the very earliest literary pleasures which I can remember, was that of reading-and that time after time-his Pleasures of Memory: and the reading of this poem is now, after nearly half-a-century, not only one of my pleasures of memory, but, on reperusal, is equally fresh, equally true to nature, and equally attractive, by the soundness and the beauty of its sentiments. Mr. Rogers stands among us, if not the very oldest living literary man, yet by far the oldest of our poets; and it is a welcome testimony to the good sense and feeling of the age, that he stands among us with all the affectionate respect and the honor which he has so well won. Mr. Rogers, I believe, has never met with that species of Mohawk criticism, that scalping and scarifying literary assault and battery, which so many of his cotemporaries have had to undergo., There was a gentleness and a calm suavity about his writings which disarmed the most eager assailant of merit. There was in him an absence of that militant and antagonistic spirit which provokes the like animus. There was felt only the purity of taste, the deep love of beauty in art and nature, the vivid yet tender sympathy with humanity, which put every one dreadfully in the wrong who should attempt to strike down their possessor. The very first line of criticism applied to the writings of Mr. Rogers, was in the Monthly Review, on his Ode to Superstition, with some other Poems, published by Cadell, in 1786, and was this "In these pieces we perceive the hand of a master."

The master thus discovered in the first essay of his power, has never ceased since to be acknowledged. In 1792, or six years afterward, he published the Pleasures of Memory, which was received with universal and delighted acclamation. It took hold, at once, of the English heart; and became, and remains, and is likely to remain, one of the classic beauties of our national poetry. From that day, to so late a period as 1830, Mr. Rogers, at leisurely but tolerably regular intervals, has gone on adding to the riches

of our hoards of taste and genius. In 1798, or in another six years, he published his Epistle, with other Poems; in 1812, or fourteen years afterward, The Voyage of Columbus; two years after that, Jacqueline, i. e., in 1814; five years later, or in. 1819, Human Life; and, finally, in 1830, or when he was sixty-seven years of age, his Italy.

These works have steadily extended his fame; and amid the truest enjoyment of that fame, Mr. Rogers has lived a long and honored, and, singularly for a poet, fortunate life. His wealth and position in society, not less than his wealth and position in the world of mind, have drawn around him all the distinguished characters of his time; and his house, filled from top to bottom with evidences of his taste, and of his means of indulging it, has been the resort of most of those who have given its intellectual stamp to the age. Amid the great struggles and events of that period, the wars, the revolutions, and the social contests which have communicated their fiery elements to the spirit of genius, and produced works of a like extreme character, the mind of Rogers, calm and self-balanced, has pursued its course, apparently uninfluenced by all that moved around him. With human nature, and human life in general, he sympathized; but the love of the true and beautiful in it has prevailed over the contagion of the vast and violent : he has dealt rather with the pure and touching incidents of existence, than with the passionate and the tragic. Many, on this account, have been disposed to attribute to him a want of power and greatness, forgetting that the predominating character of his taste has inevitably decided the character of his subjects, and that to these subjects he has given all the power and beauty which they were capable of. Mr. Rogers is a great master in his own depart ment. In him taste lives as strongly as genius. He is a poetic artist. The beautiful and the refined mingle themselves with the structure as inseparably as with the ma

terial of his compositions. He knows that there is greatness in the broad champagne, with its woods and towns, as well as in the huge and splendid mountain; in the lofty but pure and placid sky, as well as in the stormy ocean. It is not the creator only of the Laocoon in all his agonies, that is a great artist-the Apollo Belvedere, and the Venus de Medicis, and the Mourning Psyche, calm in most perfect repose, or depressed with grief, equally demonstrate the hand of a master. There is often the most consummate display of genius in the stillest statue. Poussin or Claude are not the less admirable because they do not affect the robust horrors of Rubens, or the wildness of Salvator. In Rogers, the true, the pathetic, all those feelings, and sentiments, and associations, that are dear to us as life itself, are evolved with a skill that is unrivaled; and the language is elaborated to a perfection that resembles the finish of a beautiful picture, or the music to inimitable words. If we need the excitement of impetuous emotions, we would turn to Byron; if the influence of calm, and soothing, and harmonizing ones, we would sit down to Rogers. Each is eminent in his own department, each will exercise the supremacy of his genius upon us.

In the Pleasures of Memory we are forcibly reminded of Goldsmith and the Deserted Village. We feel how deeply the genius of that exquisite writer had affected the mind of Rogers in his youth. There is a striking similarity of style, of imagery, and of subject. It is not a deserted village, but a deserted mansion, which is described, and where we are led to sympathize with all that is picturesque in nature, and dear to the heart in domestic life.

"Mark yon old mansion peering through the trees,
Whose hollow turret woos the whistling breeze.
That casement, arched with ivy's brownest shade,
First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed.
The moldering gateway shows the grass-grown court,
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport;

When nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew.

See, through the fractured pediment revealed,
Where moss inlays the rudely sculptured shield,
The martin's old hereditary nest―

Long may the ruin spare its hallowed guest!

As jars the hinge, what sullen echoes call!
Oh haste, unfold the hospitable hall!
That hall, where once in antiquated state,
The chair of justice held the grave debate.

Now stained with dews, with cobwebs darkly hung,
Oft has its roof with peals of rapture rung;·
When round yon ample board in due degree,
We sweetened every meal with social glee.
The heart's light laugh pursued the exciting jest;
And all was sunshine in each little breast.

'Twas here we traced the slipper by the sound,
And turned the blindfold hero round and round.
'Twas here, at eve, we formed our fairy ring;
And Fancy fluttered on her wildest wing.
Giants and genii chained each wondering ear;
And orphan sorrows drew the ready tear.
Oft with the babes we wandered in the wood,
Or viewed the forest feats of Robin Hood.

Oft, fancy-led, at midnight's fearful hour,

With startling step we scaled the lonely tower,
O'er infant innocence to hang and weep,
Murdered by ruffian hands, when smiling in its sleep.
Ye household deities! whose guardian eye
Marked each pure thought we registered on high;
Still, still ye walk the consecrated ground,
And breathe the soul of inspiration round.

As o'er the dusky furniture I bend,
Each chair awakes the feelings of a friend.
The storied arras, source of fond delight,
With old achievement charms the wildered sight;
And still with heraldry's red hues impressed,
On the dim window glows the pictured crest;
The screen unfolds its many colored chart;
The clock still points its moral to the heart-
That faithful monitor 'twas heaven to hear,
When soft it spoke a promised pleasure near;

And has its sober hand, its simple chime,

Forgot to trace the feathered feet of Time?

That massive beam with curious carvings wrought,

Whence the caged linnet soothed my pensive thought;
Those muskets cased with venerable rust.

Those once-loved forms still breathing through their dust,
Still from the frame in mold gigantic cast,

Starting to life-all whisper of the past!"

This is so exquisite and old-English that it will continue to charm as long as there are hearts and memories. The whole of the first part of the poem is of the like tone and feature; the old garden, the old school and its porch, the Gipsy group, the old beggar, the village church and church-yard

"On whose gray stone, that fronts the chancel door,
Worn smooth by tiny feet now seen no more,

Each eve we shot the marble through the ring,
When the heart danced, and life was in the spring."

As it advances, however, it takes a wider range, and gradually embraces higher topics and more extensive regions. History, and death, and eternity, all swell into its theme.

A new element of style also marks the progress of this poem. There are more animated invocations, and a greater pomp of versification. It looks as if the muse of Darwin had infused its more ambitious tone, without leading the poet away from his purely legitimate subjects. By whatever passing influences, or what processes of thought, this change was produced, there it is. This poem, and this peculiar style of versification, soon caught the ear and fascinated the mind of Campbell, when a very young man, and out of the Pleasures of Memory sprung the Pleasures of Hope. The direct imitation of both style, manner, subject, and cast of subject, by Campbell, is one of the most striking things in the language; the peculiarities of the style and phraseology only, as was natural by an enthusiastic youth, much exaggerated. In Campbell, that which in Rogers is somewhat sounding and high-toned, becomes, with all its beauty, turgid, and often bordering on bombast. The very