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ART. III.-REVIEW OF REMAINS OF THE REV. CARLOS WILCOX.

Remains of the Rev. Carlos Wilcox, late Pastor of the North Congregational Church in Hartford. With a Memoir of his Life. Hartford. Edward Hopkins. 1828. 8vo. pp. 430.

THIS Volume is all that is left us of a mind gifted by nature with rare endowments of genius, improved by exquisite culture, adorned with the gentlest and kindest sensibilities, and sanctified by pure and elevated piety. The book, even to such as had no acquaintance with its author, can by no means be deficient in interest; but to those who enjoyed the privilege of knowing him, it must be doubly valuable, as a relic of one dearly beloved and deeply lamented. As often as we take up the volume-which we cannot do without regretting that it is not accompanied with a portrait-we find those stanzas of a true poet, haunting our memory, and rising unconsciously to our lips :

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In the memoir of the author prefixed to the "Remains," the reader is made in some good degree acquainted with the character of the man, not so much by direct description as by frequent and copious extracts from his familiar correspondence. This, if not the most artificial, is certainly the most interesting way of writing such a life. The compiler has done well in adopting this course; he has made the memoir seem almost like auto-biography. The letters of Mr. Wilcox are all affectionate, and unaffected, some of them exceedingly beautiful. They exhibit him to advantage in his social character, and indeed develope most of those traits for which he was so much esteemed and admired. The following extract from a letter written at Andover, in a season of dejection, when his mind was struggling between the passion for poetry and the

alleged claims of duty, and-we may add-while chilling fogs and murderous east-winds were making havoc with his physical system, frail as an Eolian harp,-lets us at once into his heart, and reveals the delicate tenderness of his spirit.

I dread the sight of my pen and half written sermon. Sometimes I sit for whole days without advancing a single letter. I sit with my cheek leaning on the palm of my hand, and scarce a day passes in which I do not weep-walk my room with my hands clasped in anguish, and my eyes streaming with tears-sit for hours and gaze into the fire, or on vacancy, or out of the window, without noticing any particular object, or having any particular train of thought, but a deep feeling of indescribable wretchedness.

I have such a disheartening consciousness of my unfitness for the ministry, that I cannot engage in it. I have studied nothing but poetry, am fit for nothing but poetry.

I dare not look at the setting sun, the placid and beautiful moon, the mild planet of the west, the pure blue heavens, the white flying clouds, the lofty mountain with its waving forests, the valley with its green meadows and crystals streams:-I dare not listen to the sweet bird that comes to the tree before my window, and sings from the fulness of its heart, pouring forth a stream of melody.

When the clouds gather round and shut out the beauties of the natural world, especially when the storm rages, and beats against my window, I seem ready to wish that they would remain so forever. It suits the gloom of my soul, I feel great relief, a burden taken off. And when the hour of sleep comes, and I wrap myself up in the drapery of my couch, I am almost ready to wish that the sleep of the grave had come, or that I might never wake again. What will become of me? The heart knoweth its own bitterness.

I spend my days in sighing, but no sigh heaves off its load from this overburdened breast.

My mind is unstrung, relaxed till it has almost lost the power of re-action; every little labor seems an Herculean task, every little obstacle, a mountain of difficulty. I have lost all self-control, all discipline of the thoughts and affections, and become the passive slave of circumstances. I feel borne along in desparing listlessness, conforming to the current in all its windings, and varieties of motion, without resolution enough to raise my head, and look about me, and see where I am; or forward, to see whither I am going; the roaring of a cataract before me, would rather lull me to a deeper sleep, than rouse me to a mighty effort for my escape from destruction. pp. 21, 22.

The letter on page 34, which we have not time to quote, furnishes, among other things, a good specimen of his delicacy of character, and his retiring disposition. In the journey there spoken of, he acted precisely like himself; setting out from his father's house with not a line of introduction in his pocket, save his certificate of licensure as a preacher; pursuing his way down through the retired parts of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, among strangers, modestly offering his services as a preacher in retired and destitute parishes; and

attracting the attention of people of all denominations, as we happen to know, by his superior style of preaching.

His natural playfulness of mind is well illustrated in the following passages from a letter, dated at New-Haven, June 18,

1823.

Ten thousand thanks for your delightful letter. It was put into my hands by H-, at a moment when I needed something to exhilarate my spirits. I had just been gazing in solitary pensiveness, over the beautiful elms of this city, as their thick and fresh foilage slept without motion in the light of a golden sun-set. I had looked till the city with its deep green groves was left in the shade, and only the spire of its loftiest tower, was shooting up into the region of brightness. I had watched the last beams, till they had climed the glittering pinnacle, and vanished in mid-air; and with my eyes still fixed in their upward direction, and my head resting on my hand, as I sat alone at my window, I was musing on those bright visions of happiness, pursued by the imaginative youth, till they vanish in the clouds, and leave him to the dark realities of the world below, -when I was waked from my reverie, by the arrival of your letter. I read it again and again, till I felt completely restored to the region of common sense, and common life-the world of living, and acting beings of flesh and blood. The account that you give of the state of things in your society, reminds me that I am in a world where something must be done, besides musing and dreaming. But with all your matter-of-fact plainness, you have, now and then, a touch of the romantic. "The little tumbler keeps its place on the mantle piece, and frequently receives its portion of Scotch roses." This is to my liking. It is just as our friend Cowper would have written; and therefore it is just as it should be. "Your flowers have come up; but it is ten to one, if they do not get choked with potatoes and mustard, they being staple commodities here." Well let the flowers go; for if they were good to make "nectar and cherubim broth," we creatures of clay must take up with potatoes and mustard. The flowers of poetry and fine sentiment are often choked to death by the eatables of this eating world. pp. 53, 54.

My health is good, except that I have something of the dyspepsy now and then, but not enough to make me see visions of unearthly beings, and imagine that I converse with them face to face. You will understand this allusion, if you have seen the article on Swedenborgianism, in a late number of the Christian Spectator. I have just been conversing for two hours, with one of the converts to this system of fanaticism. He knows that there is a God, because it has been revealed to him. Millions of angels and spirits of departed men, are around him every day; and he sees them. It has been his great business and delight for seven years, to talk and sing with them. He has conversed with all the kings of England, with all the great men of antiquity, that he has read of, and even with the giants of patriarchal times. The winged spirits of little children, too, are among the multitude, and what is not at all strange, they sometimes read in Dilworth's Spelling Book, in classes as at school. These spirits are all dressed in white, they come in rows as if strung on strings; and when they first come into sight, they generally repeat the Lord's prayer. They delight in prayer as much as we do, and he guesses much more. When I pray in the family, he interprets, or communicates my words to them, for which they seem very grateful, as the meaning comes very hard to them in consequence of passing through two. They visit him at night, and make his

room as light as day; and what is odd enough, they often tuck up his bed, as no mortal ever tucked it up. Sometimes those appear who have been asleep so long that they have forgotten their own names; and so he has to tell them. They often give him a message to their relatives and neighbours, who are yet in the flesh; but he never delivers it, because he is afraid that people will think him insane, or under the influence of a diseased imagination, which according to his frequent assurance, is in no degree the case. And the man really appears perfectly rational on every other subject, and very intelligent and pleasant withal. While conversing on this subject he appeared so sincere, and serious, that you could not have the heart to laugh in his face; and as to reasoning with him, you might as well have reasoned with one of Ossian's ghosts, moving straight forward out of sight and out of hearing, in the midst of stormy clouds. The testimony of Moses and the prophets, is now superseded by that of millions risen from the dead. By the way, were not our first parents Swedenborgians? Our honorable friend Milton, who knew all about it, and was himself poetically a Swedenborgian, makes father Adam say to Eve, not only that,

but also,

'Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep,'

How often from the steep

Ofechoing hill, or thicket, have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,

Sole, or responsive to each other's note,
Singing their great Creator.'

This reference to Milton, puts to flight all these visions of "airy nothing," and brings to remembrance your kind wish, that I were with you again to read and comment. pp. 55,-57.

The poetry of Mr. Wilcox, in one respect at least, beside its evangelical character, resembles that of Cowper. The feelings which predominate while we read, are feelings of acquaintance and sympathy with the poet, as he breathes out into song his love of nature and of virtue, rather than any emotions of admiration. The reader of Milton is awe-struck at "the faculty divine" which he witnesses, and the power of which he feels upon his spirit. Every one whose mothertongue is English, claims the first rank among the poets of all ages and all lands, for him

"Who rode sublime

Upon the seraph wing of ecstasy

The secrets of the abyss to spy,

And pass'd the flaming bounds of space and time."

Yet Cowper-the amiable, the domestic, the simple Cowper, is after all read and valued no less than the majestic Milton. His name indeed is never repeated with reluctant homage by those who hate his principles, as "a name bound up with the

glories of England." No critic toils to be eloquent in his praise. No poet enthrones him in the realm of imagination as the bard whose voice

"Was ever up at heaven,

Or if it took a softer note, as pure
As the far echo of an angel's lyre
Behind a golden cloud."

But thousands of hearts that belong neither to critics nor poets feel the worth, if they cannot publish the praise of Cowper. And many a lover of poetry, of no uncultivated taste, and deficient in no lofty sensibility, while he keeps his Milton for admiration and for pride, keeps his Cowper for companionship and affection. The one he studies when he would dilate his imagination by filling it with images of vastness and magnificence and power; or when he would be enchanted by the wand of genius, and inspired with visions of etherial beauty. The other he reads out of pure love; he turns to it, when weary, for a sweet refreshment, as the man of business turns from his labors to his own domestic circle, delighting in its purity, its cheerfulness, its endearing sympathies, its fireside happiness.

The late Pollock has been compared by his admirers with Milton. How far the comparison is proper, we are not going to say here. It is to our purpose however to say, that in one sense at least the "Course of Time" deserves to be compared with the "Paradise Lost;"-all who are pleased with it, read it with admiration; the pleasure it affords is that of wonder and of awe. The reader does not sympathize with the poet as with a friend of kindred spirit;-if the poet gets any power over him, it is only to compel him to sit down in reverence as at the feet of some superior intelligence. There is nothing of this in the poetry of Wilcox. Few will think of admiring it; none will claim for it a place above the works of canonized bards; yet the man or the woman who can read it without delight, must have a vitiated taste or an exceedingly corrupted heart, -and the critic who can speak lightly of its author, is no critic for us. If Wilcox had been permitted to give himself to poetry alone, he might have been the Cowper of New-England. If his works, instead of being thrown out in these scattered fragments, had gone forth finished as he might have finished them, they would have found their way into a thousand village libraries, and would have been read wherever there are hearts and minds to sympathize with the love of nature, or to be moved by touches of exquisite tenderness. In New-England, such hearts and minds are every where.

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