Hartford, and conducted it for two years, when he resigned it to the poet Whittier, and removed to the West, where he assumed the charge of the "Louisville Journal," which he soon raised to a first-class journal, and which has continued to the present time to maintain its character for solid ability and playful wit united, scarcely second to that of any other journal in the country. Mr. Prentice has written some very beautiful poetry for his own journal and for other periodicals; but his compositions have never been collected in a volume. The following pieces have been much admired : : SABBATH EVENING. How calmly sinks the parting sun! Yet twilight lingers still; And beautiful as dream of heaven It slumbers on the hill; Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things, And, rendering back the hues above, Round yonder rocks the forest-trees Like saints at evening bow'd in prayer Around their holy shrine; And through their leaves the night-winds blow, Seems the mysterious voice of prayer, Soft echoed on the evening air. And yonder western throng of clouds, So calmly move, so softly glow, The blue isles of the golden sea, The spirit of the holy eve Comes through the silent air And the far depths of ether beam So passing fair, we almost dream That we can rise, and wander through Their open paths of trackless blue. 510 Each soul is fill'd with glorious dreams, And thought is soaring to the shrine And holy aspirations start, Like blessed angels, from the heart, I THINK OF THEE. TO A LADY. I think of thee when morning springs And when, at noon, the breath of love I think of thee,-I think of thee. I think of thee, when, soft and wide, And when the moon's sweet crescent springs I think of thee;-that eye of flame, Those tresses, falling bright and free, That brow, where "Beauty writes her name," I think of thee,-I think of thee. RUFUS DAWES. RUFUS DAWES was born in Boston, on the 26th of January, 1803. His father, Thomas Dawes, was a member of the State Convention called to ratify the Constitution, and was for many years one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, distinguished for his learning, eloquence, wit,' and spotless inOn leaving it, he entered tegrity. Our poet entered Harvard College in 1820. 1 He was remarkable not only "for his great reach of mind," (to use Daniel Webster's words respecting him,) but for his quickness of repartee. He was very short in stature; and one day, standing in State Street, Boston, with six very tall men, among whom were Harrison Gray Otis and Josiah Quincy, Mr. Otis said, "Just like a "Judge Dawes, how do you feel" (looking down on him at the same time very significantly) "when in the company of such great men as we?" fourpence halfpenny among six cents," was his prompt reply. the office of General William Sullivan as a law-student, and, after completing his studies, was admitted a member of the Suffolk County bar. The profession, however, was not congenial to his feelings, and he has never pursued its practice. Early in 1828, he published a prospectus of "The Emerald and Baltimore Literary Gazette," of which he was to be the editor, and on the 29th of March of that year appeared the first number. In 1829, he was married to a daughter of ChiefJustice Cranch, of Washington. In 1830, he published The Valley of the Nashaway, and other Poems; and in 1839, Athenia of Damascus; Geraldine; and his miscellaneous poetical writings. In the winter of 1840-41, he delivered a course of literary lectures in New York, before the American Institute. He now resides in Washington, D.C. SPIRIT OF BEAUTY. The Spirit of Beauty unfurls her light, At morn, I know where she rested at night, At noon she hies to a cool retreat, Where bowering elms over waters meet; She dimples the wave where the green leaves dip, When her tremulous bosom would hide, in vain, At eve she hangs o'er the western sky She hovers around us at twilight hour, Then wheeling her flight through the gladden'd air, SUNRISE, FROM MOUNT WASHINGTON. The laughing hours have chased away the night, And now the blue-eyed Morn, with modest grace, And see, the foolish Moon, but now so vain I stand upon thy lofty pinnacle; Temple of Nature! and look down with awe The sun comes up! away the shadows fling From the broad hills; and, hurrying to the west, Sport in the sunshine till they die away. The many beauteous mountain-streams leap down, By the white veil she mantles o'er her charms: And hills and rivers, mountains, lakes, and woods, There is an awful stillness in this place, RALPH WALDO EMERSON. RALPH WALDO EMERSON, one of the most original writers in our country, was born in Boston in the year 1803, and was graduated at Harvard College in 1821. On leaving college, he devoted his time to theological studies, and was settled as pastor of the Second Unitarian Church in his native city. But, his views respecting some of the Christian ordinances undergoing a change, he gave up the ministry, and retired to the quiet village of Concord, Mass., devoting himself to his favorite studies, the nature of man and his relations to the universe. The following are Mr. Emerson's chief publications: Man Thinking, an oration delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1837; Literary Ethics, an oration; and Nature--an Essay, in 1838; The Dial, a magazine of literature, philosophy, and history, which he commenced in 1840 and continued for four years; The Method of Nature, Man the Reformer, three lectures on the times, and the first series of his essays, in 1841; lectures on the New England Reformers, the Young American, and Negro Emancipation in the West Indies, in 1844; a volume of Poems, in 1846, and the lectures, delivered during his visit to England in 1849, which form the volume called Representative Men. Such are Mr. Emerson's principal writings. As an author he never can be popular, for he is too abstruse and too metaphysical, and has too little of human sympathy to reach the heart; while he is at times so quaint or so obscure that one is no little puzzled to find out his meaning.1 THE COMPENSATIONS OF CALAMITY. We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out, that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent, where once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, "Up and onward for evermore!" We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who look backwards. 1 An English critic thus speaks of him:-"Mr. Emerson possesses so many characteristics of genius that his want of universality is the more to be regretted : the leading feature of his mind is intensity; he is deficient in heart-sympathy.' Again, "It is better for a man to tell his story as Mr. Irving, Mr. Hawthorne, or Mr. Longfellow does, than to adopt the style Emersonian, in which thoughts may be buried so deep that common seekers shall be unable to find them." |