"Mr. Quivis, or somebody quite as discerning, Some scholar who's hourly expecting his learning, Calls B. the American Wordsworth; but Wordsworth May be rated at more than your whole tuneful herd's worth. No, don't be absurd, he's an excellent Bryant; But, my friends, you'll endanger the life of your client By attempting to stretch him up into a giant. "There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart, And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect; There was ne'er a man born who had more of the swing Of the true lyric bard, and all that kind of thing; And his failures arise (though he seem not to know it) From the very same cause that has made him a poet A fervour of mind which knows no separation 'Twixt simple excitement and pure inspiration, As my pythoness erst sometimes erred from not knowing If 'twere I, or mere wind, through her tripod was blowing; Let his mind once get head in its favourite direction, And the torrent of verse bursts the dams of re flection, While, borne with the rush of the metre along, The poet may chance to go right or go wrong, Content with the whirl and delirium of song; Then his grammar's not always correct, nor his rhymes, And he's prone to repeat his own lyrics sometimes, Not his best, though, for those are struck off at white-heats, When the heart in his breast like a trip-hammer beats, And can ne'er be repeated again any more Than they could have been carefully plotted before: Like old What's-his-name there at the battle of Hastings (Who, however, gave more than mere rhythmical bastings), Our Quaker leads off metaphorical fights For reform and whatever they call human rights, Can that be my son, in the battle's mid din, Impressed on his hard moral sense with a sling? "There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare That you hardly at first see the strength that is there; A frame so robust, with a nature so sweet, Should bloom, after cycles of struggle and scathe, That the music had somehow got mixed with the whole. "There's Holmes, who is matchless among you for wit A Leyden-jar always full-charged, from which flit The electrical tingles of hit after hit; In long poems 'tis painful sometimes, and invites A thought of the way the new telegraph writes, Which pricks down its little sharp sentences spitefully, As if you got more than you'd title to rightfully, ning Would flame in for a second and give you a fright'ning. He has perfect sway of what I call a sham metre, worse, With less nerve, swing, and fire in the same kind of verse, Nor e'er achieved aught in't so worthy of praise As the tribute of Holmes to the grand 'Marseillaise.' You went crazy, last year, over Bulwer's 'New Timon'; Why, if B., to the day of his dying, should rhyme on, Heaping verses on verses and tomes upon tomes, He could ne'er reach the best point and vigour of Holmes. His are just the fine hands, too, to weave you a lyric Full of fancy, fun, feeling, or spiced with satyric James Russell Lowell. THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED I DU believe in Freedom's cause, Ez fur away ez Paris is; I love to see her stick her claws In them infarnal Pharisees; It's wal enough agin a king To dror resolves an' triggers, But libbaty's a kind o' thing That don't agree with niggers. I du believe the people want Fer I hev loved my country sence My eye-teeth fill'd their sockets, An' Uncle Sam I reverence, Partic❜larly his pockets. I du believe in any plan I go free-trade thru thick an' thin, The folks to vote-an' keeps us in |