The Sun.
London, England, 1849-04-23 00:00:00

L ITERA TURE.

.I.7iONTENAC. A Poem. By Alf; ed B. Street.
Ai ex Bryant, and Vs itlis, and Longfellow, Air.
Street must be regarded as one of the most conspi-
cuous among the pet.: of America. As yet we be-
lieve him to be comparatively little known in this
country—as little known as a bard as his namesake,
Alfred Poe, is as a romancist. It is, therefore, a de-
cided step towards his appreciation in these islands—
the publication by Mr. Bentley of a long poem in
nine cantos before its appearance in print in the
United States. By this arrangement with an emi-
nent English publisher to anticipate the printing-
presses of the Transatlantic Republic, Mr. Street has
entitled himself to the consideration of English readers
in a very peculiar degree ; and he has done so under
a very fascinating and appropriate guise, namely,
as the celebrant of the heroism of the Redmen. Those
who regard the American Indians with the admira-
tion to which the race is so singularly entitled, those
who have been admitted into the midst of their
savage domesticity, under the guidance of Mr. Catlin,
who have reverenced with him their many virtues,
respected with him their noble characteristics,
honoured their courage, listened to the eloquence of
their orations, scanned the symmetry of theirlimbs, the
grace of their carriage, the vigour of their muscles,
and the barbaric beauty of their features—will revel
in the poem of " Frontenac." It is the narrative of
Catlin set to the music of rhythm, and decorated with
the flowing tissues of poetry. It transports the
imagination to the happy age of the Indian before
the pale faces had brought desolation to the heart of
the primeval forests, and to the brink of the fragrant
prairies. It familiarises the reader with all the ap-
purtenances of Indian life, Indian costume, and
Indian occupations. It pourtrays the chieftain crowned
with feathers, armed with the tomahawk, girdled with
the belt of wampum, decorated with the scalps of his
enemies, his calves and ancles encased in the mocas-
sins, sitting cross-legged under the shadow of the
wigwam, breathing the fumes of tobacco
through his pipe of peace, or calumet.
It carries us back in fancy to the period
when the vast territory, called the " Long House,"
stretching from the Hudson River to the Lakes of
Erie and the Ontario, was in the possession of the
Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayngas, Onondagas, and Se-
necas, those five nations who were banded together
under the title of the Iroquois—a time when the
French were predominant throughout the Canadas,
under the successive governments of Champlain, De
la Barre, De Nouville, and Frontenac. Great as were
the advantages of Yon-non-de-yoh (the Indian name
for the French Governor-General), we there observe
how inadequate were the cannon and the discipline of
the Europeans to overcome the indomitable courage
of the aboriginal tribes ; we there perceive that before
the white faces could effectually compass the destruc-
tion of the noble barbarians, before they could depo-
pulate those beautiful regions, where crime and
misery were previously almost unknown, it was
necessary that they should employ against their
heroic antagonists all the vice and the villanies,
all the craft and the cruelties, all the arts
and atrocities that have unhappily been the
accompaniments of civilization. Frontenac, although
descriptive of a single passage of that mournful his-
tory which recounts the devastations made throughout
the North American continent in the name of Chris-
tianity, affords a vivid and appalling picture of the
conduct pursued by the European marauders. It
compels the mind irresistibly to contrast the peaceful
changes effected in Paraguay, with the sanguinary
horrors perpetrated on the southern frontiers of
Canada. That the natives should endeavour to reta-
liate pitilessly upon their assailants is, to no rational
thinker, matter of astonishment. They were hemmed
in by battalions, their woods were hewn down by the
axes of the settler, their beautiful scenery was haunted
by the faces of the white men, their territories were
encroached upon, more and more, until in return they
struck down their despoilers—
" Now here, and now there, as clouds flash in their strife,
Was the dart of the foemen, the flash of their knife;
The hunter, whilst tracking the Hudson Bay snow
In search of the ermine, sank under their blow;
Ono settler whilst plying his axe in the wood,
At the skirts of Quebec, dyed the earth with his blood;
The batteauman, pushing his craft to its goal,
Up the swift Cataraqui, fell dead at his pole;
The sentry, whilst guarding Fort Frontenac's wall,
By Ontario's waters, felt death in the hall;
Thu fur-trader, skimming with blanket and bead
The lake of the Hurons, was followed to bleed."
To terminate this blighting decimation of his country,
Count Frontenac, Governor-General of Canada, in
the June of 1696, made an expedition against the
Iroquois, marching his army from Lachine, a place
situated a few miles from Montreal. This expedition
forms the subject of the poem of Mr. Street. As
historians have already related, the French, after
ascending the St. Lawrence in canoes and batteaux,
after coasting the eastern margin of Lake Ontario,
ascending the Oswego River, and crossing
Lake Onondaga, after taking the princi-
pal village of the Aborigines and search-
ing for the population in vain in the forests or
in the flowery wildernesses of the Savannahs, were
compelled to return from a fruitless adventure—
being cut to pieces during their retreat by amhimeadesi
of the Iroquois. Mr. Street has, however, contrived
to impart a novel fascination to this familiar story by
adorning it with the combined graces of fiction and
of poetry. To this end he has selected the rhythm of
Christabel—that musical and unfettered rhythm which
places no constraint upon the revelations of every
passing emotion. In the course of the description of
the events and personages engaged in the expedition,
the poet depicts—the war song—the thanksgiving
dance—the dance of the great spirit—the war dance
—the scalp dance—and the strawberry dance. He
describes a march, a bivouac, an encampment, a bunt,
a batteau, a prairie, a cataract, a lake, a canoe voyage,
a council, a night watch, and a battle. He relates all
the associations connected with the war-hatchet, the
peace-belt, the moccasin print, and the calumet.
We are rivetted alternately to the interests connected
with Lucille or Frontenac, with On-on-dah-gah or
Jiskoko, with We-an-dah or A-ga-yen-teh. Between
the delineation of sanguinary skirmishes and assassi-
nations, we occasionally light upon a pure and
charming sketch from nature, such as that of the
breaking forth of the foliage and the early blossoms,
and the vernal songs of the birds in a Canadian spring,
when—

" With plumes were tipped the beechen sprays;
The birch long dangling tassels showed;
The oak still bare, but in a blaze
Of gorgeous red the maple glowed;
With clusters of the purest white
Cherry and shadbush charmed the sight
Like spots of snow the boughs among;
And showers of strawberry blossoms made
gich carpets in each field and glade
Where day its kindliest glances flung."
Sometimes the poet breaks off in the very core of a
dilemma to sing of the glories of a waterfall—
" The crashing, flashing, plunging form
Of floods that rush'd in fearful storm,
One mighty curve upon the air."
At rare intervals the charm of the voluble strain is
broken by such vulgarisms or conventionalisms of ex-
pression as where he says that the yacht
" with naked mast
In the lock'd shallows motionless
When sunset fell went curtseying past
As breathed the morning's light caress."
Without being by any means a poem symmetrical in
construction, steadily sustained in treatment, or
punctiliously exact, or even invariably graceful in
composition, Frontenac is a picturesque work which
will enable the English student to recognise the in-
tellectual accomplishments of Mr. Street. It has the
double merit of novelty in theme and in man-
ner. It conveys us, as it were, bodily into
the green recesses of Northern America.

It has all the melody and all the want of finish of a
song sung by an untutored inhabitant of the green
woods. Perhaps the most spirited and characteristic
passage in the whole of the nine cantos is that de-
scriptive of the " Mohawk's Scalp Dance." In the
monotonous cadence, and rapid metre of the verses,
in the dull resounding and repetition of the rhymes
and double rhymes, you almost hear the beating of the
feet of the braves who are dancing in a ring, and that
wild clang clang! clang ! of the gong, which has
in it an enthusiasm that becomes contagious. We
welcome the American poet as eagerly as though his
book were a flask of hippocrene fresh as im-
ported."

CONSUMPTION OF THE LUNGS; or,
DECLINE. The Causes, Symptoms, and
Rational Treatment, with the Means of Prevention.
By T. H. Yeomans, MD.
CATARRH, INFLUENZA, BRONCHITIS,
AND ASTHMA. Their Causes, Symptoms, and
Rational Treatment. By T. A. Yeomans, M.D.
These little manuals contain the best and most corn-
-111013-Sense account of diseases of the chest that has ever
been published. The first consists of 80, andthteo
second of 82 pages; and in this small compass Dr.
befoundYeomans
inhas
m condensed
d emorerous
octavoinformation
o f
muchthan
greateris
pretensions. His directions as to "the rational treat-
ment and means of prevention' are admirable, and
should be perused by every parent, any member of
whose family has ever been consumptive. Consump-
tion is a disease which may be prevented, and the
rules dietetic and, hygienic laid down by Dr. Yeo-
mans for the prevention of its development, are the
clearest and the most reasonable that have ever been
published.

POOR-RATES 3EN IRELAND..--A return, printed by
order of Parliament (moved for by Mr. French), shows
that the military force employed in Ireland in the collec-
lection of poor-rates between October 1, 1848, and Feb-
1, 1849, eonsiste d of 11 field-officers, 46 captains, 11.
subalterns, 216 sergeants, 42 drummers, and 4,633 rank
and file. The constabulary force employed for the same
purpose, the compulsory collection of poor-rates, con-
si4ted of 69 officers and 2,558 men.