The faults of the whole production are the necessary ones of all young writers of origiginal power; a too ready faculty of imitation, and a lack of conciseness. The poets whom Mr. LowELL mostly reminds us of, in his faults, are SHELLY and SHAKSPEARE; the juvenile SHAKSPEARE, we mean- SHAKSPEARE the sonnetteer. Both in the Revolt of Islam' and Tarquin and Lucrece,' blemishes resembling his own constantly occur. It will nevertheless be gratifying to his many ardent admirers to perceive that on the whole he has exhibited a more definite approach to what he is capable of accomplishing, and that in proportion as he has grown less vague and ethereal, less fond of personifying sounds and sentiments, so has he advanced toward a more manly and enduring standard of excellence. 'Prometheus' is the next longest poem, and it has afforded us great gratification. It might almost be mistaken for the breath of ÆSCHYLUS, except that it contains sparkles of freedom that even the warm soul of the Greek could never have felt. The first two lines glit. ter with light:

'One after one the stars have risen and set,
Sparkling upon the hoar-frost on my chain.'

Although, rhyme is no tyrant to our poet, yet he seems to take a fuller swing when free from its influence; and the verse which he employs for the vehicle of his thoughts in this genuine poem is peculiarly adapted to the grandeur and dignity of his subject. This composition will stand the true test of poetry; a test which many immortal verses cannot abide, for it will bear translation into prose without loss of beauty or power: it contains more thoughts than lines, and although abounding in high poetic imaginings, the spirit of true philosophy which it contains is superior to the poetry.

Of Mr. LowELL's shorter specimens we may remark, in contradistinction to what has been said of the Legend of Brittany, that so far as they resemble the kind of his former productions, so far in short as they are re-castings of himself, they do him injustice. We now feel that he is capable of stronger and loftier efforts, and are unwilling to overlook in his later compositions the flaws that are wilfully copied from his own volume. The public demand that he should go onward, and not wander back to dally among flowers that have been plucked before, and were then accepted for their freshness. He must devote himself to subjects of wider importance, and give his imaginations a more permanent foothold upon the hearts of men. His love-poems, though many of them would have added grace to his first collection, fail to excite our admiration equally in this. We do not say that he had exhausted panegyric before; far less would we insinuate that passion itself is exhaustible; and yet there is a point where to pause might be more graceful than to go on: Sunt certi denique fines.' Did any one ever wish that even PETRARCH had written more? Mr. LOWELL then ought to consider this, and begin to build upon a broader foundation than his own territory, beautiful as it may be, of private and personal fancies and affections. Perhaps there is no exception to the law that love should always be the first impulse that leads an ardent soul to poesy. (By poesy we do not mean school-exercises, and prize heroics approved by a committee of literary gentlemen.) On this account, it may be, that a young poet is always anxious to walk upon the ground where he first felt his strength, considering that a minstrel without love were as powerless, to adopt the Rev. SIDNEY SMITH's jocose but not altogether clerical illustration, as Sampson in a wig. Mr. LowELL evinces the firmest faith in his passion, which is evidently as sincere as it is well-bestowed. It is from this perhaps that he derives a corresponding faith in his productions, which always seems proportionate to his love of his subject. Let him be assured however that he is not always the strongest when he feels the most so, nor must he mistake the absence of this feeling for a symptom of diminished power. Should he be at any time inclined to such a self-estimate, let him refer his judgment to his Prometheus' and Rhocus.' In his Ode' also, and his Glance behind the Curtain,' there is much to embolden him toward the highest endeavors in what he would perhaps disdain to call his Art. Poesy, notwithstanding, is an Art, which even HORACE and DRYDEN did not scorn to consider such; and our poet

ought to remember that he is bound not only to utter his own sentiments and fantasies according to his own impulse, but moreover to consult in some degree the ears of the world: the poet's task is double; to speak FROM himself indeed, but To the hearing of others. The contempt which a man of genius feels for the mere mechanicism of verse and rhyme may naturally enough lead him to affect an inattention to it; but in this he only benefits the school of smoother artists by allowing them at least one superiority. If he accuses them of being silly, they can retort that he is ugly.

Our author in this second volume has given the small carpers who pick at the 'eds' of past participles, and stickle for old-fashioned moon-shine instead of moon-shine, fewer causes of complaint. His diction is well-chosen and befitting his themes; and this is a characteristic which peculiarly marks the true artist, if it does not indicate the true genius. His execution, his style of handling,' is adapted to his subject; an excellence in which too many artists, whether painters or poets, are sadly deficient. In this respect his performances and those of his friend PAGE may be hung together. From the stately and dignified lines of Prometheus' to the jetty, dripping verse of The Fountain,' the step is very wide. How full of sparkling, brilliant effects are these joyous lines?

Mr. LowELL occasionally makes use of somewhat quaint, Spenserian expressions, but generally with peculiar effect. His abundant fancy seems to find its natural garb in the short and expressive phraseology of those old English writers of whom he manifests on all occasions so thorough an appreciation. As a sweet specimen, although a careless one, of his power of combining deep feeling with the most picturesque imagery, we select one of his lightest touches- -Forgetfulness:"

THERE is a haven of sure rest

From the loud world's bewildering stress:

As a bird dreaming on her nest,

As dew hid in a rose's breast,

As Hesper in the glowing West;
So the heart sleeps
In thy calm deeps,
Serene Forgetfulness!

No sorrow in that place may be,

The noise of life grows less and less:

As moss far down within the sea,

As, in white lily caves, a bee,

As life in a hazy reverie;
So the heart's wave

In thy dim cave,
Hushes, Forgetfulness!

Duty and care fade far away,

What toil may be we cannot guess:

As a ship anchored in a bay,

As a cloud at summer-noon astray,

As water-blooms in a breezeless day;

So, 'neath thine eyes,

The full heart lies,

And dreams, Forgetfulness!

"The Shepherd of King Admetus' is exceedingly graceful and delicate, but it is too long to be quoted entire, and too perfect to be disjointed. We must reluctantly skip Fatherland,' The Inheritance,' 'The Moon,' 'Rhocus,' and other favorites, until we come to 'L'Envoi,' where our author once more throws his arms aloft, free from the incumbrance of rhyme. This poem is inscribed to M. W.,' his heart's idol. The warm affection which radiates from its lines, it is not to be mistaken, is an out-flowing of pure human love.

Among these personal feelings, touching which we have said our say,' we find the following; which in one respect so forcibly illustrates what we have written within these two weeks to a western correspondent, that we cannot forbear to quote it here:

THOU art not of those niggard souls, who deem

That poesy is but to jingle words,

To string sweet sorrows for apologies

To hide the barrenness of unfurnished hearts,

To prate about the surfaces of things,

And make more thread-bare what was quite worn out:

Our common thoughts are deepest, and to give

Such beauteous tones to these, as needs must take
Men's hearts their captives to the end of time,
So that who hath not the choice gift of words
Takes these into his soul, as welcome friends,
To make sweet music of his joys and woes,
And be all Beauty's swift interpreter,
Links of bright gold 'twixt Nature and his heart
This is the errand high of Poesy.

They tell us that our land was made for song,
With its huge rivers and sky-piercing peaks,
Its sea-like lakes and mighty cataracts,
Its forests vast and hoar, and prairies wide,
And mounds that tell of wondrous tribes extinct;
But Poesy springs not from rocks and woods;
Her womb and cradle are the human heart,
And she can find a nobler theme for song
In the most loathsome man that blasts the sight,
Than in the broad expanse of sea and shore
Between the frozen deserts of the poles.
All nations have their message from on high,
Each the messiah of some central thought,
For the fulfilment and delight of Man:
One has to teach that Labor is divine;
Another, Freedom; and another, Mind;
And all, that GOD is open-eyed and just,
The happy centre and calm heart of all.

It is impossible to read such sentiments as these, without feeling our hearts open to him who gives them utterance. Mr. LOWELL is one of those writers who gain admiration for their verses and lovers for themselves. We can pay him no higher compliment.

There is nothing in the title-page or appearance of this elegant volume to indicate that it is not published in Cambridge, England; but unlike the majority of American books of poetry, any page in the work will give out too strong an odor of Bunker-Hill, though we find no allusion to that sacred eminence, to allow the reader to remain long in doubt of its paternity. Although we hold that any writing worthy of being called poetry must be of universal acceptance, and adapted to the longings and necessities of the entire human family, as the same liquid element quenches the thirst of the inhabitants of the tropics and the poles, yet every age and every clime must of necessity tincture its own productions. We do not therefore diminish in the slightest degree the high poetical pretensions of Mr. LowELL's poems, when we claim for them a national character, silent though they be upon 'the stars and stripes,' and a complexion which no other age of the world than our own could have given. They are not only American poems, but they are poems of the nineteenth century. There is a spirit of freedom, of love for GOD and MAN, that broods over them, which our partiality for our own country makes us too ready perhaps to claim as the natural offspring of our land and laws. The volume is dedicated to WILLIAM PAGE, the painter, in a bit of as sweet and pure language as can be found in English prose. It might be tacked on to one of DRYDEN's dedications without creating an incongruous feeling. The dedication is as honorable to the poet as to the painter. Had all dedications been occasioned by such feelings as gave birth to this, these graceful and fitting tributes of affection and gratitude would never have dwindled away to the cold and scanty lines, like au epitaph on a charity tomb-stone, in which they appear, when the appear at all, in most modern books,

THIRTY YEARS PASSED AMONG THE PLAYERS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. Interspersed with Anecdotes and Reminiscences of a Variety of Persons connected with the Drama during the Theatrical Life of JOE COWELL, Comedian. Written by himself. In one volume. pp. 103. New

York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

Or all the pages in English memoirs, none are so rich in humor and various observation as those devoted to the players. CARLYLE somewhere says, that the only good biographies are those of actors; and he gives for a reason their want of respectability! Being ' vagabonds' by law in England, the truth of their histories he tells us is not varnished over by delicate omissions. The first branch of this assumption is certainly true, whatever cause may be at the bottom of it; and Mr. CowELL, in the very entertaining volume before us, has added another proof of the correctness of Herr TEUFELSDRÖCKH's flattering conclusions. His narrative is rambling, various, instructive, and amusing. He plunges at once in medias res; and being in himself an epitome of his class; of their successes, excitements, reverses and depressions; he paints as he goes along a most graphic picture of the life of an actor. We shall follow his own desultory method; and proceed without farther prelude to select here and there a 'bit' from his well-filled 'budget of fun.' Let us open it with this common portrait of a vain querulous, complaining Thespian, who is never appreciated, never rewarded:

'I was seated in the reading-room of the hotel, thinking away the half hour before dinner, when my attention was attracted by a singularly-looking man. He was dressed in a green coat, brassbuttoned close up to the neck, light gray, approaching to blue, elastic pantaloons, white cotton stockings, dress shoes, with more riband employed to fasten them than was either useful or ornamental; a hat, smaller than those usually worn, placed rather on one side of a head of dark curly hair; fine black eyes, and what altogether would have been pronounced a handsome face, but for an overpowering expression of impudence and vulgarity; a sort of footman-out-of-place-looking creature; his hands were thrust into the pockets of his coat behind, and in consequence exposing a portion of his person, as ridiculously, and perhaps as unconsciously, as a turkey-cock does when he intends to make himself very agreeable. He was walking rather fancifully up and down the room, partly singing, partly whistling The Bay of Biscay O,' and at the long-lived, but most nonsensical chorus, he shook the fag-ends of his divided coat tail, as if in derision of that fatal 'short sea,' so well known and despised in that salt-water burial-place. I was pretending to read a paper, when a carrier entered, and placed a play-bill before me on the table. I had taken it up and began perusing it, when he strutted up, and leaning over my shoulder, said:

"I beg pardon, Sir; just a moment.'

'I put it toward him.

"No matter, Sir, no matter; I've seen all I want to see; the same old two-and-sixpence; Hamlet, Mr. Sandford, in large letters; and Laertes, Mr. Vandenhoff! O!

And with an epithet not in any way alluding to the 'sweet South,' he stepped off to the Biscay tune, allegro. I was amused; and perhaps the expression of my face encouraged him to return instantly, and with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, for he said:

"My dear Sir, that's the way the profession is going to the devil: here, Sir, is the 'manager'- with a sneer-one of the d-dest humbugs that ever trod the stage, must have his name in large letters, of course; and the and Laertes, Mr. Vandenhoff; he's a favorite of the Grand Mogul, as we call old Sandford, and so he gets all the fat; and d'ye know why he's shoved down the people's throats? Because he's so dd bad the old man shows to advantage alongside of him. Did you ever see him?'

'I shook my head.

"Why, Sir, he's a tall, stooping, lantern-jawed, asthmatic-voiced, spindle-shanked fellow.' Here he put his foot on the rail of my chair, and slightly scratched the calf of his leg. Hair the color of a cock-canary,' thrusting his fingers through his own coal-black ringlets; 'with light blue eyes, Sir, trimmed with pink gymp. He hasn't been long caught; just from some nunnery in Liverpool, or somewhere, where he was brought up as a Catholic priest; and here he comes, with his Latin and Lancashire dialect, to lick the manager's great toe, and be hanged to him, and gets all the business; while men of talent, and nerve, and personal appearance,' shifting his hands from his coat-pockets to those of his tights, who have drudged in the profession for years, are kept in the back-ground; 'tis enough to make a fellow swear!'

"You, then, Sir, are an actor?' said I, calmly.

"An actor! yes, Sir, I am an actor, and have been ever since I was an infant in arms; played the child that cries in the third act of the comedy of 'The Chances,' when it was got up with splendor by Old Gerald, at Sheerness, when I was only nine weeks old; and I recollect, that is, my mother told me, that I cried louder, and more naturally, than any child they'd ever had. That's me,' said he, pointing to the play-bill-Horatio, Mr. Howard. I used to make a great part of Horatio once; and I can now send any Hamlet to h-ll in that character, when I give it energy and pathos; but this nine-tailed bashaw of a manager insists upon my keeping my 'madness in the back-ground,' as he calls it, and so I just walk through it, speak the words, and make it a poor, spooney, preaching son of a how-came-ye-so, and do no more for it than the author has.'

Mr. CowELL subsequently enlists under the same manager, and is received with great apparent cordiality by the members of his corps dramatique: The loan of 'properties,' or any thing I have, is perfectly at your service,' was iterated by all. Howard said: 'My boy, by heavens, I'll lend you my blue tights; oh, you 're perfectly welcome; I don't wear them till the farce; Banquo's one of my flesh parts; nothing like the naked truth; I'm h-1 for nature. By-the-by, you'll often have to wear black smalls and stockings; I'll put you up to something; save your buying silks, darning, stitch-dropping, louse-ladders, and all that; grease your legs and burnt-cork 'em; it looks d- -d well from the front.'' Mr. COWELL, it appears, was an artist of no mean pretensions; and while engaged on one occasion in sketching a picturesque view of Stoke Church, he was interrupted in rather a novel manner by a brother actor named REYMES, somewhat akin, we fancy, to his friend HOWARD, albeit 'excellent company:'

'SEVERAL times I was disturbed in my occupation, to look round to inquire the cause of a crash, every now and then, like the breaking of glass; and at length I caught a glimpse of Reymes, slyly jerking a pebble, under his arm, through one of the windows. I recollected twice, in walking home with him, late at night, from the theatre, his quietly taking a brick-bat from out of his coat-pocket and deliberately smashing it through the casement of the Town Hall, and walking on and continuing his conversation as if nothing had happened. Crack! again. I began to suspect an abberration of intellect, and said:

"Reymes, for heaven's sake what are you doing?'

"Showing my gratitude,' said he; and crack! went another.

"Showing the devil!' said I; 'you're breaking the church windows,'

"Why, I know it-certainly; what do you stare at?' said the eccentric. I broke nearly every pane three weeks ago; I could n't hit them all. After you have broken a good many, the stones are apt to go through the holes you've already made. They only finished mending them the day before yesterday; I came out and asked the men when they were likely to get done;' and clatter! clatter! went another.

"That's excellent!' said he, in great glee. 'I hit the frame just in the right place; I knocked out two large ones that time.'

"Reymes,' said I, with temper, 'if you do n't desist, I must leave off my drawing.'

"Well,' said he, only this one,' and crack! it went there! I've done. Since it annoys you, I'll come by myself to-morrow and finish the job; it's the only means in my power of proving my gratitude.'

"Proving your folly,' said I. Why, Reymes, you must be out of your senses.'

"Why, did I never tell you?' said he. Oh! then I do n't wonder at your surprise. I thought I had told you. I had an uncle, a glazier, who died, and left me twenty pounds, and this mourningring; and I therefore have made it a rule to break the windows of all public places ever since. The loss is not worth speaking of to the parish, and puts a nice bit of money in the pocket of some poor dealer in putty, with probably a large family to support. And now I've explained, I presume you have no objection to my proceeding in paying what I consider a debt of gratitude due to my dead uncle.'

"Hold! Reymes,' said I, as he was picking up a pebble. How do you know but the poor fellow with the large family may not undertake to repair the windows by contract, at so much a year or month?' Eh! egad, I never thought of that,' said the whimsical, good-hearted creature. 'I'll suspend operations until I've made the inquiry, and if I've wronged him I'll make amends.'

Mr. COWELL is a plain-spoken man, and seldom spares age or sex in his exposure of the secrets of the stage, and the appliances and means to boot which are sometimes adopted by theatrical men and women to make an old face or form look maist as weel's the new.' The celebrated Mrs. JORDAN, in performing with him, was always very averse to his playing near the foot-lights, greatly preferring to act between the second entrances. The moving why' is thus explained:

'THE fact is, she was getting old; dimples turn to crinkles after long use; beside, she wore a wig glued on; and in the heat of acting -for she was always in earnest I have seen some of the tenacious compound with which it was secured trickle down a wrinkle behind her ear; her person, too, was extremely round and large, though still retaining something of the outline of its former grace:

'And after all, it would puzzle to say where

It would not spoil a charm to pare.'

THERE is no calamity in the catalogue of ills 'that flesh is heir to' so horrible as the approach of old age to an actor. Juvenile tragedy, light comedy, and walking gentleman with little pot-bellies, and have-been pretty women, are really to be pitied. Fancy a lady, who has had quires of sonnets made to her eye-brow, being obliged, at last, to black it, play at the back of the stage at night, sit with her back to the window in a shady part of the green-room in the morning, and keep on her bonnet unless she can afford a very natural wig.'