fallen into it in the midst of his pursuit of that minute excellence which is directly opposed to it.

Still, however, and with all its defects both of subject and of execution, the poem is by no means undeserving attention. Mr. Rogers has not been able to depart from his former manner, that which use had made natural to him-so much as he perhaps intended. He is often himself in spite of himself. Habit, good taste, and an exquisite ear, are constantly bringing him back to the right path, even when he had set out with a resolution to wander from it. Hence, though the poem will not bear to be looked at as a whole, and though there runs through it an affectation of beauties which it is not in the author's power to produce, yet it contains passages of such merit as would amply repay the trouble of reading a much larger and more faulty work. It will be the more pleasing part of our task to select a few of them, with an assurance to our readers that they are not the only ones, and with a strong recommendation to read the whole-a recommendation with which they will very easily comply, as the poem does not exceed seven or eight hundred lines.

In the first canto there is a very pretty couplet about the compass

"That oracle to man in mercy given,

Whose voice is truth, whose wisdom is from heaven."

Soon after comes a description of the monsoon, which is very striking, though we do not see what practical advantage is gained by ascribing it to the agency of an angel-or what necessity there is to quote "Revelations, cap. 19. ver. 17." as an authority for the expression "mighty wind."

"He spoke, and at his call, a mighty wind,

Not like the fitful blast, with fury blind,
But deep majestic in its destined course,

Rushed with unerring, unabating force,

From the bright East. Tides duly ebb'd and flow'd,
Stars rose and set, and new horizons glow'd;

Yet still it blew; as with primeval sway,

Still did its ample spirit, night and day,
Move on the waters!"-

Primeval is a word that has become a great favourite among our modern poets, and we often find it used on occasions where we very little expected to meet with it, and when we feel considerable difficulty in ascertaining the sense it was intended to convey. When Mr. Rogers says the wind blew with "primeval sway," we presume (for we are not quite sure) he means that it blew just as it did when the world was created. But he must pardon us for saying that this is an obscure, affected way of ex

pressing the thought, and makes a blemish in what is otherwise a very brilliant passage.

Of the second canto, Mr. Rogers, speaking in his own person of the hermit's narration, says, "This canto appears to have suffered more than the rest. We wander as it were-ubi rebus nox abstulit atra colorem." This is very true, in one sense, for it is broken and obscure; but it is only trifling with the reader to offer him such a confession by way of apology. The only reason for putting the story into the mouth of a cotemporary adventurer-iş to give it additional life and spirit, and to diffuse over it that venerable hue of antiquity which is so grateful to poetical eyes: but as an excuse for defects, this expedient is absolutely ludicrous. If the canto was broken, why was not a little more MS. discovered?-If it is unintelligible, why did not the author translate his hermit into clearer language?

In the fourth canto, "The Voyage continued," are some admirable lines on the intrepidity of Columbus in exploring an unknown

ocean.

"Yet who but he undaunted could explore

A world of waves, a sea without a shore,
Trackless, and vast, and wild, as that reveal'd,
When round the ark the birds of tempest wheel'd;
When all was still in the destroying hour,

No sign of man, no vestige of his power."

The speech of Columbus to the mutineers is also a very suc cessful effort.

"Generous and brave! when God himself is here,
Why shake at shadows in your mid career?
He can suspend the laws himself design'd,
He walks the waters and the winged wind;
Himself your guide! and your's the high behest,
To lift your voice, and bid the world be blest!
And can you shrink! to you, to you consign'd
The glorious privilege to serve mankind?
Oh, had I perish'd when my failing frame
Clung to the shatter'd oar mid wrecks of flame!
-Was it for this I lingered life away,
The scorn of folly, and of fraud the prey,
Bow'd down my mind the gift his bounty gave,
At courts a suitor, and of slaves the slave," &e.

In the seventh canto they first behold the new world-the greatest natural event that ever happened, and it may safely be affirmed, that ever can happen, in the history of mankind; and it is, perhaps, rendered the more striking, because it is brought, as VOL. II. New Series:

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it were, into so small a focus, reducible to a precise point of time, and attended by circumstances on which the imagination so readily seizes. Compare it, for instance, with those events that approach nearest to it in importance-those great battles by which the fate of empires has been decided. It is impossible to fix the precise moment of victory and defeat, or to represent them to the mind otherwise than by a series of successive images. Besides, many of the ideas unavoidably connected with a battle are such as no one can dwell upon without disgust and pain-blood, carnage, the desolation of the earth, and the misery of its inhabitants. But till the dawn of the day when Columbus beheld the land, the new world was as unknown as it was in the days of Homer-that moment was the moment of discovery. The transition is instant, and the two hemispheres are joined, never again to be separated. The whole thing presents itself to us at once in the most distinct form, and in the liveliest colours. A calm day in a tropical climate, a tranquil sea, and the distant prospect of a green shore growing gradually upon the eye, and already scenting the air with its unknown flowers. This is the scenery, if we may so express ourselves, of that mighty event which is forever to live in the recollection, and to influence the fate of mankind. This is the sensible form in which it is embodied. We are introduced to every thing that is most grand and astonishing through the medium of every thing that is most beautiful. This is the great feature of Mr. Rogers's poem; of course, he does his best, and we will afford to our readers an opportunity of judging how far he has been successful.

We ought first to observe, that in the close of the seventh canto the symptoms are described by which, on the preceding evening, they were led to suspect that the object of their voyage was near at hand.

"The sails were furl'd, with many a melting close,
Solemn and slow the evening anthem rose:
Rose to the virgin-'Twas the hour of day
When setting suns o'er summer seas display
A path of glory opening in the west,
To golden climes and islands of the blest,
And human voices in the silent air,

Went o'er the waves in songs of gladness there!
Chosen of men! 'twas thine at noon of night,
First from the prow to hail the glimmering light:
Pedro Rodrigo! there methought it shone!
There in the west! and now alas 'tis gone!
'Twas all a dream, we gaze and gaze in vain!
But mark and speak not-there it comes again!
It moves--what form unseen, what being there,
With torch-like lustre fires the murky air?

His instincts, passions, say how like our own;
Oh, when will day reveal a world unknown !"

Here we remark an apparent inconsistency-in the first part of this passage they are supposed to have seen the light about sunset. In the last we are told that they descried it at midnight. The fines are very happily executed; but the author should have made his choice betwixt the two suppositions.

Canto eighth." The New World" opens thus:

"Long on the wave the morning mists repose;
They rise-and, melting into light, disclose
Half-circling hills, whose everlasting woods,

Sweep with their sable skirts the shadowy floods."

These lines too are very good so far as they go: but, though we have the old expedient of an " hiatus"-valde deflendus, if the author thought any thing ought to be added, and very absurd if he did not-Mr. Rogers ought to recollect, that to evade the busimess of connecting together by proper shades and gradations the salient and striking parts of a composition, is neither more nor less than to leave unconquered its chief difficulty-to sacrifice its chief beauty, and forfeit its chief praise. After a proper number of asterisks we proceed.

"Oh say, when all, to holy transport given,
Embrac'd and wept as at the gates of heav'n;
When one and all at once repentant ran,
And on their faces bless'd the wondrous man,
Say, was the Muse deceiv'd-or from the skies,
Burst on their ear seraphic harmonies?
Glory to God! unnumbered voices sang,
Glory to God! the vales and mountains rang,
Voices that hail'd creation's primal morn,

And to the shepherds sung a Saviour born!"

We object to nothing but the Muse-were it only from good taste, the fables of heathen mythology (splendid and beautiful as they are in themselves) ought never to be brought into contact with the awful history of the true religion,

The poem languishes till the twelfth canto, when it revives again in the "Vision." The idea is happy. In fact, it affords the only means by which the interest could be protracted beyond the discovery. It exhibits a rapid, spirited, poetical view of the future fate of Columbus himself, and of the world he had discovered. We could with pleasure make some extracts, but we have not room; and the specimens already given will probably have convinced our readers, that notwithstanding its defects, the poem has beauties of no ordinary kind.

For the Analectic Magazine.

HINTS ON THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES.

THE brilliant victories obtained by our gallant navy naturally lead every lover of his country to consider the means by which its glory may be perpetuated and its successes continued. Both of these objects are rendered difficult in a state of war, particularly with Great Britain; whose numerous fleets appear to render a long struggle for our existence upon the ocean almost impracticable. Those gallant sailors who have gained the trophies of which we so justly boast, have their ranks thinned by death and captivity; the commercial marine, from which recruits must be drawn, is driven from the ocean, and its navigators are obliged to seek bread in other occupations, to which comparative ease will attach them. It will therefore become more and more difficult to recruit picked and experienced hands for the service; and our crews, blockaded in ports by superior force, will lose those habits of discipline and subordination to which their victories were owing. The inexperienced in naval affairs who boast of the natural superiority of their countrymen, may ridicule such gloomy forebodings; "when we meet an enemy in equal force we will always subdue them," they cry; but let them recollect that equal force does not always constitute equal terms; that skill in seamanship and gunnery can only be obtained by unremitted exercise, and that a port is destructive of discipline among sailors. Let them recollect that the marine of France, which, at the commencement of the reign of Lewis XIV., bade defiance to the united navies of England and Holland, was annihilated before his death; not by the force of his enemies, but by inattention to its equipment and exercise. Let them also recollect that the lion of England is roused; that her "meteor flag," though dimmed in splendour, and waning in the pre zence of the American star, still burns terrific on our coasts. Let them remember that the shame which makes even cowards fight,