It is to the causes to which we have here adverted, rather, perhaps, than to any special inclination in the genius of the writers themselves, that we must attribute the particular form under which the great body of our recent poetry has appeared. In the absence of that encouragement, which gave birth to poetical ventures of greater length, amongst their predecessors, the modern aspirants to the honours of the muse have been content to support their titles by efforts of less pretension; and the public, which would have set its face against more imposing displays of the art, has been won to listen to snatches of song, which, while they charmed by their sweetness, made no great demand upon its time and attention. A larger proportion of the verse of the day has, in obedience to the necessities of the case, assumed the lyric shape, and insinuated itself into notice, in the pages of one or other of the periodical publications. Much even of the popularity of Mrs. Hemans was won in the pages of these fostering volumes; and it was the popularity so obtained which enabled her subsequently to dispense with their aid, and come before the world in her own unassisted strength.

To a review of the poetical character of Mrs. Hemans, we are led by more than one consideration. With the single exception of Joanna Baillie, she is, perhaps, the only poetess of the day, who has established a chance of being heard, beyond the narrow circle of her contemporary flatterers. She has a right, therefore, to our attention: and though we have no design to inquire into the causes of the numerous poetical failures, to which female genius has been subjected, we deem it right, if possible, to ascertain the precise nature of her qualifications, and to point out the peculiar merits, by which she has been recommended to the notice of her countrymen.

But, besides this, we are anxious to rescue the fame of Mrs. Hemans from the obloquy cast on it, by the unfortunate publication which stands the seventh, at the head of this article. It purports to furnish memorials of that gifted lady, and illustrations of her literary character. The title, however, is an entire misnomer:—the book is written solely for the illustration of Mr. Henry Chorley himself; and includes, amongst its other contributions to that object, an absolute sacrifice of the interests of the poetess, in whose service he would be thought to have enlisted. What may be the feelings of the surviving relatives of the deceased, at the publication of this book, we pretend not to know: but, for ourselves, we must acknowledge, that we have risen from its persual with such a sense of indignation at its vain and gossiping details, that we can scarcely bring ourselves to speak of them in terms of ordinary patience. Why was the world to be told of a correspondence, which, to name its least objectionable characteristic, is little better than the tattle of a pair of sentimental milliners? Could not Mr. Chorley's vanity be illustrated by a more harmless process, could not his admission to the literary coteries be effected at a less cost, than the depreciation which Mrs. Hemans has been doomed to suffer at his hands?

There were many incidents in the life of Mrs. Hemans, which contributed to make her lot other than fortunate: amongst them all, there was none, perhaps, which may be regarded as so peculiarly unhappy, as the kind of association into which she appears to have been thrown, during her residence in the neighbourhood of Liverpool. For all the other evils of her destiny, her gift of song, and the fame, which was its high reward, brought something like a compensation; while the grave itself, which has since closed over her, afforded her, at length, a final refuge from their power. But this evil was one, which struck at those very gifts, and that very fame, which were her comforters under all her sorrows:—nay, through the medium of the publication in question, it has even been made to survive herself, and follow her with its depreciating influence beyond the tomb!

Our own impression, on the perusal of these records, was, that the character of Mrs. Hemans' mind, as displayed in her writings, had been estimated too highly. We thought it impossible to reconcile the existence of such exalted powers with the evidence which was now placed before us; and we resolved, therefore, to satisfy our doubts, and decide the question, by a reperusal of her works. If the result has failed to remove the difficulty, suggested by Mr. Chorley's records, it has, at least, established the fair writer in the supremacy of her intellectual powers. We can now appeal in her behalf, from her biographer to herself: we can place, against the evidence of Mr. Chorley's book, the evidence of her own books; and can thus rescue the general memory of the illustrious dead from the shadow flung upon it by these foolish records of a few foolish years.

Felicia Dorothea Browne, was born in Liverpool, on the 25th of September 1794, according to Mr. Chorley, but, according to another of her biographers, in 1793. Her father was a merchant, at one time, of some eminence; and her mother, whose family name was Wagner, though a German by birth, was of Italian descent. It is upon the strength of this fact, that Mr. Chorley has chosen to favour us with some vague and apocryphal statements regarding the pedigree of this same Miss Wagner, whose ancestral tree is said to have borne, at some uncertain periods, no less than three Doges. We have no authority to contradict this statement: but we have had some personal means of making acquaintance with the circumstances of Mrs. Hemans' history, and we must acknowledge, that we now hear of her "high lineage" for the first time. Of course, however, it is serviceable to Mr. Chorley's peculiar view of his subject. He talks about the influence of what he calls the force du sang; he speaks of the probability of her poetical temperament having been derived from her Italian origin; and he concludes by referring us generally to a foreign descent, for "that remarkable instinct towards the beautiful, which rarely forms so prominent a feature in the character of one wholly English born." We have no doubt that this will form a text of great authority amongst the milliners' apprentices; and as little that any of our poetesses, who may hereafter be looking for immortality at the hands of Mr. Chorley, will take especial care to find a Venetian Doge, or at the very least, a Neapolitan Bandit, lurking somewhere or other amongst the branches of their family trees. What, however, appears to us to have been of far more consequence, both in itself, and in its influence on the mind of the future poetess, is, that her mother was a woman richly endowed with virtues and accomplishments; and that she applied them to the instruction of her daughter, under circumstances the most favourable to the development of her fine natural powers.

Some unfortunate speculations, during the precarious period of the French Revolution, having broken up the commercial fortunes of her father, he retired with his family, at an early period of his gifted daughter's life, into North Wales. Here, in "a solitary, old, and spacious mansion, lying close to the seashore, and in front shut in by a chain of rocky hills," we should have thought that, without travelling to Italy for the purpose, Mr. Chorley might have found the origin of "that strong tinge of romance which," according to him, "from infancy pervaded every thought, word, and aspiration of her daily life:"—and here too, under the care of that admirable mother, of whose high fitness for the task, Mrs. Hemans is not the only daughter that has furnished evidence, the powers of her intellect were unfolded, and the vigour of her fancy grew. There was nothing remarkable in her youth; although Mr. Chorley fills his narrative with those common-places of biography, by which, with a view to confer a spurious interest on those who need no such appliance, persons who achieve distinction in after-life, are subsequently discovered to have been very wonderful children. Thus, we are informed that Mrs. Hemans had, in youth, a very strong memory,—a circumstance by no means sufficiently remarkable in childhood, to erect her into a prodigy. Then, again, we are told that having early discovered a taste for poetry (no uncommon thing either), she used to climb into an apple-tree, for the purpose of reading Shakspeare! Finally, we have anecdotes of such value as the following:—"One gentleman, who took a kind and efficient interest in the publication of her earliest poems, talked so much, and so warmly, about her, that his sister used to say—'Brother, you must be in love with that girl!'—to which he would answer,—'If I were twenty years younger, I would marry her!"' And again, there is a small piece of the sentimental, executed by a lady, who must have been not only remarkably fine, but also remarkably foolish; and who is reported to have said, in the hearing of the little Felicia,—"That child is not made for happiness, I know; her colour comes and goes too fast"!

All this is very sorry and very sickly stuff, not worth relating, if it were true, leading to no possible conclusion, and proving nothing but the frivolity of the mind that could occupy itself in its collection. Indeed, Mr. Chorley himself seems to have been aware of his own weakness. Like Dangle, in the "Critic," he evidently labours under a suspicion that we may have "heard something like this before:" and accordingly, he endeavours to astonish us with an anecdote, which, at least, possesses the merit of being uncommon:—"The sea-shore," says the biographer, "was her Forest of Ardennes; and she loved its loneliness and freedom well: it was a favorite freak of her's, WHEN QUITE A CHILD, to get up privately, after the careful attendants had fancied her safe in bed, and making her way down to the waterside, to indulge herself with a stolen bath!!" Truly, this anecdote, if authenticated, would be original indeed!—though even then, we think, that, as an illustration of character, it would have had a better effect, if introduced amongst the childish memorials of some future admiral, or circumnavigator. As it is, however, we suspect that somebody has been mystifying our author.

The reader will scarcely wonder, if we pause, for a moment, to remark Mr. Chorley's statements, relative to the uncommon beauty of his heroine. Mrs. Hemans was never beautiful. We have the best authority for asserting, that she had, at no time, any beauty, beyond that of youth; and in later years she certainly was extremely plain. How Mr. Chorley can have been induced to venture upon this subject, we are at a loss to imagine. To the illustration of Mrs. Hemans' fame such statements must necessarily be useless: to the reputation of the writer himself they must be positively injurious. They must impeach his judgment as a critic, and cast suspicion on his fidelity as a biographer.—But to return to Mrs. Hemans. That, which was remarkable in the progress of this lady's youth, manifested itself at a later period, than that to which our author has referred. Charmed, undoubtedly, at an early age, with the productions of the muse, her "prevailing love of poetry" (we quote from a sensible and well-written memoir prefixed to the published volume of her "Remains") "soon naturally turned to a cultivation of the art, in her own person; and a volume of verses, written by her, when she was not yet eleven years old, attracted, from that circumstance, as well as from its intrinsic merit, no inconsiderable share of public attention. This little volume was, in the course of the four succeeding years, followed by two others, which evinced powers gradually but steadily expanding, and which were received with increasing fervour by the admirers of poetry."

The fact, however, is, that these volumes were of little value, excepting for the indications which they contained, of immature powers, from whose ripenings much was to be expected. The fulfilment of the promise which they exhibited was, however, postponed by events, of which we know little; but which, nevertheless, exercised the most powerful influence over the future fortunes, as well as mind, of the poetess. Her marriage with Captain Hemans, of the 4th regiment, a gentleman of the most respectable connexions, took place in her nineteenth year; and was followed a few years afterwards, and shortly before the birth of a fifth son, by a separation, which proved to be final, as regards this world. Of the causes, which led to this unhappy result, nothing is certainly known. Those which are generally assigned, are inadequate to explain it; and we may, therefore, presume, that the true ones involved feelings, which the parties interested had no disposition to parade before the world. If Mr. Chorley possesses the means of enlightening the curious on this subject, we give him all credit for the good taste which has induced him to be silent; and could only wish that it had been equally effectual in leading him to still farther suppressions. Certain it is, however, that this breaking up of those fortunes, which, under almost any circumstances, form the happiest destiny of woman—this unnatural widowhood to which she was condemned, not only communicated its tone of regret to her spirit, and murmur to her song, but has more than once, we think, been distinctly pointed out in some of the more tender passages of her poetry. Thus, in those snatches of Corinne-like song, which we meet with in Properzia Rossi, it is impossible not to believe, that her own history and feelings are shadowed out. Rossi was a celebrated female sculptor and poet, of Bologna, who is said to have died of an unrequited attachment, after the completion of her last work, a basso-relievo of Ariadne.

It comes,—the power
Within me born, flows back; my fruitless dower
That could not win me love. Yet once again
I greet it proudly, with its rushing train
Of glorious images: they throng—they press—
A sudden joy lights up my loneliness,—
I shall not perish, all!
The bright work grows
Beneath my hand, unfolding, as a rose,
Leaf after leaf to beauty; line by line,
I fix my thought, heart, soul, to bum, to shine,
Thro' the pale marble's veins. It grows—and now
I give my own life's history to thy brow,
Forsaken Ariadne! thou shalt wear
My form, my lineaments; but oh! more fair,
Touched into lovelier being by the glow
Which in me dwells, as by the summer light
All things are glorified. From thee my woe
Shall yet look beautiful to meet his sight,
When I am passed away. Thou art the mould
Wherein I pour the fervent thoughts, the untold,
The self-consuming! Speak to him of me,
Thou, the deserted by the lonely sea,
With the soft sadness of thine earnest eye,—
Speak to him, lorn one! deeply, mournfully,
Of all my love and grief! Oh! could I throw
Into thy frame a voice,—a sweet, and low,
And thrilling voice of song! when he came nigh,
To send the passion of its melody
Through his pierced bosom—on its tones to bear
My life's deep feeling, as the southern air
Wafts the faint myrtle's breath,—to rise, to swell,
To sink away in accents of farewell,
Winning but one, one gush of tears, whose flow
Surely my parted spirit yet might know,
If love be strong as death.
How fair thou art,
Thou form whose life is of my burning heart!
Yet all the vision that within me wrought
I cannot make thee! Oh! I might have given
Birth to creations of far nobler thought;
I might have kindled with the fire of heaven
Things not of such as die! But I have been
Too much alone:—a heart whereon to lean,
With all these deep affections, that o'erflow
My aching soul, and find no shore below,—
An eye to be my star,—a voice to bring
Hope o'er my path, like sounds that breathe of spring;—
These are denied me—dreamt of still in vain;
Therefore my brief aspirings from the chain
Are ever but as some wild, fitful song,
Rising triumphantly, to die ere long
In dirge-like echoes.
Yet the world will see
Little of this, my parting work, in thee.
Thou shalt have fame!—Oh, mockery! give the reed
From storms a shelter,—give the drooping vine
Something round which its tendrils may entwine,—
Give the parched flower a rain-drop,—and the meed
Of love's kind words to woman! Worthless fame!
That in his bosom wins not for my name
The abiding-place it asked! Yet how my heart,
In its own fairy world of song and art,
Once beat for praise!

And again:—

Where'er I move
The shadow of this broken-hearted love
Is on me and around. Too well they know
Whose life is all within—too soon and well,
When there the blight hath settled! But I go
Under the silent wings of peace to dwell;
From the slow wasting, from the lonely pain,
The inward burning of those words—"in vain "—
Seared on the heart, I go. 'Twill soon be past.
Sunshine and song, and bright Italian heaven,
And thou—oh! thou, on whom my spirit cast
Unvalued wealth—who knowest not what was given

In that devotedness—the sad, and deep,
And unrepaid—farewell! If I could weep
Once, only once, belov'd one, on thy breast,
Pouring my heart forth ere I sink to rest!
But that were happiness; and unto me
Earth's gift is fame. Yet I was formed to be
So richly blest! With thee to watch the sky,
Speaking not—feeling but that thou wert nigh;
With thee to listen, while the tones of song
Swept, even as part of our sweet air, along,—
To listen silently;—with thee to gaze
On forms, the deified of olden days,
This had been joy enough; and, hour by hour,
From its glad well-springs drinking life and power,
How had my spirit soared, and made its fame
A glory for thy brow! Dreams—dreams!—the fire
Burns faint within me. Yet I leave my name,
As a deep thrill may linger on the lyre,
When its full cords are hushed—awhile to live,
And, one day, haply in thy heart revive
Sad thoughts of me:—I leave it with a sound,
A spell o'er memory, mournfully profound,
I leave it on my country's air to dwell,—
Say proudly yet—"'twas hers, who loved me well!"

After her separation from her husband, Mrs. Hemans continued to reside with her mother and sister, at a quiet and secluded spot, in the neighbourhood of St. Asaph. Here it was that her powers grew to their full stature, and her mind, busied in laying up its store of acquirements, prepared itself for those magnificent efforts, by which it was afterwards distinguished. It was in this neighbourhood that the expanding tone and compass of her minstrelsy first waylaid the attention of such spirits as Byron and Shelley: it was here that she won the friendship of Milman and Reginald Heber; and it is to this spot, therefore, that we would point for testimonials to her genius, which are worth all the unmeaning anecdotes that Mr. Chorley has given to the world.

The life of Mrs. Hemans, subsequently to the termination of its wedded years, seems to divide itself into three distinct and unequal portions; the first, the longest and by far the most important, includes the remainder of her residence in North Wales; the second embraces the period which she passed in the neighbourhood of Liverpool; and the third extends over that, during which she was restored to the association of her own family in Ireland. The rapid developement of her mind, during the earliest of these periods, is well supposed by Mr. Chorley to have been promoted by those peculiar circumstances of her position, which, "by placing her in a household as a member, and not as its head, excused her from many of those small cares of domestic life, which might have fretted away her day-dreams, and by interruption, have made of less avail the search for knowledge to which she bent herself with such eagerness." During this period it was, that she poured forth in rapid succession, the largest and by far the most valuable body of her poetry, beginning with her prize poems of "Wallace" and "Dartmoor," some not very able translations from Camoens and others, and "The Restoration of the Works of Art to Italy;" and including the "Tales and Historic Scenes," "The Sceptic," "Modern Greece," "The Vespers of Palermo," "The Welsh Melodies," "The Siege of Valencia," "The Forest Sanctuary," "The Records of Woman," and above all, the best and greatest portion of those fine detached lyrics, which, having separately contributed to float her up to the height of her popularity, upon their swelling music, have since been collected under various titles, such as "Lays of Many Lands," "Songs of the Affections," &c. Here then is the place to pause, and before we proceed to the less pleasing task of examining that portion of her history which forms the principal material of Mr. Chorley's volumes, to make some enquiry into the character of her genius, and its claims on the admiration of posterity.

From this enquiry, we will at once discharge the earliest of the poems which we have mentioned; because they are, as Mr. Chorley observes, the produce of the transition state of her mind; and, standing, as she does, for judgment, at the bar of posterity, she has a right to be tried by the best of her productions, and the fruits of her matured powers. "Her first works," he correctly remarks, "are purely classical, or purely romantic: they may be compared to antique groups of sculpture, or the mailed ornamental figures of the middle ages set in motion. As she advanced on her way, sadly learning, the while, the grave lessons which time and trial teach, her songs breathed more of reality, and less of romance; the too exclusive and feverish reverence for high intellectual or imaginative endowment, yielded to a calmness, and a cheerfulness, and a willingness, more and more, not merely to speculate upon, but to partake of, the beauty in our daily paths."

It has been remarked, we believe by Mrs. Jameson, that "the poetry of Mrs. Hemans could only have been written by a woman;"—and although this is undoubtedly true, yet it is not less certain, that there is something wanted in it, which might most confidently have been looked for from a woman's muse.

The prominent qualities of Mrs. Hemans' poetical writings, are, a versification whose varied melody has scarcely been surpassed, a splendour of general diction,—whose pomp has occasionally been employed to conceal a poverty of thought,—and a frequent grace and picturesqueness of particular expression, which enrich it with the continual and unexpected claim of a curiosa felicitas. These, with an unlimited command of glowing imagery, an unfailing taste in its appropriation, extreme elegance of thought, and a fine perception of the tenderness of others, have contributed to conceal, from many of her admirers, the somewhat inconsistent fact, that Mrs. Hemans is, herself, deficient in tenderness. Near as she appears to have sometimes approached to it, it is, nevertheless, true, that she has nowhere, or very rarely, stirred the fountain of tears; and it is as true, that, notwithstanding an air of mournful philosophy breathed over her poetry, she has seldom sounded the "deeper deeps" of the spirit. The thoughts, with which her muse is most conversant, lie near the surface of a poetical mind like hers. Her pictures of passion want vitality, and appear rather to be sketched from the traditions of the intellect, than drawn from the deep feelings of a woman's heart. Often as the ear is agreeably startled by graceful expression in her gem-like verse, yet it is scarcely ever surprised with any of those lines, which it at once tranfers to the heart, to be a part of its treasury for ever. The grace of simplicity is one, which she has rarely reached,—one which she seldom even aimed at till later in life, when it failed her. It was not of the nature of her genius; and its want, united with the other characteristics which we have mentioned, contributed, in no inconsiderable degree, to produce that monotony, whereby her poetry is so unpleasantly distinguished.

But there is another cause for this monotony, arising from a defect in her philosophy; and this, also, she tried to correct in later life, and with better success. It consists in her tendency to draw from every subject, which she selects for her muse, its gloomier moral. The futility and mortality of all things furnish her constant theme: her notions of the poetical, indeed, seem, for a long time, to have been limited to these objects. She could not select such a topic as that of Bruce's triumphant feelings, beside the long-sought springs of the Nile, save for the purpose of describing the revulsion that came over him, as he thought of the weary space which he had traversed to find these little fountains, and the long distance and many dangers, which still reared themselves between him and his home. She surrounds a subject with all its external pomps, and adorns it with a robe of gorgeous imagery, that she may afterwards pluck out the dark heart of its mystery, in mockery of its pride. All the beauty, that spring confers upon the natural world, is contrasted with all the desolation which it too often brings to the heart. This, it is true, is frequently done for a high moral object, and in a gush of song which makes it incumbent upon us to furnish some of our evidences of her genius, from this class of subjects. But our complaint is, that it runs through her poetry, as its prevailing moral characteristic. "Vanity of vanities!"— "all is vanity!"—makes the perpetually recurring burthen of her song. We will quote:—

THE REVELLERS

Ring, joyous chords! ring out again!
A swifter still, and a wilder strain!
They are here—the fair face and the careless heart,
And stars shall wane ere the mirthful part.
—But I met a dimly mournful glance,
In a sudden turn of the flying dance!
I heard the tone of a heavy sigh,
In a pause of the thrilling melody!
And it is not well that woe should breathe
On the bright spring-flowers of the festal wreath.
—Ye that to thought or to grief belong,
Leave—leave the hall of song!

Ring, joyous chords!—but who art thou.
With the shadowy locks o'er thy pale young brow,
And the world of dreamy gloom that lies
In the misty depths of thy soft dark eyes?
—Thou hast loved, fair girl! thou hast loved too well!
Thou art mourning now o'er a broken spell;
Thou hast poured thy heart's rich treasures forth,
And art unrepaid for their priceless worth!
Mourn on; yet come thou not here the while,
It is but a pain to see thee smile!
There is not a tone in our songs for thee—
Home, with thy sorrows, flee!

Ring, joyous chords! ring out again!
—But what dost thou with the revel's train?
A silvery voice through the soft air floats,
But thou hast no part in the gladdening notes;
There are bright young faces that pass thee by,
But they fix no glance of thy wandering eye!
Away! there's a void in thy yearning breast,
Thou weary man! wilt thou here find rest?
Away! for thy thoughts from the scene have fled,
And the love of thy spirit is with the dead!
Thou art but more lone midst the sounds of mirth—
Back to thy silent hearth!

Ring, joyous chords! ring forth again!
A swifter still, and a wilder strain!
—But thou, though a reckless mien be thine,
And thy cup be crowned with the foaming wine,
By the fitful bursts of thy laughter loud,
By thine eye's quick flash through its troubled cloud,
I know thee! it is but the wakeful fear
Of a haunted bosom that brings thee here!
I know thee!—thou fearest the solemn night,
With her piercing stars, and her deep wind's might!
There's a tone in her voice which thou fain would'st shun,
For it asks what the secret soul hath done!

And thou—there's a dark weight on thine—away!
—Back to thy home, and pray!

Ring, joyous chords! ring out, again!
A swifter still, and a wilder strain!
And bring fresh wreaths!—we will banish all
Save the free in heart from our festive hall!
On through the maze of the fleet dance, on!
—But where are the young and the lovely?—gone!
Where are the brows with the red rose crowned,
And the floating forms with the bright zone bound?
And the waving locks and the flying feet,
That still should be where the mirthful meet!
—They are gone—they are fled—they are parted all!
—Alas! the forsaken hall!

We must give one more splendid example from this class of her poetry,—only premising, that the sadness of the earthly morals, which it embodies, being ultimately relieved by the final hope to which they are referred, renders it not the most appropriate example of the manner to which we have been excepting. There are many others, which would have suited our purpose better; but that which we have selected is one of the very finest lyrics which Mrs. Hemans has bequeathed to us; and it moreover gives us an opportunity of pointing out another cause of the monotony which marks this lady's poetry. That cause is found in a habit of repeating herself, against which she was not sufficiently careful to guard. When a particular train of thought pleased her, she was tempted to return to it, for the purpose of again saying, in a new form, that which had been well said before. The feelings, so finely expounded in the following burst of music, have echoes in at least two several poems, which she wrote at subsequent periods,—one called "Breathings of Spring," and the other "The Birds of Passage." The following poem, likewise, furnishes an example of the manner in which some of Mrs. Hemans's finest lyrics are frequently deprived of much of their full harmony, by feeble lines, which fall upon the ear with the effect of discord, amid the rich swell of their music, and which a habit of revision might have replaced by more lofty ones.

THE VOICE OF SPRING

I come—I come! ye have called me long,
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds that tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the south, and the chestnut flowers
By thousands have burst from the forestbowers,
And the ancient graves and the fallen fanes
Are veiled with wreaths, on Italian plains;
—But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have looked o'er the hills of the stormy north,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth;
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,
And the rein-deer bounds o'er the pastures free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,
And the moss looks bright where my foot hath been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing sigh,
And called out each voice of the deep-blue sky;
From the night-bird's lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note, by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-branch into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain,
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray o'er the forest-boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves!

Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come!
Where the violets lie may be now your home,
Ye of the rose lip and dew-bright eye,
And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly!
With the lyre, and the wreath, and the joyous lay,
Come forth to the sun—I may not stay.

Away from the dwellings of care-worn men,
The waters are sparkling in grove and glen!
Away from the chamber and sullen hearth,
The young leaves are dancing in breezy mirth!
Their light stems thrill to the wild-wood strains,
And youth is abroad in my green domains.

But ye! ye are changed since ye met me last!
There is something bright from your features passed!

There is that come over your brow and eye,
Which speaks of a world where the flowers must die!
—Ye smile! but your smile hath a dimness, yet,—
Oh! what have ye looked on since last we met?

Ye are changed—ye are changed!—and I see not here,
All whom I saw in the vanished year;
There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright,
Which tossed in the breeze with a play of light,
There were eyes in whose glistening laughter lay
No faint remembrance of dull decay!

There were steps that flew o'er the cowslip's head,
As if for a banquet all earth were spread;
There were voices that rang through the sapphire sky,
And had not a sound of mortality!
Are they gone?—is their mirth from the mountains passed?
—Ye have looked on death since ye met me last!

I know whence the shadow comes o'er you, now,
Ye have strewn the dust on the sunny brow!
Ye have given the lovely to earth's embrace,
She hath taken the fairest of beauty's race,
With their laughing eyes and their festal crown,
They are gone from amongst you in silence down!

They are gone from amongst you, the young and fair,
Ye have lost the gleam of their shining hair!
—But I know of a land where there falls no blight,
I shall find them there, with their eyes of light!
Where death 'midst the blooms of the morn may dwell.
I tarry no longer;—farewell—farewell!

The summer is coming, on soft winds borne,
Ye may press the grape, ye may bind the corn!
For me, I depart to a brighter shore,
Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more.
I go where the loved who have left you dwell,
And the flowers are not Death's—fare ye well—farewell!

To the error in her philosophy, of which we have spoken, she seems first to have been awakened by the study of the poetry of Wordsworth—too late, indeed, to communicate to the best of her works the impress of the new wisdom which was stirred within her, but not too late to chasten her spirit by its dictates. The writings of this poet, so full at once of "the still sad music of humanity," and of the sweet promises and cheerful hopes, which are breathed out of all things, came finally to "haunt her like a passion;" and, had she made an earlier acquaintance with them, might have had a very salutary effect on her own muse. Her fine lines, beginning—

There is a strain to read amongst the hills,

are a worthy tribute of her love and veneration.

There is another peculiarity in the poetry of Mrs. Hemans, at which we have already distantly glanced. We have spoken of her habit of repeating her own thoughts in separate poems, and the peculiarity, to which we must now advert, is that of doing the like in the same poem. She takes, for example, a single idea for the subject of an entire lyric; and, after developing it, in her first verse, reproduces it in each of the subsequent ones,—taking care, however, to present it with some variations of aspect, and to clothe it in a pomp of words and picturesqueness of illustration, which sometimes succeed in concealing the sameness running through the whole. The poems of this class are very numerous, and some of them, such as "The Songs of our Fathers," "The Spells of Home," &c., are, notwithstanding the generally fine flow of their melody, amongst the weakest of their author's efforts. Others again, such as "The Sunbeam," "The Lost Pleiad," &c. have their monotony awakened into sudden life and grace, by the closing application of some striking moral; while others open to us a scene of surpassing beauty, arising either from the series of pictures which they present, or from the accompaniment of a touching commentary running along the entire piece.

Of the former kind may be mentioned "The Treasures of the Deep"—"The Stranger in Louisiana," and "Bring Flowers;"—amongst the latter, "The Departed," "The Adopted Child," and "The Bird's Release." One of each we will quote, in justification of our remarks. The first is founded on a passage in an early traveller, which mentions a people on the banks of the Mississippi, who burst into tears at the sight of a stranger. "The reason of this is, that they fancy their deceased friends and relations to be only gone on a journey; and, being in constant expectation of their return, look for them vainly amongst these foreign travellers." "J'ai passé, moi-même," says Chateaubriand, in his 'Souvenirs d'Amérique,' "Chez une peuple de l'Indienne qui se prenait à pleurer à la vue d'un voyageur, parce qu'il lui rappelait des amis partis pour la Contrée des Ames, et depuis long-tems en voyage."—It will be seen that the charm of this poem consists in the one thought running through the whole, and the rich painting and fine melody of the separate verses.

THE STRANGER IN LOUISIANA

We saw thee, O stranger, and wept!
We looked for the youth of the sunny glance,
Whose step was the fleetest in chace or dance!
The light of his eye was a joy to see,
The path of his arrows a storm to flee!
But there came a voice from a distant shore—
He was called—he is found 'mid his tribe no more!
He is not in his place when the night-fires burn,
But we look for him still—he will yet return!
—His brother sat, with a drooping brow,
In the gloom of the shadowing cypress bough,—
We roused him—we bade him no longer pine,
For we heard a step—but the step was thine!

We saw thee, O stranger, and wept!
We looked for the maid of the mournful song,
Mournful though sweet—she hath left us long!
We told her the youth of her love was gone,
And she went forth to seek him—she passed alone;
We hear not her voice when the woods are still,
From the bower where it sang, like a silvery rill,
The joy of her Sire with her smile is fled,
The winter is white on his lonely head;
He hath none by his side, when the wilds we track,
He hath none when we rest—yet she comes not back!
We looked for her eye on the feast to shine,
For her breezy step—but the step was thine!

We saw thee, O stranger, and wept!
We looked for the chief who hath left the spear
And the bow of his battles forgotten here!
We looked for the hunter whose bride's lament
On the wind of the forest at eve is sent:
We looked for the first-born, whose mother's cry
Sounds wild and shrill through the midnight sky!
—Where are they?—thou'rt seeking some distant coast—
Oh! ask of them, stranger!—send back the lost!
Tell them we mourn by the dark blue streams,
Tell them our lives but of them. are dreams!
Tell how we sat in the gloom to pine,
And to watch for a step—but the step was thine!

The verses which we shall quote as an example of the other kind, to which we have alluded, in the class of poems containing but one idea, are among the most elegant and finished productions in the entire range of Mrs. Hemans's poetry, and contain but the solitary blemish of the first line in the fourth stanza. They are based upon a custom which the Indians of Bengal and the coast of Malabar have, of bringing cages, filled with birds, to the graves of their friends, over which they set the birds at liberty. It is called—

THE BIRD'S RELEASE

Go forth, for she is gone!
With the golden light of her wavy hair;
She is gone to the fields of the viewless air;
She hath left her dwelling lone!

Her voice hath passed away!
It hath passed away like a summer breeze,
When it leaves the hills for the far blue seas,
Where we may not trace its way.

Go forth, and, like her, be free!
With thy radiant wing and thy glancing eye,
Thou hast all the range of the sunny sky,
And what is our grief to thee?

Is it aught ev'n to her we mourn?
Doth she look on the tears by her kindred shed?
Doth she rest with the flowers o'er her gentle head;
Or float on the light wind borne?

We know not—but she is gone!
Her step from the dance, her voice from the song,
And the smile of her eye from the festal throng;—
She hath left her dwelling lone!

When the waves at sunset shine,
We may hear thy voice, amid thousands more,
In the scented woods of our glowing shore,
But we shall not know 'tis thine!

Ev'n so with the loved one flown!
Her smile in the star-light may wander by,
Her breath may be near in the wind's low sigh,
Around us—but all unknown.

Go forth, we have loosed thy chain!
We may deck thy cage with the richest flowers,
Which the bright day rears in our eastern bowers,
But thou wilt not be lured again.

Ev'n thus may the summer pour
All fragrant things on the land's green breast,
And the glorious earth like a bride be drest,
But it wins her back no more!

But the harp of Mrs. Hemans, even in its shorter strains, is not confined to the limits of these subjects. It embraces many varieties of tone and topic, and running through "all moods of the lyre," is "master of all." Indeed, on turning over the volumes which contain them, with a view to this article, we have found such an embarrassing multitude, which seem to have the character of undying lays, that we cannot feel any apprehension for her future fame, if it be only from the effect of these detached lyrics. How fine and solemn, and, for once, how appropriately simple, are the sentiments and the music of the following:

THE TRUMPET

The trumpet's voice hath roused the land,
Light up the beacon pyre!
A hundred hills have seen the brand,
And waved the sign of fire.
A hundred banners to the breeze
Their gorgeous folds have cast—
And hark!—was that the sound of seas?
—A king to war went past!

The chief is arming in his hall,
The peasant by his hearth;
The mourner hears the thrilling call,
And rises from the earth.
The mother on her first-born son
Looks with a boding eye—
They come not back, though all be won,
Whose young hearts leap so high.

The bard hath ceased his song, and bound
The falchion to his side;
E'en for the marriage-altar crowned,
The lover quits his bride.
And all this haste, and change, and fear,
By earthly clarion spread!
How will it be when kingdoms hear
The blast that wakes the dead?

And what can exceed the deep, and religious, and hymn-like beauty of the following?—

INVOCATION

(Written after the Death of a Sister-in-law.)

Answer me, burning stars of night!
Where is the spirit gone,
That past the reach of human sight,
E'en as a breeze hath flown?
—And the stars answered me—'We roll
In light and power on high,
But of the never-dying soul
Ask things that cannot die!'

Oh! many-toned and chainless wind!
Thou art a wanderer free;
Tell me if thou its place canst find,
Far over mount and sea?
—And the wind murmured in reply,
'The blue deep I have crost
And met its banks and billows high,
But not what thou hast lost!'

Ye clouds that gorgeously repose
Around the setting sun,
Answer! have ye a home for those
Whose earthly race is run?
The bright clouds answered—'We depart,
We vanish from the sky;
Ask what is deathless in thy heart
For that which cannot die!'

Speak, then, thou voice of God within!
Thou of the deep, low tone!
Answer me through life's restless din,
Where is the spirit flown?
—And the voice answered—'Be thou still!
Enough to know is given;
Clouds, winds, and stars their task fulfil,
Thine is to trust in heaven!'

The human mind, whatever may be its occupations, will never be without echoes for poetry like this!

But there is one other class of these lyrics on which we must bestow a single word of notice, before we proceed to the examination of Mrs. Hemans' more elaborate poetry—we mean her chivalric and other ballads. That she should succeed in this style might have been safely predicated of her, by every one familiar with the pomp and gorgeousness of her diction, and the occasionally stately sweep of her melody,—so peculiarly appropriate both to the chivalric lay, and to the battle song. Accordingly, she has produced some spirit-stirring examples of ballad, of which we must endeavour to find room for a single example. The subject is thus related by Madame de Stael:—

"Ivan le terrible étant dejà devenu vieux, assiégeait Novogorod. Les Boyards, le voyant affoibli, lui démandèrent s'il ne voulait pas donner le commandement de l'assaut à son fils. Sa fureur fut si grande à cette proposition, que rien ne put l'appaiser; son fils se prosterna à ses pieds; il le repoussa, avec un coup d'une telle violence que, deux jours après, le malheureux en mourut. Le père, alors en désespoir, devint indifferent a la guerre comme au pouvoir, et ne survécut que peu de mois à son fils."

IVAN THE CZAR

He sat in silence on the ground,
The old and haughty Czar;
Lonely though princes girt him round,
And leaders of the war:
He had cast his jeweled sabre,
That many a field had won,
To the earth, beside his youthful dead,
His fair and first-born son.

With a robe of ermine for its bed,
Was laid that form of clay,
Where the light, a stormy sunset shed,
Through the rich tent made its way;
And a sad and solemn beauty
On the pallid face came down,
Which the lord of nations mutely watched,
In the dust, with his renown.

Low tones, at last, of woe and fear,
From his full bosom broke;—
A mournful thing it was to hear
How, then, the proud man spoke!
The voice that through the combat
Had shouted far and high,
Came forth in strange, dull, hollow tones,
Burdened with agony.

'There is no crimson on thy cheek,
And on thy lip no breath;
I call thee, and thou dost not speak—
They tell me this is death!
And fearful things are whispering,
That I the deed have done—
For the honour of thy father's name,
Look up—look up my son!

'Well might I know death's hue and mien,
But on thine aspect, boy!
What, till this moment, have I seen,
Save pride and tameless joy?
Swiftest thou wert to battle,
And bravest there of all—
How could I think a warrior's frame
Thus like a flower should fall!

'I will not bear that still, cold look—
Rise up, thou fierce and free!
Wake as the storm wakes! I will brook
All, save this calm, from thee!
Lift brightly up, and proudly,
Once more thy kindling eyes!
Hath my word lost its power on earth?
I say to thee, arise!

'Didst thou not know I loved thee well?
Thou didst not! and art gone,
In bitterness of soul, to dwell
Where man must dwell alone.
Come back, young fiery spirit!
If but one hour—to learn
The secrets of the folded heart
That seemed to thee so stern.

'Thou wert the first—the first fair child
That in mine arms I pressed;
Thou wert the bright one that hast smiled,
Like summer, on my breast!
I reared thee as an eagle,
To the chase thy steps I led,
I bore thee on my battle-horse,—
I look upon thee—dead!

'Lay down my warlike banners here,
Never again to wave,
And bury my red sword and spear,
Chiefs! in my first-born's grave!
And leave me!—I have conquered,
I have slain—my work is done!
Whom have I slain?—ye answer not,—
Thou, too, art mute, my son!'

And thus his wild lament was poured
Through the dark, resounding night;
And the battle knew no more his sword,
Nor the foaming steed his might.
He heard strange voices moaning,
In every wind that sighed;
From the searching stars of heaven he shrank,
Humbly the conqueror died!

The peculiarities which we have described as characterising the muse of Mrs. Hemans, were all of them unpropitious to her success in dramatic writing. Her genius was essentially undramatic. Her very limited acquaintance with the action of life (arising out of the circumstances of her position), her one-sided view of its morals, and the habit which she had fostered, of relying upon a picturesque and highly-coloured diction, to conceal her want of power over the springs of the affections, were so many reasons which should have pointed out the hopelessness for her of any attempt in that walk of literature. Her characters all speak that highly-enriched phraseology, which never was the language of the passions, and which, in fact, takes from them all air of reality. The illusions of the drama it was altogether beyond her power to create. It was, as Mr. Chorley states, at the instigation of Reginald Heber, that she first attempted composition in this form; and, by the aid of Mr. Milman, her "Vespers of Palermo" was, after many delays, produced at Covent Garden, in the winter of 1823. As might have been anticipated, it failed. Besides its numerous other faults, the chapters are full of exaggeration, the plot is badly constructed, and its parts hang loosely together. Notwithstanding many fine passages which it contains, it is, in every point of view, one of the least successful of its author's performances.

"The Siege of Valencia" is a poem, which likewise assumes the dramatic form; but, being submitted to no other of the dramatic tests, may be read and judged of, as if it had appeared in any other shape. It is one of the finest of Mrs. Hemans' poems, and that which first exhibits her in full possession of her perfected powers. There is in it a more sustained energy than she had hitherto reached, or ever reached again; and it abounds in passages of earnest and passionate beauty. The Monk's tale is told with startling power; and the stern and lofty resolve of the highsouled father, subduing the throbs of natural agony at the bidding of principle, brought into perpetual conflict with the passionate pleadings and eloquent gushings of the mother, sweeping away all considerations of conventional duty in the wild rush of their irresistible tide, presents contrasts such as are of the very highest resources of art, and creates an interest in the heart of the most engrossing kind. To do justice to Mrs. Hemans, we should quote from this poem; but our space forbids our making extracts from its pages; and we can find no short passage which, detached from the rest, would convey any thing like a fair impression of its merit.

The "Forest Sanctuary," was, we believe, considered, by the poetess herself, as her best work; and, in some respects, we are disposed to give the confirmation of our judgment to that opinion. We think that, in this poem, she has not only touched the spring of one of the finest secrets of the heart, but has also gone deeper into its hiding places than on any other occasion. We waive all consideration of the subject of the poem. It has a controversial basis,—to which Mrs. Hemans was manifestly unequal, both from the constitution of her mind, and from her entire want of the necessary acquaintance with the subject. Her letters, published by Mr. Chorley, prove that, in matters of controversial politics and religion, she was versed in the merest common-places of bigotry,—common-places which were traditional with her, and not a deduction from any reasonings of her own. "The poem," she says, "is intended to describe the mental conflicts, as well as outward sufferings, of a Spaniard, who, flying from the religious persecutions of his own country, in the 16th century, takes refuge with his child in a North American forest. The story is supposed to be related by himself, amidst the wilderness which has afforded him an asylum." We leave her in quiet possession of her story, which we need not trouble by any criticism. As might be expected, it presents, in its natural pictures—whether of the boundless forest, or a burial at sea—many fine passages, of that peculiar beauty with which the muse of Mrs. Hemans is most conversant. But the one specimen of a more subtle perception and refined sensibility than the poetess has any where else exhibited, we desire to quote for our readers; though we are apprehensive that its exquisite delicacy and tenderness may fail to be adequately conveyed, when it is separated from the pages describing that conflict of feelings which had preceded it. The stanzas in question aim at picturing that shadow, which falls between two hearts, when they have passed, by a change in one of them, into the influence of separate faiths—the sense of an obstacle, felt for the first time, to the full and entire intermingling of their wedded spirits:—

Alas! for those that love and may not blend in prayer.

The thought is one of great delicacy; and it is wrought out with a very fine pencil.

I looked on Leonor, and if there seemed
A cloud of more than pensiveness to rise
In the faint smiles that o'er her features gleamed,
And the soft darkness of her serious eyes,
Misty with tender gloom, I called it nought
But the fond exile's pang, a lingering thought
Of her own vale, with all its melodies
And living light of streams. Her soul would rest
Beneath your shades, I said, bowers of the gorgeous west!

Oh! could we live in visions! could we hold
Delusion faster, longer, to our breast,
When it shuts from us, with its mantle's fold,
That which we see not, and are therefore blest!
But they, our loved and loving,—they to whom
We have spread out our souls in joy and gloom,—
Their looks and accents unto our's address'd
Have been a language of familiar tone,
Too long, to breathe, at last, dark sayings and unknown.

I told my heart 'twas but the exile's woe
Which pressed on that sweet bosom;—I deceived
My heart but half,—a whisper faint and low,
Haunting it ever, and at times believed,
Spoke of some deeper cause. How oft we seem
Like those that dream, and know the while they dream,
'Midst the soft falls of airy voices grieved,
And troubled, while bright phantoms round them play,
By a dim sense that all will float and fade away!

Yet, as if chasing joy, I wooed the breeze,
To speed me onward with the wings of morn.
—Oh, far amidst the solitary seas,
Which were not made for man, what man hath borne,
Answering their moan with his!—what thou didst bear,
My lost and loveliest! while that secret care
Grew terror, and thy gentle spirit, worn
By its dull brooding weight, gave way at last,
Beholding me as one from hope for ever cast.

For unto thee, as through all change, revealed
Mine inward being lay. In other eyes
I had to bow me yet, and make a shield,
To fence my burning bosom, of disguise,
By the still hope sustained ere long to win
Some sanctuary, whose green retreats within,

My thoughts, unfettered, to their source might rise,
Like songs and scents of morn; but thou didst look
Through all my soul,—and thine even unto fainting shook.

Fallen, fallen I seemed—yet oh! not less beloved,
Though from thy love was plucked the early pride,
And harshly by a gloomy faith reproved,
And seared with shame! though each young flower had died,
There was the root, strong, living, not the less
That all it yielded now was bitterness;
Yet still such love as quits not misery's side,
Nor drops from guilt its ivy-like embrace,
Nor turns away from death's its pale heroic face.

Yes! thou hadst followed me through fear and flight;
Thou wouldst have followed had my pathway led
Even to the scaffold; had the flashing light
Of the raised axe made strong men shrink with dread,
Thou, 'midst the hush of thousands, wouldst have been
With thy clasped hands beside me kneeling seen,
And meekly bowing to the shame thy head—
The shame!—oh! making beautiful to view
The might of human love!—fair thing! so bravely true!

There was thine agony—to love so well
Where fear made love life's chastener.
Heretofore
Whate'er of earth's disquiet round thee fell,
Thy soul, o'erpassing its dim bounds, could soar
Away to sunshine, and thy clear eye speak
Most of the skies when grief most touched thy cheek.
Now, that far brightness faded, never more
Couldst thou lift heavenwards, for its hope, thy heart,
Since at heaven's gate it seemed that thou and I must part.

Alas! and life hath moments when a glance
(If thought to sudden watchfulness be stirred)—
A flush—a fading of the cheek, perchance,
A word—less, less—the cadence of a word—
Lets in our gaze the mind's dim veil beneath,
Thence to bring haply knowledge fraught with death!
—Even thus, what never from thy lip was heard
Broke on my soul:—I knew that, in thy sight,
I stood, howe'er beloved, a recreant from the light!

With "The Siege of Valencia" and "The Forest Sanctuary," the conspicuous progress of Mrs. Hemans' mind was at an end; and the future shews us nothing but its decline.

The death of her mother, in 1827, and the marriage of her sister, in the following year, combined with the desire of obtaining opportunities of society for herself, and additional facilities for the education of her sons, induced Mrs. Hemans to leave Wales, and fix her residence at Wavertree, in the neighbourhood of Liverpool. Here, with the exception of occasional absences, during which she twice visited Scotland, and once made an excursion to the English lakes, she passed the three years whose records fill the principal portion of Mr. Chorley's volumes. Of these records we have already intimated our opinion. Exhibiting, as they do, great weaknesses in the character of this gifted woman, we certainly do not envy the taste, which has exposed them to the world. Through the whole correspondence, and its accompanying commentaries, there is exhibited by her a craving vanity, a restless and feverish anxiety for display, a desire to be always en représentation, and all this under the studious affectation of very much disliking the eminence, on which she would remind her correspondents that she stands. It was at Wavertree that she formed her acquaintance with Mr. Chorley's family; and we find her constantly walking over to his house, with some adulatory letter in her pocket, or some story of the way in which her reputation has discovered her retreat, in order that she may explain to its members how disagreeable a thing is fame. Nor is this all. These stories, and these disclaimers, are not unfrequently accompanied by remarks on others,—persons, to whom she acknowledges that she is bound by ties of gratitude, but persons, nevertheless, on whom she passes observations, unguarded, and, perhaps, unmeant, but calculated to produce the most unpleasant feelings both in this country and in America.—Was it right in Mr. Chorley to give such documents, and such anecdotes to the world?

Another reprehensible, and, with her, ungraceful, habit of mind, which Mrs. Hemans seems to have contracted during her residence at Wavertree, was exhibited in an assumption of girlishness—an affectation of being a romp, under cover of which she was perpetually endeavouring to be thought to say and do the silliest things in the world. Sir Walter Scott once administered a reproof to her on the subject, of which she seems to have been so little sensible, that she reports it as a very delightful joke to Mr. Chorley, while he, again, is so unconscious of its significance, that, in his turn, he reports it to the world! We happen to know, that she did herself great wrong by these habits, and created impressions very much the reverse of those which she intended to produce.—But it is time to escape from these painful frivolities. The poetical life of Mrs. Hemans, during her residence at Wavertree, was a blank; and we gladly, therefore, pass on to views more agreeable to that love which we entertain for her memory.

In the spring of 1831, Mrs. Hemans took leave of England for the last time, and established her abode in Dublin. Here, in the society of her friends, her mind instantly regained its tone, and her spirit rose up once more to the full height of its moral stature. Indeed, her previous visit to the Lakes seems to have led the way to this better frame of feeling, and, perhaps, as a consequence, to her determination (formed amid their solitudes) of quitting Liverpool. The step was a wise one. All the habits and sentiments which had characterised her residence there, seem to have been as completely lost sight of, from the moment she had left it, as if they had never been entertained: even her subsequent letters to the writer of these Memoirs, though very kind (as her nature was), exhibit a dignity and self-possession which, we think, must have astonished him. It was obvious that the separation was one of more than distance. Here, too, by degrees, under the influences of reflection, and amid the warnings of sickness, a still further "change came o'er the spirit of her dream," and her heart became solemnised, as she drew within the shadow of that last dwelling to which she was fast hastening. She had for some time formed the design of dedicating her muse to the service of the temple; but the resolution was formed when she had no longer the opportunity of connecting its execution with the exercise of her fullest powers; and indeed, looking at the reasons to which we have adverted in the course of this notice, we doubt whether her powers were ever equal to the successful performance of such a scheme. Her poetry was, as we have seen, too much the result of her peculiarities of thinking and writing, to flourish in separation from them.

Her "Scenes and Hymns of Life," published during this last portion of her days, and the poems collected as her poetical remains since her death, are, for the most part, written in this new tone, and devoted to this better philosophy. But their merit, in other respects, is far below that of her previous productions. Her lyric of "Despondency and Aspiration," which has been praised, is obscure and faulty, and her "Sabbath Sonnet," the latest music of her lyre, and her song of "The Swan," though touching as dictated from a death-bed, and sacred for the feelings amid which it must have been composed, and for the subjects with which it deals, must look to those reasons alone for the interest with which it will long continue to be read. She exercised her high gift of song, for the last time (and in the service of him who gave it) on the 26th day of April, 1835: and on the 16th day of the following month, passed calmly away, through the portals of a gentle sleep, into the shadow of the grave.

In the course of our remarks upon her various poems, our estimate of her genius, and our opinion of her chances with posterity, have, we think, been sufficiently expressed. She wrote too rapidly, and too much, and her powers were impaired by the too long indulgence of those peculiarities, to which we have alluded. But it has been truly said of her, by a writer of her own sex, whom Mr. Chorley quotes, that "she never degraded the poet's art: if she did not as well, as, under more fortunate circumstances, she might have done, she never published anything that might not be said to make a necessary part of her poetic reputation." It is hard upon her, that Mr. Chorley should have done this for her!—We can have no doubt whatever that the music of her fine lyrics will float down the stream of time; and that her name will be a familiar word on our children's lips. It is by her detached pieces that she has the best chance of surviving,—though not by them alone that she deserves to survive. Her poetry has not, in other instances, taken the best forms for popularity: but the one will preserve the other, and the gifted will read them both. We only trust that her name and works will go down to posterity, uninjured by the silly records contained in Mr. Chorley's memorials.