His English is now and then objectionable, as, at page 26, where he speaks of lighted barks That down Syene's cataract shoots, making shoots rhyme with flutes, below; also, at page. 6, and elsewhere, where the word none has improperly a singular, instead of a plural force. But such criticism as this is somewhat captious, for in general he is most highly polished. At page 27, he has stolen his "woven snow the ventum textilem of Apuleius. ." from At page 8, he either himself has misunderstood the tenets of Epicurus, or wilfully misrepresents them through the voice of Alciphron. We incline to the former idea, however, as the philosophy of that most noble of the sophists is habitually perverted by the moderns. Nothing could be more spiritual and less. sensual than the doctrines we so torture into wrong. But we have drawn out this notice at somewhat too great length, and must conclude. In truth, the exceeding beauty of Alciphron" has bewildered and detained us. We could not point out a poem in any language which, as a whole, greatly excels it. It is far superior to "Lalla Rookh.” While Moore does not " reach, except in rare snatches, the height of the loftiest qualities of some whom we have named, yet he has written finer poems than any, of equal length, by the greatest of his rivals. His radiance, not always as bright as some flashes from other pens, is yet a radiance of equable glow, whose total amount of light exceeds, by very much, we think, that total amount in the case of any contemporary writer whatsoever. A vivid fancy, an epigrammatic spirit, a fine taste, vivacity, dexterity, and a musical ear have made him very easily what he is, the most popular poet now living — if not the most popular that ever lived - and, perhaps, a slight modification at birth of that which phrenologists have agreed to term temperament, might have made him the truest and noblest votary of the muse of any age or clime. As it is, we have only casual glimpses of that mens divinior which is assuredly enshrined within him. VOICES OF THE NIGHT.1 BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. JOHN OWEN, CAMBRIDGE. [Text: Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1840.] SO THE little book which Professor Longfellow has entitled The Voices of the Night" includes not only some poems thus styled, but others composed during the collegiate life of the writer, as well as about twenty brief translations. Of the latter we shall say nothing. So very much of all that is essential to the lyre. many of its more spiritual attributes and propertieslie beyond the scope of translation so trivial, comparatively, are those mere graces which lie within it. that the critic will be pardoned for declining to admit versions, of however high merit as such, into his estimate of the poetical character of his author. Neither should any author of mature age desire to have this poetical character estimated by the productions of his mind at immaturity. We shall, therefore, confine our observations to the "Voices of the Night." 1 See Vol. XI., and the "Outis Controversy," for Poe's views of Longfellow. - ED. In looking over a file of newspapers, not long ago, our attention was arrested by the opening lines of a few stanzas, headed " Hymn to the Night.' We read them again and again, and although some blemishes were readily discoverable, we bore them away in memory, with the firm belief that a poet of high genius had at length arisen amongst us, and with the resolve so to express our opinion at the first opportunity which should offer. The perusal of the entire volume now presented to the public by the writer of this "Hymn to the Night" has not, indeed, greatly modified our impressions in regard to that particular poem greatly, even, in regard to the genius of the poet - but very greatly in respect to his capacity for the ultimate achievement of any well-founded monument during reputation. not any en Our general conclusion is one similar to that which "Hyperion" induced, and which we stated, of late, in a concise notice of that book. The author has, in one or two points, ability; and, in these one or two points, that ability regards the very loftiest qualities of the poetical soul. His imagination, for example, is vivid and in saying this, how much do we say ! But he appears to us singularly deficient in all those important faculties which give artistical power, and without which never was immortality effected. He has no combining or binding force. He has absolutely nothing of unity. His brief pieces (to whose brevity he has been led by an instinct of the deficiencies we now note) abound in high thoughts, either positively insulated or showing these same deficiencies by the recherché spirit of their connection. And thus his productions are scintillations from the brightest poetical truth, rather than this brightest truth in itself. By truth, here, we mean that perfection which is the result only of the strictest proportion and adaptation in all the poetical requisites these requisites being considered as each existing in the highest degree of beauty and strength. It is by no means our design to speak of the volume before us in detail. There would be no object in such critical supererogation. The spirit of Professor Longfellow is as well determined from the shortest of these "Voices of the Night" (which are altogether his best pieces) as from all that he has written combined. We look upon the "Beleaguered City" as his finest poem. There is a certainty of purpose about it which we do not discover elsewhere; and in it the writer's idiosyncratic excellences, which are those of expression chiefly and of a fitful (unsteady) imagination, are the most strikingly displayed. The Hymn to the Night," however, will be the greatest favourite with the public, from the fact that these idiosyncratic beauties are there more evident and more glowing. 66 I heard the trailing garments of the Night I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light I felt her presence, by its spell of might, The calm, majestic presence of the Night, I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, The manifold soft chimes That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, From the cool cisterns of the midnight air, My spirit drank repose; The fountain of perpetual peace flows there — O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear Thou layest thy finger on the lips of care, Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, No poem ever opened with a beauty more august. The five first stanzas are nearly perfect by which we mean that they are nearly free from fault, while embodying a supreme excellence. Had we seen nothing from the pen of the poet but these five verses, we should have formed the most exaggerated conception of his powers. Had he written always thus, we should have been tempted to speak of him not only as our finest poet, but as one of the noblest poets of all time. Yet even these five stanzas have their defects — defects inherent in the mind of the writer, and thence ineradicable absolutely so. An intellect which apprehends with full sensitiveness the peculiar loveliness of the spirit of the unique of unity will find, in perusal here, that his fancy, in the poet's guidance, wavers disagreeably between two ideas which would have been merged by the skilful artist in one. We mean the two ideas of the absolute and of the personified Night. Even in the first stanza this difficulty occurs enfeebling all. The words convey to us a palace tenanted by the sable-draperied, by the corporate Night. But the lines I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light From the celestial walls |