DEATH OR MEDORUS' DREAM. By the Author of 'Ahasuerus.' In one volume. pp. 66. NewYork: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

WE deem it a substantial tribute to the merits of the poem before us, that it has elicited the cordial commendations of two daily journals of authority in our midst; the antipodal editors of which, (one of them the first of American poets,) in awarding their meed of praise, candidly confessed that the production was more likely to be judged by a polit cal standard at the seat of government, than by any critical measure, based upon an impartial consideration of its literary qualities. For ourselves, we must say that we have perused the poem with a pleasure not a little enhanced by the reflection, that the author has been enabled to find leisure, amidst engagements which, if one may believe the partizan journals, must needs be numerous and pressing, to pay that attention to literary pursuits, which by so many politicians, and utilitarians of another class, are considered useless, if not belittling, to a man of mental calibre sufficient for any thing more manly than verse-making.' Indeed, this position we remember somewhere to have seen assumed and defended, in the words we have quoted. The opening of Medorus, Dream,' the fine lines on Death,' have already appeared in the KNICKERBOCKER, fron the manuscript of the author. They will be remembered not only by the readers of this Magazine, but also by those of very many journals throughout the Union, into which they were copied, with expressions of warm admiration. In selecting, therefore, a few extracts, in corroboration of the justice of our encomiums, we shall plunge at once in medias res into the volume before us; leaving our readers to judge whether the writer does not exhibit a hearty love and keen observation of Nature, in her various phases; a strong sense of the beautiful and the true; and an ease and smoothness of versifica o which go far to controvert the theory that, for certain reasons, (among which a restless ambition' has been cited as the chief,) 'there can be little poetry in high places.' Take, for example, the annexed brief but comprehensive glance at the four seasons:

SPRING laughing comes to bless the verdant land.
Sweet breezes kiss the glowing curls that lie
Upon her blooming cheek; a lambent fire
Plays from her radiant eyes; 'neath her light step
Daisies and cowslips grow. Upon the bud
She breathes, and quick the rose unfolds
Its tinted leaves, and, trembling with keen bliss,
Sips the pure morning dews, and soft exhales
A gentle odor through the garden's walks,
More sweet than beauty's breath. Hack to those
sounds!

The warbling notes that rise upon the gale
Steal o'er the soul like voices of pure prayer,
Or dream of Eden's joys. O'er all the earth
Warm sunshine streams, whose fructifying rays
Strike through the fibrous soil, and quicken there
A thousand lovely forms; these straightway start
From that deep sleep which heaven so kindly
sends

Through winter's rugged hour, while soon they
join

The happy circle of all beauteous things,
That fill the world with perfume and with song,
Hailing their bounteous mistress, virgin Spring!

Next AUTUMN comes, the sweet industrious maid,
Who garners up the treasures of past days,
Brown nuts, and yellow grain, and ripen'd stores
Of mellow'd fruits; yet still a pensive smile,
As soft as moonlight on some slumb'ring stream,
Throws o'er her face a melancholy shade
Of sober thought, as though her heart was sad
That the large harvests which her sickle wins
Should leave the earth so bare. And then she sings
A plaintive strain that echoes through the land,
Like the wild cooings of some soft-toned dove,
A note of resignation and of peace,
Though still a sound of sadness from the soul.

Lo! WINTER rushes from the land of storms:
From the cold Arctic regions, where he sat
Mong clouds and darkness, and vast misshaped
forms,

He comes, with frosts, and howling winds, and
hail,

And the dark terrors of a sunless sky.
Unshorn his ragged beard, and his fierce eyes,
Relentless as the murderer's stony heart,
Condemns the victim, while his icy breath,
More deadly than the lightning's fiery gleam,
Sweeps life mto oblivion. Spirit, no;
Man's finite faculties alone may see
Such evil in God's goodness: we behold

Mark SUMMER, sitting 'neath yon spreading palm,
Her shady throne. With matron dignity
She gazes round, and smiles in quiet pride
While counting o'er the glorious wealth that fills A crowning mercy of beneficence
Her wide domain. Now wave the growing fields In Winter's coldest blast. Could earth exist
Beneath the rip'ning winds and the warm sun;
Now the soft pulp of the distending fruits
Imbibes rich nectar from the glowing beams
Of the calm, golden day. Now Hope sits laughing
In a world of light, and Promise near
Weaves the bright numbers of a joyous lay,
With Plenty still the burden of his theme.

Without that change in matter and in form
By which her strength recuperates, and lends
An impulse unto Nature's fostering will?
The pulpy fruit would perish where it falls
But for the bitter kernel; flowers would fade,
No more mid sweet ambrosial dews to bloom,
But for the winter's torpid touch, that crusts

The leathery seed with its rough coating o'er,
Freczes its ardent currents ere they spring
Into ephemeral being, and thus yields

Unto a small and leaden speck, a power
Of life perpetual, and from duli clay
Maintains a breathing world.'

'A ducat to a beggarly denier' that we saw the same ocean, glowing under the same glorious summer-evening light, as is described in the lines which ensue. We have never compared notes with our author; but it seems impossible that the kindred scene in which we revelled on a memorable occasion at the Telegraph station, by the Narrows, should not have extended to Fire-Island; the locale, we cannot help inferring, of this picture:

[The pearl, and flame, and amethyst, and gold,
The shadowy vermeil flush, the purple light,
The amber-tinted streak, and banner'd clouds,
Like incense streaming up from Evening's
shrine,

OFT hath the man who loveth Nature's ways,
Musing, gone forth alone by Ocean's tide,
And, gazing on that amaranthine plain,
Hath mark'd the rich beams of descending day
Shoot slanting o'er the light and feathery waves,
Until the sea, by burning passion moved,
Through all its depths, turns into liquid gold,
And heaves and thrills beneath those ardent rays,
With love too strong for mortal minds to know,
With love too deep for mortal hearts to feel.
Then, from that glorious main, his soul-lit eye
Hath wander'd strait to heaven, and in one view The land of Paradise.

Wafted by gentle gales along the sky,
The beauty, brightness, majesty, and pomp,
The gorgeous splendor of the imperial West,
Burst on his raptured sight! He, happy then,
While Fancy's spirit-form smiles o'er his head,
Deems it the lovely sky that canopies

Here is a wider reach of more varied scenery, yet not less forcible than the more 'thin compositions,' to use the painter's phrase:

FIRST, as they look'd, there rose upon the sight
Long, waving chains of happy-smiling hills,
Uprising gently from the sloping vales,
As if to woo the rustling noontide winds:
Next, wide-expansive, music-making seas,
Across whose placid, soft-suspiring tides
The playful breezes fly, on tireless wings.

The Desert's thirsty plains gemm'd with their

green

And cool oases, bright mid barren sands;
Rivers whose pearly tides stretch'd far away
Through fertile lands to Ocean's emerald brink;
And lakes that seem'd, in their transparent depths,
The crystal eyes of Earth. Here mountains, hills.

Then, eath their wond'ring eyes at once dis- And winding dales, fair seas, and shining lakes, play'd,

Behold, in one far-sweeping, lovely view,

The broad green vesture of the quick'ning sod
Trembling with heat, and glowing into life
Under the warm sun's vivifying beams:

And silvery streams, gay-blooming boughs, and
flowery turf,

Conspire, in all their loveliest power, to make
The warm, the fresh, the pure, and beauteous form
Of this enamell'd world.'

Lovers of flowers; gentle maidens, scarcely less fragile and fair; and ye of the 'sterner sex,' who are not ashamed to praise heaven and earth; we ask you if the ensuing lines are not 'beautiful exceedingly :'

The red Rose, blushing in its virgin pride,
Hangs lightly on its green and briery stalk,
And kisses from its pale-cheek'd sister's brow,
With trembling lip, the pearly tear away.

Here Violets, that spring by stealth at night,
Of rarer scents and sweeter shapes than those
Pluck'd by the village maiden in the vale,

Ere yet the sun hath touch'd their dewy leaves,
Mingle their balmiest odors and their hues
With the soft-nectar'd sighs
Of wind-flowers, pansies, hyacinths, oxlips,
And sun-striped tulips tall,
Until the freighted airs themselves grow faint,
And on their weary way sink down to sleep
Among the silent wild-flowers watching there.

We have purposely abstained from a detailed review or analysis of the poem under notice; preferring that the reader should derive his impression of the performance from such portions of it, taken almost at random, as we could command space to present; leaving him to seek in the volume itself that gratification of which we are sure our extracts will give him a foretaste. It was our intention to have animadverted upon the use of certain words and compounds which struck us as being infelicitous; but we can only transcribe a few of them, without comment, from our pencilled copy: 'JEHOVAH'S fadeless arms;' 'frost-enmirror'd;' 'sun-bedazzled ;'' ornamentless curves; 'rich-rubied rays,' etc. To conclude:' we consider the present poem a manifest improvement upon 'Ahasuerus,' which was noticed at length in these pages. The author is now well in harness,' and moves on without incumbrance. Once more we welcome him to the quiet walks of literature, which he treads so pleasantly; and again we greet him with 'Macte virtute!'

EXERCISES OF THE ALUMNE OF THE ALBANY FEMALE ACADEMY, on their Second Anniversary, July 20, 1813. Albany: C. VAN BENTHUYSEN AND COMPANY.

AH! young ladies! we wish you could 'realize' how greatly gratified we are to find you so much improved! We say 'improved,' because it can scarcely be possible that you could have written such charming compositions, before you had experienced the benefits of the system of instruction pursued at the institution upon which you reflect so much honor. We say this in no vain spirit of compliment, but in all candor. The address of the President, Miss M. ROBINSON, of this city, is not only excellent in its inculcations and tendency, but is written with great perspicuity and freedom. The prize poem by Miss ELIZA WHITNEY of Philadelphia, has many of the elements of true poetry, while its trifling defects are merely mechanical. The committee who awarded the prize, one of whom we observe was Mrs. SIGOURNEY, seem to have hesitated in their choice between this and three or four other poems of kindred excellence. 'MARY GRAFTON' need not have sheltered herself under a pseudonyme. Her essay on ' What should be the intellectual education of Woman, to fit her for the duties of life,' is worthy of a strong and disciplined mind and a practised pen. The honor of the best essay in French was assigned to Miss M'CORMICK of Oswego, in this State; yet the committee selected it in preference to three others, only 'because they were forced to choose;' a fact which precludes the idea of 'rejection.' The capital tale entitled Home Education,' by Miss MARY E. FIELD, of Haddam, (Conn.,) must certainly have deserved the honor which it won among its rivals. We have rarely seen a story, the lessons of which were so valuable, in a national point of view, kept up with so much spirit, and eliciting so much interest, in the narrative. On the whole, so favorably are we impressed with these 'exercises' of the alumnæ of the Albany Female Academy, that we begin to peer into the 'onward distance,' and to see our own little people winning honors in that popular institution. So mote it be!'

THE CROWNING HOUR, AND OTHER POEMS. By CHARLES JAMES CANNON, Author of The Poet's Quest,' etc. With a Portrait of the Author. In one volume. pp. 132. New-York: EDWARD DUNIGAN.

THUS is entitled a neat little volume which we find on our table. Without being a 'great gun' in literature, or destined to make much noise in the world, Mr. CANNON is yet a clever versifier, and occasionally 'goes off' with good thoughts very agreeably; while 'the habit of wishing to discover the good and the beautiful in all that meets and surrounds him' is quite apparent in his compositions. The crowning hour' is the period when COLUMBUS first discovers land from the quarter deck of his vessel. Certain incidents of the voyage, and the emotions of the 'world-seeking Genoese,' form the staple of the main poem; but the prose of IRVING is far better poetry than the verse which here records them. The remainder of the volume is devoted to the republication of several minor effusions from certain periodicals of these times, and from a previous volume of the author. The Dogberryotype' portrait of Mr. CANNON, in the opening of his book, strikes us as being in bad taste. We are loath to interfere with such an exhibition of harmless vanity; but the picture being what is negatively termed 'no beauty,' we must adopt the advice of HOLMES to the plain gentleman whose portrait graced the Athenæum exhibition: 'Do n't let it be there any longer! Take it home, and hush the matter up!' It is but justice to add, however, that the portrait which fronts the volume under notice does not do justice to the features of its author. Engravings from Daguerreotype miniatures have never impressed us favorably, either as faithful likenesses, or specimens of pictorial art.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

'THE MYSTERIES OF PARIS.'- A 'friend and fellow-citizen' of ours has translated, so far as published, a serial novel, just now making a great noise in the literary circles of the French capital, entitled' Les Mysteries de Paris,' by EUGENE SUE. Premising that our readers will soon have an opportunity of perusing in an English translation some of the most striking of the very remarkable sketches of this DICKENS of France, we shall content ourselves for the present with a single extract, embodying a simple, but as it strikes us, a very touching and impressive scene. The RODOLPHE of the passage below is a German prince, who has come to Paris, and who goes forth in disguise to seek out worthy objects of benevolence. He encounters in La Cité,' a quarter of the town occupied by the most abandoned classes, a girl of a beautiful, melancholy countenance, called in the peculiar language of the inhabitants, 'La Goualeuse,' or ' Fleur-deMarie,' who turns out, in the subsequent progress of the story, to be a child of his own, whom he supposed to be dead, but who had in fact been left in the streets by her nurses. He proposes to take her into the country with him; and the effect which rural objects produce upon her mind is very beautifully described in the little episode of The Rosebush,' which will be found in the opening of the story. The whole tale forcibly illustrates what a French metropolitan contemporary terms the 'inépuisable imagination' of EUGENE SUE:

'I BELIEVE you, and I thank you; but answer me frankly: is it equally agreeable what part of the country we go to?'

'Oh, it is all the same to me, Monsieur Rodolphe, as long as it is the country; it is so pleasant; the pure air is so good to breathe! Do you know that for five months I have been no farther than the flower market, and if the ogresse ever allowed me to go out of the Cité, it was because she had confidence in me?'

'And when you came to this market, was it to buy flowers?'

'Oh, no: I had no money; I only came to see them; to inhale their rich perfume. For the half hour that the ogresse allowed me to pass on the quai during market-days, I was so happy that I forgot all.'

'And when you returned to the ogresse-to those horrid streets?'

'I came back more sorrowful than when I set out. I choked down my tears, that I might not receive a beating. I tell you what it was at the market which made me envious, oh! very envious; it was to see the little 'ouvrières,' so neatly clad, going off so gaily with a fine pot of flowers in their arms!'

'I am sure if you had only had some flowers in your window, they would have been companions for you.'

'It is very true what you say, Monsieur Rodolphe. Imagine: one day the ogresse at her fête, knowing my love for flowers, gave me a little rose-bush. If you could only know how happy I was! I was no longer lonesome! I could not keep from looking at my rose-bush. I amused myself in counting its leaves, its flowers. But the air is so bad in La Cité that at the end of two days it began to fade. ... But you'll laugh at me, Monsieur Rodolphe?' 'No, no! Go on! go on!'

...

'Well then, I asked permission from the ogresse to take my bush out for an airing; yes, as I would have taken out a child. I brought it to the quai: I thought to myself, that being in company with other flowers, in this fine and balmy air, would do it good. I moistened its poor withered leaves with the pure water of the fountain, and then I warmed it awhile in the sun. Dear little rose-tree! it never saw the sun in La Cité for in our street it comes no lower than the roof. At length I returned; and I assure you, Monsieur Rodolphe, that my rose-bush lived perhaps ten days longer than it would have done without the airings.'

'I believe it; but when it died!—that must have been a great loss for you.'
'I wept for it; I was very sorry, ・ ・ ・
one can love flowers, I can tell it to you.
laughing at me!'

Beside, Monsieur Rodolphe, since you understand how
Well, I felt grateful to it. Ah! now this time you are

'No, no! I love, I adore flowers; and thus I can comprehend all the foolish things they cause one to commit, or which they inspire.'

"Eh bien!' I felt grateful to this poor rose-bush, for having flowered so prettily for me— such a one as me!' The goualeuse held down her head and became purple with shame.

.."

'Poor child! with this consciousness of your horrible position, you must have often 'Had a wish to put an end to it? Is it not so, Monsieur Rodolphe?' said la Goualense, interrupting her companion. Oh yes; more than once I have looked at the Seine from the parapet. But then I turned to the flowers, the sun, and I said to myself, The river will always be there ... I am only sixteen ... who knows?'

'When you said, Who knows?' you had a hope?'

'Yes.'

'And what did you hope for?'

6

'I do not know. I hoped-yes, I hoped, malgré moi. At those moments, it seemed to me that my fate was not merited; that there was some good left in me. I said to myself, I have been very much troubled, but at least, I have never harmed any one . . . if I had only had some one to counsel me, I should not be where I am. That dissipated my sorrow a little. After all, I must confess that these thoughts occurred oftener after the loss of my rose-bush,' added la Goualeuse, in a solemn manner, which made Rodolphe smile.

"This great grief always...

'Yes; look here!'-and la Goualeuse drew from her pocket a little packet, carefully tied with a pink favor.

'You have preserved it?'

'I think so! It is all I possess in the world.'

'How! have you nothing you can call your own?'

'Nothing.'

'But this coral necklace?'

'It belongs to the ogresse.'

'How do you not own a rag?. - a hat, a handkerchief?'

'No, nothing; nothing but the dry leaves of my withered rose-bush; it is on this account I prize it so much."

At each word the astonishment of Rodolphe was redoubled. He could not comprehend this frightful slavery, this horrible sale of soul and body for a wretched shelter, a few tattered clothes, and impure nourishment.

They arrived at the 'Quai aux Fleurs. A carriage was in waiting. Rodolphe assisted his companion to get in, and after placing himself at her side, said to the coachman :

'To Saint-Denis; I will tell you directly which road to take.'

The horses started; the sun was radiant; the sky without a cloud; but the cold was a little sharp, and the air circulated briskly through the open windows of the carriage.

'Ar this moment they drew near to Saint-Ouen, at the juncture of the road to Saint-Denis and the Chemin de la Revolte.

"Notwithstanding the monotonous appearance of the country, Fleur-de-Marie was so delighted at seeing the fields, that forgetting the thoughts which sad recollections had awakened in her mind, her charming face brightened up; she leaned out of the window, and cried:

Monsieur Rodolphe! what delight! .. Fields and thickets! If you would only let me alight! The weather is so fine! I would like so much to run in the meadows!'

We will take a run, my child. Coachman, stop!'

'How! you also, Monsieur Rodolphe ?'