don't stick at the madness of it, for that is only in consequence of shutting his eyes, and thinking he is in the age of the old Elizabethan poets. From them I turned to Vincent Bourne; what a sweet, unpretending, pretty-mannered, matter-full creature! Sucking from every flower, making a flower of every thing. His diction all Latin, and his thoughts all English. Bless him! Latin was not good enough for him; why was he not content with the language which Gay and Prior wrote in ? 'Well fare' proceeds that quaint original, well fare the soul of Vincent Bourne, most classical, and at the same time most English of the Latinists, who has treated of this human and quadrupedal alliance, this dog and man friendship in the sweetest of his poems; the Epitaphium in Canem, or Dog's Epitaph. Reader! peruse it, and say if customary sights, which could call up such gentle poetry as this, were of a nature to do more harm or good to the moral sense of the passengers through the daily thoroughfares of a vast and busy metropolis.'

Let us turn to the Epitaphium in Canem, so highly praised, and which Charles Lamb has himself rendered happily into English:

PAUPERIS hic Iri requiesco Lyciscus, herilis,
Dum vixi, tutela vigil columenque senectæ,
Dux cæco fidus: nec, me ducente, solebat,
Prætenso hinc atque hinc baculo, per iniqua locorum
Incertam explorare viam; sed fila secutus,
Quæ dubios regerent passus, vestigia tuta
Fixit inoffenso gressu; gelidumque sedile
In nudo nactus saxo, quá prætereuntium
Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras
Lamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam.
Ploravit nec frustra; obolum dedit alter et alter,
Queis corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam.
Ad latus interea jacui sopitus herile,

Vel mediis vigil in somnis; ad herilia jussa

Auresque atque animum arrectus, seu frustula amicè
Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei

Tædia perpessus, reditum sub nocte parabat.

Hi mores, hæc vita fuit, dum fata sinebant,

Dum neque languebam morbis, nec inerte senectâ,

Quæ tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite cæcum
Orbavit dominum: prisci sed gratia facti

Ne tota intereat, longos deleta per annos,
Exiguum hunc Irus tumulum de cespite fecit,

Etsi inopis, non ingratæ, munuscula dextræ;

Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque
Quod memoret, fidumque canem dominumque benignum.

EPITAPH ON A DOG.

POOR Irus, faithful wolf-dog, here I lie,

That wont to tend my old blind master's steps,
His guide and guard; nor while my service lasted

Had he occasion for that staff, with which

He now goes picking out his path in fear,

Over the highways and crossings; but would plant,
Safe in the conduct of my friendly string,

A firm foot forward still, till he had reached
His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide
Of passions lay in thickest confluence flood.
To whom with loud and passionate laments,
From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd,
Nor wail'd to all in vain; some here and there,
The well disposed and good their pennies gave.
I meantime at his feet obsequous slept:
Not all asleep in sleep, but heart and ear
Prick'd up at his least motion, to receive
At his kind hand some customary crumbs,
And common portion in his feast of scraps:

Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent
With our long day and tedious beggary.

These were my manners, this my way of life,
Till age and slow disease me overtook,
And severed from my sightless master's side.
But lest the grace of so good deeds should die,
Through tract of years in mute oblivion lost,
This slender tomb of earth hath Irus reared,
Chief monument of no ungrudging hand,
And with short verse inscribed it, to attest,
In long and lasting union to attest,

The virtues of the beggar and the dog.

Strokes of humor are quite prevalent throughout the author's compo sitions. Take for example the following sketch, which might well apply to some stormy pulpit orator of our own time:

FANATICUS.

CONSCENDIT primum tremulus cum pulpita frater,
Stat tacitus, multumque screans, ut vocis apertum
Pandat iter, geminas, positis prope dactylothecis,
Ad cœlum attollit palmas; tum lumina claudens
Dat gemitum, secumque diu submurmurat intus.
Vox tandem erumpit; deinde altera, et altera deinde;
Mox animos sensim revocans, residemque furorem,
Vim dictis paulatim addit; jam subsilit, et jam
Stans pede suspenso, tentat quid possit anheli
Pulmonis, laterumque labor; per tempora rivis
It salsus sudor; tandem fanatica surgit
Tempestas, totasque quatit clamoribus ædes.
Haud aliter leni nutantes flamine ramos
Insurgens agitat Boreas, tremulasque susurrat
Per froudes; mox buccam utramque animosior inflat,
Et validos quassat celso cum vertice truncos:

Post, ubi collectæ vires, majorque tumultus

Per totam auditur sylvam, ab radicibus imis

Sternit humi antiquas quercus, rapidamque procellam
Agglomerat, lataque implet nemus omne ruinâ.

The author's description of the company which he met in a stage. coach is quite worthy of Horace :

IN curru conduco locum, visurus amicum,
Millia qui decies distat ab urbe novem.
Impatiens auriga moræ nos urget, et, hora
Cum nondum sonuit tertia, jungit equos.
Vix experrectus, media inter somnia, surgo,
Per longum miserè discutiendus iter.
Ingredior, sedeo; cubitumque coarctor utrumque;
Atque duas pingues comprimor inter anus.
Cum matre e contra puer est, milesque protervus;
Distento hos inter corpore caupo sedet.

Nec vix illuxit, quin hinc agitamur et illinc,

Aspera qua ducit, quà salebrosa via.

Altera tussit anus, rixatur et altera; jurat

Miles, poyxále caupo, vomitque puer.

Dulce sodalitium! si sint hæc usque quadrigis

Commoda, maluerim longius ire pedes.

In the same playful vein are the pieces severally inscribed Nulli te facias nimis Sodalem,' in which familiarity with cats is shown to be dangerous, and the moral of which is conveyed in the last two lines:

Quod tamen haud æquum est si vult cum fele jocari,

Felinum debet Lydia ferre jocum:

'Eques Academicus,' his description of the Cantab' sallying out for

horseback exercise; Phoebe Ornatrix,' Hobsoni Lex,' Conspicillum,' and others. Here is something in the Anacreontic measure:

We ought not to omit in describing the contents of the volume, some epitaphs very neatly done. Take for example the following:

Here we must take leave of the productions of Vinny Bourne. Perhaps some critics might render them credit for what a great writer in one of his essays would term an 'exquisite mimicry,' 'an elaborate imitation of classical antiquity, a scrupulous purity, and a ceremonial cleanness which characterizes the diction of our academical Pharisees.' But whether there be mimicry or not, it is an art which renders itself inapparent; an art so elegantly veiled that it is but a second nature; an enhancing of the bright original, a reflection softened from the image, an echo of a mellower harmony than the voice. After the genius which originates, is the art which imitates, and it is hard to say from which we derive the most pleasure. The one requires an almost equal

intellect to be its judge, for there is nothing wherewith to compare it; the other as it stands but little chance if inaccurate, so it is acknowledged with rapture if it be true. The one diverts our admiration from the work to its author, the other makes us forgetful of itself. There is a servile imitation which arrays with poor effect its ill-assorted shreds and patches, very different from the taste which selects, combines and arranges in a natural order the treasures not its own. Bourne

does not appear to have written after a model. He possesses a native grace which is all his own, and a naturalness which is not diminished by the effect of polish. He never writes invità Minervâ, nor possesses any of the stiffness or constraint of the desperate poet; but, if we may venture to be figurative, he rises without an effort, and spreads his even wings, and cuts the clear ether like a genial bird of song. Whatever he handles, in no instance does he depart from the dictates of a taste cultured and refined to the last degree by the studies which he loved; no matter how trifling be the subject, an Address to a Fly,' or an Invitation to a Robin-red-breast,' Ad Rubeculam Invitatio,' or a sharpening of Prior's epigramatic verses, or Master William Shakspeare's 'Cruel Deceit ;' or whether he rises to higher topics, to an Address to the Prince, or to translating the hymns of Addison. It is not without reason then, that he has been thought in some of his productions to rival the elegance and tenderness of those elegiac poets who wrote in the gol den age of Roman literature, when refinement had reached its highest pitch, and style was rendered perfect. In some respects it will not be denied that he was their superior. For although they seemed imbued with sensibility, and loved to engraft upon the Roman tongue, in idiom, thought and expression, the spiritual grace which is found in all the poetry of the Greeks, and which is the very offspring of their delicious skies; yet fostered as they were in the lap of wealth, and within the reach of a voluptuous capital, their works are infected with the blemish of their lives; whether like Ovid, they have made love the burden of their song, or like the melancholy Tibullus, mingled with it the frequent images of death. Their passions are too contagious to be told, and their loves too warm to be painted; and with all their delicacy, they are often sullied by indelicacies of thought, and grossness of expression which accorded with their own licentiousness, and the age in which they lived. Bourne certainly approached them nearly in neatness, while he refrained from their immodesty ; but to pronounce him their superior would be to forget those exquisite verses of Catullus, in the 'Carmen Nuptiale:'

Ur flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo contusus aratro,

Quem mulcent auræ, firmat sol, educat imber:
Multi illum pueri, multæ optavere puellæ :
Idem, quum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
Nulli illum pueri, nullæ optavere puellæ :

Sic virgo dum intacta manet, dum cara suis est:
Quum castum amisit polluto corpore florem,
Nec pueris jucunda manet, nec cara puellis,
Hymen O Hymenæe, Hymen ades O Hymenæe.

WHEN in the garden's fenced and cultur'd ground

Where browse no flocks, where plough-shares never wound,
By sunbeams strengthened, nourished by the shower

And soothed by Zephyr, blooms the lovely flower.

Maids long to place it in their modest zone,

And youths enraptur'd wish it for their own.
But from the stem once pluck'd in dust it lies,
Nor youth nor maiden then desire or prize.
The virgin thus her blushing beauty rears,
Loved by her kindred, and her young compeers.
But if her simple charm, her maiden grace
Is sullied by one spoiler's rude embrace,
Adoring youths no more her steps attend,
Nor loving girls salute the maiden friend.
Oh Hymen, hear! Oh sacred Hymen, haste,
Come god and guardian of the fond and chaste.

LITERARY NOTICES.

LIFE AND ELOQUENCE OF THE REV. SYLVESTER LARNED: First Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New-Orleans. By R. R. GURLEY. In one volume: with a portrait. pp. 412 New-York: WILEY AND PUTNAM.

If we may credit the warm commendations of many friends, whom we have heard describe the effect upon them of Mr. LARNED's preaching, we may well believe, with the author of the volume before us, that no minister of the same age has ever, at least in this county, left behind him deeper impressions of his eloquence.' And however much might be ascribed to his voice and manner, the matter and style of his discourses are remarkable; they are worthy of critical examination and study; and those who would combine in their sermons ease and elevation, simplicity and energy; who would leave to their hearers no time to sleep and no wish to be absent, but regret only at the brevity of the service and delight at the return of the Sabbath, will find the perusal and re-perusal of Mr. LARNED'S discourses greatly to their advantage. A clear synopsis of his peculiar characteristics is afforded us toward the close of that portion of the work which is devoted to his personal memoirs. A combination of great and original endowments disposed and enabled him to open, comparatively, a new path in his profession, and with an independence, moral and intellectual, peculiarly his own, to cast aside some of its traditional formalities and restraints, to dispense with useless technicalities, and to carry home his doctrines and appeals, in expressions natural yet select, in a style at once simple, compact, elevated and energetic, to the business and bosoms of men. This was high merit; but it was not all. He possessed in an eminent degree the quality of good sense, which enabled him to understand the thoughts and workings of other minds, so as to meet them effectually, on their own principles, and penetrate and move the inmost depths of their own feelings. His language was ever subordinate to thought—his imagination to reason. He sought successfully to give unity to his subject, so that its parts and divisions, like the bones and sinews of the human body, should be invisible in their strength, and while clothed in beauty, the whole should be animated by one spirit, and bear upon one end. He had the rare talent of being eloquent without seeming sensible of it, of hiding from himself and others the power by which he moved them. As by an invisible wand, a look or a word, so simple at the time as to escape observation, he opened the fountains of sensibility, and the streams gushed forth. The more unexpected the effect, the more certain, and the greater, the less apparent the In the various qualities of his mind, and his personal endowments, he approached as near as any man whom we have known, or of whom we have read, to our idea of a perfect orator. Though no man expressed his own views on religious subjects, with more candor and decision, he possessed a catholic spirit, and was ready to welcome to his communion, regardless of the peculiarities of their creeds, all true Christian disciples. Well armed for controversy, he appears to have been averse to it, preferring rather to win the affections, than confound the reason; to exhibit Truth with her attractions, rather than in the attitude and brandishing the weapons of war.'

cause.