LINES TO A CHRYSALIS. MUSING long I asked me this, Lying helpless in my path, Nature surely did amiss, E'en the very worm may kiss, Roses on their topmost stems Quoth the Chrysalis, Sir Bard, Is my rounded destiny Of my lot. Soul of man in crypt of clay! Bide the day When thy latent wings shall be Plumed for immortality, And with transport marvellous Cleave their dark sarcophagus, O'er Elysian fields to soar Evermore! THE HOME VALENTINE. STILL fond and true, though wedded long His home's dear Muse inspired: With all love's vernal glow, Fell to the page below. He paused, and with a mournful mien In pensive silence gazed: It were not strange to say; First conscious of decay? Just then a soft cheek press'd his own With beauty's fondest tear, Of time's unsparing wand! The midnight they have known: Forgive me, dearest Beatrice! TO MY MOTHER. Mr mother!-Manhood's anxious brow As when upon thy bosom's shrine And thy low-whisper'd prayers my slumber bless'd. I never call that gentle name, My mother! but I am again E'en as a child; the very same That I no more can be thy happy boy ;- Was sunshine, and thy frown sad night, To think of thee, and those sweet days gone by. That pleasant home of fruits and flowers, Would hastening come from distant toil to bless Alas, the change! the rattling car On flint-paved streets profanes the spot, I've pored o'er many a yellow page If, by the Saviour's grace made meet, Methinks, when singing at His feet, Amid the ransom'd throng above, Thy name upon my glowing lips shall be, The way that leads me heavenward, and In the same path with patient hand; And when I wander'd far, thy earnest call Restored my soul from sin's deceitful thrall. I have been bless'd with other ties, Fond ties and true, yet never deem That I the less thy fondness prize; No, mother! in my warmest dream Of answer'd passion, through this heart of mine I know no love of mine can fill GEORGE W. BETHUNE. Are come from heaven to claim your brotherhood Ye hover o'er the page Ye traced in ancient days with glorious thought Ye love to watch the inspiration caught, Ye come to nerve the soul like him who near the ATONER stood, when HE, Trembling, saw round him roll The wrathful potents of Gethsemane, Still keep! O, keep me near you, O Night, Bless them in dreams with a deep hush'd delight. Yet must they wake again, Wake soon to all the bitterness of life, Canst thou not take with them a longer flight? Canst thou not bear them far E'en now all innocent-before they know To some ethereal, holier, happier height? Canst thou not bear them up Through starlit skies, far from this planet dim The cup of wrath for hearts in faith contrite? To Him, for them who slept A babe all lowly on His mother's knee, In all our sorrows wept, O Night, [light. That on our souls might dawn Heaven's cheering So, lay their little heads Close to that human breast, with love divine Deep beating, while his arms immortal twine Around them as he sheds, O Night, [might. On them a brother's grace of God's own boundless AFAR from thee! the morning breaks, To know I am afar from thee. And thou wert nestled on my breast; And to mine own thy heart was press'd Though smiling crowds around me be, My listless car unheeded greet; Is in thy moisten'd eye to see, But slumbers from my pillow flee; No distance can our hearts divide; CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. [Born, 1806.] THE author of "Greyslaer," " Wild Scenes in the Forest and the Prairie," etc., is a brother of the Honourable OGDEN HOFFMAN, and a son of the late eminent lawyer of the same name.* He is the child of a second marriage. His maternal grandfather was JOHN FENNO, of Philadelphia, one of the ablest political writers of the old Fedeeral party, during the administration of WASHINGTox. The family, which is a numerous one in the state of New York, planted themselves, at an early day, in the valley of the Hudson, as appears from the Dutch records of PETER STUYVESANT'S storied reign. Mr. HOFFMAN was born in New York, in the year 1806. He was sent to a Latin grammarschool in that city, when six years old, from which, at the age of nine, he was transferred to the Poughkeepsie academy, a seminary upon the Hudson, about eighty miles from New York, which at that time enjoyed great reputation. The harsh treatment he received here induced him to run away, and his father, finding that he had not improved under a course of severity, did not insist upon his return, but placed him under the care of an accomplished Scottish gentleman in one of the rural villages of New Jersey. During a visit home from this place, and when about twelve years of age, he met with an injury which involved the necessity of the immediate amputation of the right leg, above the knee. The painful circumstances are minutely detailed in the New York Evening Post," of the twenty-fifth of October, 1817, from which it appears, that while, with other lads, attempting the dangerous feat of leaping aboard a steamer as she passed a pier, under full way, he was caught between the vessel and the wharf. The steamer swept by, and left him clinging by his hands to the pier, crushed in a manner too frightful for description. This deprivation, instead of acting as a disqualification for the manly sports of youth, and thus turning the subject of it into a retired student, seems rather to have given young HOFFMAN an especial ambition to excel in swimming, riding, etc., to the still further neglect of perhaps more useful acquire ments. 66 When fifteen years old, he entered Columbia College, and here, as at preparatory schools, was noted rather for success in gymnastic exercises Judge HOFFMAN was, in early life, one of the most distinguished advocates at the American bar. He won his first cause in New Jersey at the age of seventeen; the illness of counsel or the indulgence of the court giving him the opportunity to speak. At twenty-one he suc ceeded his father as representative, from New York, in the state legislature. At twenty-six he filled the office of attorney-general; and thenceforth the still youthful pleader was often the successful competitor of HAMILTON, BURR, PINKNEY, and other professional giants, for the highest honours of the legal forum. than in those of a more intellectual character. His reputation, judging from his low position in his class, contrasted with the honours that were awarded him by the college-societies at their anniversary exhibitions, was greater with the students than with the faculty, though the honorary degree of Master of Arts, conferred upon him under peculiarly gratifying circumstances, after leaving the institution in his third or junior year, without having graduated, clearly implies that he was still a favourite with his alma mater.* Immediately after leaving college-being then eighteen years old--he commenced the study of the law with the Honourable HARMANUS BLEECKER, of Albany, now Charge d'Affaires of the United States at the Hague. When twenty-one, he was admitted to the bar, and in the succeeding three years he practised in the courts of the city of New York. During this period he wrote anonymously for the New York American--having made his first essay as a writer for the gazettes while in Albany--and I believe finally became associated with Mr. CHARLES KING in the editorship of that paper. Certainly he gave up the legal profession, for the successful prosecution of which he appears to have been unfitted by his love of books, society, and the rod and gun. His feelings at this period are described in some rhymes, entitled "Forest Musings," from which the following stanzas are quoted, to show the fine relish for forest-life and scenery which has thrown a peculiar charm around every production from his pen :- The hunt is up The merry woodland shout, Hath swept beyond the eastern hills, The moon her mystic circle fills; A while across the setting sun's broad disc As if to pierce the blue o'erhanging arch, Lifts its tall obelisk. And now from thicket dark, Where, by the mist-wreathed river, The fire-fly's spark Will fitful quiver, And bubbles round the lily's cup While, scared by step so near, And thus upon my dreaming youth, When boyhood's gambols pleased no more, At the first semi-centennial anniversary of the incorporation of Columbia College, the honorary degree Master of Arts was conferred upon FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, and CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. So eloquent! Mocking the varied skill that's blent In art's most gorgeous piles No more can soothe my soul to sleep Their verdant passes through, The game's afoot!-and let the chase And wave death's pageant o'er me- Is glancing bright before me! The quarry soars! and mine is now the sky, Which taught the haunter of EGERIA's grove And lower, for awhile, his conquering lance A voice whose influence all, at times, have felt Do clashing meet Around the land: It whispers me that soon-too soon Of fruitless toil, And ills alike by thousands shared, And yet its strange prophetic tone So faintly murmurs to my soul The fate to be my own, That all of these may be Reserved for me Ere manhood's early years can o'er me roll. Yet why, While Hope so jocund singeth And with her plumes the gray-beard's arrow wingeth, Think only of the barb it bringeth? Though every dream deceive That to my youth is dearest, Until my heart they leave Like forest leaf when searest Yet still, mid forest leaves, Where now Its tissue thus my idle fancy weaves, Still with heart new-blossoming While leaves, and buds, and wild flowers spring, At Nature's shrine I'll bow; Nor seek in vain that truth in her From that period Mr. HOFFMAN devoted his attention almost constantly to literature. While connected with the "American," he published a series of brilliant articles in that paper, under the signature of a star (*), which attracted much a tention. In 1833, for the benefit of his health, he left New York on a travelling tour for the far west," and his letters, written during his absence, were also first published in that popular journal. They were afterward included in his "Winter in the West," of which the first impression appeared in New York, in 1834, and the second, soon after, in London. This work has passed through many editions, and it will continue to be popular so long as graphic descriptions of scenery and character, and richness and purity of style, are admired. His next work, entitled "Wild Scenes in the Forest and the Prairie," was first printed in 1837, and. like its predecessor, it contains admirable pictures of scenery, inwoven with legends of the western country, and descriptive poetry. This was followed by a romance, entitled "Greyslaer," founded upon the famous criminal trial of BEAU CHAMP, for the murder of Colonel SHARPE, the Solicitor-General of Kentucky,-the particulars of which, softened away in the novel, are minutely detailed in the appendix to his « Winter in the! West." "Greyslaer" was a successful noveltwo editions having appeared in the author's native city, one in Philadelphia, and a fourth in London, in the same year. It placed him in the front rank many it, with of American novelists. He describes remarkable felicity, American forest-life, and savage warfare, and gives a truer idea of the border contests of the Revolution than any formal his tory of the period that has been published. The Knickerbocker magazine was first issued under the editorial auspices of Mr. HOFFMAN. He subsequently became the proprietor of the American Monthly Magazine, (one of the ablest literary periodicals ever published in this country.) and during the long term of which he was the chief editor of this journal, he also, for one year, conducted the New York Mirror, for its proprietor, and wrote a series of zealous papers in favour of international copyright, for the New Yorker, the Corsair, and other journals. Mr. HOFFMAN published in 1843 « The Vigil of Faith, a Legend of the Andirondack Mountains, and other Poems;" in 1844, "The Echo, or Borrowed Notes for Home Circulation;" and in 1848, a more complete collection of his various lyrical compo sitions, under the title of "Love's Calendar." When the first edition of "The Poets and Poetry of America" appeared there had been printed no volume of Mr. HOFFMAN'S songs, and few except his intimate friends knew what he had written. He was more largely quoted by me because it was not then probable that his pieces would be accessible in another form. In a reviewal of my book in the London "Foreign Quarterly Review" it was remarked that "American poetry is little better than a far off echo of the father-land," and Mr. HOFFMAN was particularly attacked as a pla giarist, much stress being laid upon "the magni |