Litchfield enquirer., 1830-09-02
From the American Monthiy MagosiAe. JAMES c. PERCIvAL.

From the American Monthiy MagoSiae
 JAMES c. PERCIvAL.
 The most legitimate poet, the most au- thentic child of the Mnses, baptised and
 cradled undeniably by our deserted we'll is Percival. It is written broad on his
 forehead. He is the only poet in the land
 who looks like one. His eye is itself
 palpatle evidence-large, wild, and full
 of the uncertain fire of genius. His fea-
 lures are thin and pointed, his mouth var-
 able and expressive of sensibility pain fully acute, and his head marked from his temple back like the very cidolon and mo-
 del of phrenology. There is mixture of timidity and pride, ofweakness of pur- pose and conscious power, in the express
 sion of his face which it is difficultto rec oncile. His whole aspect is that ofa per- fectly intellectual creature-a shrinking susceptible being-out of his place in the world, and refined every way above the tone and temper of society. There is a singular incongrnity between his produc- tions and his requirements. It is not, we believe, generally known, that in the accu- rate sciences, MT. Perciyal has not his e. qual in this country. Asa mathematician, a ageologist and chemist, he might at the present moment take equal rank with men who have devoted their lives to either.- We are not making an idle or an unfound- ed assertion. We have trod the same wood-paths, and haunted the same soli- tude, and been conversant with the same neighborhoods and people with him for years. We know that there is not flow CT that springs from the earth, nor a peb- ble that has it's like on the hills, with which he is not as familiar as with the fingers on his hand. He has studied nature like a | book of life. His poetry is full of fine and searching observation-full of the inward philosophy, the rare and difficult spirit of the native world. You may get from the widest rhapsody, scraps of fknowlodge, and unexpected truths. And you may go through his singular and voluminous wri- tings, written as they often are, with the apparent recklessness of insanity, and find from end to end, never false philosophy, nor shade of'inaccurate allusion, nor an imperfect, or in the slightest degree unsci- cnti6c, illustration. We challenge criti- cism upon it. Y HsNsA' 'so. SFsS*T % \
 For the last two or three years, nothing has been heard of Percival abroad. He has published no poetry, and the public, with its usual ungrateful fckleness, has drop- ped his name from its lips. He is spoken of. it is true, whenever the scattered chiL- dren of the Pheebs Chorus come together; and far one, we never forgot him in men, ton of choice spirits about the tripod, and in the GssreG pocuia of the fraternity-but the trumpet that fills the ears of the vulgar IS not blown by such wandering breaths, and he must wake and electrify with his own touch the sluggish keys that govern it. | How applicable to himself are his own glorious stanzas upon Genius Slumber- ing.' z Mir. Percival's lot has been tha, of Gen jus in it's most sensitive shapes since the world began. He has suffered, and wan- dered, and thrown aside, from caprice or feeling, every gift of fortune; till his fine fancy has been fettered and put down, and his mind broken into traces, and he is now one of the most devoted of laborors in the dryest and most heart trying paths of lit- erature. His unequalted and universal ac- quireWents as alinguist, have thrown upon him task to which, as the author himselfl remarked, no other person in the country was sequal~the revision and superintend- ence of Mir. Webster's Psychological Die tionary; labor to which, for or years, he has devoted fromsl2 ? to ll5 hours a day, with barely compensation enough for sub sistence. Since this was completed, he has translated and improved for the press Maltebrun'si Universal Geography; anoth- eF labor which demanded extensive and | minute requirement, with the same en- | crossing and assidnoos industry. And this 2 what the world calls a triumph This what is lauded and rejoiced over among nsnsl as if tho lofty spirit broken to their aMillar and splodding uses were redeemed rom a arepfoach by the lsaCri6ce- Ids if to