beasts-we really know of no more sublime dismay than a solitary Yankee would find it, to hear him suddenly roar, with a mighty bound, in the vast heart of a desert. But the Eagle snuffs a better atmosphere. He lives somewhat nearer heaven, and knows more of the stars than of the wide wastes of herbless sand. Equally, too, with the desert-monarch, he knows his nature and position, and has no fear of being left to himself! "Proud bird !—above the boundless mountain-woods

He builds his eyrie where the storms have

birth

He tears his prey mid ancient solitudesAnd when his gaze grows dim, too near the earth, Soaring through tempests to the old calm sky,

Rekindles at the sun his glorious eye!"

ous

[As that was written with the quill of an eagle, which we picked up in the rocky gorge of Niagara, we thought it "na far awa'" to illustrate the old fellow by a little of the inspiration from his own plumage.] The two chieftains of the tribes of earth and air!-Both are rather raventypes-totems, as the Indians would call them-and seem to have been chosen by the two greatest nations, with a prescient feeling of the fitness of things. If they could have been followed as closely in other qualities!—Yes! the Gray Forest Eagle, or that proudest of winged creatures, the Golden Eagle of Washington! stretching his "continent-girdling flight" over leagues of wilderness and solitude, from where the icebergs of the Northern Oceans crash upon the rocks of Labrador, far south, till he sees the white surf trample the low reefs of Florida, or cleaving steadily the "illimitable evening," till the bald, gray summits of the Rocky Mountains freeze in the thin air, and the vast waters of the Pacific sweep the long shores of California-he is ever a noble emblem for the strong and swift nature of a nation which might be as noble! When we shall have less of bragging self-importance, of querulous sensitiveness, of the spirit of sordid (far worse than ambitious) acquisition, we shall have done something towards it, and may consider our emblazonry legiti

"That singing soars, and soaring sings." The poem is undoubtedly a fine one in its way. The conception of the execution, amid so much bombast constantly squandered upon the subject of it, is original and striking. The comparison, especially, of the Spirit of Freedom to the unfettered will, the airy dominion, the stern and century-scorning mountain-life of the Eagle, that fears neither the storm nor the blinding light of the sun, is altogether picturesque and ennobling : it has, also, the effect of newness, though so often dragged into use before, from the variety of spirited illustrations made to cluster around it. In the execution itself, there is a noble and sustained energy quite worthy of the subject. The writer studied effectiveness, rather than finished strength and he has attained it. The rush of swift images and vivid epithets carries the reader along with an equal impression to the end-which is really, in all composition, the chief thing to be aimed at. As one of the finest, in short, of the objects to be seen in Nature, the picture is well drawn.

We must add, however, that the piece has defects, and that they are almost as marked as its merits. The versification is, on the whole, decidedly faulty. It professes to be anapæstic, a measure consisting, as all students of poetry know, strictly of three syllables in a foot-the first and second short, the third long, like a Latin dactyl reversed-but admitting, in the first foot, and there only, one long syllable instead of the two short ones, thus making that foot usually consist of two syllables. Every long syllable, therefore, except the first, has an accent, making, in fact, the beat of the measure. Now it would seem hardly possible for one paying any attention at all to the natural pulses of accentuation in our language, to fail of getting the movement of this measure right, for the accents of all English words are the same in verse as in prose. It is not so, however, with Mr. Street, or with ninetynine out of a hundred of the anapastic versifiers in the language. There is scarcely one who does not often, or occasionally, contrive to crowd a long syllable into the place of a short one, like the delicate-lipped young lady whom we once heard poutingly declare, that "immortality" was no longer than "mortality," which she undertook to demonstrate by pronouncing them both in equal breaths-puckering the one into a quick

The Farmers' Library and Monthly Journal of Agriculture. Edited by JOHN S. SKINNER. New York: Greeley & McElrath. Terms-$5 per annum. The progress of scientific and practical Agriculture in our widely diversified country within the last few years, though by no means commensurate with its acknowledged importance as compared with other topics affecting the interests and the happiness of the people, has yet been such as may well excite the hope that, at no distant day, the subject will take its legitimate place in the circle of the sciences and in the popular estimation. The indications of this progress are to be seen in the gener ally improved appearance of farms-especially in some of the older States; in the readiness to invest capital in agricultural operations; in the constantly increasing interest manifested in the proceedings of Agricultural Societies; in the rapid multiplication of Agricultural periodicals; and, above all, in the elevated aims and scienti fic character exhibited in the pages of some of these publications. We cannot but place foremost of these "The Farmers' Library and Monthly Journal of Agriculture." We hope a brief notice of its merits will have the effect to induce such of our readers as are interested in agricultural pursuits to examine for themselves.

It is little more than a quarter of a century since Mr. Skinner commenced the publication, at Baltimore, of the "American Farmer," the first periodical in this country devoted to Agriculture. The scheme was pronounced chimerical by many heads revered for sagacity and wisdom; it is worth the while to mark how the result has more than justified all the enthusiastic hopes of the rash experimenter. Instead of one agricultural periodical struggling for a precarious subsistence, and casting a dim light upon the ignorance which rested on this more than over any other of the great interests of the country, we now have a large number of well supported journals devoted to the discussion and development of this exclusive subject, and adapted to the peculiar local wants of the different portions of our country. The effect of these has been to promote a taste for reading, a spirit of investigation, and an eagerness for a thorough knowledge of Agriculture in all its practical and scientific relations, which cannot be fully met by any publication less elevated in its aims than that now

before us. We regard "The Farmers' Library," therefore, as the natural growth of past efforts in the field of agricultural

science, and as making a new era in the progress of this important branch of our national literature. It fills a place not occupied by any previous publication, and being of a national and not a local character, it can be commended to general circulation on grounds which need not excite the jealousy of older journals.

The plan of the work is peculiar. It is divided into two parts; and though both look to the same general object, each is yet distinct from the other. The part embraced by the title of " Farmers' Library," is separately paged, and intended to form a dístinct volume at the close of the year. It will embrace the best works from the agricultural literature of foreign countries, essays on the Natural Sciences, such as Botany, Entomology, Horticulture, Arboriculture, &c. The first work selected for this department was PETZHOLDT'S "Lectures to Farmers on Agricultural Chemistry," which was completed in two consecutive numbers. This was followed by THAER's "Principles of Agriculture,” which is not yet completed. These works alone are worth double the yearly subscription to the whole Magazine, being of the highest practical value to every American Farmer. They will be followed by others of equal interest and importance, and thus the Farmers of the country will have placed before them the very choicest works relating to their occupation, on terms which will leave them without reasonable excuse for remaining in ignorance of their valuable contents.

The other portion of the work, embraced under the title of " Monthly Journal of Agriculture," is filled with briefer but scarcely less valuable articles. It embraces choice selections from foreign Agricultural Journals, and to a limited extent, from similar works in our own country, and brief original essays from the Editor and his correspondents on all the various topics interesting to the scientific and practical Far

mer.

The first number of the work appeared in July last, and we now have before us the numbers for eight consecutive months. In looking them over we see no indication that the Editor is likely to exhaust the rich materials gathered in the course of a long life, during which he has fostered a deep love for rural pursuits, and kept a watchful eye upon every occurrence having even the remotest bearing upon the subject which, more than any other, has tasked the powers of his vigorous intellect. As a writer he is both amusing and instructive, though his

style, it must be confessed, is often careless and inelegant. Probably few men in our country combine in themselves more of the necessary qualifications for conducting such a work, and as he is fortunately well known in all parts of the United States, we are not surprised at the large circulation which it has already acquired under his management. Appreciating very highly the various other Agricultural periodicals in our country, and wishing them all the success they deserve in the fields which they respectively occupy, we still look with superior interest to "The Farmers' Library and Monthly Journal of Agriculture," as a national work, filling its own peculiar niche, and adapted to confer honor as well upon the country as upon the cause it advocates.

The Publishers have spared no expense in giving the work an appropriate dress. They have already embellished it with portraits of the late Hon. Stephen Van Renssellaer, Judge Peters, and Professor Liebig; also with engravings of domestic animals, vegetables, plants, &c. The work will form, at the end of the year, two distinct volumes of more than 600 pages each, filled with matter of permanent interest, and in a style which will render them ornaments to any library in the land. It is deserving of the support of every one who cares for this greatest of our national inter

ests.

Vision of Dante; Translated by the Rev. HENRY F. CARY, A. M. New York: Appleton & Co.

This is now "established," perhaps be cause the only entire English version of the most untranslatable of all poems. We have a vague impression of having seen, several months ago, noticed in English periodicals, some specimens of a effort, published in London. They consisted of a few cantos of (if we remember well) the Inferno; and seemed of commendable execution-to judge from the extracts of the reviewer.

new

This translator would have a general, and in our mind, essential, advantage over Cary, in his employing rhyme. He, moreover, retained the measure and stanza of the original; both as well adapted to the English as to the Italian language, as we may see in (for example) "Don Juan," which owes half of what is esteemed its poetry to the undulating cadence of the terza rima. The importance of rhyme as an element of poetry in the modern languages is, we think, far too much underrated (perhaps misconceived, rather) by English critics; although they consider it, when national jealousy is to be subserved, as the sole constituent of French poetry. Rhyme is, in fact, a powerful means of

acting physically or through the sensesas music acts-upon even the cultivated reader. Nowhere is its aid more requisite than in a translation of Dante; both to lull and ravish the soul into the sublime region of his conceptions, and to smother certain aspirations of his style, resulting as well from his fullness of thought, as the fact of having written, ere yet the Tuscan was the "syren tongue." Mr. Cary has not only renounced this advantage, but retains, it would seem sedulously, many of the ruggednesses alluded to, in his frequent involutions, (scarcely pardonable in "blank verse,") and the use of antiquated words.

This is visible on every page. We have naturally turned to the exquisite episode of "Francesca;" which Leigh Hunt has rendered so familiar (in more senses than one) in his Rimini. We think any who have read the original and will try to recognize it here, may conceive something of what we have been able scarce to intimate in these few remarks. For instance:

"Francesca! your sad fate

Even to tears my grief and pity moves.
But tell me ; in the time of your sweet sighs,
By what, and how Love granted, that ye
knew," &c.

This is translation neither of a poet, nor The last line as far as inby a poet. telligible, is ambiguous. The word "even," in the second, is feeble and occasions a hiatus; its position, immediately after the closing pause of the preceding line, not only warrants, but requires an anapæst, as "even unto, &c. Cary seems not to have dating to Poetry. been aware that Prosody is so accommo

North's Specimens of the British Critics. By CHRISTOPHER NORTH, (John Wilson), Philadelphia: Carey and Hart.

We are glad to see this volume of Prof. Wilson's latest criticisms. They are not among the more brilliant of his varied and brilliant writings. To the Magazine reader they have, by no means, the attractiveness of his earlier rambling, rhapsodical, episodical critiques, especially those remarkable productions which may be said in a great measure to have made his reputation-the Noctes Ambrosianæ. Yet they are really among the most able and valuable of his critical essays. They are more sober, condensed-written in more of an English style-than most of his writings, and exceedingly full of information, not only about the immediate subject, but touching innumerable collateral points in the empire of Letters. It is, also, scarcely less rich in illustrations, than his former more diffuse productions.