expense of true merit; and, since there existed a certain fixed standard of exaggerated commendation to which all were adapted after the fashion of Procrustes, it is clear that the most meritorious required the least stretching,-in other words, that although all were much overrated, the deserving were overrated in a less degree than the unworthy. Thus with Brainard-a man of indisputable genius, who, in any more discriminative system of panegyric would have been long ago be-puffed into demi-Deism; for if "M'Fingal,” for example, is in reality what we have been told, the commentators upon Trumbull, as a matter of the simplest consistency, should have exalted into the seventh heaven of poetical dominion the author of the many graceful and vigorous effusions which are now lying, in a very neat little volume, before us.* Yet we maintain that even these effusions have been overpraised, and materially so. It is not that Brainard has not written poems which may rank with those of any American, with the single exception of Longfellow-but that the general merit of our whole national Muse has been estimated too highly, and that the author of "The Connecticut River" has, individually, shared in the exaggeration. No poet among us has composed what would deserve the tithe of that amount of approbation so innocently lavished upon Brainard. But it would not suit our purpose just now to enter into any elaborate analysis of his productions. It so happens, however, that we open the book at a brief poem, an examination of which will stand us in good stead in this general analysis, since it is by this very poem that the admirers of its author are content to swear-since it is the fashion to cite it as his best-since thus, in short, it is the chief basis of his notoriety, if not the surest triumph of his fame. We allude to "The Fall of Niagara," and shall be pardoned for quoting it in full. "The thoughts are strange that crowd into my brain While I look upward to thee. It would seem * The Poems of John G. C. Brainard. A New and Authentic Collection, with an original Memoir of his Life. As if God poured thee from his hollow hand, And spoke in that loud voice which seemed to him The 'sound of many waters,' and had bade And notch his centuries in the eternal rocks. Deep calleth unto deep. And what are we That breaks and whispers of its Maker's might." ; It is a very usual thing to hear these verses called not merely the best of their author, but the best which have been written on the subject of Niagara. Their positive merit appears to us only partial. We have been informed that the poet had seen the great cataract before writing the lines but the Memoir prefixed to the present edition denies what, for our own part, we never believed, for Brainard was truly a poet, and no poet could have looked upon Niagara, in the substance, and written thus about it. If he saw it at all, it must have been in fancy-" at a distance ❞—ɛxɑs— as the lying Pindar says he saw Archilocus, who died ages before the villain was born. To the two opening verses we have no objection; but it may be well observed, in passing, that had the mind of the poet been really "crowned with strange thoughts," and not merely engaged in an endeavour to think, he would have entered at once upon the thoughts themselves, without allusion to the state of his brain. His subject would have left him no room for self. The third line embodies an absurd, and impossible, not to say a contemptible image. We are called upon to conceive a similarity between the continuous downward sweep of Niagara, and the momentary splashing of some definite and of course trifling quantity of water from a hand; for, although it is the hand of the Deity himself which is referred to, the mind is irresistibly led, by the words "poured from his hollow hand," to that idea which has been customarily attached to such phrase. It is needless to say, moreover, that the bestowing upon Deity a human form, is at best a low and most unideal conception. In fact, the poet has committed the grossest of errors in likening the fall to any material object; for the human fancy can fashion nothing which shall not be inferior in majesty to the cataract itself. Thus bathos is inevitable and there is no better exemplification of bathos than Mr. Brainard has here given. ; The fourth line but renders the matter worse, for here the figure is most inartistically shifted. The handful of water becomes animate; for it has a front—that is, a forehead, and upon this forehead the Deity proceeds to hang a bow, that is, a rainbow. At the same time he "speaks in that loud voice," etc.; and here it is obvious that the ideas of the writer are in a sad state of fluctuation; for he transfers the idiosyncrasy of the fall itself (that is to say its sound) to the one who pours it from his hand. But not content with all this, Mr. Brainard commands the flood to keep a kind of tally; for this is the low thought which the expression about "notching in the rocks" immediately and inevitably induces. The whole of this first division of the poem, embraces, we hesitate not to say, one of the most jarring, inappropriate, mean, and in every way monstrous assemblages of false imagery which can be found out of the tragedies of Nat Lee or the farces of Thomas Carlyle. In the latter division, the poet recovers himself, as if ashamed of his previous bombast. His natural instinct (for Brainard was no artist) has enabled him to feel that subjects which surpass in grandeur all efforts of the human imagination are well depicted only in the simplest and least metaphorical language—a proposition as susceptible of demonstration as any in Euclid. Accordingly, we find a material sinking in tone; although he does not at once discard all imagery. The "Deep calleth unto deep" is nevertheless a great improvement upon his previous rhetoricianism. The personification of the waters above and below would be good in reference to any subject less august. The moral reflections which immediately follow have at least the merit of simplicity; but the poet exhibits no very lofty imagination when he bases these reflections only upon the cataract's superiority to man in the noise it can create; nor is the concluding idea more spirited, where the mere difference between the quantity of water which occasioned the flood, and the quantity which Niagara precipitates, is made the measure of the Almighty Mind's superiority to that cataract which it called by a thought into existence. But although "The Fall of Niagara" does not deserve all the unmeaning commendation it has received, there are, nevertheless, many truly beautiful poems in this collection, and even more certain evidences of poetic power. "To a Child, the Daughter of a Friend," is exceedingly graceful and terse. "To the Dead" has equal grace, with more vigour, and, moreover, a touching air of melancholy. Its melody is very rich, and in the monotonous repetition, at each stanza, of a certain rhyme, we recognise a fantastic yet true imagination. "Mr. Merry's Lament for Long Tom" would be worthy of all praise were not its unusually beautiful rhythm an imitation from Campbell, who would deserve his high poetical rank, if only for its construction. Of the merely humorous pieces we have little to say. Such things are not poetry. Mr. Brainard excelled in them, and they are very good in their place; but that place is not in a collection of poems. The prevalent notions upon this head are extremely vague; yet we see no reason why any ambiguity should exist. Humour, with an exception to be made hereafter, is directly antagonistical to that which is the soul of the Muse proper; and the omniprevalent belief that melancholy is inseparable from the higher manifestations of the beautiful, is not without a firm basis in nature and in reason. But it so happens that humour and that quality which we have termed the soul of the Muse (imagination) are both essentially aided in their development by the same adventitious assistance that of rhythm and of rhyme. Thus the only bond between humorous verse and poetry, properly so called, is that they employ in common a certain tool. But this single circumstance has been sufficient to occasion, and to maintain through long ages, a confusion of two very distinct ideas in the brain of the unthinking critic. There is, nevertheless, an individual branch of humour which blends so happily with the ideal that from the union result some of the finest effects of legitimate poesy. We allude to what is termed "archness" -a trait with which popular feeling, which is unfailingly poetic, has invested, for example, the whole character of the fairy. In the volume before us there is a brief composition entitled "The Tree Toad" which will afford a fine exemplification of our idea. It seems to have been hurriedly constructed, as if its author had felt ashamed of his light labour. But that in his heart there was a secret exultation over these verses for which his reason found it difficult to account, we know; and there is not a really imaginative man within sound of our voice to-day, who, upon perusal of this little "Tree Toad" will not admit it to be one of the truest poems ever written by Brainard. RUFUS DAWES. "As a poet," says Mr. Griswold, in his "Poets and Poetry of America," "the standing of Mr. Dawes is as yet unsettled; there being a wide difference of opinion respecting his writings." The width of this difference is apparent; and, while to many it is matter for wonder, to those who have the interest of our Literature at heart, it is, more properly, a source of mortification and regret. That the author in question has long enjoyed what we term “ a high poetical reputation," cannot be denied; and in no manner is this point more strikingly evinced than in the choice of his works, some two years since, by one of our most enter |