Whene'er he heard the voice of pain,
His breast with pity burned;

The large, round head upon his cane
From ivory was turned.

Kind words he ever had for all;

He knew no base design:

His eyes were dark and rather small, His nose was acquiline.

He lived at peace with all mankind,
In friendship he was true :
His coat had pocket holes behind,
His pantaloons were blue.

Unharmed, the sin which earth pollutes

He passed securely o'er,

And never wore a pair of boots

For thirty years or more.

But good old Grimes is now at rest,
Nor fears misfortunes frown:

He wore a double-breasted vest;
The stripes ran up and down.

He modest merit sought to find,
And pay it its desert ;

He had no malice in his mind,

No ruffles on his shirt.

His neighbors he did not abuse,

Was sociable and gay ;

He wore large buckles on his shoes,
And changed them every day.

His knowledge, hid from public gaze,
He did not bring to view,-

Nor make a noise, town-meeting days,
As many people do.

His worldly goods he never threw
In trust to fortune's chances;
But lived, (as all his brothers do,)

In easy

circumstances.

Thus undisturbed by anxious cares,

His peaceful moments ran;
And every body said he was
A fine old gentleman.

ON NOVEL WRITING.

BY MRS. JULIA CURTIS.

ALTHOUGH We fully appreciate the various styles of novel-writing which belong to the present age, yet, we give the preference to the smoothly told tale, which bears the impress of nature, and leads the imagination gradually on with the skill of a

narrator, whose impassioned feeling is gracefully controlled. Those works which abound in passionate starts, in wild and unnatural impulses and incidental sketches of love-lorn damsels and disappointed artists, though they may possess passages of striking beauty, are infinitely less perfect than the rational, though highly wrought relations indited by greater minds.

Nor do we hesitate to assert that no other than the highest order of intellect, can produce tales resplendent with natural beauty; for it is much easier to write a rhapsody, than a true and vivid description, and less difficult to depict the disjointed ravings of madness, than to trace the upward progress of a reasoning and philosophic mind. Any one can fancy sources of excitement which may influence the villain or the maniac; but few can analyze the deep stirrings of the pure and highminded, or the darker workings of the every day hypocrite. It requires an accurate knowledge of human nature, united to a keen and reflective mind, to do this; and as few possess these properties in connexion with the imagination, requisite for the accompanying plot, such romances are rare. Greater genius is displayed in depicting the stern determination of Balfour of Burley, and the subtlety of

Rashleigh Osbaldistone, than the open villainy of Paul Clifford, or the haughty reserve of Eugene Aram. To these last novels, however, we would accord great praise. Their author is a man of brilliant thought, and admirable powers of language. But his works want nature. Human nature as it usually exists, presents a more difficult prototype for the artist, than its occasional distortions. The one requires a common imagination, the other, uncommon observation. It is with the novelist as with the landscape-painter. The latter knows that the hues of the sky and his own colors are oftentimes the same; but to arrange his ingredients so as to present the varied and exquisite shades in nature, to blend each harmoniously with the other, so as to strike the beholder as natural, demands surpassing skill. Thus the man of lively fancy and ordinary abilities, can lay before us an imaginative tale, brilliant but inconsistent, fascinating but anomalous, a mass of possibilities, but utterly deficient in truth and discrimination. Let us not be understood, however, as advocating a suppression of the imagination for the sake of practical good sense. consider the latter as tame and uninteresting, unattended by the former. We approve of beautiful

We

theories and poetical dreams; and of souls almost

bursting with their proud and generous aspirations. These tend to elevate us above the stern realities of life. Though, visionary, they may be so beautifully interwoven with the coarse warp of our natures, as to give a finer character to the whole. One whose fancy thus floats along upon the severer qualities of his mind, reminds us of a bold mountain height, around the rugged outline of which, clouds of the most delicate texture are so artfully wrapt, that the whole seems softened into a heavenly shape of beauty.

We do not like those heroes and heroines, who are set apart for display, having a constant fund of difficulty to surmount; as if it were possible to travel up and down a chain of mountains during a whole life without pausing in the vallies to take breath, and consider whether it is better to proceed or to stop short. We would rather observe the mind in this latter process, than behold it so completely wound up, that it must, ere it can stop, either break or run down. An author should relate his tale, like one who had merely observed the actions of others, and hastened to entertain his hearers with their repetition; or "to point a moral" in the events of which he had been an eye witness. But how often

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