these days of unoriginal mediocrity- that he has a marked way of his own, and in that way is altogether unrivalled. We look upon Mr. Willis as one of the truest men of letters in America. About him there is no particle of pretence. His works show his fine genius as it is. They convey the man. Whatever idea is gleaned of him through his books, will be confirmed upon personal acquaintance—and we know not one other man of letters of whom the same thing can be confidently said. In general, of the talents, of the fancy, of the wit, of the conversational powers, and especially of the accomplishments of a literary man, we get, through his compositions, a false, and very usually an exaggerated impression.

[Text: Broadway Journal, Aug. 30, 1845.]

BY

Of this number of the Library we said a few words in our last, but we shall be pardoned for referring to it again, as it contains several of the most characteristic, as well as most meritorious compositions of one of the most remarkable men of his time.

The quizzical Letters entitled "Copyright and Copywrong" should be read by all true friends and fair enemies of International Copyright. The strong points of the question of copyright, generally, were never more forcibly, if ever more ludicrously, put.

"The Bridge of Sighs" is, with one exception,

the finest poem written by Hood. It has been much admired and often quoted but we have no hesitation in complying with a friend's request, to copy it in full. We must omit it, however, till next week. "The Haunted House we prefer to any composition of its author. It is a masterpiece of its kind and that kind belongs to a very lofty - if not to the very loftiest order of poetical literature. Had we seen the piece before penning our first notice of Hood, we should have had much hesitation in speaking of Fancy and Fantasy as his predominant features. At all events we should have given him credit for much more of true Imagination than we did.

Not the least merit of the work is its rigorous simplicity. There is no narrative, and no doggrel philosophy. The whole subject is the description of a deserted house, which the popular superstition considers haunted. The thesis is one of the truest in all poetry. As a mere thesis it is really difficult to conceive anything better. The strength of the poet is put forth in the invention of traits in keeping with the ideas of crime, abandonment, and ghostly visitation. Every legitimate art is brought in to aid in conveying the intended effects; and (what is quite remarkable in the case of Hood) nothing discordant is at any point introduced. He has here very little of what we have designated as the phantastic little which is not strictly harmonious. The metre and rhythm are not only, in themselves, admirably adapted to the whole design, but, with a true artistic feeling, the poet has preserved a thorough monotone throughout, and renders its effect more impressive by the repetition (gradually increasing in frequency towards the finale) of one of the most pregnant and effective of the stanzas :

O'er all there hung a shadow and a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!

We quote a few of the most impressive quatrains :

Had Hood only written "The Haunted House " it would have sufficed to render him immortal.

WILEY & PUTNAM'S LIBRARY OF CHOICE READING. No. XX. THE INDICATOR AND COMPANION. LEIGH HUNT. PART II.

[Text: Broadway Journal, Aug. 30, 1845.]

-

By

THIS Volume contains some two or three papers which are worth preserving which have in them the elements of life—and which will leave a definite and perhaps a permanent impression upon every one who reads them. In general, however, it is made up of that species of easy writing which is not the easiest reading. We find here too much of slipshodiness, both in thought and manner, and too little of determined purpose. The tone is not that of a bold genius uttering vigorous things carelessly and inconsiderately, with contempt or neglect of method or completeness, but rather that of a naturally immethodical and inaccurate intellect, making a certain air of ruggedness and insouciance the means of exalting the commonplace into the semblance of originality and strength. Hunt has written many agreeable papers, but no great ones.

a rush

His points will bear no steady examination. The view at first taken of him by the public is far nearer the truth, perhaps, than that which seems to have been latterly adopted. His "Feast of the Poets" is possibly his best composition. As a rambling essayist he has too little of the raw material. As a critic he is merely saucy, or lackadaisical, or falsely enthusiastic, or at best pointedly conceited. His judgment is not worth - witness his absurd eulogies on Coleridge's "Pains of Sleep" quoted in the volume before us. In his "Remarks upon (on) De Basso's Ode to a Dead Body,' he has said critically some of the very best things it ever occurred to him to say; but if there be need to show the pure imbecility and irrelevancy of the paper as a criticism, let it only be contrasted with what a truly critical spirit would write. highest literary quality of Hunt is a secondary or tertiary grade of Fancy. His loftiest literary attainment is to entertain. This is precisely the word which suits his

case.

The

As for excitement we must not look for it in him. And, unhappily, his books are not of such character that they may be taken up, with pleasure, (as may the Spectator,") by a mind exhausted through excitement. In this condition we require repose—which is the antipode of the style of Hunt. And since, for the ennuyé he has insufficient stimulus, it is clear that as an author he is fit for very little, if really for anything at all.

WILEY AND PUTNAM'S LIBRARY OF CHOICE READING. No. XXI. GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF BURNS. BY PROFESSOR WILSON.

[Text: Broadway Journal, Sept. 6, 1845.]

THAT Professor Wilson is one of the most gifted and altogether one of the most remarkable men of his day, few persons will be weak enough to deny. His ideality his enthusiastic appreciation of the beautiful, conjoined with a temperament compelling him into action and expression, has been the root of his preeminent success. Much of it, undoubtedly, must be referred to that so-called moral courage which is but the consequence of the temperament in its physical elements. In a word, Professor Wilson is what he is, because he possesses ideality, energy and audacity, each in a very unusual degree. The first, almost unaided by the two latter, has enabled him to produce much impression, as a poet, upon the secondary or tertiary grades of the poetic comprehension. His "Isle of Palms" appeals effectively, to all those poetic intellects in which the poetic predominates greatly over the intellectual element. It is a composition which delights through the glow of its imagination, but which repels (comparatively of course) through the niaiseries of its general conduct and construction. a critic, Professor Wilson has derived, as might easily be supposed, the greatest aid from the qualities for which we have given him credit and it is in criticism especially, that it becomes very difficult to say which of these qualities has assisted him the most. It is sheer audacity, however, to which, perhaps, after

As