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FRIENDSHIP'S OFFERING.

1.

ANOTHER year on Time's fleet wing hath flown,
Nor hath it left one trace to mar thy worth;
But as in youth, in beauty thou art grown,
And like a blooming flower of this Earth,
Thou'rt prized the more, the more that worth is known,
In whom all gentlest sentiments have birth:
Innocence and Love a fadeless wreath shall twine
For thy fair brow, and grace this tribute lay of mine.

II.

Thou hast seemed to me like a star of Heaven,
Gleaming in brightest radiance from on high!
To thee the dower of beauty hath been given-
Pure as that Heaven is thy purity:

And like those stars, immortal shalt thou be,
When Time shall call thee to Eternity.

III.

Would that my humble lyre could attune

A loftier strain-more worthy thee and thine! But I have passed the years of youth's bright noon, And time hath seared this lonely heart of mine! In Youth's bright days my song could have delighted, But now the world those brighter dreams hath blighted.

IV.

My heart is on the willow bough, but still
One chord yet vibrates to affection's voice;
Friendship can yet within my heart instill

A hallowing ray, and bid me e'en rejoice;
Hence as I now this friendship's offering give,
All happiness be thine-'till thou shall cease to live!

May no rude storm of fickle Fortune shrive

The current of thy hopes! but may she ever Preserve thee from the ills and cares of life

May nought thy young heart's fond affections sever; Thrice happy he, who one day shall possess thee, Daughter of virtuous love! in Heaven's name I bless thee.

THE FEMALE POETS OF AMERICA.*

Ar the end of the year, when the hearts and the pockets of Humanity are opened by the influence of generous Christians, divers books are exposed for sale generally more distinguished for gaudiness of binding and of illustration than for their contents. In fact, an edition of almost any book can be worked off at that season, provided it has gold on its back and engraving on its pages. The reason is simple. Then people buy not to read but to give away, and inflict the burden of gratitude and a heavy book at the same time. Acting upon this known peculiarity of the species, three collections of the Female Poets of America were published-one of them edited by Mr. Rufus Griswold, who, having already given us the lettered men of the country, now proceeds to demonstrate the women and children.

Looking at the index, one is aghast at the numbers of the Female Poets. Count them, and you will find ninety-three: ten times the number of the muses plus the graces. What is to become of us, if all the men emigrate to California and the women to Parnassus ?

Americans are renowned for their deference to the sex, and we, ourselves, carry this amiable weakness as far as the most ardent could desire. No Democracy among the Petticoats. For them the education and the occupations of a princess; for them ease and leisure; the sunny spots in life as well as on the sidewalk; the best seats at the theatre, dining table or in railway carriage. And although we are inclined to think that the Critic should be epicene, and that Aristarchus would have obelized Sappho, had he thought her deserving of it, we should not have found fault with these ladies for their "Verse limnings" and "Spirit-whisperings," had not Mr. Griswold banded them together to storm public favor. As it is, we shall have much more to say to the showman than to the singing-birds.

At the beginning we encounter the Preface. With whatever we understand of the first page we are forced to disagree. Mr. Griswold writes:

"It is less easy to be assured of the genuineness of literary merit in women than in men."

Denied We cannot allow him that comfort. There is but one stamp and but one standard of literary merit. This theme is lucidly developed thus:

"The moral nature of woman, in its finest and richest development, partakes of some of the qualities of genius; it assumes at least the similitude of that which in men is the characteristic or accompaniment of the highest grade of mental inspiration❞—

Such as what, for instance?

"We are in danger therefore of mistaking for the efflorescent energy of creative intelligence, that which is only the exuberance of personal feelings unemployed. We may confound the vivid dreamings of an unsatisfied heart, with the aspirations of a mind impatient of the fetters of time and matter, and mortality. That may seem to us the abstract imagining of a soul rapt into sympathy with a purer

The Female Poets of America. By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart.

beauty and a higher truth than earth and space exhibit, which in fact shall be only the natural craving of affections undefined and wandering."

Does this mean that the vagaries of a nervous woman resemble cleverness in an accomplished man?

"The most exquisite susceptibility of the spirit and the capacity to mirror in dazzling variety, the effects which circumstances and surrounding minds work upon it, may be accompanied by no power to originate, nor even, in any proper sense, to reproduce."

It must be, then, in an improper sense; for what is "to mirror in dazzling variety effects, &c.," but to reproduce those effects? Mark the danger of a sesquipedalian style. These uncontrollably long words run away with a man and make him contradict himself, Mr. Griswold goes on to say:

"Among men we recognise his nature as the most thoroughly artist-like, whose most abstract thoughts still retain a sensuous cast, whose mind is the most completely transfused and incorporated into his feelings. Perhaps the reverse should be considered the test of true art in woman; and we should deem her the truest poet, whose emotions are most refined by reason, whose force of passion is most expanded and controlled into lofty and impersonal forms of imagination."

We presume we catch a glimpse of the author's point, though it is so obscured by polysyllables that we cannot be certain. It is that a poem should be judged of by the sex of the writer. But this is not so. What has a reader to do with the gender of verse? Surely there is no such thing as male poetry and female poetry.

one

If the guess is a wrong one, our editor may perhaps explain in a future work the meaning of these quotations; if we dared suggest it, we would ask him to include them in his next edition of The Curiosities of American Literature. Except in the Essay on the Over-Soul, and in the Dial, that Asylum of "prose run mad," we have never met with any sentences so hard to crack as some of Mr. Griswold's. You think, after a close examination of his transcendental phraseology that you apprehend him, when the next sentence annihilates your presumption, and unsettles your ideas of the signification of English words. Mr. Griswold says of Mrs. Wof the bards:" There are in the writings of Mrs. W- few indications of creative power," * * "but her fancy is lively, and she has introduced into poetry some new and beautiful imagery." We should have said before this, that to introduce into poetry new and beautiful imagery, showed a deal of creative power; to say nothing of possessing a lively imagination besides. Sterne would have classed Mr. Griswold's style among the best specimens of the "lambent pupillability of slow, low, dry, chat." Perhaps language is not only the art of concealing one's thoughts, as Talleyrand said, but also the art of pretending to have them.

Besides the Preface, short biographical and critical notices of the gifted precede the Elegant Extracts. In these our author shines as above. Nil luce obscurius. This is the extent of Mr. Griswold's claims upon the public for applause, as far as this book is concerned, excepting of course the taste he displays in selection; for genius, according to a French writer, is not only shown in creating but in choosing.

Ninety-three Female Poets! of all ages; most of them living. From Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, whose productions were listened to with pleasure by Governor Winthrop, down to the latest "Vision of Light" in Graham's Magazine. Many of these ladies enjoy a reputation-are the nucleia of small systems, and have satellites revolving about them; others were un

known to fame, until exhumed for the editor's purposes. Some are damsels whose claims to a niche in this Walhalla are based upon their youth; and one, Mrs. Phillis Peters, relies upon her color. It is worth mentioning that Phillis was bought up a child in the Boston slave-market in 1761, and died in 1794. She seems to have merited the Latin epithet, Vates, for she was prophet as well as poet, as may be seen from the following stanza, which is clearly a foreshadowing of "Oh, Susannah! Don't you cry for me." “Susannah mourns, nor can I bear

To see the crystal shower;
Or mark the tender falling tear,

At sad departure's hour."

The Ethiopians do it better now. Add to all this, five or six engravings annual in their character, called Edith, or Bianca, after the manner of Finden and the Keepsakes; having little or no connexion with the text, and only inserted to please Santa Claus, and you have this book: like Ariosto's valley in the moon, a receptacle for things lost on earth.

We cannot claim to have gone through with the tuneful ninety and three. Four hundred double columned pages treating of "Types of Heaven" and "Dream Music," "Heart Questionings", and "Soul Melodies," Songs of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, are not to be done in a day. We doubt if the man or woman lives who has accomplished the book, or if such a mental Hercules is to come. More, however, has been looked over than over-looked, and a previous acquaintance with the Gifted of America, enables us to form an opinion of its contents. There is much of what the French call Amphigourie, or nonsense verses; which, from a happy use of stereotyped and sounding phrases, seem to a careless observer, full of meaning; but, on examination, are found to signify nothing. Pope's Lines by a person of quality, and Smith's Laura Matilda, are capital examples of the "Amphigourie."

verse.

"Lurid smoke and frank suspicion

Hand in hand reluctant dance;
While the Saint performs his mission,
Chivalry! resign thy lance."

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There is a deal of repetition: a line recollected here, combined with a line remembered there; an use of certain pet words beloved by tyros in "I trow"-" What ho"-" So"-words convenient for helping out a lame line, like a block placed under the short leg of a table. We find, too, the nursery style, resembling, exceedingly, those curious Yankee ballads occasionally published by Knickerbocker Clarke, in his Gossip; and as the Parnassus of ladies is generally situated in Le Pays du tendre, we have a large collection of "Forsaken One-bleeding-broken Spirit" poems: a type of which we borrow from an old number of Frazer's:

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That is the skeleton of all-the filling in only varies.

There is a deal of plagiarism perpetrated, with a coolness peculiar to the sex. On one occasion, even all-admiring Mr. Griswold cannot avoid noticing it; but he qualifies by adding: "though if Mrs. L———— had read it, (the verses plundered,) it was of course forgotten by her when she composed her own." Faith removes mountains of testimony.

There is much talent. Excellence might have been attained by several with more care and heed to the Rules of Art. But throughout the selections, we find little attention to metre, rhythm, or to choice of words. One is reminded of a voluable person endeavoring to talk in a language with which she is not familiar.

Above all, there is mediocrity-a disease fatal to poets.

"Mediocribus esse poetis,

Non Homines, non Di, non concessere columnæ.”

Certainly the columns of the Democratic Review ought not to concede it.

Much has been lately written and spoken about Nationality in Literature as well as in cotton goods. Miss Margaret Fuller and Mr. Matthews have run a tilt against the copy-right law, and broken pens and shed ink for American books. It is the fashion to call for a National Literature, as if it could be brought for the calling, as oysters are in a restaurant. To tell an author to be national, is as wisely effective as the request of a mother to a rising and bashful son, to make himself agreeable-a request which insures a blushing silence. Have we national traits sufficiently developed to mark an epoch in letters? Besides our negro music and southwestern fun, both of which mines of amusement are well worked, what is there to distinguish us? Indians ?-How many of us Easterns ever saw one? Forests?-As striking can be found in highly cultivated countries. The Great Lakes?— The Ocean is greater. Niagara is a world-wonder. What customs, what habits of thought, have we that are peculiar to ourselves! No;- when we reach a distinctive nationality, then will books reach it, without the assistance of plaintive magazine articles. The hour will find, as it always finds, the man, or possibly the woman. If not, and the nationalists see how their system can be brought about, let them do it themselves; and no longer cant hopelessly and helplessly about it. Why not petition, after the manner of Massachusetts, for a prohibitive duty upon foreign brains; or at least upon palm trees, and other poetic exotics, and such heathenish nicknames as "Imalee," " Udollos," and "Tathy thyam ?"

Much has also been printed on the difference of mental power in men and in women. Such a difference exists, no doubt; but we are inclined to think, that it proceeds more from education than from nature. Inferiority in muscular force is an analogy, but no argument. The education generally received by women, by American women in particular, is deficient, not in French and worsted-work, but in training of the reasoning faculties, and in sound, practical views of the world. The fair one is not taught to feel interested in the every-day business of mankind, or to think upon it.She is instructed to believe it becoming to know nothing about politics or newspapers; all that she leaves to husband or brother. In machinery she is acquainted with pen-holders and fluting irons: her theory of agriculture comprises rosebuds and camelias. How many ladies can drive, or ride any beast more vigorous than a superannuated pony, or can be of any

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