THIS writer is one of the most noted, if not most successful, of the brotherhood to which he belongs. For so young a man he has written a great deal—a great deal too much, indeed; setting aside altogether any consideration of his accomplishments, his ambition, or his talents. One of the three volumes of verse which he has already published-and we shall take no cognizance in this connection of his prose-comprises more matter than all the productions of Longfellow or Sprague in the same line. Pity it is, that such a mania of mere scribbling and mere newspaper fame should turn the heads of our promising young literati at so early a date. Could they but exercise the self-denial to wait patiently for the experience which years only can give, and to encounter with 'hearts of controversy' the toil of discipline, which alone can develope and indurate the best muscle and nerve of the intellect, they would at least-whether the ultimate goal were ever reached or not-spare themselves many a sprain in the effort, and many a scoff on the part of spectators in the failure. Cowper did not begin his career until after fifty years of age. Scott himself, the most voluminous writer of his class since the world began, never put pen to paper-for the public benefit, we mean-till he had passed that climacteric at which too many of our countrymen have both confirmed themselves in bad habits and committed themselves in bad reputation. Nor has Scott repented of his tardiness. He has said to an American visitor, within a few years, that if it were given him to review his career, he would postpone the commencement of it till thirty, at soonest. We are inclined to think that in such case-however secure he may be, and deserve to be of his immortality, as it is the reverence of the reading world for his talents would have been no less than at present. All the poetry of Gray might be comprised within the limits of Marmion; and

that of Collins would scarcely occupy half the space. And yet who shall say, that when time has blotted out of man's remembrance three-fourths of the fluent verse of the Highland Magician, the Elegy in a Church-yard and the Ode to the Passions, will not be cherished, in every line and every letter, as sacredly as holy writ. The question for posterity is in these cases, as it must be in all, the perfection of the work itself, and not the precocity of the author. No man will inquire at what age or in how many hours it was written.

No American writer has suffered more than Mr. Willis from an indiscreet precipitancy both to write and to publish. His haste has essentially effected the quality of his productions and the character of his fame. In regard to the latter point, the really beautiful matter which came at an early day from his pen, procured him at once a general burst of applause. This was deserved. But it was without qualification, in the usual style of newspaper criticism in this country. No faults were pointed out; no cautions were given. If the flattered aspirant did not yet consider himself the most astonishing genius which the Western Continent had produced, it was at all events for no want of words on the part of those ministers of taste who honored him with their notice. The genius must have been extraordinary indeed, which, under such circumstances, could forbear being tempted to go before the public, and to keep before it, as soon and as frequently as possible, with much more regard to the gratification of the new appetite on their part, than to the cost or the consequences of pampering it

on his own.

To whatever faults Mr. Willis was predisposed when he commenced his course, it was to be expected, as an inevitable result of the mode of his debut, that he should take no great pains either to detect or correct them. The next result was, that continued practice and neglect should only make them more invincible and more incurable. They might have been eradicated at the suggestion of wholesome criticism, while they were yet mere weeds in a loose soil. But weeds have always a rank growth; and not the less so that the soil which produces them-a rich one it may be-lies well to the sun, and is tilled only at the surface. Mr. Willis's faults, then, such as they are, whether considerable or radical ones, or not, are universally diffused over his writings, from first to last, and from greatest to least, though as a general thing rather most palpable in his larger and later productions. It needs no special industry to finish a fugitive fragment with tolerable correctness, though the same virtue might succumb to the necessity of undergoing more labor with less excitement. A man may ride hard and well at a fox-chase, who would make but a sorry figure at the tail of the plough.

To come to the main matter in hand without ceremony. Mr. Willis's errors are those of the Wordsworth, sometimes vaguely termed the Lake school, of England. We do not mean to compare

his genius, and far less his education--his actual intellectual power -with those of the celebrated author of the Excursion. His faults, we say, are somewhat of the same order, independently of any reference to redeeming points. All things considered, they remind one rather of Barry Cornwall, and still more of poor Leigh Hunt. An English critic who allows to the latter writer the credit of poetical talent, at the same time represents him as frequently, if not generally, 'senseless in epithets, confused in metaphor, affected in style, nonsensical where intelligible, and incomprehensible in other figures, similes and elucidations.' Now, we think this an exaggerated though not wholly unfounded charge, as regards the subject of it. As applied to our Leigh Hunt, it would be still more so, for Mr. Willis's eccentricities are by no means carried so far. Still, they are the same in their incipient stages; and but for circumstances in the literary taste of the American, as differing from that of the English public, and in the personal situations of the two writers, they might have been equal in degree. Affectation is the sin which most easily besets Willis. He has real and natural grace; but this does not satisfy him. He must flourish a little. He must be more graceful than any body else; he must make the people wonder and stare as he goes by. He cares more to appear than to be; and it naturally follows-especially with his tempting facility of composition, and his dread of the labor of revisal and reflection-that the effect which is the leading principle in his manner, is merged in or marred by the too evident effort which is made to attain it. We acknowledge his ingenuity in elaborating exquisite phraseology; and his nonchalance in saying things that others would be ashamed or afraid to say: but so we acknowledge the skill of a juggler in balancing a chair upon his nose as he walks a tight rope. It is however small business, after all; and good though it be of its kind, it does at best but indicate a muscular power which might exercise itself in something more to the purpose. The most elegant style indeed -supposing elegance to be the sine qua non-is essentially like the most gentlemanly deportment. It attracts the least notice to itself; while it seconds to most advantage sentiment in one case and sense in the other.

Let us briefly illustrate the meaning of our remarks in the first place, and then the propriety of their application to Mr. Willis. In the outset, then, we do not charge him with the absolute silliness even of the better men whom he imitates. He has written nothing to be compared with Mr. Hunt's

'Little ranting Jonny,

Forever blithe and bonny,

And singing nonny, nonny,' &c.

What we chiefly object to, is ostentation in mere language; a degree of manifest departure from common custom, not to say common sense, which, contrary to the principle of true poetry, and in deadly opposition to all effect of the legitimate kind, attracts the reader's

attention from the matter to the style. Language universally used does not satisfy him, any more than ordinary raiment would satisfy the fop. There must be something very nice at all events, and if possible something very new. To illustrate again, Hunt, speaking of swans in the water, says that they

'glide

With unsuperfluous lift of their proud wings.'

Then we have the Nereids on the billows:

'Upon whose springiness they lean and ride,
Some with an inward back, some upward-eyed,
Feeling the sky, and some with sidelong hips,' &c.

As for the Nymphs of the forest,

This hum in air, which the still ear perceives,

Is your unquarrelling voice among the leaves;

And now I find, whose are the laughs and stirrings,

To make the delicate birds dart so in whisks and whirrings.'

Hunt is notorious for introducing adverbs of the same general description in the same dainty manner-generally at the end of a

verse:

'Tapering with tremulously mass internally.'

Take an instance with more context:

For as the racks came sleeking on, one fell
With rain into a dell,

Breaking with scatter of a thousand notes
Like twangling pearls; and I perceived how she
Who loosed it with her hands, pressed kneadingly,
As though it had been wine, in grapy coals;
And out it gushed, with that enchanting sound,
In a wet shadow to the ground,' &c.*

The eccentricities of this writer resemble those of Mr. Willis, and it is this manner particularly that the latter talks of the free play of anunhaughty lip,' the unsheltered hills, the unsunned temper of a child, unquiet leaves, an unstooping spirit, an unshadowed girl, habitual unrest, and the unplayfulness of this grown-up world,' with innumerable other expressions of a similar nature, whose novelty is their only recommendation. In the same spirit he labors upon sentences and upon ideas themselves; making it more of an object to exhibit an old notion in a new dress, however singular, and to protract a trifling one to the utmost possible extent, however wire-drawn, than to consult soundness or even clearness. Both these qualities, and indeed substantial qualities generally, are subordinate to the superficial, to the show of exquisite grace, fluency, taste, daintiness, and perhaps the independence or indifference which is supposed to characterise genius. There is

Foliage; or Poems original and translated-by Leigh Hunt. London, 1818.

study; but this is the study, not of style at large, but of style as relates to effect. Of deep thought Mr. Willis has given much less evidence than of the power of thought; and the instances are numberless in his writings, where even a single metaphor loses its whole force, as such, by the most glaring and abrupt incoherency of one limb of it with another. They realize but too often the monster described by Horace as made up of contributions from all the beasts of the field. For example, he says of ambition:

་ IT HATH NO FEATURES. In its face is set
A mirror, and the gazer sees his own.
It looks a god, which is like himself!
It hath a mien of empery, and smiles
Majestically sweet-but how like him,' &c.*

The passage ends with this smiling character, without features, lifting the window of the gifted boy, and coming in.

Vagueness is still more common, following, like the fault last named, from the fact that thought is subordinate to manner. It is not the object to convey the most and best ideas in the language the least observable of itself, but just the reverse. The expression is the main thing; and such stray notions as happen in the way, are thrown in to sustain that, much as boys make a bonfire out of shavings. Hence the trifling subjects frequently chosen; the extent to which they are dwelt upon; the repetition, and, (as Pedro would say,) the amplification and mystification. In some cases it is really difficult to conjecture what the writer would convey. He eludes examination, as the cuttle-fish escapes its pursuers, by a mistiness of his own manufacture. Take the commencement of the Brown University Poem in illustration, (it is too long to quote.) Here is the sketch of a boy at play; and as pretty as the language is, who is the wiser for what it means. Let the reader attempt to materialize the description. Let him ponder upon its sum and substance:

Again,

'He was like

A painter's fine conception-such an one
As he would have of Ganymede, and weep
Upon his pallet that he could not win
The vision to his easel. Who could paint

The young and shadowless spirit? Who could chain

The visible gladness of a heart that lives,

Like a glad fountain, in the eye of light,
With an unbreathing pencil?'

' it seem'd

As if the air had fainted, and the pulse

Of nature had run down, and ceas'd to beat.'

In the same poem the writer says:

• We drink anew and learn like Lucifer,

And mount upon our daring draught to heaven.'

This is making a pony from new materials-a draught-horse at best. Mr. Willis makes excellent puns.