by the effect which they imagine it might have upon themselves were they not unhappily soulless, and by the effect which they take it for granted it does have upon others. It cannot be denied, however, that these pieces are, in general, tame, or indebted for what force they possess to the Scriptural passages of which they are merely paraphrastic. I quote what, in my own opinion, and in that of nearly all my friends, is really the truest poem ever written by Mr. Willis:

"The shadows lay along Broadway,

'Twas near the twilight tide,

And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride-
Alone walked she, yet viewlessly
Walked spirits at her side.

Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,

And honour charmed the air,

And all astir looked kind on her

And called her good as fair

For all God ever gave to her
She kept with chary care.

She kept with care her beauties rare
From lovers warm and true,
For her heart was cold to all but gold,
And the rich came not to woo.
Ah, honoured well are charms to sell
When priests the selling do!

Now, walking there was one more fair

A slight girl, lily-pale,

And she had unseen company

To make the spirit quail—

'Twixt want and scorn she walked forlorn,

And nothing could avail.

No mercy now can clear her brow

For this world's peace to pray—

For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman's heart gave way;

And the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven
By man is cursed alway."

There is about this little poem (evidently written in haste and through impulse) a true imagination. Its grace,

VOL. IV.

2 E

dignity, and pathos are impressive, and there is more in it of earnestness, of soul, than in anything I have seen from the pen of its author. His compositions, in general, have a taint of worldliness, of insincerity. The identical rhyme in the last stanza is very noticeable, and the whole finale is feeble. It would be improved by making the last two lines precede the first two of the stanza.

In classifying Mr. W.'s writings I did not think it worth while to speak of him as a dramatist, because, although he has written plays, what they have of merit is altogether in their character of poem. Of his "Bianca Visconti " I have little to say;-it deserved to fail, and did, although it abounded in eloquent passages. "Tortesa " abounded in the same, but had a great many dramatic points well calculated to tell with a conventional audience. Its characters, with the exception of Tomaso, a drunken buffoon, had no character at all, and the plot was a tissue of absurdities, inconsequences, and inconsistencies; yet I cannot help thinking it, upon the whole, the best play ever written by an American.

Mr. Willis has made very few attempts at criticism, and those few (chiefly newspaper articles) have not impressed me with a high idea of his analytic abilities, although with a very high idea of his taste and discrimination.

His style proper may be called extravagant, bizarre, pointed, epigrammatic without being antithetical (this is very rarely the case), but, through all its whimsicalities, graceful, classic, and accurate. He is very seldom to be caught tripping in the minor morals. His English is correct; his most outrageous imagery is, at all events unmixed.

Mr. Willis's career has naturally made him enemies among the envious host of dunces whom he has outstripped in the race for fame; and these his personal manner (a little tinctured with reserve, brusquerie, or even haughtiness) is by no means adapted to conciliate. He has innumerable warm friends, however, and is himself a warm friend. He is impulsive, generous, bold, impetuous, vacillating, irregularly energetic-apt to be hurried into error, but incapable of deliberate wrong.

He is yet young, and without being handsome, in the

ordinary sense, is a remarkably well-looking man. In height he is, perhaps, five feet eleven, and justly proportioned. His figure is put in the best light by the ease and assured grace of his carriage. His whole person and personal demeanour bear about them the traces of "good society." His face is somewhat too full, or rather heavy, in its lower proportions. Neither his nose nor his forehead can be defended; the latter would puzzle phrenology. His eyes are a dull bluish grey, and small. His hair is of a rich brown, curling naturally and luxuriantly. His mouth is well cut; the teeth fine; the expression of the smile intellectual and winning. He converses little, well rather than fluently, and in a subdued tone. The portrait of him published about three years ago in "Graham's Magazine," conveys by no means so true an idea of the man as does the sketch (by Lawrence) inserted as frontispiece to a late collection of his poems.

JOHN W. FRANCIS.

DOCTOR FRANCIS, although by no means a littérateur, cannot well be omitted in an account of the New York literati. In his capacity of physician and medical lecturer he is far too well known to need comment. He was the pupil, friend, and partner of Hossack-the pupil of Abernethyconnected in some manner with everything that has been well said or done medicinally in America. As a medical essayist he has always commanded the highest respect and attention. Among the points he has made at various times, I may mention his "Anatomy of Drunkenness," his views of the Asiatic Cholera, his analysis of the Avon waters of the state, his establishment of the comparative immunity of the constitution from a second attack of yellow fever, and his pathological propositions on the changes wrought in the system by specific poisons through their assimilation-propositions remarkably sustained and enforced by recent discoveries of Liebig.

In unprofessional letters Doctor Francis has also accomplished much, although necessarily in a discursive manner. His biography of Chancellor Livingston, his Horticultural Discourse, his Discourse at the opening of the new hall of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, are (each in its way) models of fine writing, just sufficiently toned down by an indomitable common sense. I had nearly forgotten to mention his admirable sketch of the personal associations of Bishop Berkley, of Newport.

Doctor Francis is one of the old spirits of the New York Historical Society. His philanthropy, his active, untiring beneficence, will for ever render his name a household word among the truly Christian of heart. His professional services and his purse are always at the command of the needy; few of our wealthiest men have ever contributed to the relief of distress so bountifully-none certainly with greater readiness or with warmer sympathy.

His person and manner are richly peculiar. He is short and stout, probably five feet eight in height; limbs of great muscularity and strength; the whole frame indicating prodigious vitality and energy—the latter is, in fact, the leading trait in his character. His head is large, massive— the features in keeping; complexion dark florid; eyes piercingly bright; mouth exceedingly mobile and expressive; hair grey, and worn in matted locks about the neck and shoulders-eyebrows to correspond, jagged, and ponderous. His age is about fifty-eight. His general appearance is such as to arrest attention.

His address is the most genial that can be conceived, its bonhommie irresistible. He speaks in a loud, clear, hearty tone, dogmatically, with his head thrown back and his chest out; never waits for an introduction to anybody; slaps a perfect stranger on the back and calls him "Doctor" or "Learned Theban ;" pats every lady on the head, and (if she be pretty and petite) designates her by some such title as "My Pocket Edition of the Lives of the Saints." His conversation proper is a sort of Roman punch, made up of tragedy, comedy, and the broadest of all possible farce. He has a natural, felicitous flow of talk, always

overswelling its boundaries, and sweeping everything before it right and left. He is very earnest, intense, emphatic; thumps the table with his fist; shocks the nerves of the ladies. His forte, after all, is humour, the richest conceivable -a compound of Swift, Rabelais, and the clown in the pantomime. He is married.

ANNA CORA MOWATT.

MRS. MOWATT is in some respects a remarkable woman, and has undoubtedly wrought a deeper impression upon the public than any one of her sex in America.

She became first known through her recitations. To these she drew large and discriminating audiences in Boston, New York, and elsewhere to the north and east. Her subjects were much in the usual way of these exhibitions, including comic as well as serious pieces, chiefly in verse. In her selections she evinced no very refined taste, but was probably influenced by the elocutionary rather than by the literary value of her programmes. She read well; her voice was melodious; her youth and general appearance excited interest, but, upon the whole, she produced no great effect, and the enterprise may be termed unsuccessful, although the press, as is its wont, spoke in the most sonorous tone of her success.

It was during these recitations that her name, prefixed to occasional tales, sketches, and brief poems in the magazines, first attracted an attention that, but for the recitations, it might not have attracted.

Her sketches and tales may be said to be cleverly written. They are lively, easy, conventional, scintillating with a species of sarcastic wit, which might be termed good were it in any respect original. In point of style-that is to say, of mere English, they are very respectable. One of the best of her prose papers is entitled "Ennui and its Antidote," published in "The Columbian Magazine" for