and art, and who is familiar with the best poets, should not perceive the failure of his own attempts in this department. We have hardly detected, in the entire collection, a respectable stanza, either for originality of thought; for beauty of metaphor; or even for that tripping dance of words, which might be justified on Prior's plea We open at one of these original contributions for a speciTake the first, less faulty than the average: men. "Something between me and the grave is gone; We used to wonder why wind was allowed to rhyme vith mind; but our author evidently intended to improve on this hint, and distinguish his poetry by the peculiar pronunciation which causes gone to rhyme with stone, and sky with depravity, as here: "Than earth or sun, than sea or sky, The defects, which sometimes mar the writer's prose, of careless figures, and of mixed metaphors, abound in these attempts, which we criticise the more frankly, because brilliant and redeeming passages indicate ability to do better, although Mr. Bartol seems to lack the musical ear for arranging his syllables in tuneful measure. He has also neglected, apparently, all search after dainty words to drape his choicest thoughts, and has been merely careful to conclude two consecutive lines with the same letters, thereby stiffening his style and detracting from its grace, until we rank these productions for poetic worth with Rouse's version of David's Psalms, which we once were compelled to hear lined out in the broad accents of a Scotchman. Let no one dream that poetry is mere sport, that those lines, which flow so easily and bear rich freights of thought and feeling, have sprung from the fountain without forethought or effort by their author. The poems which the world will not readily let die, have been the result of untold toil to weariness; and the labor of a master mind is exhibited in the execution, as really as in the conception. Willis, in one of his letters from abroad, describes the manufacture of a sonnet, and we would subscribe towards having the description published in a tract for amateur bards, illustrating the indebtedness of Nature to Art, perfectly in unison with our author's theory, although not in this case with his practice. The prose of the volume is generally picturesque, and is well suited to the topics which it exhibits, but we observe here and there a careless phrase or epithet, such as "carving of ornament," and "pious architecture," hardly admissible in undefiled English. Long involved sentences, where the metaphors change and shift, prevent a clear perception, and cause the style to resemble a kaleidoscope rather than a telescope. We have room for a single example: "Let me, then, not offend, but rather pay homage to the genius that has so altered and improved the sphere, and has brought in such wonderful inventions to serve his purposes, using half the means of the race for mere locomotion, to get from one point to another, and spreading myriad wings to second in its flight the winged soul-for, as Plato reasoned and Homer sang, the soul has wings; and, if it crave rest, in the somewhat paradoxical language of the Psalmist, it would 'fly away, and be at rest. So, homage to the genius of science and art, that to its corporeal weight and slowness, adds the pinions; nay, in chariots of fire speeds it at his will, and on revolving wheels, through opposing wave and breeze bears it on to conquer difficulties, in token and presage of its universal victory; drawing aid for it by a million threads, without confusion, through the circle of the earth; placing one creature in this position and another in that, by hills or in valleys, in cities and along shores, as though nature's own carriage were employed, with a lordlier privilege than ever belonged to princes in cars of silver and gold, to transport all her offspring to their several destinations, with the power of gravity and the precision of light." pp. 27, 28. The awkward construction of this sentence must be apparent to every reader, where the thought is obscured and the mind dazzled with pinions,-chariots of fire revolving through waves,' drawing aid by a million threads, and cars of silver and gold.' The ambitious style of writing is so much in vogue, that we are disposed to indicate its defects, and recall the simpler rules of rhetoric, especially when an author may be regarded as qualified to offer a model for imitation. The practice of composing simply to read before a congregation, produces a careless and faulty style, which moves lamely when set in type, and we have found the query suggesting itself repeatedly, while perusing this volume, whether these essays might not have been originally penned to be delivered, although, of course, we do not imagine that this is the kind of homily usually pronounced from the pulpit of the only Congregational church in Boston. To atone for any appearance of fault-finding, we subjoin one of the many beautiful descriptions with which the volume abounds, that of the Dresden Madonna: The spectator feels, at first, a little curious and puzzled to account for its effects; for this astonishing picture does not seem to have been elaborated with the patient pencil that has wrought so unwearied upon many other famous subjects, but rather to have been thrown off, almost as though it had been in water-colors by an inspiration of divine genius, in a sudden jubilee of its solemn exercise, with a motion of the hand at the last height and acme of its attainment. The theme of the Saviour of the world, a babe on his parent's bosom, is of interest not to be surpassed. The dim shine of a cloud of angels flows from behind a curtain into the room, which is equally open to earth or heaven. All heaven, indeed, through the artist's wondrous hinting of innumerable eager faces seems crowding there to see these things the angels desire to look into.' All earth waits dumbly expectant and mysteriously attentive below. The mother is discovered standing upon the globe with her offspring in her arms. The pope, anticipated impersonation of the highest human authority, bends his knees with the half bald, half hoary head, sending from his lowly posture only an upward revering glance, while he lays his mitre on the ground, and, as well he may, there lets it lie. A saint stands at the other side, looking down with the humility of a heavenly countenance, yet evidently taking in, with admiring contemplation, the import of the whole scene. Little cherubs from below return their silent loving gaze to the vision that drops downcast from above. But it is remarkable that the least and youngest figure in this company-regard it from what side you will-is at the head, and in command of the whole. The gray beard of ecclesiastic might, at whose waving thrones were to shake, and kingdoms be rearranged, is annihilated before that soft, childish face. The sanctified and mature spirit that had fallen incalculable distances from its upper seat, wears the veil of modesty and bends into the stoop of worship before that earthly life just begun. The angels that sang with the morning stars, together over the foundations of the world, flock and crowd, as to a sight unequaled even by their old experience, in the antechamber, about the door, of their rightful sovereign, shaped as infancy that cannot yet walk, while the winged seraphs, of age apparently little superior to itself, that have descended from the sky, fall yet farther down beneath the floor, and cling by their beautiful arms to the edge, as, with their sight, they seek from afar their clay-clad companion, yet somehow Lord. The mother, herself, that bore what she holds upon her breast, has a countenance in which strange submissiveness mingles with paternal care, and tenderness runs into forethought of future days. The child, as though in him a thousand lines converged, is the centre, and unity of the piece; yet without ceasing at all to be a child, in the utmost extent that simplicity and innocence can reach. But, at the same time, there is in his look a majesty peculiar and unrivaled, which seem to justify and require all this angelic and terrestrial deference. In those delicate orbs,shall I ever forget them?-turned full out upon the world, and gentle, and unpretending, too, as eye-balls sheathed in flesh ever were or could be, there is, in what manner I know not, by what art or inspiration painted, I surely cannot tell, a supremacy of control which principalities above or below might well fear to disobey, as though that were the final authority of the universe. "Never before, by any like production, had I been quite abashed and overcome. I could except to, and study, and compare other pictures: this passed my understanding. Long did I inspect, and often did I go back to reexamine this mystery, which so foiled my criticism, and constrained my wonder, and convinced me, as nothing visible beside had ever done, that, if no picture is to be worshiped, something is to be worshiped; that is to be worshiped which such a picture indicates or portrays. But the problem was too much for my solving. I can only say, it mixed for me the transport of wonder, with the ecstasy of delight; it affected me like the sign of a miracle; it was the supernatural put into color and form; for certainly no one, who received the suggestions of those features, the sense of those meek, subduing eyes, could doubt any longer, if he had ever once doubted, of there being a God, a heaven, and, both before and beyond the sepulchre, an immortal life. No one who caught that supernal expression of the whole countenance, could believe it was made of matter, born of mortality, had its first beginning in the cradle, or could be laid away in the grave, but rather that it was of a quite dateless and everlasting tenure. I would be free even to declare that in the light which played between those lips and lids, was Christianity itself-Christianity in miniature for the smallness of the space, I might incline to express it, but that I should query in what larger presentment I had ever beheld Christianity so great. Mont Blane may fall out of the memory, and the Pass of the Stelvio fade away; but the argument for religion,-argument, I call it,-which was offered to my mind in the great Madonna of Raphael, cannot fail." pp. 201-204. We have quoted this passage both for its intrinsic excellence, and as a testimony to the writer's estimate of the subject of the painting, to which we may wish hereafter to refer. The book abounds in beautiful and graphic sketches, and in pages of finished rhetoric, which render the carelessness evinced by other portions more culpable. The great merit of the volume consists, however, in its sincerity. Mr. Bartol makes no effort after originality, by affirming startling paradoxes, nor does he always square his ideas and opinions to a certain fixed formula of belief, but in a quiet, unobtrusive manner says what he thinks, courteously and gently, yet clearly and frankly. One rarely reads a volume, which produces a higher respect for the author, who so freely exposes his views, and even his feelings, without fear and without pride. There are, for example, only two or three allusions to our national shame and crime, and these occurring incidentally, but they reveal the honest opinion of the man, uttered without restraint, and manifest his sympathy with the right. We instance the following: "Even the slave on his master's plantation-whom we may be too nice in our sensibilities to think we could ever approach, or take the hand of, or whose condition some self-condemning tyrant over his own servants abroad, or miserable scorner of mankind may make our welldeserved republican reproach,-might say with a voice reaching from Charleston to Boston, and from Boston to London, 'Lo from my dark stained hands, the stuff of your white clothing, the seasoning of your food, the flavor of your drink, the pleasure of your freedom! I, unpaid, have been among the builders of your so fine social prosperity! God grant me the justice in which man is so tardy!" This passage, so unobtrusive and gentlemanly, would hardly pass the examination. of the publishing Committee of the American Tract Society, and still there is no rankling venom in the words, but only a Christian truth uttered in a Christian temper. We commend to Union Safety Committees the following: "Quaintly Charles Lamb says, 'It matters not to tell me how many mothers in the world there are, better than mine: she is my mother; that suffices for me.' So our country is our mother. We are made We are but As we love of her dust, yonder by God, who is our Father. unnatural children, when she is not dear to us. our friends in spite of their faults,-not, as some say, for their faults, so with our native land. We should never indeed join in the impious exclamation, "Our country, right or wrong;" we should never love or defend the wrong in our country, but honor and laud only the right. Yet let us remember, that, by the law of mutual influence in the members of the same commonwealth, as of the same family, we share alike in her dignity and disgrace; and while happy in the one, strive, not bitterly, but affectionately, to rid her, as ourselves, of the other." Who can fail to honor the dignified and manly assertion of such principles, and how mean must be the spirit that would shrink from their avowal? Yet they are not paraded as though their announcement required especial courage, but for what they are the rational belief, and therefore the natural utterance of a truthful soul. The same characteristic is portrayed in every allusion to religious obligations, and the work is calculated to accomplish a great good by its familiar introduction of his highest duty to the notice of man whether abroad or at home, in the workshop, the mountain pass, or the gallery of art. There is no attempt to be religious, but the pious emotion awakens and utters itself spontaneously, and without formality, and is neither thrust forth unwillingly, or secreted carefully as if it were a vessel of dishonor. That first essay, entitled "At home and abroad," is singularly felicitous in these respects, and cannot fail to instruct and improve the reader, whether he expect to travel or to abide. It exhibits a thorough conviction, that work and not play is the highest and noblest earthly employment, and that in all labor there is profit. The pastor returns from his journey rejoicing in his home, rejoicing in his tasks more than in the glory of all lands, and finding in his increasing love for his life-work, and in his enlarged satisfaction with his life-station, the abundant reward for absence. He thus concludes in regard to natural beauty: "If the grand things you go far in search of, the falls, or the hills open not your mind to the teachings of God every where, but make you dissatisfied with, or scornful of common spectacles, and ordinary passages in the great volume of his works, your visit is foolish, and vain." This sincerity and outspoken frankness, as if he were thinking aloud, occasions however unguarded statements, which are calculated to produce erroneous impressions in respect to the real and settled opinion of the writer, and oblige the reader to wait until in some new scene, or under different circumstances, he may hear the other side, and discover the |