New-York daily tribune., 1843-12-16
tn E T RIB u n E !.
Iiterarp Notices.

80 than has been given them by the press,
"A lonoer than VIC can admit In our columns
r;,s, and foremost, we sorry to see them pub
:sbed in this pamphlet form. Byron once SAID
i mas afraid to look in new trunk, lest he
.bo,ld see some of his poems pasted on the IN
;de for orlininc The author ofSacred Poems and
Poems of Passion, has fair chance to see his
,sed for kindling wood Such poems as these
.nono the best that our literature furnishes
oagAt to pay, in better and costller form. In
ooc of the numbers Of the New Mirror, that her.
| aids in these poems, Willis says they are from
beneath the current of his frivolity and are part
,r himself, those for which he has peculiar al
sct;on. We believe it, and well he may love
hem. The same Mirror contains long cata-
,g,e of the numerous criticisms published on
himself and these poems.
The hackneyed charge Of Dandyism is prom-
nent in all of them. To those who have known
! him for the last few years. and have seen him on
rs farm and in his fustiaa, this will seem rather
ut of place. Yet Willis should not complain
i the hard hits he receives. He deserves ev-
GV one Ie ldo Sol' IAo eouSHt popularity
trough that most dangerous of all mediams-
the affections of men. His first poems were all
addressed to the heart, and successfully, till he
himself found a place there, and was loved by
the good and sincere. And when those whose
ympathies he had SO deeply stirred, were told he
lad become a gay, heartless man ol the world,
ney did perfectly right to be angry. He had be-
tayed them He who uses the holicst sympa-
tEes of orr nature by which to acquire fame,
must always be an earnest man. Besides, the
Iheart is never Just critic. IT renders man
more than he deserves, or less.
Willis is a poet who would have acquired
higher and frmer reputation if he had always
wed retired, for the streamat that Fictitious So
ietv has darkened, would then have continued
D flow in its purity. He made great mistake,
ase, when, hattered by the fashionable literati of
Europe. he degenerated into their heartless, soul
less literature Besides, vonme of Melainle
and other poems bound in satin, and gilt, lying in
the lap of Lady Blessington, had not found the
pinnacle of fame.
The " frivolity'' charged against his works is
too true of his later efforts. He seems to think
that true literature has no soul, any more than
fashionable society Occasional trihing with
grave things the world will permit, and allow
music now and then to end in Scudder's balco-
ny but not always. And yet that same affected
caelessness, we do not well know how such a
sensitive and exqusitely formed mind ps that of
Wiiss could well escape. Amid the angles and
elbows Of selfish, actual life, it either takes re-
uge in bitter contempt or assumed indifference
unless, as it seldom happens it dares to be natu-
al and true, though misunderstood and damned
for it.
Like the world, we have thought that Wiillss
heart was so crusted overthat it could not feel as 1t
once felt ,and write as tonce wrote, but Thoughts
over a Cradle" has convinced US we were ms
taken. That poem came from clear fountain.
We can divine the occasion of it, and can say
most sincerely Heaven bless the baby for that.
Wchavclong thought that Williswith allhis pop
ularlty was underrated, and for two reasons: First
because the world no longer regrads his poems as
the sincere language of the heart. In the next
place, the taste of the country is for the strong
and nervous rather than for thelight and graceful
for the grand rather than beautiful. We love
the stern and stormy nay even bombastlc, rather
than the quiet, the delicate, and the refined Willis
cannot write nervous and strong. His imaglna-
ton is never the flight of the eagle, but always
the arrowy dart of the swallow.
1t is so in his prose writings, and the charge of
fppancy against them is too much insisted on.
We think Willis has done much for the English
language. Hehas shown more than all other writ
ers among us the pliablo nature, the almost mir
aculous fcxlbility Of our stern Saxon tongue. In
his hands it bends round the incest point and ex-
presses the most piquant thing with the definite
ness and grace of the French language All this
ne does, too, with so little effort that it seems to
ne no difficult thing But let him that thinks SO
ryit
The Sacred Poems and Poems of Passion will
lTewhlle our Literature lives. Lines on leaving
Europe we do not believe can be surpassed. We
never read them without blessing hun III our
neatt. Ambition stirs us Ike trumpet call
aoSalom, Jalrus Daughter, ,and-s but we Will stop
or the catalogue would fill half the column Some
OF these were written early in life and are rather
aashy and boyish; others have diffusiveness
OF thought which nothing but the graceful lam
guage that attenuates il saves from being tame.
Butthe greater part of them are perfect gems. Yet
Willis Poems can never be universally popular
they are adapted oomuch for a peculiar class-fos
men of hghwrought sensitive minds, and refined
, women.-The sentiment Is too subtle for the mul-
ulude.-Just so he never can excel IN comedy, for
MS wit is too nice and keen to set PIT in roar
nor in tragedy, for however well he may think he
conceivesthem, he cannot feel the dark the terri
Die passions that sometimes seize the soul and