sinks to the earth with the groundless charge on which it rests-I stamp it down in the dust;" and immediately changing the figure, adds, "I pick up the dart which fell harmless at my feet. I hurl it back. What the Senator charges on me unjustly, he has actually done." In his great speech on Oregon, alluding to the magnetic telegraph, he says--"Our globe itself will become endowed with sensitiveness, so that whatever touches it on one point, will be instantly felt on the other." In his remarks upon the resolutions introduced by him into the Senate, adverse to the conquest and annexation of Mexico, it is only once that the chain of severe and logical deduction is broken by anything in the shape of a metaphor or illustration. It is found in a graphic and striking figure of speech, thrown in almost parenthetically in the midst of his argument"Mexico is to us a dead body, and this is the only way that we can cut the cord which binds us to the corpse." Again, upon the Three Million Bill, he clothes the same idea in another form. The figure is varied, but no less significant and bold:-"Mexico is to us the forbidden fruit. The penalty of eating it would be to subject our institutions to political death." The power of analysis was possessed by Mr. Calhoun in a remarkable degree. No doctrine was too abstruse-no principle too complex, to resist that searching analytic process which every important question was certain to undergo in his hands. The prism does not more accurately separate a ray of light into its primary colors, than did the clear mind of this remarkable man resolve a general proposition into its elementary principles. The crucible does not more thoroughly separate the gold from the dross, than did the fire of his intellect refine away error, and leave behind only the pure ore of truth. The same rapid perception which enabled him to lay hold of the elementary truths of a general principle, and to present them with such singular precision and clearness, enabled him also with equal facility to rise from particular facts to the broadest generalization. His mind was inductive, as well as analytic. Indeed, his rapid and bold generalizations, and his fondness for theoretic principles and abstract truths, have led to the impression that his intellect was metaphysical and speculative, rather than practical or profound. Such an impression is entirely erroneous. A more thoroughly practical statesman, we believe, has not been among us since the days of Jefferson, nor a more profound intellect. The evidence of his practical wisdom lives in the great measures he originated and sustained. The evidence of his profound thought a thought, the offspring of something more than mere talent-the offspring of that creative power which is well called genius, lives in the record of the words he has left behind him. He was undoubtedly one of the profoundest thinkers of the age. He had during a long life studied intimately and thoroughly the science of government, the principles of political economy and political ethicsthe origin, nature, and powers of our own Constitution. He was a statesman in the largest sense of the term-a philosophical, as well as a practical statesman. It is said that he has left behind him for publication, a work containing his speculations and views upon the science of government, and the nature of our own Constitution. Such a work from such a man will be an incalculable legacy to the American people. We do not remember to have met anywhere a finer or more graphic description of the character of Mr. Calhoun, within the same compass of words, than that of Mr. Webster, pronounced upon the floor of the Sen ate, on the occasion of his death. Such a eulogy, from the lips of a distinguished political opponent, is a noble tribute to the dead, and alike honorable to the character of the living statesman. Mr. Webster never uses language without a meaning; no man more carefully weighs every sentence, and calculates the precise significance of every word he utters. His remarks are, therefore, deeply interesting, as they convey the exact impression which the character of Mr. Calhoun has left upon the mind of one who cannot be suspected of bias, and who had intimately known him during a long public career : "Sir, the eloquence of Mr. Calhoun, or the manner of his exhibition of his sentiments in public bodies, was part of his intellectual character. It grew out of the qualities of his mind. It was plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise; sometimes impassioned, still always severe. Rejecting ornament, not often seeking far for illustration, his power consisted in the plainness of his propositions, in the closeness of his logic, and in the earnestness and energy of his manner. These are the qualities, as I think, which have enabled him through such a long course of years to speak often, and yet always command attention. His demeanor, as a senator, is known to us all-is appreciated, venerated by us all. No man was more respectful to others; no man carried himself with greater decorum, no man with superior dignity. I think there is not one of us but felt when he last addressed us from his seat in the Senate-his form still erect, with a voice by no means indicating such a degree of physical weakness as did in fact possess him-with clear tones, and an impressive, and, I may say, an imposing manner-who did not feel that he might imagine that we saw before us a senator of Rome, when Rome survived." Such, indeed, was John C. Calhoun. In the republican simplicity and greatness of his character, he may well be compared to a Roman senator in the best days of Rome. His mental characteristics, from their very simplicity, appear striking, perhaps from the contrast, when compared with some of the cultivated and highly polished minds with whom he came in intellectual conflict. He was the massive Doric pillar amid a cluster of luxuriant Corinthian columns, standing out "nobly plain and unadorned," the emblem of simplicity combined with majestic strength, and the representative of a primeval age. Surely the arrow of the destroyer was this time aimed at a shining mark! We would add a word, did the time permit, upon the political influence of Mr. Calhoun in the direction of our Federal Legislation. It was great, particularly during the last seventeen years of his life. If it is not correctly estimated in our day, posterity will not fail to appreciate it. During that period, he has performed the most signal and valuable service, in sustaining the policy of the Democratic party. Not to mention that remarkable achievement which he so successfully accomplished in incorporating the Republic of Texas with the Union, we need only allude to his determined and successful resistance to the encroachments of the moneyed power; the ability and devotion with which he sustained, and finally carried, the measure of divorce between bank and state; and, above all, his noble and untiring efforts in support of the principles of free trade. For these and other signal services, the name of JOHN C. CALHOUN will be held in grateful remembrance. Posterity will do him justice, especially when that time shall have arrived, which we predict is approaching, when his course upon these measures will be universally regarded as in accordance with a sound political economy, and the result of an enlightened statesmanship. JOHN KEATS.* THE work of the editor, in the first of these volumes, is just what we would have expected to have seen come from the hand of the merest scribbler in the world, and what, indeed, we little looked for from one who has been so highly praised by a brother poet, and keen critic, who hailed him with an enthusiastic welcome, to the shore of song. In truth, were it not for his previous reputation, one would be led to suppose, that he was one of that increasing throng, who, like those who engrave their initials upon some young and vigorous oak, that is likely to grow and flourish for ages, have their names, on every occasion, put, in gold, on the back of some volume of well-earned celebrity, seemingly, with the hope that they may become associated with the name of its author, and float adown the stream of time with him who is destined to sail far out into the great ocean of futurity. The letters we shall dismiss, briefly, by saying that they are interesting, only inasmuch as they show the poet's opinion of himself; and so far as this opinion, frequently expressed, tends to dispel the illusion, so general, that, with rather an unmanly sensitiveness, he withered at the fell breath of a hostile reviewer. Farther than this they have no attraction, most of them being written to friends, about mutual friends; whatever of charms they might have had to his particular coterie, have gone, and the magician of the night, after his audience has departed, becomes an everyday individual like themselves. Those which are not of this character, are a few which give a very prosaic diary of a trip to Scotland, and exhibit none of that ecstatic transport we would look for in the youthful enthusiast, when revelling among the beauties and wonders of the great Poet of the Universe. A few filled with the most erratic vagaries of speculation, and two or three, in which true wit and pleasantry sparkle with a glow, which only makes us wish the hand which scattered a pearl here and there, had been more lavish with its treasures. But it is with the volume of poems that we have most to do; and it is with a feeling of pleasure that we set about swelling, with our murmur of approbation, the general chorus of voices now hymning his praise, so long, and so unjustly withheld. The Endymion, of which we shall chiefly speak, from the fact of its being, in our opinion, a poem of rare and exceeding beauty, and from its claims to merit having been the most controverted, proves most clearly, as its author said it would test, his "powers of invention, as making four thousand lines of one bare circumstance." A poetical mythologist says that Diana becomes enamored of the shepherd prince, Endymion, and, starting with only this simple fable, fancy leads the hero through many a maze of its own beautiful and wild construction, rivaling the wonders of faery land, or the rich and extravagant creations of an eastern tale. Life, Letters, and Literary Remains of John Keats. Edited by Richard Monckton Milnes. Complete in one volume.-Geo. P. Putnam, N. Y. The Poetical Works of John Keats.-New edition. Geo. P. Putnam, New-York, 1848. Imagination sinks, phrophet-like, into his heart and soul, and sings forth to us, in its own melodious warblings, each thought which rises in his mind, each feeling which springs up in his breast; while, like another Edipas, he wanders out, apart from all the world-though here he is driven forth by the agony of his love. And art, with a magic wand, calls up around him many of the personages who live, only, in that beautiful treasure-house of ideality-ancient mythology-and so interweaves their histories with his, that they appear before us, like a ruby set round with pearls-each gem precious and rare in itself-all combined into one dazzling and perfect whole. There is one thing, however, which should be strictly borne in mind by all who would appreciate this beautiful production to its utmost, and that is, that it is essentially a poem in blank verse; we mean, that although written in rhyme, it wants that regular breaking of the lines, so necessary to the harmony of rhythm, and hence has been much found fault with. But let the reader divest his mind of the rhyme; let him discard the endings of the lines, as harmonizing with each other; let him read it as if blank verse, and the objection vanishes, while new beauty is the consequence. For while the poetry is the same, the attention is not given to the rhyme, which, unless it chimes musically on the ear, detracts from, instead of adding to the beauty of the poem. Let us, then, keep this in mind, while looking at some of the passages of " Endymion," for it is now time that we shall present a few extracts to the reader. And first, let us take a view of the pictures in the poem, of which there are many, from whose number we shall cull a few, which cannot fail to strike the beholder, as painted in the highest style of artor rather as tapestry work-when animate and beauteous, wrought in a "web Of many colored woof and shifting hues." The whole appears, living, breathing, nature. We cannot give the whole of the first, but will present only the principal figure in the piece. It is the Sacrifice to Pan. The little children gather earliest then comes the procession, led by young damsels; after them come shepherds, some of whom "idly trailed their sheep-hooks on the ground;" then follows the "venerable priest full soberly"—“ then came another crowd of shepherds." "After them appeared, Their voices to the clouds, a fair wrought car, The freedom of three steeds of dapple brown; His nervy knees there lay a boar-spear keen. But there were some who feelingly could scan And see that oftentimes the reins would slip There is as a pendant to this, the sports after the sacrifice, which we cannot pause to look at, but must pass on to the Sleeping Adonis. "At last, with sudden step, he came upon A chamber, myrtle-wall'd, embower'd high In midst of all, there lay a sleeping youth Than sighs could fathom, or contentment reach; Fell sleek about him in a thousand folds- Of neck and shoulder, nor the tenting swerve Tennyson is celebrated among his admirers for this kind of picturemaking. Let any one compare the above with his "Sleeping Beauty," and mark how, in his case, the figure is made altogether secondary; while the drapery flung around it, and the ornaments crowded upon it in glittering profusion, remind us of a bazaar, where the magnificent and rich wares command our attention, and not the salesman around whom they are piled; while here the artist's highest skill is employed in bringing the figure distinctly before our sight. Here is another : "Forth from a rugged arch, in the dusk below, In sombre chariot; dark foldings thrown About her majesty, and front death-pale With turrets crown'd. Four maned lions haul The sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws, Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails Covering their tawny brushes." There are several others we had marked for notice, among which are |