The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-08-05

of medical science, cannot do better than to
take this, or similar publication, and Judge
for themselves.
THE PoErrcAL WORKS OF FIrz GREENE HALLEcK.
New edition. New York Published by Redfeld.
For sale by Taylor & Maury, Washington.
This is in every respect a beautiful edition
OF one of the most original and most popular of
the earlier poets Of the United States Hal
leck, though still living lat what will soon have
to be called "a green old age" however, be-
longs to the past rather than the present. He
is one OF the American bards of the era of Mrs.
Brooks, Dana, Percival, Pierpont and Bryant
only the last two of whom do anything nova
days, and they not much, to remind people of the
fact that they are still in the land of the living
With Washington Allston, Hillhouse, Brainard,
Pinkney, and perhaps one or two others the
poets we have named formed a brilliant con-
stellation in the galaxy of American intellect
a quarter of u century ago. Now, the last four
are dead and the Tyres of the others, with the
slight exceptions we have mentioned, are silent
America has poets now, worthy of the name !;
but no such constellation as that to which we
have referred Politics, commerce, law, the
pulpit and the press, watering places, and gen.
teel idling, engross much larger proportion
of the genius and talent of our country at
this time, than they did twenty-five or thirty
years ago
The volume before us opens with "Alnwick
Castle " Marco Bozzaris, and Burns" Hal
lecks three best productions, and the last, the
finest tribute paid to the genius of the great
poet of Scotland by any writer of any country
Following these we have "Wyoming" Red
Jacket and others of Halleck's old favorites
but nothing new, except another extract"
from that everlasting unfinished poem" from
which a set of similarly good and bad stanzas
called Connecticut was published some
twenty years ago
Fanny is embraced in the volume, of
course; and after that come Mr.. Halleck's
"epstles, of which we do not think much
They may have had keen edges in their day,
when the men and things satirized were con-
spicuous objects in New York society, but they
y
the interest of the volume or the fame of its
author
TUE WHITE SLAVE: OR, MEMOIRS OF A FuGITIvE
Boston Tappan Whittemore. | vol. PIP. 4Os
We opened this volume not without some
fears that we should find it weak imitation of
the highly successful and powerful romance of
Re
means willing to see that marvellous picture
copied, and, as matter of course. carcatured
| by second-rate artist. But the author of this
book is no eopyist He has stamped it with orig
inality as marked, and in its way as effective,
as that OF "Uncle Toms CABIN 1t lacks the
admirable painting ofnegro character the min
gled pathos and drollery of that remarkable
book Its author seems to have studied human
nature in classes rather than in individuals
the current of its narrative runs strongly but
evenly Its scenes and conversations are not cal.
culated for dramatic effect. 1t is the story of
slave, and 1t is the slave in middle life educated,
refined, wealthy and free, who tells it. With
HIM, HE had been grave and earnest, and such
Is his narrative. II has the stern and stately
movement Of the old Greek tragedy,
AZ cture Of slavery in its moral, social,
and polit''al bearing upon the North as well
as the South, it furnishes hints and facts which
are overlooked in Uncle Toms Cabin In truth,
apart from their subject there is little or nothing
In common between the two books. In purer
raciness, sprightliness, and picturesque effect,
Uncle Toms Cabin has greatly the advantage.
Ia the style of the author before us everything
is subdued and sombered His refined passion
and steady energy reminds us OF Goodwin IN