his journey, and therefore makes captive of a spotted toad, by way of a steed. Having bridled her with silkweed twist, his progress is rapid by dint of lashing her sides with an osier thong. Arrived at the beach, he launches fearlessly upon the tide, for among his other accomplishments, the Fay is a graceful swimmer; but his tender limbs are so bruised by leeches, starfish, and other watery enemies, that he is soon driven back.

The materia medica of Fairy-land is always accessible; and cobweb lint, and balsam dew of sorrel and henbane, speedily relieve the little penitent's wounds. Having refreshed himself with the juice of the calamus root, he returns to the shore, and selects a neatly-shaped muscle shell, brightly painted without, and tinged with pearl within. Nature seemed to have formed it expressly for a fairy boat. Having notched the stern, and gathered a colen bell to bale with, he sculls into the midst of the river, laughing at his old foes as they grin and chatter around. his way. There, in the sweet moon-light, he sits until a sturgeon comes by, and leaps, all glistening, into the silvery atmosphere; then balancing his delicate frame upon one foot, like a Lilliputian Mercury, he lifts the flowery cup, and catches the one sparkling drop that is to wash the stain from his wing. Gay is his return voyage. Sweet nymphs clasp the boat's side with their tiny hands, and cheerily urge it onward. His next enterprise is of a more knightly species; and he proceeds to array himself accordingly, as becomes a fairy cavalier. His acorn helmet is plumed with thistle-down, a bee's nest forms his corselet, and his cloak is of butterflies' wings. With a lady-bug's shell for a shield, and waspsting lance, spurs of cockle-seed, a bow made of vinetwig, strung with maize-silk, and well supplied with nettle-shafts, he mounts his fire-fly Bucephalus, and waving his blade of blue grass, speeds upward to catch 66 a glim

mering spark" from some flying meteor. Again the spirits of evil are let loose upon him, and the upper elements are not more friendly than those below. Fays are as hardly beset, it seems, as we of coarser clay, by temptations in a feminine shape. A sylphid queen of the skies," the loveliest of the forms of light," enchants the wanderer by her beauty and kindness. But though she played very archly with the butterfly cloak, and handled the tassel of his blade while he revealed to her pitying ear "the dangers he had passed," the memory of his first love and the object of pilgrimage kept his heart free. Escorted with great honour by the sylph's lovely train, his career is resumed, and his flame-wood lamp at length re-kindled, and before the "sentry elf" proclaims "a streak in the eastern sky," the Culprit has been welcomed to all his original glory.

It will be observed that the materials-the costume, as it were of this fairy tale, are of native and familiar origin. The effect is certainly quite as felicitous as that of many similar productions where the countless flowers and rich legends of the East, furnish the poet with an exhaustless mine of pleasing images. It has been remarked that the dolphin and flying-fish are the only poetical members of the finny tribes; but who, after reading the Culprit Fay, will ever hear the plash of a sturgeon in the moonlit water, without recalling the genius of Drake ? Indeed, the poem which we have thus cursorily examined is one of those happy inventions of fancy, superinduced, upon fact, which afford unalloyed delight. There are various tastes as regard the style and spirit of different bards; but no one, having the slightest perception, will fail to realize at once that the Culprit Fay is a genuine poem. This is, perhaps, the highest of praise. The mass of versified compositions are not strictly poems. Here and there only the purely ideal is apparent.

A

series of poetical fragments are linked by rhymes to other and larger portions of common-place and prosaic ideas. It is with the former as with moon-beams falling through dense foliage-they only chequer our path with light. Poetry," says Campbell, "should come to us in masses of ore, that require little sifting." The poem before us obeys this important rule. It is "of imagination all compact." It takes us completely away from the dull level of ordinary associations. As the portico of some beautiful temple, through it we are introduced into a scene of calm delight, where Fancy asserts her joyous supremacy, and woos us to forgetfulness of all outward evil, and to fresh recognition of the lovely in Nature and the graceful and gifted in humanity.

BRYANT.

Ir has been well observed by an English critic that Poetry is not a branch of authorship. The vain endeavour to pervert its divine and spontaneous agency into a literary craft, is the great secret of its recent decline. Poetry is the overflowing of the soul. It is the record of what is best in the world. No product of the human mind is more disinterested. Hence comparatively few keep the poetic element alive beyond the period of early youth. All that is genuine in the art springs from vivid experience, and life seldom retains any novel aspect to those who have long mingled in its scenes and staked upon its chances. A celebrated artist of our day, when asked the process by which his delineations were rendered so effective, replied, that he drew them altogether from memory. Natural objects were portrayed not as they impressed him at the moment, but according to the lively and feeling phases in which they struck his senses in boyhood. For this reason it has been truly observed, that remembrance makes the poet, and that emotions recollected in tranquillity form the true source of inspiration. A species of literature depending upon conditions so delicate is obviously not to be successfully cultivated by those who hold it in no reverence. The great distinction between verse-writers and poets is that the former seek and the latter receive; the one attempt to command, the other meekly obey the higher impulses of their being.

The first thought which suggests itself in regard to Bryant, is his respect for the art which he has so nobly illustrated. This is not less commendable than rare. Such an impatient spirit of utility prevails in our country, that even men of ideal pursuits are often infected by it. It is a leading article in the Yankee creed, to turn every endowment to account: and although a poet is generally left" to chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancies," as he lists, occasions are not infrequent when even his services are available. Caliban's lowly toil will not supply all needs. The more 66 gentle spriting" of Ariel is sometimes desired. To subserve the objects of party, to acquire a reputation upon which office may be sought, and to gratify personal ambition, the American poet is often tempted to sacrifice his true fame and the dignity of Art to the demands of Occasion. To this weakness Bryant has been almost invariably superior. He has preserved the elevation which he so early acquired. He has been loyal to the Muses. At their shrine his ministry seems ever free and sacred, wholly apart from the ordinary associations of life. With a pure heart and a lofty purpose, has he hymned the glory of Nature and the praise of Freedom: To this we cannot but, in a great degree, ascribe the serene beauty of his verse. The mists of worldly motives dim the clearest vision, and the sweetest voice falters amid the strife of passion. As the patriarch went forth alone to muse at eventide, the reveries of genius have been to Bryant, holy and private seasons. They are as unstained by the passing clouds of this troubled existence, as the skies of his own "Prairies" by village smoke...

Thus it should be, indeed, with all poets; but we deem it singularly happy when it is so with our own. The tendency of all action and feeling with us, is so much the reverse of poetical, that only the high, sustained and con