one weakness, he did not act from principle. His generous deeds were the offspring of a warm heart rather than of a regulated intellect. As yet he had never been placed in circumstances which severely tried his principles. But, about a year after his marriage, he fell heir to the large property of a maiden aunt, and at once his whole style of life was altered. His accession of wealth brought him into contact with society in which hitherto he had never mingled, where the polish of factitious politeness often hides the most depraved morals. Above all, by abandoning his profession, he condemned himself to comparative idleness. He now began to be tortured by ennui, and sought any excitement to pass away the time. The harpies who infest society, and with the appearance of gentlemen have the hearts of fiends, now marked him for their prey; and his open and generous nature made him their victim in a comparatively short space of time. We shall not trace his downward progress. It is always a melancholy task to mark the lapse from virtue of a noble and generous character, and how much more so when the heart of a wife is to be broken by the dereliction from rec. titude. It was the dead hour of the night. The room was | gratification at the call of duty. But, alas! he had a high wainscotted apartment, with furniture of a rich but antique pattern. The pale moonlight streaming through the curtained window, and struggling with the subdued light of a candle placed in a corner, disclosed the figure of a sick man extended on a bed, wrapped in an unquiet slumber. By his side sat a care-worn though still beautiful woman gazing anxiously on his face, and breathlessly awaiting the crisis of the fever-for it was now the ninth day since that strong man had been prostrated by the hand of disease, and during all that time he had raved in an incessant delirium. He had at length dropped into an unquiet slumber, broken at first by starts and moans, but during the last hour he had been less restless, and he now lay as still as a sculptured statue. His wife well knew that ere morning the crisis would be past, and she waited, with all a woman's affection, breathlessly for the event. Aye! though few women have been wronged as Emily Walpole had been wronged, she still cherished her husband's image, for he was, despite his errors, the lover of her youth. Few girls had been more admired than Emily Severn. But it was not only the beauty of her features and the elegance of her form which drew around her a train of worshippers: her mind was one of no ordinary cast, and the sweetness of her temper lent an ineffable charm to all she did. No one was so eagerly sought for at a ball or a pic-nic as Emily Severn, and at her parental fireside she was the universal favorite. It was long before she loved. She was not to be misled by glitter or show. She could only bestow her affections where she thought they were deserved, and it was not until she met Edward Walpole that she learned to surrender her heart. Edward Walpole, when he became the husband of Emily Severn, was apparently all that a woman could wish. He was warm hearted, of a noble soul, kind, gentle, and ever ready to waive his own selfish Emily saw the gradual aberration of her husband, and though she mourned the cause, no word of re proach escaped her lips, but by every gentle means she strove to bring back her husband to the paths of virtue. But a fatality seemed to have seized him. He was in a whirlpool from which he could not extricate himself. He still loved his wife, and more than once, when her looks cut him to the heart, he made an effort to break loose from his associates; but they always found means to bring him back ere long. Thus a year passed. His fortune began to give way, for he had learnt to gamble. As his losses became more frequent his thirst for cards became greater, until at length he grew sullen and desperate "I know it-I know it," said the repentant husband, "and to His mercy I look. I cannot pray for myself, but oh! Emily pray for me. He has saved me from the jaws of death. Pray for me, dear Emily." He was now a changed man. He no longer felt | against me you have sinned, it is against a good and compunction at the wrongs he inflicted on his sweet righteous God." wife, but if her sad looks touched his heart at all they only stung him into undeserved reproaches. He was become harsh and violent. Yet his poor wife endured all in silence. No recrimination passed her lips. But in the solitude of her chamber she shed many a bitter tear, and often, at the hour of midnight, when her husband was far away in some riotous company, her prayers were heard ascending for him. Two years had now elapsed, and the last one had been a year of bitter sorrow to Emily. At length her husband came home one night an almost ruined man. He had been stripped at the gambling table, of every cent of his property, over which he had any control, and he was now in a state almost approaching to madness. Before morning he was in a high fever. For days he raved incessantly of his ruin, cursing the wretches by whom he had been plundered. Nine days had passed and now the crisis was at hand. The clock struck twelve. As sound after sound rung out on the stillness and died away in echoes, reverberating through the house, the sick man moved in his sleep, until, when the last stroke was given, he opened his eyes and looked languidly and vacantly around. His gaze almost instantly met the face of his wife. For a moment his recollection could be seen struggling in his countenance, and at length an expression of deep mental suffering settled in his face. His wife had by this time risen and was now at his bedside. She saw that the crisis was past, and as she laid her hand in his, and felt the moisture of the skin, she knew that he would recover. Tears of joy gushed from her eyes and dropped on the sick man's face. "Heavenly father, I thank thee!" she murmured at length, when her emotion suffered her to speak, while the tears streamed faster and faster down her cheek," he is safe. He will recover," and though she ceased speaking, her lips still moved in silent prayer. The sick man felt the tears on his face, he saw his wife's grateful emotion, he knew that she was even now praying for him, and as he recalled to mind the wrongs which he had inflicted on that uncomplaining woman, his heart was melted within him. There is no chastener like sickness; the most stony bosom softens beneath it. He thought of the long days and nights during which he must have been ill, and when his insulted and abused wife had watched anxiously at his bedside. Oh! how he had crushed that noble heart; and now this was her return! She prayed for him who had wronged her. She shed tears of joy because her erring husband had been restored, as it were, to life. These things rushed through his bosom and the strong man's eyes filled with tears. Emily-dear Emily," he said, "I have been a villain, and can you forgive me? I deserve it not at your hands-but can you, will you forgive a wretch like me?" "Oh! can I forgive you?" sobbed the grateful wife, "yes! yes! but too gladly. But it is not The wife knelt at the bedside, and while the husband, exhausted by his agitation, sank back with closed eyes on the pillow, she read the noble petition for the sick, from the book of Common Prayer. At times the sobs of Emily would almost choke her utterance, but the holy words she read had at length, a soothing effect both on her mind and that of her husband. When the prayer was over, she remained for several minutes kneeling, while her husband murmured at intervals his heart-felt responses. At length she rose from the bedside. Her husband would again have spoken, to beseech once more her forgiveness. But with a glad feeling at her heart -a feeling such as she had not had for years-she enjoined silence on him, and sat down again by his bedside to watch. At length he fell again into a calm slumber, while the now happy wife watched at his bedside until morning, breathing thanksgivings for her husband's recovery, and shedding tears of joy the while. When the sick man awoke at daybreak, he was a changed being. He was now convalescent, he was more, he was a repentant man. He wept on the bosom of his wife, and made resolutions of reformation which, after his recovery, through the blessing of God, he was enabled to fulfil. The fortune of Walpole was mostly gone, but sufficient remained from its wrecks, to allow him the comforts, though not the luxuries of life. He soon settled his affairs and removed from his splendid mansion to a quiet cottage in a neighboring village. The only pang he felt was at leaving the home which for so many years had been the dwelling of the head of his family-the home where his uncle had died, and which had been lost only through his own folly. Neither Walpole nor his wife ever regretted their loss of fortune; for both looked upon it as the means used by an over-ruling Providence to bring the husband back to the path of rectitude; and they referred to it therefore with feelings rather of gratitude than of repining. In their quiet cottage, on the wreck of their wealth, they enjoyed a happiness to which they had been strangers in the days of their opulence. A family of lovely children sprung up around them, and it was the daily task of the parents to educate these young minds in the path of duty and rectitude. Oh! the happy hours which they enjoyed in that white, vine-embowered cottage, with their children smiling around them, and the consciousness of a well regulated life, filling their hearts with peace. Years rolled by and the hair of Walpole began to turn gray, while the brow of his sweet wife showed more than one wrinkle, but still their happiness remained undiminished. LOWELL'S POEMS.* A NEW SCHOOL OF POETRY AT HAND. WE shall never forget our emotions when we inhaled, for the first time after a lingering illness, the fresh breezes of a September morning. Oh! the visions of dewy meadows, rustling forest trees, and silvery brooks which the delicious air called up before us. This little book has awakened much the same emotions in our bosom. It reminds us of the breezy lawns where we played when a child; of the old mossy forest trees beneath which we loved to sit and muse; of the silent, stately Brandywine that glided along at our feet, its clear waters sliding over the rocks or rippling against the long willow leaves that trembled in its current. There is a freshness about Lowell's Poems which bewitches our fancy. They display a genius that has startled us. They breathe a healthy, honest, good old Saxon spirit, that opens our heart to them as by a sign of brotherhood. We feel that he is kin of our kin and blood of our blood, and we take his book to our bosom without suffering it to plead the exquisite petition which he has put into its mouth, for "charity in Christ's dear name." Lowell is a man after our own heart. We have a word or two to say of him in connection with the poetry of the day. Every one must have perceived that a new school of poetry is at hand. No one who has thought on the subject can have failed to see that the fever for Byron, like all fevers, is both wearing itself out and exhausting the patient. With the death of the noble lord began the decline of the school to which he gave such popularity, and though he has had many imitators since, the phrenzy respecting his poetry is nearly over. We do not mean to depreciate Byron. Every great poet should be spoken of with reverence; for they all alike discourse in the language of the gods; and Byron was not only a great poet, but the greatest poet of his school. That school, however, was a bad one-the fierce, unholy offspring of an incestous age. It was a school in which the restlessness of passion seems to have forced its votaries into poetry. They had none of the calm, enduring enthusiasm of the great poets of the past; they did not speak with the majesty of Jove, but with the fury of a Delphin priestess. They were essentially the poets of a crowd, expressing the emotions of men in a state of high excitement, and consequently whirling away their hearers with them in a phrenzy for the time unconquerable, but destined to subside with the first calm in the public mind. But the truly great poets-Milton, Shakspeare and Spencer-sit far "A Year's Life"-by James Russell Lowell; 1 vol. C. C. Little & J. Brown, Boston: 1841. | away on a mountain by themselves, singing in calm enthusiasm to the stars of heaven, and startling the dweller on the plain as well as the shepherd on the hill-side with a melody that seems a part of heaven. The school of Byron is that of a generation; the school of the old masters is that of eternity. The one is a lurid planet, that blazes fitfully amid storm and darkness; the others are fixed stars, that shine around Milton, the greatest of all, in undimmed and undying lustre. «Ως δ' ότ' εν ουρανω αστρα φαεινήν αμφι σελήνην Dawit' aggi We have said that a new school of poetry is at hand, and the remark may, at first sight, appear extravagant when we consider the stagnation which has been exhibited for years. But betwixt the decline of one school and the rise of another, there is always a pause. When Milton wrote, a lustrum had elapsed since Shakspeare died. After the decay of Pope, a half a century of barreness ensued before Cowper brought in a more masculine verse. The poetic soil, during these interregnums, seems to be worn out, and to require to lie fallow until it can recruit its energies. Only a few sparse flowers bloom upon the waste. But these, although insignificant in themselves, serve to betray the changes in the soil. They are premonitory of the coming harvest. They give us a clue to the character of the approaching school, and although often vague and contradictory, they afford us hints for which we would in vain seek elsewhere. We do not say that, from such hints, the nature of a school can be certainly predicted. The public taste, to use a phrase from the geologists, is in a transition state, and what the result may be, will, in a measure, puzzle the acutest mind. But we can still approximate to the truth. And even now we may hazard a conjecture respecting the characteristics of the school which will supersede that of Byron. It will resemble, in many particulars, that of the old poets. It will have the same calm, enduring enthusiasm. It will be marked by a like earnestness of purpose, by the same comprehensive love for "suffering, sad humanity." It will have none of the jaundiced views of Byron, and little of the petit maître style of Pope. It will be intellectual, and, we fear, pedantic also. It threatens to be disgraced by conceits. Circumstances, it is true, may occur to give a different turn to the character of the new school, or a MESSIAH may arise to do away by a single dispensation with all former types; but, so far as we can foresee now, the Tennysons, Longfel |