sure which we receive from the works of Herodotus, and of which there are various kinds arising from each particular species of writing." It is quite time for writers, who are ambitious of being known to readers beyond their own day, to understand that something besides a mere chronicle of facts is necessary to constitute a history. It is a just remark of Sir James Mackintosh,-himself a consummate master of English composition, that either learned or vulgar words, being most liable to change. are unfit materials for "a durable style;" and the examples of those writers, he says, who have affected the use of them, should "teach us to look to those words which form the far larger portion of ancient as well as of modern language, that "well of English undefiled," which has been happily resorted to from More to Cowper, as being proved by the unimpeachable evidence of that long usage to fit the rest of our speech more perfectly, and to flow more easily, clearly, and sweetly in our composition.† In connexion with this subject, we cannot pass without notice the just and appropriate dedication to the author's father, the Hon. William Prescott, LL. D., who has long been known as an eminent counsellor at the Bar of Massachusetts, and has lately, after a most honourable and enviable career, retired from the contentions of the forum, to enjoy the pleasures of a cultivated mind in the tranquillity of advancing years. "No performance," says Gibbon in a dedication to his father, "is, in my opinion, more contemptible than a dedication of the common sort; when some great man is presented with a book, which, if science be the subject, he is incapable of understanding; if polite literature, incapable of tasting..... I know but two kinds of dedications which can do honour either to the patron or the author. The first is, when an inexperienced writer addresses himself to a master of the art in which he endeavours to excel; whose example he is ambitious of imitating; by whose advice he has been directed; or whose approbation he is anxious to deserve. The other sort is yet more honourable. It is dictated by the heart, and offered to some person who is dear to us because he ought to be so. It is an opportunity we embrace with pleasure of making public those sentiments of esteem, of friendship, of gratitude, or of all together, which we really feel, and which, therefore, we desire should be known." The justness of these sentiments will be felt by every man * Critique on Junius. + Macintosh's Life of Sir Thomas More, in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia. Page 46. who deserves, or who is capable of making an offering in the sincerity of "filial affection." We ought not to omit noticing the extraordinary beauty and finish of the mechanical execution of these volumes; they are, we believe, superior, on the whole, to any work that has ever issued from the American press. The work is published by an association consisting of literary men and booksellers, in Boston, called The American Stationers' Company; instituted, as we are informed, with the view of attempting to elevate the character of the American press, and it must be admitted that they have accomplished every thing, in this instance, that could be desired by the most fastidious admirers of well-finished books. The printing is from the very accurate Cambridge press, under the charge of one of our sound scholars, Mr. Folsom. The work is embellished with fine engravings of Isabella, Ferdinand, and Ximenes. In the title-page the publishers have very appropriately placed the heraldic device of the united coat of arms of Castile and Aragon; and altogether, they have, like their brother booksellers of antiquity, the Sosii, spared no pains to send out their book finished off to the last polish of the pumice-stone: "Sosiorum pumice mundus." ART. III.-Jocelyn; Episode; Journal trouvé chez un Curé de village; par ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. OUR feelings on first reading the poetry of M. de Lamartine in his Meditations and Harmonies, we can only compare to the pleasurable surprise of one who, journeying through a sterile and monotonous country, comes suddenly in view of some fair district, where the sunshine reposes on clustering groves and flashing streams, and swelling hills of vintage, and glens of verdure; where the horizon bends over cool bright lakes and lovely islands; where the rays of evening are "glinted back" from many a dome and dwelling half embosomed in shade; and the whole scene speaks, as with a voice, of pervading beauty and life. With such delight we turned from the stately formality of the old French school, to greet a poet whose productions were in some measure the expression of his own individuality; who laid open to us the living human heart, with its warm aspi43 NO. IV.-VOL. II. rations its treasures of feeling; and part of whose inpiration was his passionate worship of Nature. The metaphysical ideas and truths embodied in those gorgeous lyrics, and frequently illustrated by brilliant comparisons with objects in the natural world, seized our attention; and our fancy was charmed by their picturesque descriptions and imagery. The very vagueness of the ideas was attractive in short poems, where common feelings and thoughts must be idealized to be invested with the dignity of poetry. We were enchanted to see "this visible nature" thus glowing in the light of genius; the "palpable and the familiar" clothed "with golden exhalations of the dawn." In the Harmonies, we saw the poet soar on wings of faith, and draw near to the throne of God. We watched him, self-poised, like the eagle of which he sings, in the blue void beyond this cold, dark atmosphere; and longed to catch from his burning lips the fire kindled of the empyrean. From such a writer we confidently expected still greater and more durable monuments of excellence. We hoped to see poetry, in the school of M. de Lamartine, become truly what he thinks it destined to be in this age of refinement and independence-social, political, philosophical, religious; no longer "a melodious, superficial caprice of thought," but the embodyment of the mind's highest and profoundest conceptions. But it soon became evident that Lamartine was not destined to rise to the eminence we had once anticipated for him. The charm of novelty in his first works, not less than their merit, commanded unbounded success; in his own country he was idolized, because he gave expression to the serious feelings as well as the caprices of the age. His influence, thus developed by favoring circumstances, was irresistible; but it was not to prove a lasting influence. His excessive popularity is already, we apprehend, on the wane. His failure is owing to a defect in the organization of his mind--a want of that discriminating taste which, by contemplating a lofty standard of excellence, would lead him to correct faults and aspire after perfection; and to the absence of that creative faculty which is the distinguishing attribute of genius-much more than to the decline of the sentiments and tastes his poetry first revived. We fear that our poet, though confessedly one of the first, if not the very first, of France's living bards, after all the brilliancy of his early ef forts, will find himself ultimately rejected from that exalted niche in the temple of Fame which his superior powers once gave promise of securing for him. His "Travels in the East" first disenchanted us. We did not, it is true, expect it to be the work of an ordinary writer. We expected his pictures to transcend life; for his ardent temperament precludes the possibility of his thinking and painting like others. But we expected to discern the natural features of the landscape amidst the rich and glowing tints shed over them by his poetic and religious feeling. We expected to breathe an atmosphere of excitement, but not of strained and turgid sensibility. We did not expect to have the ideal forced upon us at every step-impeding our progress, obscuring our vision-actually crammed into us-amplified as it was beyond all bounds by its thick vestment of metaphor and simile. We did not expect the laborious expansion of every object, however insignificant, into romantic proportions; nor the envelopement of solemn realities in a misty haze; nor the ostentatious display of private feelings or of devotional ecstacies; nor the perpetual effort to find resemblances between things which of themselves certainly suggest no comparison. Thus, reclining one day under some olive trees near the walls of Jerusalem, the author sees a Turkish widow mourning at the grave of her husband; and at a little distance three black slaves of Abyssinia-one of whom, by the way, he likens to the Madeline of Canova-playing with her children; forthwith his fancy is at work, and he beholds in the picturesque scene "the destinies and phases of poetry!" The slaves, singing lullabies to the children, represent "the pastoral and instructive poetry of the infancy of nations;" the young widow-" the heart's poetry, elegiac and impassioned;" a company of Arab soldiers reciting the verses of Antar "epic and warlike poetry;" the Greek monks singing psalms on the terraces "the lyric and sacred poetry of an age of religious enthusiasm ;" and, last of all, our author himself, stretched under the canopy of his tent, and sending his imagination over the earth for subjects of meditation-" the poetry of thought and philosophyin which humanity reviews and improves herself!" We should not take pains to quarrel with these and the like elaborated absurdities, though they disfigure much that is really beautiful and brilliant in description, and interesting in reflection, were it not that faults like these have become the distinguishing characteristics of M. de Lamartine's writings. He seems to be sincerely of the opinion that such is the appropriate language of true poetry. Jocelyn," his latest work that has appeared on this side the Atlantic, exhibits yet more strikingly the blemishes we have noticed. Here, a romantic story, which the author gives us to understand is a true one, is exalted out of all resemblance to truth or life. The poet has laid the bridle on the neck of his propensities, and takes leave of moderation altogether. Not content with a few bold touches, that might suffice to place the picture before us, he magnifies the minutest object into a glaring grandeur. He puts forth the utmost powers of his imagination in every description he attempts; and thus falls into inevitable monotony. Every idea stands out prominently, decked in gorgeous phrase; there is a painful want of relief in the poem. But before entering into any particulars, it may be proper to give a brief sketch of the story. The opening is very beautiful. It describes a scene of rural festivity, and the tumultuous emotions which the sight awakens in the susceptible bosom of a youth, warm with benevolence and hope, and gaiety-who is the hero of the subsequent events. He perceives that, amidst all this luxuriance of pleasure, his sister weeps alone. He soon discovers the cause of her tears; she loves and is beloved by a young man of the neighbourhood, but her fortune is too trifling to permit her to aspire to an alliance with his proud relations. Jocelyn, after a struggle, resolves magnanimously to give up to his sister his own half of their father's fortune-and to renounce the world for ever. He enters a seminaire. In the terrors and dangers of the ensuing revolution this becomes an insecure retreat; Jocelyn escapes from it, and seeks the shelter of the Alps. In the "Grotte des Aigles," an almost inaccessible spot on the chain of mountains between Grenoble and Chambery, he establishes himself; and is supported by the kindness of a shepherd, who deposites his food in the hollow of a rock. The following lines describe his feelings in this retreat : "When the too radiant summer sun constrains Leap back from earth in gem-like showers, and make His wings from his bronzed plumes the vivid rays And rage to see me near his eyrie lodged ;— When trees or rocks 'neath the warm sun spread out |