manifested in his domestic pieces. "The Brothers," "I see Thee still," and the "Family Meeting," are the finest consecrations of natural affection in our literature. The pathos of Bryant is so deeply tinged with the spirit of meditation, that it is rather the philosophy of grief than its direct expression. His regrets flow through his reason and imagi nation, but those of Sprague seem to gush directly from the heart. There is a purity, a sweetness, a true home-like feeling in the little domestic pieces of the latter, to which none but a fribble or a roué can be insensible. They can be read again and again with a delight which is ever renewed. The true soul of human affection is in them, and "waxes not old." A composition which dazzles at first sight by gaudy epithets, or brilliant turns of expression, or glittering trains of imagery, may fade gradually from the mind, and leave no enduring impression; but words which flow fresh and warm from a full heart, and which are instinct with the life and breath of human feeling, pass into household memories, and partake of the immortality of the affections from which they spring. The spiritual tone, also, of these beautiful embodiments of sensibility is exquisitely fine and touching.

The tone of a poem is, after all, its most enduring excellence. Images, metaphors, subtle and delicate phrases, may glide away from the mind, and yet the soul by which they were animated remain. There is much confusion produced in criticism by not discriminating between the form and the essence of poetry. In "Childe Harold," there is! probably displayed more of the radiant vesture of the imagination than in any poem of the present age; yet the tone of one half of that splendid apotheosis of misanthropy and egotism is unpoetical. Its effect is merely to stir and to sting. It leaves an impression in the memory which may be called

almost disagreeable. We feel that the author's spiritual life was inharmonious, that the tone of his mind was not pure. On the other hand, in many of Wordsworth's early compo sitions, where the versification is harsh or slovenly, and the diction mean and meagre, the tone is often fine and poetical. The "white radiance" of the soul shines through the most homely verbal expression. To attempt to analyze the tone of a poem would be useless. It is an object of inward perception. It is

"The viewless spirit of a lovely sound,

A living voice, a breathing harmony,

A bodiless enjoyment."

It may be compared to the murmur of a brook as heard in a dream. When good, it is the very music of a soul which contains no jarring string.

The tone of Sprague's domestic poems is, as we have already stated, very pure and harmonious. The swelling diction, the wide command of language and imagery, the deliberate and elaborated frenzy of his long odes, will hardly bear comparison, in point of true poetic excellence, with his quiet pictures of fireside joys and sorrows. The latter illustrate the truth, that gentleness is power. There is more real strength in them than in all the clang and clatter which words can be easily made to produce, when employed by a cunning rhetorician. We extract the little poem of "The Brothers," in illustration of our meaning. No dominion. over the mere shows of poetical expression could enable a man, without a full heart, to write any thing equal to it.

"We are but two,-the others sleep,

Through death's untroubled night:
We are but two,-oh! let us keep
The link that binds us bright.

Heart leaps to heart,--the sacred flood
That warms us is the same;
That good old man-his honest blood
Alike we fondly claim.

"We in one mother's arms were lock'd,--
Long be her love repaid;

In the same cradle we were rock'd,

Round the same hearth we played.

"Our boyish sports were all the same,
Each little joy and woe;

Let manhood keep alive the flame
Lit up so long ago.

"We are but two,-be that the band
To hold us till we die;

Shoulder to shoulder let us stand,

Till side by side we lie."

In the lines on the death of M. S. C., there is much mournful beauty and tenderness.

"I knew that we must part,--day after day
I saw the dread destroyer win his way;
Feeble and slow thy once light footstep grew,
Thy wasting cheek put on Death's pallid hue,
Thy thin, hot hand to mine more weakly clung,
Each sweet' Good night' fell fainter from thy tongue.

Then like tired breezes didst thou sink to rest,

Nor one, one pang the awful change confess'd.
Death stole in softness o'er that lovely face,
And touched each feature with a new-born grace;
On cheek and brow unearthly beauty lay,

And told that life's poor cares had passed away!

In my last hour be Heaven so kind to me!

I ask no more but this,-to die like thee!"

We cannot resist the desire to make two more extracts from this little collection of pieces.

Mr. Griswold tells the story of a compliment paid to Sprague, which is worthy of note. A British officer discovered the poem of "Curiosity" straying about, orphan-like, in Calcutta, and in the absence of its father adopted it as his own child, and gave it the first place among the progeny of his brain. After circulating widely in the East Indies as an English production, it was reprinted in London, and received the critical honors of the British press. The poem itself is deservedly popular, and Mr. Griswold has displayed good taste in printing the whole of it among his selections. The general harmony of its numbers, its agreeable alternations of sentiment and satire, its numerous pictures of life, character, and manners, its vigorous thought and brilliant

wit, and the genial spirit which animates it throughout, are qualities which universally please. There is much honest. and hearty indignation in the production, directed against the follies and crimes of society. But Sprague is hardly a satirist in any proper sense of the word. He lashes artifice and quackery with great force, it is true; but in doing it, he rather expresses the natural contempt and dislike of a clear-headed, right-hearted man for silliness and sin, than the labored invective of a didactic denouncer of mankind, edging rebuke with a venomous sneer, and more solicitous of antithesis than truth. He never dips his pen in scorn's " fiery poison." The spirit of beauty and humor seems to accompany and direct the sarcasm, whenever it is launched at the lighter branches of the fooleries and errors of the day, and it rarely becomes deep and uncompromising, except when it is shot at brazen infamy or brainless pretension. No one can read "Curiosity" without perceiving that its author has a most exact sense of moral distinctions, as well as a fine perception of the ridiculous. The moral character unconsciously impressed on the poem would do honor to Channing.

Referrence has already been made to Sprague's odes as productions displaying much forcible thought, metrical skill, and splendor of expression. But they have a mightier effect. upon the ear than the heart. The life of the man does not intensity as in his less ornate

circle through them with such and less mechanical poems. At times there is manifested, in the choice of the language and the movement of the verse, a disposition on the part of the author to lash his muse into exertion. Here and there, a tasteless or turgid epithet indicates, that not always was he successful in "wreaking" his thoughts upon expression. No criticism, however, could justly represent them as any other than remarkable produc