'Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.'

And dare ye think me subject-or dare ye not to mate my tameless pride? I tell you, Roman-you can slay thousands by a word-but, for your soul, you cannot make one woman live !-Away! defile me not with your vile, slavish hands. These are my subjects!"-pointing to the dying girls around her, still fond, still faithful in extremity-"this is my kingdom, this-the sepulchre of my forefathers, who were kings and sages when yours were thieves and robbers!—And this-that was but yesterday a MAN and now is nothing,—this is my Idol, and my GOD. Away-I say! One death like this, is worth a thousand abject lives like thine, and one dead Antony a hundred living Cæsars! If I betrayed thee in thy prime, thou mighty one, most dearly have I rued thy fall!-If I sent thee before me, I shrink not from treading thy footsteps. MANES of the dead-rejoice-rejoice-ye are revenged!"

Her eyes glared wildly-the death-sweat was already darkening her brow, the foam was on her quivering lip. She must have been devoured by the fiercest inward tortures, but she made them subject to her will; and the bold veterans of a hundred battles shrunk aghast before her eloquence, keener and far more cutting than the mortal sword. She flung her arm toward the astonished victor in defiance, folded her garment decently about her limbs, placed the antique diadem of the Ptolemies upon her raven locks-and, without another word, stretched herself on the couch beside the corpse of him, to whom she had proved her love so fearfully !—She closed her eyes—but for many minutes the heavings of her bosom, and her loud and painful breathings told that the spirit was not yet extinct.-One long and shuddering sigh-one spasm-the dark eyes opened, but their orbs were glazed and lifeless-the jaw fell-and Egypt never more bowed to a native sovereign.

BEAUTIFUL SENTIMENT. There is a beautiful sentiment of Lady Montague, in speaking of Prince Eugene, which might be made common property greatly to the benefit of society. Speaking of this great man, and referring to the influences practised upon him, to his disrepute, at Vienna, she says: "I don't know what comfort people find in considering the weakness of great men, but 'tis always a mortification to me, to observe that there is no perfection in humanity." The sentiment, if generally inculcated, would do much towards social improvement, and would tend greatly to our forbearance, if not to our toleration, of fellow infirmities. It is but seldom, indeed, that we can expose greatness to a very minute inspection. The light must never be too strong in which we view it, or we shall be more apt to discover the spots, than the delicate outlines or rich lustres that lie between them. Yet this desire is always the first in the vulgar mind. It busies itself in search of defects-such defects as we should rather regard as the characteristics of the species, than the peculiar properties of the individual-and such a mind pursues this object with avidity; if for no other object, at least to prove that greatness and littleness have a nature in some respects common between them.

SIGOURNEY'S POEMS.*

It was once said-more pointedly, indeed, than truly-that a certain degree of madness was a necessary ingredient in the composition of a poet; and so often has this quaint remark been repeated, and so remarkably has it been borne out by the conduct and characters of the greatest modern poets, that it has begun to pass current, and is now almost admitted, as a fact established by full and conclusive evidence. This is not by any means the first time, that an exception has been adopted as a rule, or a brilliant error received as a truth; but we are of opinion, seriously of opinion, that much harm has already resulted to the cause of letters from this witticism, if it may be so termed ; and that more evil will follow than is at all expected, if men of wisdom continue, even in jest, to lend their authority to that which they know to be false. The evil that has been occasioned by the sanction thus given in jest, but received in earnest, is the establishment of a school of poetry, which has been termed, absurdly enough, the Satanic or demoniacal;—a school, which-founded upon the basis, and following the example laid down in the works of certain authors of undoubted genius, but, unfortunately for themselves and for their imitators, of no less undoubted eccentricity-has expressed its admiration of a Byron and a Shelley by copying, not their beauties, but their extravagances; thus extending the fallacy from its original form, and assuming that because every poet is a madman, therefore every madman is a poet. Moreland, the landscape painter, was a drunkard! but we have not yet heard that young men of talent have endeavored to qualify themselves for a niche in the temple of pictorial fame by the depth of their potations; probably because no wit has yet suggested that a certain degree of drunkenness is a necessary ingredient in the composition of a painter. It is not improbable, that many persons may think us guilty of making, what is generally known as, much ado about nothing, in thus attributing the absurdities of a school of poetry to a foolish joke, which is fast growing into a popular proverb. We detest your popular proverbs-we believe that there have been no greater debasers of public virtue than these quaint laconisms; no greater justifiers of meanness; no keener weapons in the whole armory of those who war against aught that savors of the noble, the high-flown, the old-fashioned, or the Romanesque; and, in sober earnest, we would now deprecate the further use of a remark which is now-a-days to be found in every second critique on works of poetic fiction, palliating, if not justifying, faults and follies richly deserving the reviewer's sharpest lash. Miss Edgeworth, in her beautiful novel Helen,

POEMS, by Mrs. L. H. Sigourney. Philadelphia-Key & Biddle. 1834.

has observed, with her usual penetration, that another hacknied quotation, the well-known phrase, "that no man is hero to his valet-de-chambre," has been these hundred years the comfort both of lean-jawed envy and fat mediocrity; and in our souls we believe that she is right!

We may, therefore, hold ourselves justified by high authority in the assertion that popular sayings, tending in any degree to depreciate merit or palliate absurdity, do in reality tend to check the growth of the true plant, and foster that of the weed. Lead a man into the belief that he can do nothing well, and the very belief will paralyze all his efforts;-induce a poet to believe that he must of necessity be a madman, and if the belief do not actually drive him out of his wits, it will at least induce him to feign the appearance of that frenzy, which he imagines necessary to establish his character as an inspired poet. But to what end all this,-or what have lunacy or proverbs to do with our author or her poems? Simply this, that in our souls we do rejoice at the appearance of every fresh volume of poems, which may help to eradicate this idle and pernicious doctrine. To contend soberly and seriously against a saying-to waste argument upon a quaint remark-is to run a tilt, like the visionary of La Mancha, against a flock of sheep, mistaking it for a pagan host with banners displayed, and weapons brandished;-but now and then to point out the fact that there are, even now, some writers truly worthy of the name of poets, who neither are, nor aim at being thought, lunatics, may be serviceable to the good cause.

Of these writers the author of the poems now before us is decidedly one, and one not of the least remarkable. Possessing all the deep piety of Wordsworth, without any of his affected simplicity, and much of the sweetness of Coleridge, without any of his metaphysical nonsense, Mrs. Sigourney's poems are scarcely less peculiar for their straight-forward common sense, their pure and unobtrusive religion, and their deep vein of natural tenderness, than for their correct versification, their harmony, and their true poetry. Very different as she is in her general style from the English Sappho, for so, not perhaps absurdly, has Mrs. Hemans been styled, we conceive that there is still something kindred in their spirits. Mrs. Hemans is the high-souled and delicately proud poetess of an old dominion; her lays are full of the noble chivalry of a state whose associations are of aristocracy; she is the asserter of hereditary nobility, the nobility of thought, of action, and of soul, no less than of broad lands and ancient titles, yet withal she has a thousand sweet and simple songs of the cottage, and the lowly hearth. Mrs. Sigourney is the Hemans of a republic; and if she rather delights to dwell in the hamlet, to muse over the birth of the rustic infant, or the death of the village mother, it is that such is the genius of her country-the boasted associations of her land are of simplicity and freedom; and as befit the muse of such a land, so are her meditations fain to celebrate the virtues of her country's children. As a proof of what we consider strong practical common sense, united to high and holy thoughts, and to a strain somewhat loftier and more spirited than is her wont, we shall proceed to lay before our readers a poem, which has, we think, been rarely equalled, and still inore rarely excelled.

ON LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE MONUMENT TO THE
MOTHER OF WASHINGTON.

Long hast thou slept unnoted. Nature stole
In her soft ministry around thy bed,
Spreading her vernal tissue, violet-gemmed,
And pearled with dews.

She bade bright Summer bring

Gifts of frankincense, with sweet song of birds,
And Autumn cast his reaper's coronet
Down at thy feet, and stormy Winter speak
Sternly of man's neglect.

But now we come

To do thee homage--mother of our chief!
Fit homage-such as honoreth him who pays.
Methinks we see thee--as in olden time-
Simple in garb-majestic and serene,
Unmoved by pomp or circumstance-in truth
Inflexible, and with a Spartan zeal

Repressing vice, and making folly grave.
Thou didst not deem it woman's part to waste
Life in inglorious sloth-to sport awhile
Amid the flowers, or on the summer wave,—
There fleet, like the ephemeron, away,
Building no temple in her children's hearts,
Save to the vanity and pride of life
Which she had worshipped.

For the might that clothed

The "Pater Patriæ," for the glorious deeds

That make Mount Vernon's tomb a Mecca shrine
For all the earth, what thanks to thee are due,
Who, 'mid his elements of being, wrought,
We know not-Heaven can tell.

Rise, sculptured pile!
And show a race unborn, who rests below,
And say to mothers what a holy charge
Is theirs with what a kingly power their love
Might rule the fountains of the new-born mind.
Warn them to wake at early dawn-and sow
Good seed, before the world hath sown her tares;
Nor in their toil decline-that angel-bands
May put the sickle in and reap for God,
And gather to his garner.

Ye, who stand,
With thrilling breast, to view her trophied praise,
Who nobly reared Virginia's godlike chief-
Ye, whose last thought upon your nightly couch,
Whose first at waking, is your cradled son,
What though no high ambition prompts to rear
A second Washington; or leave your name
Wrought out in marble with a nation's tears
Of deathless gratitude-yet may you raise
A monument above the stars-a soul

Led by your teachings, and your prayers to God.

pp. 262, 263.

Many-most indeed, we are inclined to think-of these poems have been published before, in various periodicals, but have never before been collected; that they are now given to the public in a united form, should be a real subject of rejoicing to all those, who have the cause of American literature at heart; for it is a further proof, if further proof be wanting, that, despite of difficulties almost unparalleled, of neglect and coldnessnay, more, of absolute oppression-the plant of poesy has taken a deep

root in the soil of America, and waits but to be freed from the vast shadow of foreign influence that now bars from it the light of heaven, to shoot proudly upwards and extend its branches to the four quarters of our transatlantic world. It is useless to talk of patronizing native genius, till we deliver it from the overpowering competition of European talent. This deliverance--strange though it may seem--can only be effected by abolishing an unjust monopoly, by enabling the publisher of American writings to compete with the republisher of foreign works,-which he can never do until the right of securing to himself the possession of his own work be extended to the foreign author. At present the publisher of an American work is liable to all the expenses of print and paper in common with the republisher of English books, while he is of course obliged to remunerate the writer, an expense from which the republisher is free. This unjust restriction, which was probably originally intended for the protection of native literature, is in truth its bane, and will, we trust, be speedily rescinded; for, so long as it is the publisher's interest to circulate European rather than native productions, so long will authorship in America drag on a laborious and unhonored existence; so long will the best writers of our country fly to shores where the wings of their genius are unfettered; and so long will American genius languish. Mrs. Sigourney's poems we consider then doubly valuable, as proving to the faint-hearted among us that there is no physical inability in our countrymen to compete on equal terms with the proudest of foreign poets; that we have achieved so much under circumstances strangely adverse, must at least favor the presumption, that under better auspices we may achieve yet more. On this topic we have much more to say, but we shall reserve our further lucubrations for another opportunity, and return at once to our immediate subject.

"The Cottage Scene" and "the Death of a Mother," are, we think, strong proofs of the similarity between the genius of our author and that of the other gifted lady to whom we have previously alluded, modified by the influences of early education and a different state of society, but still intrinsically resembling each other.

A COTTAGE SCENE.

I saw a cradle at a cottage door,

Where the fair mother with her cheerful wheel
Carolled so sweet a song, that the young bird,
Which timid near the threshold sought for seeds,
Paused on his lifted foot, and raised his head,
As if to listen. The rejoicing bees

Nestled in throngs amid the woodbine cups,
That o'er the lattice clustered. A clear stream
Came leaping from its sylvan height, and poured

Music upon the pebbles,-and the winds

Which gently 'mid the vernal branches played
Their idle freaks, brought showering blossoms down,
Surfeiting earth with sweetness.

Sad I came

From weary commerce with the heartless world,

But when I felt upon my withered cheek

My mother Nature's breath, and heard the trump
Of those gay insects at their honied toil,

Shining like winged jewelry,—and drank