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reflection. It is supposed to be written by a mother on the death of her child, and is certainly a triumph of its kind. It is, however, a painful poem to read, if we believe it is founded on fact. Dryden observes, "great grief is dumb," and we can hardly realize a mother making a song out of a dead child. But when we say this we make every concession the poet's nature may demand, and we know that "the ways of genius are not our ways, nor their thoughts our thoughts." Still, human nature is the same in the poet as in the ploughboy; nay, even in the editor, that sublimation of humanity soaring above the weakness of virtue or the enormity of affection.

In years after, when some casual occurrence reminds the living of the departed, the chords of emotion may thrill at the touch, but even then the music will be fragmentary, and partake more of the accidental than the deliberate design.

It seems almost like digging the dead up from the solemn peace of the sepulchre to gaze once more on that form which should be transfigured in heaven. Nevertheless, with all these considerations, time may soften the grief, and render it susceptible of a poetical apotheosis.

“Truly the memory of the just

Smells sweet and blossoms in the dust!"

The poem which has provoked these remarks is full of truthful, vigorous painting, and if written out of the ideality of the sorrow, and not its reality, secures for its fair anthoress much praise. With this proviso the whole demands unqualified admiration.

She faded, faded in my arms, and with a faint slow sigh
Her fair, young spirit went away. Ah! God, I felt her die,

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A little flower might so have died—so tranquilly she closed Her lovely mouth, and on my heart her helpless head reposed.”

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The sense of security against all ills which a child feels in the presence of a mother is touchingly told.

“For oh! it seemed the darling dreamed that while she clung to

me,

Safe from all harm of death or pain she could not help but be,
That I who watched in helpless grief my flower fade away,
That I—oh, heaven! had life and strength to keep her from
decay!"

This line contains more thought and truth than are generally found in verses of this description.

"The soul that here must hide its face,

There lives serene in right!”

And ever in thy lovely path, some new, great truth divine, Like a dear star that dawns in heaven, undyingly doth shine."

Mrs. Osgood has always a superior reference to the affections in everything she writes. In her "Deaf Girl Restored” are some charming verses.”

"A world of melody wakes around,

Each leaf of the tree has its tremulous tone,

And the rippling rivulet's lullaby sound,

And the wood bird's warble are all mine own.

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But nothing-oh! nothing that I have heard,

Not the lay of the lark nor the coo of the dove,
Can match, with its music, one fond, sweet word,

That thrills to my soul from the lips I love."

Mrs. Osgood is somewhat too profuse of her "ah's" and oh's;" thay mar the harmony and repose of some of her finest verses. Sparingly used and placed in their right posi tion, they are very effective, like a cordial administered to a sick patient; but when indulged in habitually, they defeat their own purpose, and, in fact, become positively injurious.

We all know how guarded the greatest masters of composition have been in the use of exclamations, and how carefully they have selected the fitting spot for their insertion. Sheridan's MS. of a famous speech shows that it took him some time to hit upon the most appropriate place for "Good God, Mr. Speaker."

As Mrs. Osgood has not thought fit to include her drama of "Elfrida" in the new edition of her poems, we shall not consider it critically, but pass over it with the remark that we consider it altogether a very creditable composition, more especially when the age at which she wrote it is taken into consideration. It is not fitted to the stage, being deficient in action and passion. It is more a story told by dialogues, artificially connected, but admirably written.

The chief merits of our fair writer are tenderness of feeling and grace of expression. As we observed before, she too frequently sacrifices the strength of the thought to the beauty of the words; and even here she often fails, from her diffuseness, and wish to say all that can be said on the theme she has in

hand. She has a lively fancy, but little imagination; and her fancy is sometimes displayed so artificially as to induce the reader to put it down altogether to the score of mere prettiness of thought and conceit of expression. Still, there are a feminine power, pathos, and tenderness about the writings of Mrs. Osgood, which will always render her one of the most pleasing poets of the New World.

S. MARGARET FULLER.

Ar this present time there are three women who greatly resemble each other in their intellectual nature: and they belong to the three greatest nations in the world. France has her Madame Dudevant, or better known by the name of George Sand; England, her Elizabeth Barrett; and America, her Margaret Fuller. Singular to add, they are all now within a short distance of each other, two being in Italy, and the other in Paris. The personal meeting of these, the first women of the age, must be of extraordinary interest, and we would cheerfully barter away a year of our own existence to listen to their communings for one day.

An American author of great eminence, some time since, denominated Margaret Fuller the George Sand of America; and, much as we dislike that hackneyed fashion of making the great intellect of one nation a kind of duplicate of another, yet there is more justness in this comparison than generally falls to the lot of that absurd method of getting at facts, or something like them.

It must of course be understood that we mean here only an

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