The statutes of Columbia College require that the first six of these orations shall be read by candidates for admission into the Freshman Class, and they have accordingly been selected with an eye to this regulation. The orations for the Manilian Law, and for Murena, "have been added," says Mr. Anthon, "as favorable specimens of Cicero's more elaborate style of eloquence, especially the latter; and they may, it is conceived, be read with advantage at the beginning of an undergraduate course. Without reference to the rules of particular colleges (most of which however, accord with the institution of New York in regard to the speeches, against Catiline and for Archias), it may be assumed that no better selection of Cicero could be made - if the intention be, as it mainly should, to convey the spirit of the orator and of the man. We confess, however, and we believe Professor Anthon will half accord with us in our confession, that we should have been pleased to see the vivacious defence of the dissolute Coelius, and (that last oration of the noble Roman), the fourteenth of his indignant Philippics against Anthony.

The work is gotten up in the same beautiful style as the Sallust. It is a thick duodecimo of 518 pages. Of these, 380 are well occupied with Explanatory Notes; Legal, Geographical, and Historical Indexes. An acute analysis of the life and writings of Cicero fills about 40 pages in the front of the book, and will be recognized as an imitation, in manner, of the Brutus, sive de Claris Oratoribus, of the Latin author under examination.

As a critic and commentator, Professor Anthon must be regarded with the highest consideration. Although still young, he has evinced powers of a nature very

unusual in men whose lives, like his own, have been mainly devoted to the hortus siccus of classical erudition. The simplicity and perfect obviousness of most of the readings wherein he has differed from commentators of the first celebrity, entitle him to respect as the philosopher, no less than as the philologist. He has dared to

throw aside the pedant, and look en homme du monde upon some of the most valued of the literary monuments of antiquity. In this way he has given the world evidence of a comprehensive as well as of an acute and original understanding, and thus the abundant notes to his editions of the Latin classics will do him lasting honor among all who are qualified to give an opinion of his labors, or whose good word and will he would be likely to consider as worth having.

POEMS BY WILLIAM CULLen Bryant.

TION.

FOURTH EDI

NEW YORK: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

[Southern Literary Messenger, January, 1837.]

MR. BRYANT's poetical reputation, both at home and abroad, is greater, we presume, than that of any other American. British critics have frequently awarded him high praise; and here, the public press have been unanimous in approbation. We can call to mind no dissenting voice. Yet the nature, and, most especially the manner, of the expressed opinions in this case, should be considered as somewhat equivocal, and but too frequently must have borne to the mind of the poet doubts and dissatisfaction. The edition now before us may be supposed to embrace all such of his

poems as he deems not unworthy his name.

These

(amounting to about one hundred) have been " carefully revised." With the exception of some few, about which nothing could well be said, we will speak briefly of them one by one, but in such order as we may find convenient.

The Ages, a didactic piece of thirty-five Spenserian stanzas, is the first and longest in the volume. It was originally printed in 1821, with about half a dozen others now included in this collection. The design of the author in this poem is "from a survey of the past ages of the world, and of the successive advances of mankind in knowledge and virtue, to justify and confirm the hopes of the philanthropist for the future destinies of the human race." It is, indeed, an essay on the perfectibility of man, wherein, among other better arguments some in the very teeth of analogy, are deduced from the eternal cycles of physical nature, to sustain a hope of progression in happiness. But it is only as a poem that we wish to examine The Ages. Its commencement is impressive. The four initial lines arrest the attention at once by a quiet dignity of manner, an air of placid contemplation, and a versification combining the extremes of melody and force

When to the common rest that crowns our days,
Called in the noon of life, the good man goes,
Or full of years, and ripe in wisdom, lays
His silver temples in their last repose

The five concluding lines of the stanza, however, are not equally effective

When, o'er the buds of youth, the death-wind blows, And blights the fairest; when our bitterest tears

Stream, as the eyes of those that love us close,

We think on what they were, with many fears

Lest goodness die with them, and leave the coming years.

The defects, here, are all of a metrical and of course minor nature, but are still defects. The line

When o'er the buds of youth the death-wind blows.

is impeded in its flow by the final th in youth, and especially in death where w follows. The word tears cannot readily be pronounced after the final st in bitterest; and its own final consonants, rs, in like manner render an effort necessary in the utterance of stream which commences the next line. In the verse

We think on what they were, with

many fears

the word many is, from its nature, too rapidly pronounced for the fulfilment of the time necessary to give weight to the foot of two syllables. All words of two syllables do not necessarily constitute a foot (we speak now of the Pentameter here employed) even although the syllables be entirely distinct, as in many, very, often, and the like. Such as, without effort, cannot employ in their pronunciation the time demanded by each of the preceding and succeeding feet of the verse, and occasionally of a preceding verse, will never fail to offend. It is the perception of this fact which so frequently forces the versifier of delicate ear to employ feet exceeding what are unjustly called legitimate dimensions. For example. At page 21 of the volume before us we have the following lines

Lo! to the smiling Arno's classic side
The emulous nations of the West repair!

These verses are exceedingly forcible, yet, upon scanning the latter we find a syllable too many. We shall be told possibly that there should an elision of the e in the at the commencement.

tended.

But no

this was not in

Both the and emulous demand a perfect ac

centuation. The verse commencing Lo!

Lo! to the smiling Arno's classic side,

has, it will be observed, a Trochee in its first foot. As is usually the case, the whole line partakes, in consequence, of a stately and emphatic enunciation, and to equalize the time in the verse succeeding, something more is necessary than the succession of Iambuses which constitute the ordinary English Pentameter. The equalization is therefore judiciously effected by the introduction of an additional syllable. But in the lines

Stream, as the eyes of those that love us close,
We think on what they were with many fears,

lines to which the preceding observations will equally apply, this additional syllable is wanting. Did the rhyme admit of the alteration, every thing necessary could be accomplished by writing

We think on what they were with many a fear,

Lest goodness die with them and leave the coming year.

These remarks may be considered hypercritical-yet it is undeniable that upon a rigid attention to minutiæ such as we have pointed out, any great degree of metrical success must altogether depend. We are more disposed, too, to dwell upon the particular point mentioned above, since, with regard to it, the American Monthly, in a late critique upon the poems of Mr.