the lofty rhyme." As a whole, the publication is highly creditable to the section of our country from which it emanates. Among such a number and variety of contributions, it would be almost churlish to expect that all should possess equal merit, or that most should even be above a respectable mediocrity. Of the productions generally, which make up the volume, the editor remarks, that "they look not for their paternity to men of either leisure, wealth, or devotion to letters, but find it, some amid the din of the work-shop, others at the handle of the plough, a third class in the ledger-marked counting-room, and a fourth among the John Doism, and Richard Roism of an attorney's office. For the most part, they have been the mere momentary outgushings of irrepressible feelings, proceeding from the hearts of those who were daily and hourly subjected to the perplexities and toils of business, and the cares and anxieties inseparable from the procuring of one's daily bread by active occupation. As such, let them be judged."

We would assure the editor that the volume he has given us, needs no apology of this sort. May it be the precursor of many such! May the strains be prolonged and repeated, till every prairie has its legend, every forest, and mountain, and cataract, its associations with the verse of the minstrel. The fair "Amelia of the West" has well sung,

"A whole broad heaven of blue lies calm above ye,
The greenwood waves beneath, and ye are free,
Let the heart's language be restrained no more
O'er nobler themes your thrilling music pour."

We dare not trust ourselves any farther with selections, lest we trangress the limits assigned to us.

"TECUMSEH, or the West thirty years since," by George H. Colton, is, by far, the longest and most elaborate poem, on a strictly American subject, which has issued from our press for many years. The author, we believe, is a very young man, and this work is his introduction to the public. As a first production, it bears high promise, and abounds with evidence of great poetic power. The plot of the poem, although deficient in the exhibition of artistic skill, is sufficiently interesting; but its partial development, causes us to reget that

the author had not seen fit to give it a patient and thorough revisal. The deficiency is most painfully apparent in that portion of the poem-the last two cantos where it naturally produces the most unfavorable effect. Notwithstanding all this, we warmly welcome it as a valuable contribution to the Poetry of the West. Although the author is an inhabitant of one of the Atlantic cities, his subject belongs to that section of our country, the literature of which we are especially considering. Its historical associations, are among the most interesting which our annals can boast. Whether the circumstances are not of too recent occurrence to admit of being successfully wrought into a work of poetic fiction, may admit of some doubt. However this may be, Mr. Colton has been successful in the management of his abundant materials. The character and habits of the Indian race-the picturesque and varied scenery of the West, the stirring incidents of frontier life-give a charm and spirit to the pages of Tecumseh, which cannot fail to interest the reader. In the use of the octo-syllabic stanza, he is generally happy, although we often come upon lines which are deficient in construction and harmony. Such faults, we doubt not, are entirely to be ascribed to the evident haste with which the poem was composed. Mr. Colton has powers worthy of the most patient and thorough cultivation, and we trust that his next work will fully satisfy the high expectations we have been led to form from the perusal of Tecumseh.

A poem of nine long cantos, extending through three hundred closely printed pages, with a substratum of notes in fair proportion, is rare enough, notwithstanding the fatal facilities of printing and publishing, which our press holds out to these who are smitten with the love of fame. But we hold that attempts like this of Mr.Colton, are eminently worthy of encouragement, and are of much higher and nobler promise than the many doubtful collections of fugitive verses which we see too often violently snatched from their corners in old newspapers, or fashionable magazines, and imprisoned, in hopeless durance, between the delicate covers of a duodecimo. These give no form nor substance to our national literature. They are either exotic in their nature, faint in their fragrance, or altogether

deciduous and ephemeral in their life. They are flowers which the hot spring nourishes into a false life, only to die long before the autumn comes. Our poets complain, and we believe too justly, of want of encouragement. But, after all, nave they themselves made the noblest and fairest appeal to the public. How many have devoted years to the elaboration of a work which may justly claim any thing beyond a mere catch-penny existence? Where are the fruits of honorable and persevering toil in the service of the muse ?

It may be answered that, upon our own showing, our poets have neither leisure nor heart for such labors. The toils of business, the cares of providing for the day that is passing over them, are too absorbing to allow of anything beyond the merest dalliance with the nine. This need not be so. The inspiration of a truly great theme ought to be strong enough to nerve the mind and engage its energies amidst all the drawbacks which such cares necessarily impose. Let our poets gird themselves for the patient toil-the slow elaboration of years. Let them not waste their ammunition in experiments with pigeon-shot, while the quarry remains untouched by the eagle's wings. Let them labor earnestly and wait patiently until the fitting time to speak shall come, and then the ca птeρóevra will not have been sent forth in vain. In thus speaking, we have not lost sight of Mr. Colton; for we think he is fairly chargeable with the crime of bringing his book prematurely before the public. Nevertheless, we thank him for it, even as it is, and heartily unite in his beautiful prelude-regretting that our quotations must be confined to it.

"My country! if, unknown to fame, I dare
Amid the gathering years my voice upraise
For thee or thine in other tones than prayer,
Waking long-silent musings into praise
Of thee and of thy glories, let thy grace
Accord me pardon; since no master hand
Thy mighty themes on loftier lyre essays,

Which, treasured long in thought, my mind expand

And burn into my soul, O thou, my native land!

"What though no tower its ruined form uprears,
Nor blazoned heraldry, nor pictured hall,
Awake the memories of a thousand years?'
Yet may we many a glorious scene recall,
And deeds long cherished in the hearts of all

Who hail thee mother; yet from mountain gray
And forest green primeval shadows fall
O'er lake and plain. The journeying stars survey
No lovelier realm than thine, free-born Hesperia!

"It is thy boast, that never on thy shore
Have any unto foreign bondage bowed;
The warrior tribes of Eld lie mounded o'er,
Where fell they wrapped in battle's gory shroud;
The children of the forest, rudely proud,
Yet struggled nobly for the graves where lie
Their fathers' bones; and aye the invading crowd
Of foemen leagued we've met with victory.
Of such I sing; O deign one smile, fair liberty!

CLAIMS OF ART IN POPULAR EDUCATION.

REPORT ON ELEMENTARY PUBLIC INSTRUCTION IN EUROPE. made to the Thirty-Sixth General Assembly of the State of Ohio. By C. E. STOWE.

EDUCATION REFORM; or the Necessity of a National System of Education. BY THOMAS WYSE, ESQ., M. P. London, 1836.

AMONG the many topics which present themselves for consideration, in connection with the subject of Popular Education, there are few of deeper interest or importance than the claims of Art. Under this term we would include all that has a tendency to soften and humanize the character, to elevate and refine the taste, and to provide elegant and rational amusement for those hours of leisure which all men have, more or less, at their command. Luther's celebrated saying, in reference to music, that "where music is not, the devil enters," has no less philosophy than point, and the principle it involves is capable of much wider application. The powers of man, whether bodily or mental, cannot always be maintained in full activity. There must be times when the physical energies will droop in partial exhaustion, and when the intellectual faculties will crave that change of object which constitutes their rest. And if this latter be true in regard to what we term educated men-men whose

lives are spent, for the most part, in the labors of the study, who have resources at their command, to be drawn from every department of science and literature-it is more strikingly true of those whose occupations are of a physical or mechanical nature, or whose minds, at the best, have but one absorbing object of attention. It is of the utmost consequence to society, to the cause of human progress, of sound morality, and pure religion, how the leisure of such men is employed. In this country, as indeed in every other, these constitute the mass-these are the people, on whose social condition and character depends that of the nation. In a democracy like our own, where the right of government emanates from the people-where every social or legislative appeal is made to the people, all our hopes and fears are bound up in the condition of the mass. They who must seek relief from labor somewhere, will find it in sensual and degrading pursuits, if they have not been educated to seek it in something purer and better. The theatre, the gaming table, and the brothel, will be crowded with eager and desperate votaries; and the impulse which the unhappy victims have received in the business and excitement of the day, will only push them headlong into the excesses of the night. The madness which comes from the intoxicating cup, will be eagerly hailed as the Elysian refuge from the Tantalean heat and thirst of the work-shop, or the monotonous drudgery of the counting-room. Such books as you can throw, with much hope of perusal, in their way, will either be powerless in restraining them on account of their lightness, or else will only serve to feed the flame of their already too much excited passions.

Bulwer, Paul De Kock, (we mean no disrespect in coupling such names together,) Paine, and the Minerva Press, will, with such, always lord it over Scott, Shakspeare, Alison, Irving, and Prescott. Multiply and cheapen the productions of the press as you will, the press can never reach the evil with anything like a corrective power. The corrective and the remedy must be sought in the general cultivation of those arts which refine while they amuse, which purify the taste and exalt the imagination, while they enthrall the affections