Greek who had been present when it was delivered, declared that he had seen tears flowing down the cheeks of a saint in a neighbouring chapel, because of its removal. Lord Elgin and Dr. Clarke had both to encounter the same ridiculous superstition.

Corinth, at the time of our author's visit, was a highly important military post in the possession of the Greeks. The ancient ruins which he saw, do not appear to have been very extensive or interesting, but he was fortunate enough to be admitted into the citadel, the Acro-Corinthus of antiquity, a place now, as then, remarkable for its strength.

"The garrison was small, and though the country was open to them, they appeared to be already suffering from want. The country could furnish little, even for its famishing inhabitants. The plain was all bare, except a singed olive grove towards its western end; the city was a heap of ruins below, and the scene of utter desolation to which we had now become accustomed, was here exhibited once more. But the view is very grand: Wheeler calls it 'the most agreeable prospect the world can give.' The two rival gulfs, with their winding shores, the isthmus, the city and plain, are just at your feet. A mountainous country, with every hue, is on the west and south: on the north, Parnassus rises high and peaked above numberless mountains around it: Helicon and Citharon are in sight. You turn eastward, and have the bright sea, with Salamis, Egina and numerous islets, and beyond these Hymettus, the plain of Athens and the Acropolis. We stopped frequently to admire the grand and magnificent features of the view, and all agreed that it was the finest we had seen in the country."

Proceeding southward, the island of Egina rises on the sight, but not now, as once, crowned with the lofty shrine of Panhellenian Jove. All that remains of its numerous temples are a few columns and fragments of marbles; though the desolation of the picture is somewhat relieved by the race of men who live among these ruins of former splendour, for they are remarkable for their industry and bravery. To the island of Egina succeeds that of Poros, ever to be remembered as the spot where Demosthenes expired; and beyond it is Hydra, a barren rock, which the enterprise and activity of its inhabitants have placed first among the seaports of Greece.

It is impossible to follow our author as he thus wanders from one ruined city to another, each reviving in its turn some recollection of our former studies, without being forcibly reminded of a beautiful passage in a letter of Sulpicius to Cicero, where he endeavours to console him on the death of his child. "In my return out of Asia," he says, "as I was sailing from Ægina towards Megara, I amused myself with contemplating the circumjacent countries. Behind me lay Ægina, before me Megara, on my right was Piræus, and on my left Corinth. These cities, once so flourishing and magnificent, now presented nothing to my view but a sad spectacle of desolation. Alas! I said to myself, shall such a short lived creature as man, complain when one of his species falls, either by the hand of violence or by the com

mon course of nature, whilst in this narrow compass so many great and glorious cities, formed for a much longer duration, thus lie extended in ruins ??

The only part of the Peloponnesus which Mr. Jones visited was the plain of Argos, of which he gives a brief account. Neither the ruins of that city, nor of Mycenæ, are extensive. He saw the marsh of Lerna, famous as the scene of one of the labours of Hercules. The modern town of Argos was, until the present war, a place of considerable importance, and contained eight thousand inhabitants.

"It was beautifully situated, and, with its venerable castle above, was a fine object from every part of its extensive plain: but the whirlwind of Turkish war swept over it, and left it a mass of ruins. It is now rising again, and though but a few streets have been built up, is thronged with an active population. A striking object among them, was an old blind man, led about by a boy with a guitar. He was singing to the crowds, and received a few paras in return: I stopped among them; they led him to my horse; and as he sung in soft Greek, about Greece and the Greeks, with such men about him as I have described, I thought of Homer, and almost felt myself realizing the visions I have had over the pages of the Iliad."

After leaving Greece, Mr. Jones obtained permission from the commander of the Constitution to visit Italy. He sailed from ‣ Barcelona in a small Italian brig to Genoa, and proceeded through Pisa and Florence to Rome. We have not space to accompany him in his tour over this classic region, nor in his rambles through the Eternal City, which he examined with his customary activity and diligence. Thence he returned by way of Marseilles to Mahon, and shortly after the frigate left the Mediterranean for America. He has filled his journal during the voyage home, which was unfruitful of adventure, with copious remarks on various subjects relating to the navy. They are undoubtedly worthy of attention, as the observations of a sagacious and inquiring person, who had an opportunity of actually examining the matters of which he treats, and who, from his civic character, may be supposed to look upon them with feelings perfectly unbiassed. To discuss them in the manner they deserve, would extend too much the limits of this article, which we have preferred confining to that portion of his work, likely to afford most amusement to our readers, as well as to give the best view of his talents and researches as a traveller.

On the fourth of July 1828, he landed on the long wharf at Boston, the vessel being welcomed with three hearty cheers by the crowds there assembled, amid the thunder of artillery from the Navy Yard, and the music of a volunteer corps, playing a tune to which their hearts all responded-"Home, sweet home."

ART. XI.-Specimens of American Poetry, with Critical and Biographical Notices; in three volumes. By SAMUEL KETTELL. Boston: 1829.

HAVING had occasion to look into the lives and works of several of the native American Poets, we long entertained the wish to see a collection of extracts from them, formed with more knowledge and favour than could be expected in a foreign compiler. This desire was increased, when we examined the imperfect or insufficient volume of selections which the son of Mr. Roscoe published at Liverpool-in a friendly spirit, but with inadequate preparation. It never happened to us, however, to hope for some twelve hundred closely printed pages of specimens; because we never supposed it possible to glean suitable materials for so many, or half the number; and we considered the choice as particularly important, with reference to the literary credit of America. Inasmuch as Europe had seen very little American verse, and the British writers had represented this land as one not merely barren of genius and fancy, but fatal to those powers, like mephitic air to animal life, we rather dreaded a general, heavy draught, lest the bad or indifferent productions should exceed the good, and the whole mass serve, therefore, rather to confirm than dissipate prejudice; or, perchance, provoke Anacreon Moore to recall his generous recantation. The great collections of the works of the British Poets, include a large quantity of rubbish; and even the ordinary anthologies and series of excerpts, such as those edited by Dodsley, Aikin, Knox, Campbell, Hazlitt, are charged in part with ingredients nearly equal to "poppy, mandragora," or any of "the drowsy syrups of the world." Not one of the British editors seems to have entertained the salutary sentiment which Pope expressed in one of his letters to Steele-that "he was afraid of nothing so much as to impose any thing on the public which was unworthy of its acceptance."

We have plodded through Mr. Kettell's three volumes of Specimens, and are fain to confess that we now repent of our wishes, stated above; and that the fears with which they were dashed have been sadly realized. Under the peculiar literary relations of the United States with Great Britain, judgment and tact were especially to be required in the selector; a nice, even fastidious, eclectick spirit; the utmost caution in lauding what might be questionable in point of merit, and very guarded temperance in comparisons between the best of our bards and the old British masters of the lyre. It terrified us to think, that the dull quaintness, and grotesque fustian of the Cotton Mathers, Roger Wolcotts, and Michael Wigglesworths, might be brought forth in loads,

and an array of American contemporary versifiers adduced, with all seriousness and emphasis, as the rivals, if not the superiors, of Pope and Burns, and every living favourite of the muse in Great Britain. But we did not apprehend, waking or dreaming, that the specimen-gatherer would have thrown out a drag-net, and swept into his hortus siccus every thing that could be caught with a discoverable paternity-every magazine or newspaper set of stanzas, fugitive and juvenile pieces, even the single attempts in rhyme of modest and otherwise distinguished gentlemen and ladies, who may not, or could not, aspire to be involved in any resurrection or nomenclature of poets whatso

ever.

Mr. Kettell has undertaken, "upon mature consideration," to record "every one" who, "down to the present day," has written any verse "with credit" in his opinion. His "tolerably accurate list of American poets"-whose "works were scattered as diversely as the leaves of the sybil, and in part so completely forgotten, that he was indebted in many cases to accident for their discovery ;"-this list is at least equal in length to any similar catalogue provided for any of the old countries of the globe: neither the British, French, nor German Parnassus is more crowded; and certainly no temple of poetic fame was ever so oddly peopled. We find bards, whose existence as such was hardly suspected-in governors, lawyers, revenue-officers, editors, printers, schoolmasters and mistresses without number. Attending to the scope of inquiry adopted for this work, we should not have been surprised to find President Jackson in it, with an oblation or two to Clio or Calliope; although, most inexplicably, there is no mention nor effusion of his predecessor, John Q. Adams, who has woven much fine verse, of a texture far superior to three-fourths of the preferred ingredients. Notwithstanding that our own doings in metre are obscure and anonymous-very anonymous, as the Irish gentleman said of the letter-we could not, when we had read Mr. Kettell's account of his theory and practice of research, and his tables of contents, but feel a little jealous and resentful that we were omitted; and we were only consoled and pacified by the consideration that we could ourselves have supplied him with some scores of specimens and names, pares et similes, which likewise escaped his memorable perquisitions. If he had ever been subjected, in one of the middle states, to the task, or rather exalted to the honour of sitting in judgment upon prize-compositions for the opening of theatres, or had acted, for one or two lustres, as the editor of a literary journal or common newspaper, he never, we think,—with all the force of his persuasion concerning the utility and glory of the enterprise, and the generous and patriotic indulgence of the American public-would have summoned

courage to venture upon the business of "exploring minutely, without guide or direction, the whole collection of American literature," for the purpose which he has announced and scantily executed.

Assuming that he meant to be impartial between all the wits of New-England, and the other divisions of the Union, to whom could be traced stanzas, equal in claims to his notice, upon his own principles of admission,-we feel sure that he would have recoiled in dismay and despair from the host of competitors, and have suffered an apoplectic surfeit before he had swallowed a twentieth part of their crambe repetita, if his appetite for common-place, imitative namby-pamby, and "rumbling robustious nonsense," could possibly be glutted. We have applied to his purpose, the phrase scantily executed, not meaning sparingly, for he has been even prodigal of his recources within certain geographical limits,—but in allusion to quantity and quality over the surface of the whole American republic of letters. We should hardly dare to say, how many volumes, pamphlets, and scrap-book pieces of verse, we have had successively on our table since the year 1820, coming from the south and the west, with pretensions not inferior, in our humble opinion, to those which could be sustained for any considerable proportion of what he has dug up and transplanted, as justly eligible under his comprehensive scheme of regard and adoption. We sincerely commiserated some of the veteran virtuosi, whom we visited through curiosity, in Europe, in their garrets, surrounded by the fruits of their long and arduous labours,-by what were, or they supposed to be, precious antiquities in the shapes of mutilated sculpture, broken pottery, and rusty metallic remains, of no intrinsic value, no susceptibility of common use. Similar or stronger emotions of pity have we felt for our zealous editor, as we contemplated him, with our mind's eye, searching and poring over the interminable, uncouth, rough-hewn "lays of the pilgrim fathers," devoutly believing that they had been "held in unwarrantable disesteem by their descendants," and fondly expecting to show that they are "monuments of genius,"-"testimonials of talent, and cultivation, highly creditable to the country." Reading some works, says Bayle, is like the journey of a caravan over the deserts of Arabia, which often goes twenty or thirty leagues together, without finding a single fruit-tree or fountain. Exaggeration aside, we declare that we would rather travel over a hundred or more miles of the road called in Canada and the West corduroy, than in "the dry desert of a thousand lines," such as those of Cotton Mather, much as we respect the venerable name in its twofold sanctity, of one who "wrote readily in seven languages, and was the author of three hundred and eighty-three publications." To proceed in a graver mood-we dispute the doctrine of the