them with her gentler virtues, soft, Tam. That surpasses all You yet have told me. Had. This the sage affirms; And Moses, darkly. Tum. How do they appear? How manifest their love? Had. Sometimes 't is spiritual, signified By beatific dreams, or more distinct And glorious apparition. They have stoop'd Tam. Frightful to be so beloved! Who could endure the horrid thought! What makes Hud. Dark imaginations haunt me Tam. I know that they were made to rule the night. Had. Like palace lamps! Thou echoest well thy grandsire. Woman! the stars are living, glorious, Tam. Speak not so wildly. I know them numberless, resplendent, set Tam. O, tell them not: I would not hear them. Hed. But why contemn a spirit's love? so high, So glorious, if he haply deign'd? Tam. Forswear My Maker! love a demon! Had. No-O, no My thoughts but wander'd. Oft, alas! they wander. Thus Had. Eternity! O! mighty, glorious, miserable thought! And [lo! ever, when thy drooping spirits ebb, Thou gazest on that star. Hath it the power To cause or cure thy melancholy mood? Tell me, ascribest thou influence to the stars? [He appears lost in thought. Had. (starting.) The stars! What know'st thou of the stars? Had. TAMAR! I need thy love-more than thy love Tam. Thy cheek is wet with tears-Nay, let us "Tis late-I cannot, must not linger. [part[Breaks from him, and exit. Hud. Loved and abhorr'd! Still, still accursed! [He paces twice or thrice up and down, with passionate gestures; then turns his face to the sky, and stands a moment in silence.] O! where, In the illimitable space, in what His worlds, his rolling orbs of light, that fill Where, where, in what abyss shall I be groaning? ARTHUR'S SOLILOQUY.* [Exit. HERE let me pause, and breathe a while, and wipe These servile drops from off my burning brow. Amidst these venerable trees, the air Seems hallow'd by the breath of other times.- *From "Percy's Masque." JOHN M. HARNEY. [Born, 1789. Died, 1825.] JOHN M. HARNEY, the second of three sons of THOMAS HARNEY, an officer in the continental forces during the revolution, was born in Sussex county, Delaware, on the ninth of March, 1789. In 1791 the family removed to the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee, and in a few years to Louisiana. The elder brother and our author studied medicine, and the former became a surgeon in the army. The younger brother also entered the army, was commissioned as lieutenant in 1818, and in 1847 was brevetted a brigadier general for gallant conduct in the battle of Cerro Gordo. Dr. JOHN M. HARNEY settled in Bardstown, Kentucky, where in 1814 he was married to a daughter of Judge JOHN ROWAN. In 1816 he visited the eastern states; and the death of his wife, soon after, caused him to abandon his pursuits at Bardstown and return to Tennessee; and, as soon as he could make suitable preparations, to go abroad. He travelled in Great Britain, Ireland, France, and Spain; spent several years in the naval service of Buenos Ayres; and coming back to the United States, took up his residence at Savannah, Georgia, where he conducted a political newspaper. Excessive exertion and exposure at a fire, in that city, brought on a fever which undermined his constitution, and having removed again to Bardstown, he died there, on the fifteenth of January, 1825. His "Crystalina, a Fairy Tale," in six cantos, was completed when he was about twenty-three years of age, but in consequence of "the proverbial indifference, and even contempt, with which Americans receive the works of their countrymen," he informs us in a brief preface, was not published until 1816, when it appeared anonymously in New York. It received much attention in the leading literary journals of that day. Its obvious faults were freely censured, but upon the whole it was reviewed with unusual manifestations of kindly interest. The sensitive poet, however, was so deeply wounded by some unfavor able criticisms, that he suppressed nearly all the copies he had caused to be printed, so that it has since been among our rarest books. tions could be discovered, and that he for years had searched for her in vain through every quar ter of the world. He implores the aid of the seer, who ascertains from famíliar spirits, summoned by his spells, that CRYSTALINA has been stolen by OBERON, and, arming RINALDO with a cross and consecrated weapons, conducts him to a mystic circle, within which, upon the performance of a described ceremony, the earth opens and discloses the way to Fairy Land. In the second, third, and fourth cantos, are related the knight's adventures in that golden subterranean realm; the various stratagems and enchantments by which its sovereign endeavored to seduce or terrify him; his annihilation of all obstacles by exhibiting the cross; the discovery of CRYSTA LINA, transformed into a bird, in OBERON's pa lace; the means by which she was restored to her natural form of beauty; and the triumphant re turn of the lovers to the upper air. In the fifth and sixth cantos it is revealed that ALTAGRAND is the father of RINALDO, and the early friend of the father of CRYSTALINA, with whom he had fought in the holy wars against the infidel. The king, -"inspired with joy and wine, From his loose locks shook off the snows of time," and celebrated the restoration of his child and his friend, and the resignation of his crown to RINALDO, in a blissful song: ... "Ye rolling streams, make liquid melody, Let not rude Boreas, on this halcyon day, Nor shoot the oak-rending lightnings at the world. A child I lost, but two this day have found, And cast her fatal, horrid shears, away, A child I lost, but two this day have found, This sacred night in heavenly synod meet; The poem is founded chiefly upon superstitions which prevail among the highlands of Scotland. A venerable seer, named ALTAGRAND, is visited by the knight RINALDO, who informs him that the monarch of a distant island had an only daughter, CRYSTALINA, with whom he had fallen in love; that the princess refused to marry him unless he first distinguished himself in battle; that he "plucked laurel wreaths in danger's bloody path," and returned to claim his promised Portico," a monthly magazine, at Baltimore, and reward, but was informed of the mysterious disap- he reviewed this poem in a long and characterpearance of the maid, of whose fate no indica-istic article. After remarking that it was "the 140 A child I lost, but two this day have found, most splendid production" that ever came before him, he says "We can produce passages from 'Crystalina' which have not been surpassed in our language. SPENSER himself, who seemed to have condensed all the radiance of fairy-land upon his starry page, never dreamed of more exquisitely fanciful scenery than that which our bard has sometimes painted... .... Had this poet written before SKAKSPEARE and SPENSER, he would have been acknowledged 'the child of fancy..... Had he dared to think for himself-to blot out some passages, which his judgment, we are sure, could not have approved-the remainder would have done credit to any poet, living or dead.... It is not our intention to run a parallel between the author of 'Crystalina' and the SHAESPEARE, SPENSER, or MILTON, of another country.... He moves in a different creation, but he moves in as radiant a circle, and at as elevated a point, in his limited sphere, as any whom we have mentioned." 66 I cannot quite agree with Mr. NEAL. “ Crystalina" does not seem to me very much superior to his own "Battle of Niagara." It however evinces decided poetical power, and if carefully revised, by a man of even very inferior talents, if of a more cultivated taste and greater skill in the uses of language, it might be rendered one of the most attractive productions in its class. The precept of HORACE, that a poet should construct his fable from events generally believed to be true, is justified by the fact that so few works in which the characters are impossible, and the incidents altogether incredible, have been successful in modern times. DRAKE's Culprit Fay" is undoubtedly a finer poem than MORRIS'S "Woodman, spare that Tree," but it will never be half as popular. 46 That Dr. HARNEY had an original and poetical fancy will be sufficiently evident from a few examples: "Thrice had yon moon her pearly chariot driven Across the starry wilderness of heaven, In lonely grandeur; thrice the morning star ." Deep silence reigned, so still, so deep, and dread, ...."The mountain tops, oak-crowned And round me flutter with familiar wing, After the publication of " Crystalina," Dr. HARNEY commenced an epic poem, of which fragments were found, with numerous shorter compositions, among his papers, after he died. Mr. GALLAGHER, who examined some of his manuscripts, says "they were worthier than Crystalina' of his genius and acquirements;" but nearly all of them disappeared, through the negligence or the jealous care of his friends. Among his latest productions was The Fever Dream," which was written at Sa 66 vannah, after he had himself been a sufferer from the disease he so vividly describes. In a lighter vein is the ingenious bagatelle entitled "Echo and the Lover," which, as well as "The Fever Dream," was first published after the poet's death. EXTRACTS FROM CRYSTALINA." SYLPHS, BATHING. THE shores with acclamations rung, TITANIA'S CONCERT. In robes of green, fresh youths the concert led, Measuring the while, with nice, emphatic tread Of tinkling sandals, the melodious sound With cunning fingers fret the tuneful wires; ON A FRIEND. DEVOUT, yet cheerful; pious, not austere; Of smitten timbrels; some, with myrtles crown'd, That he has faults, it may be bold to doubt, Pour the smooth current of sweet melody, Yet certain 't is we ne'er have found them out. 142 THE FEVER DREAM. A FEVER Scorched my body, fired my brain; Like lava in Vesuvius, boiled my blood Within the glowing caverns of my heart; I heard a laugh, and saw a wretched man I raged with thirst, and begged a cold, clear draught Their neighbors' arms,and slay them for their blood. Of fountain water. "'T was, with tears, denied. Oh! happy then were mothers who gave suck. "Rend, oh, ye lightnings! the sealed firmament, And flood a burning world. Rain! rain! pour! pour! Thirst raged within me. I sought the deepest vale, Open, ye windows of high heaven! and pour And called on all the rocks and caves for water; I climbed a mountain, and from cliff to cliff, for moisture, And from its arid breast heaved smoke, that seemed The mighty deluge! Let us drown and drink Thus raged the multitude. And many fell ECHO AND THE LOVER. Lover. ECHO! mysterious nymph, declare Echo. 66 Money!" Echo. ? Lover. "Leave me." But come, you saucy, pert romancer, Who is as fair as Phoebe ? answer. "Ann. sir." ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT, one of the most learned and respectable of our public characters, is best known as a writer by his various, numerous and able productions in prose; but is entitled to notice in a reviewal of American poetry by the volume of original and translated "Poems," which he published in Boston in 1845. He was a son of the Reverend OLIVER EVERETT, of Dorchester, and an elder brother of EDWARD EVERETT, and was born on the nineteenth of March, 1790. He was graduated, with the highest honours, at Harvard College, at the early age of sixteen; the following year was a teacher in the Exeter Academy; and afterwards a student in the law office of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, whom in 1809 he accompanied to Russia, as his private secretary. In St. Petersburgh he passed two years in the assiduous study of languages and politics, and returning to this country was appointed secretary of legation to the Netherlands, in 1813, and in 1818 became chargé d'affaires at that post, and in 1825 THE PORTRESS. L'ENVOI, TO M. L. FAIR Saint! who, in thy brightest day Hast turn'd thy serious thoughts away Come fly with me on fancy's wing The clime of sunshine, love, and spring, And opposite, a convent pile A holy shrine appears: And at the shrine devoutly bent, BALLAD. "Blest shrines! from which in evil hour My erring footsteps stray'd, Oh! grant your kind protecting power! To a repentant maid! minister to Spain. He came home in 1829, and in the same year undertook the editorship of "The North American Review." He was subsequently an active but not a very successful politician, several years, and in 1845, after having for a short time been president of the University of Louisiana, was appointed minister plenipotentiary to China, and sailed for Canton in a national ship, but was compelled by ill health to return, after having proceeded as far as Rio Janeiro. The next year, however, he was able to attempt the voyage a second time, and he succeeded in reaching Canton, but to die there just after his arrival, the twenty-ninth of June, 1847. The principal works of Mr. EVERETT are described in "The Prose Writers of America." His poems consist of translations from the Greek, Latin, Norse, German, French and Spanish, with a few original pieces, more wise, perhaps, than poetical. Some of the translations are executed with remarkable grace and spirit. Sweet Virgin! if in other days I sang thee hymns of love and praise, With that false-hearted man, I breathed to thee my parting prayer, And was so diligent withal, And by superior order sate As Portress at the convent gate. And well she watch'd that entrance o'er ;Ah! had she known the art To guard as faithfully the door Of her own virgin heart. |