JOHN M. HARNEY. [Born, 1789. Died, 1825.] JOHN M. HARNEY, the second of three sons of I'HOMAS HARNEY, an officer in the continental forces during the revolution, was born in Sussex county, Delaware, on the ninth of March, 1789. In 1791 the family removed to the vicinity of Nashville, Tennessee, and in a few years to Louisiana. The elder brother and our author studied medicine, and the former became a surgeon in the army. The younger brother also entered the army, was commissioned as lieutenant in 1818, and in 1847 was brevetted a brigadier general for gallant conduct in the battle of Cerro Gordo. Dr. JOHN M. HARNEY settled in Bardstown, Kentucky, where in 1814 he was married to a daughter of Judge JOHN ROWAN. In 1816 he visited the eastern states; and the death of his wife, soon after, caused him to abandon his pursuits at Bardstown and return to Tennessee; and, as soon as he could make suitable preparations, to go abroad. He travelled in Great Britain, Ireland, France, and Spain; spent several years in the naval service of Buenos Ayres; and coming back to the United States, took up his residence at Savannah, Georgia, where he conducted a political newspaper. Excessive exertion and exposure at a fire, in that city, brought on a fever which undermined his constitution, and having removed again to Bardstown, he died there, on the fifteenth of January, 1825. His "Crystalina, a Fairy Tale," in six cantos, was completed when he was about twenty-three years of age, but in consequence of "the proverbial indifference, and even contempt, with which Americans receive the works of their countrymen," he informs us in a brief preface, was not published until 1816, when it appeared anonymously in New York. It received much attention in the leading literary journals of that day. Its obvious faults were freely censured, but upon the whole it was reviewed with unusual manifestations of kindly interest. The sensitive poet, however, was so deeply wounded by some unfavorable criticisms, that he suppressed nearly all the copies he had caused to be printed, so that it has since been among our rarest books. The poem is founded chiefly upon superstitions which prevail among the highlands of Scotland. A venerable seer, named ALTAGRAND, is visited by the knight RINALDO, who informs him that the monarch of a distant island had an only daughter, CRYSTALINA, with whom he had fallen in love; that the princess refused to marry him unless he first distinguished himself in battle; that he "plucked laurel wreaths in danger's bloody path," and returned to claim his promised reward, but was informed of the mysterious disappearance of the maid, of whose fate no indica tions could be discovered, and that he for years had searched for her in vain through every quar ter of the world. He implores the aid of the seer, who ascertains from familiar spirits, sum. moned by his spells, that CRYSTALINA has been stolen by OBERON, and, arming RINALDO with a cross and consecrated weapons, conducts him to a mystic circle, within which, upon the performance of a described ceremony, the earth opens and discloses the way to Fairy Land. In the second, third, and fourth cantos, are related the knight's adventures in that golden subterranean realm; the various stratagems and enchantments by which its sovereign endeavored to seduce or terrify him; his annihilation of all obstacles by exhibiting the cross; the discovery of CRYSTALINA, transformed into a bird, in OBERON'S palace; the means by which she was restored to her natural form of beauty; and the triumphant return of the lovers to the upper air. In the fifth and sixth cantos it is revealed that ALTAGRAND is the father of RINALDO, and the early friend of the father of CRYSTALINA, with whom he had fought in the holy wars against the infidel. The king, -"inspired with joy and wine, From his loose locks shook off the snows of time," and celebrated the restoration of his child and his friend, and the resignation of his crown to RINALDO, in a blissful song: ... "Ye rolling streams, make liquid melody, Let not rude Boreas, on this halcyon day, Forth in his stormy chariot be whirled; Nor shoot the oak-rending lightnings at the world. A child I lost, but two this day have found, And cast her fatal, horrid shears, away, A child I lost, but two this day have found, This sacred night in heavenly synod meet; A child I lost, but two this day have found, In 1816, Mr. JOHN NEAL was editing "The Portico," a monthly magazine, at Baltimore, and he reviewed this poem in a long and characteristic article. After remarking that it was "the most splendid production" that ever came before him, he says "We can produce passages from 'Crystalina' which have not been surpassed in our language. SPENSER himself, who seemed to have condensed all the radiance of fairy-land apon his starry page, never dreamed of more exquisitely fanciful scenery than that which our bard has sometimes painted.... Had this poet written before SKAKSPEARE and SPENSER, he would have been acknowledged the child of faney..... Had he dared to think for himself to blot out some passages, which his judgment, we are sure. could not have approved-the remainder would have done credit to any poet, living or dead.... It is not our intention to run a parallel between the author of Crystalina' and the SHAKSPEARE, SPENSER, or MILTON, of another country.... He moves in a different creation, but he moves in as radiant a circle, and at as elevated a point, in his limited sphere, as any whom we have mentioned." I cannot quite agree with Mr. NEAL. Crystalina" does not seem to me very much superior to his own Battle of Niagara." It however evinces decided poetical power, and if carefully revised, by a man of even very inferior talents, if of a more cultivated taste and greater skill in the uses of language, it might be rendered one of the most attractive productions in its class. The precept of HORACE, that a poet should construct his fable from events generally believed to be true, is justified by the fact that so few works in which the characters are impossible, and the incidents altogether incredible, have been successful in modern times. DRAKE'S "Culprit Fay" is undoubtedly a finer poem than MORRIS's " Woodman, spare that Tree," but it will never be half as popular. That Dr. HARNEY had an original and poetical fancy will be sufficiently evident from a few examples: "Thrice had yon moon her pearly chariot driven Across the starry wilderness of heaven, In lonely grandeur; thrice the morning star ...."The mountain tops, oak-crowned And round me flutter with familiar wing, After the publication of" Crystalina," Dr. HAR NEY commenced an epic poem, of which fragments were found, with numerous shorter compositions, among his papers, after he died. Mr. GALLAGHER, who examined some of his manuscripts, says "they were worthier than Crystalina' of his genius and acquirements;" but nearly all of them disappeared, through the negligence or the jealous care of his friends. Among his latest productions was "The Fever Dream," which was written at Savannah, after he had himself been a sufferer from the disease he so vividly describes. In a lighter vein is the ingenious bagatelle entitled "Echo and the Lover," which, as well as "The Fever Dream," was first published after the poet's death. EXTRACTS FROM "CRYSTALINA." SYLPHS, BATHING. THE shores with reclamations rung, Climb their white necks, and on their bosoms toy : TITANIA'S CONCERT. In robes of green, fresh youths the concert led, Measuring the while, with nice, emphatic tread Of tinkling sandals, the melodious sound Of smitten timbrels; some, with myrtles crown'd, Pour the smooth current of sweet melody, Through ivory tubes; some blow the bugle free, And some, at happy intervals, around, With trumps sonorous swell the tide of sound; Some, bending raptured o'er their golden lyres, With cunning fingers fret the tuneful wires; ON A FRIEND. DEVOUT, yet cheerful; pious, not austere, To others lenient, to himself severe; Though honored, modest; diffident, though praised The proud he humbled, and the humble raised; Studious, yet social; though polite, yet plain; No man more learnéd, yet no man less vain. His fame would universal envy move, But envy's lost in universal love. That he has faults, it may be bold to doubt, Yet certain 't is we ne'er have found them out. If faults he has, (as man, 't is said, must have,) They are the only faults he ne'er forgave. I flatter not absurd to flatter where Just praise is fulsome, and offends the ear. THE FEVER DREAM. A FEVER Scorched my body, fired my brain; Like lava in Vesuvius, boiled my blood Within the glowing caverns of my heart; 46 I raged with thirst, and begged a cold, clear draught And from its arid breast heaved smoke, that seemed I heard a laugh, and saw a wretched man Rend, oh, ye lightnings! the sealed firmament, And flood a burning world. Rain! rain! pour! pour! Open, ye windows of high heaven! and pour The mighty deluge! Let us drown and drink Luxurious death! Ye earthquakes split the globe, The solid, rock-ribbed globe-and lay all bare Its subterranean rivers and fresh seas!" Thus raged the multitude. And many fell In fierce convulsions; many slew themselves. And now I saw the city all in flamesThe forest burning-earth itself on fire! I saw the mountains open with a roar, Loud as the seven apocalyptic thunders, And seas of lava rolling headlong down, Through crackling forests, fierce, and hot as hellDown to the plain. I turned to fly-and waked. ECHO AND THE LOVER. Lover. Ecнo! mysterious nymph, declare Echo. 66 64 ALEXANDER H. EVERETT. [Born, 1790. Died, 1847.] ALEXANDER HILL EVERETT, one of the most learned and respectable of our public characters, is best known as a writer by his various, numerous and able productions in prose; but is entitled to notice in a reviewal of American poetry by the volume of original and translated “Poems," which he published in Boston in 1845. He was a son of the Reverend OLIVER EVERETT, of Dorchester, and an elder brother of EDWARD EVERETT, and was born on the nineteenth of March, 1790. He was graduated, with the highest honours, at Harvard College, at the early age of sixteen; the following year was a teacher in the Exeter Academy; and afterwards a student in the law office of JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, whom in 1809 he accompanied to Russia, as his private secretary. In St. Petersburgh he passed two years in the assiduous study of languages and politics, and returning to this country was appointed secretary of legation to the Netherlands, in 1813, and in 1818 became chargé d'affaires at that post, and in 1823 THE PORTRESS. L'ENVOI, TO M. L.. FAIR Saint! who, in thy brightest day Of life's meridian joys, Hast turn'd thy serious thoughts away From fashion's fleeting toys, Come fly with me on fancy's wing The clime of sunshine, love, and spring, Its massy structure rears, A holy shrine appears: BALLAD. "Blest shrines! from which in evil hour My erring footsteps stray'd, Oh grant your kind protecting power! To a repentant maid! minister to Spain. He came home in 1829, and n the same year undertook the editorship of The North American Review." He was subsequently an active but not a very successful politician, several years, and in 1845, after having for a short time been president of the University of Louisiana, was appointed minister plenipotentiary to China, and sailed for Canton in a national ship, but was compelled by ill health to return, after having proceeded as far as Rio Janeiro. The next year, however, he was able to attempt the voyage a second time, and he succeeded in reaching Canton, but to die there just after his arrival, the twenty-ninth of June, 1847. The principal works of Mr. EVERETT are desced in " The Prose Writers of America." His poems consist of translations from the Greek, Latin, Norse, German, French and Spanish, with a few original pieces, more wise, perhaps, than poetical. Some of the translations are exe cuted with remarkable grace and spirit. Sweet Virgin! if in other days I sang thee hymns of love and praise, With that false-hearted man, I breathed to thee my parting prayer The fairest and the best, And was so diligent withal, That she had won the trust of all, And by superior order sate As Portress at the convent gate. And well she watch'd that entrance o'er ;Ah! had she known the art To guard as faithfully the door Of her own virgin heart. But when the glozing tempter came With honied words of sin and shame, She broke her order's sacred bands, And follow'd him to distant lands. And there, in that delicious clime And she from Madrid's courtly bowers To seek in old Palencia's towers His hall is vacant: not a beam But lo! where in the cool moonligh And she has enter'd, and has knelt Before the blessed shrine, And stealing o'er her senses felt An influence divine; And the false world's corrupt control No more can subjugate her soul, Where thoughts of innocence again With undivided empire reign. Again she sees her quiet cell, And the trim garden there; That summons her to prayer; "Ah! who will give me back?" she said, With hotly-gushing tears, "The blameless heart, the guiltless head The Pure one, that she might have been!" While musing thus, around the dome, R A lantern in her hand she bore, Then murmur'd, fearing to intrude, Since MARGARET left her convent home." From shrine to shrine with measured pace, The figure went in turn, And placed the flowers, and trimm'd the dress And made the tapers burn: Nor ever rested to look back: And MARGARET follow'd in her track, Fair sight it was, I ween, but dread Each separate altar there, Save only where around the nun And every flower her touch beneath Sent forth a sweet perfume; Entranced, in ecstacies of awe, And joy that none can tell, The Penitent at distance saw The beauteous miracle; And scarce can trust the evidence That pours in floods through every sense; And thinks, so strange the vision seems, That she is in the land of dreams. At length, each altar duly dight, The wondrous nun resumed the light, |