the

dour,-of Benevolence, &c.; and, in general, of every kind that renders Man valuable to Man. When we mention the word in general, we apply to that virtue which we judge to be the greatest in the Being to whom it belongs. When we hear of a VIRTUOUS Man, we now think of one who benefits his species by the softer acts of kindness; while, in the heroic ages, when the happiness of a people depended on the prowess of an individual, the palm of Virtue was destined to the Conqueror of nations. Chastity and an attention to the decorums of domestic life are, now, the marked Virtues of Women. They were of a sterner kind that constituted the praise of the Roman Matrons. These distinctions, however, are merely those of time and circumstance, - of age or of clime. The true definition of VIRTUE is unalterable. It is that power, exertion of which is useful to others, whatever it may be. In this sense we apply it to what are termed inanimate things. We speak of the Virtue of a Plant, or of a Medicine, meaning its useful power or efficacy. But neither in this case, nor in that of Animals, do we use the term VIRTUOUS, as a quality of mental merit : in this view the adjective is applied solely to the benevolent intention, and consequent action, of the human mind. Merit is allowed only in our own species. In every thing else Virtue is power. VIRTUALITY (with its adjective and adverb, VIRTUAL and VIRTUALLY) expresses inherent power, an energy capable of being exerted. In old authors, whether French or English, the spelling is VERTUE, and the word is often used, literally, for bodily strength. VIRTUOUSLY is the adverb, and VIRTUOUSNESS is in the Dictionaries.'

THROPY,

· ANTHROPOS, the Greek word for Man in general, furnishes us with a few compounds. Combined with Phago, I eat, we have ANTHROPOPHAGI, Man-eaters; and with Morphos, form or appearance, we have ANTHROPOMORPHITES, a name given to those who suppose the Deity to have the form of a Man. From Miseo, I hate, and Phileo, I love, we have MISANTHROPY and PHILANnames for the feelings of hatred and of love to mankind; while MISANTHROPE and PHILANTHROPIST designate the persons that may respectively possess those feelings. MISANTHROPIC and PHILANTHROPIC are the adjectives. MISANTHROPY in general, — a hatred of all mankind; but such a state of mind seldom, if ever, exists. What has been mistaken as such is a hatred of society; for which we want a specific name, but which may exist along with a love for individuals.'

It will be perceived from this specimen that the author does not invade the province of the synonymist, but confines himself to that of the grammarian: for instance, he does not discriminate between manhood and manliness, which are so derived that they might stand for one another, but are so used that they must not be confounded: manhood being applied to physical, and manliness to moral virility. It is here said that effeminacy is never applied except to the mind: but this is

inexact;

inexact; Lord Bacon and Jeremy Taylor, two of the finest of our writers, having applied it otherwise. Human-kind ought not to be written as a single word; because adjectives do not compound with substantives. The word Monkey is here classed as a diminutive of man, which is possible: but this supplies a pretext for including in the same section the wholly disconnected words ape and baboon. The word Moon, again, is with great improbability derived by Mr. Booth from man, as if it were called the man of the heavens. Adelung deduces the term from an etymon signifying bright; perhaps, like the Latin luna, which is connected with lunare, to bend, moon is connected with manan, to bend: whence maund, a basket. Grüter thinks that it is the same word with mund, as if it were the mouth of heaven.

A few observations of detail, we will not call them objections, may perhaps be allowable. Under the head to recollect, it deserved notice that, when this word signifies to gather again, it is pronounced re-collect, but, when it is used as signifying to remember, it is pronounced recollect. Under the head heathen, is placed heath, a wild tract of land: but we incline to refer these two words to distinct roots, and to derive the former from the Greek 0vos, and the latter from the German heyde, the erica of the botanists. The word launch is explained under the head stock, with which it has no etymological connection. These excursions give a desultory character to the commentary. Jury-mast is ingeniously deduced from injury-mast, which, in the collateral Gothic dialect, is called a need-mast.

On the whole, this first part of the Dictionary supplies valuable and even agreeable reading. In natural history the author seems well skilled: but less, we think, in etymology; and perhaps he talks too much at length about many things which have not a philological bearing, and is too prone to decide authoritatively_on the preference of words, without giving his reasons. For instance, at p. 68., he says that vegetativeness, for vegetability, is out of use; neither word is very common, but we believe the former to be more adopted than the latter. Ness is one of those formative syllables that are so wholly naturalized as to combine, which few of our grammatical syllables will, both with words of Gothic and with words of Latin descent. We write facetiousness, delicateness, communicativeness, and may consequently write vegetativeness. In general, Gothic roots must be inflected with Gothic formative syllables, and Latin roots with Latin formative syllables; otherwise, a hybrid word is formed, which the instinct of the language ultimately rejects.

We

We are persuaded that Mr. Booth, in the progress of his task, will acquire a severer method of grouping his words; and we think that he would do well to separate his etymologicon into distinct short chapters. In the present form of the composition, the reader saunters pleasantly enough from men to maggots, and from metaphysics to salad: but there is a teazing incoherence of the several fragments, which lie strown about like rubbish, not cemented together in a regular building. Much good sense, however, pervades the scattered observations; which have the merit of great variety, and display an extensive familiarity with the prominent writers in the language.

ART. V. Specimens of the American Poets; with Critical Notices, and a Preface. 12mo. 7s. Boards. Allman. 1822.

WE
E had occasion a short time ago to notice some import-
ant works published on the other side of the Atlantic,
and we then took the opportunity of discussing at some length
the merits of American literature, and particularly of their
poetry. The present volume contains a selection from the
principal tracts on which we then commented, and others; and
the selection, as well as the elegant preface by which it is in-
troduced, does great credit to the judgment and taste of the
editor. The reader will find the happiest passages in Pierpont's
Airs of Palestine, Paulding's Backwoodsman, and Eastburn's
Yamoyden, here extracted; accompanied by select pieces of
Dabney, Maxwell, and Bryant, and a miscellany of anony-
mous and fugitive poems. In short, this little duodecimo is
the essence of many long and tedious volumes, carefully dis-
tilled; yet we must confess that even in this abridgment many
parts might bear farther refinement and reduction. With
Mr. Pierpont's merits and demerits our readers are well ac-
quainted. The following is a favorable specimen of Mr.
Paulding's Backwoodsman; which is written with a spirit
and an originality that please us much better than the pre-
vailing styles of our trans-Atlantic brethren, which are nothing
more than echoes of Byron, Moore, and Scott:

In truth it was a landscape wildly gay
That 'neath his lofty vision smiling lay;
A sea of mingling hills, with forests crown'd,
E'en to their summits, waving all around,
Save where some rocky steep aloft was seen,
Frowning amid the wild romantic scene,

See Monthly Review, N. S. vol. xciii. pp. 131. and 299. + Ibid. vol. lxxxviii. p. 206.

Around

1

Around whose brow, where human step ne'er trode,
Our native Eagle makes his high abode;

Oft in the warring of the whistling gales,
Amid the scampering clouds he bravely sails;
Without an effort winds the loftiest sky,
And looks into the sun with steady eye:
Emblem and patron of this fearless land,
He mocks the might of any mortal hand,
And, proudly seated on his native rock,
Defies the world's accumulated shock.
Here, 'mid the piling mountains scatter'd round,
His winding way majestic Hudson found;
And as he swept the frowning ridge's base,
In the pure mirror of his morning face,
A lovelier landscape caught the gazer's view,
Softer than nature, yet to nature true.
Now might be seen, reposing in stern pride,
Against the mountain's steep and rugged side,
High Putnam's battlements, like tow'r of old,
Haunt of night-robbing baron, stout and bold,
Scourge of his neighbour, Nimrod of the chase,
Slave of his king, and tyrant of his race.
Beneath its frowning brow, and far below,
The weltering waves unheard were seen to flow
Round West Point's rude and adamantine base,
That call'd to mind old Arnold's deep disgrace,
Andre's hard fate, lamented, though deserv'd,
And men who from their duty never swerv'd-
The honest three the pride of yeomen bold,
Who sav'd the country which they might have sold;
Refus'd the proffer'd bribe, and, sternly true,
Did what the man that doubts them ne'er would do.
Yes! if the scroll of never-dying fame

Shall tell the truth, 'twill bear each lowly name;
And while the wretched man, who vainly tried
To wound their honour, and his country's pride,
Shall moulder in the dirt from whence he came,
Forgot, or only recollected to his shame,
Quoted shall be these gallant, honest men,
By many a warrior's voice, and poet's pen,
To wake the sleeping spirit of the land,
And nerve with energy the patriot band.
Beyond, on either side the river's bound,
Two lofty promontories darkly frown'd,
Through which, in times long past, as learned say,
The pent up waters forc'd their stubborn way;
Grimly they frown'd, as menacing the wave,
That storm'd their bulwarks with its current brave,
And seem'd to threaten from their shatter'd brow,
To crush the vessels all becalm❜d below,

Whose

Whose white sails, hanging idly at the mast,
O'er the still waves a deep reflexion cast.
Still farther off, the Kaatskill, bold and high,
Kiss'd the pure concave of the arched sky,
Mingled with that its waving lines of blue,

And shut the world beyond from mortal view.'

We admire the patriotic feeling which breathes through these lines, and the style is vigorous and characteristic.

Yamoyden is a parody or transfusion of Sir Walter Scott, creditable to the imitative powers of the author, then a boy, but without one gleam of originality. A whole canto is here reprinted, we think, unadvisedly. As specimens of Mr. Dabney's muse, we have on a former occasion quoted his Heroes of the West, and his nervous translation of Frugoni's Sonnet on the Banishment of Scipio*; and our readers may perhaps recollect Mr. Maxwell's lines d-la-Moore on Love and Beauty. Mr. Bryant's poems exhibit much genius; and, if instead of remaining a servile imitator of Lord Byron's style, he would allow his own powers free scope, we think that he gives promise of finer poetry than any that America has yet produced. His Thanatopsis is a masterly sketch. We will not apologize for the length of the two following extracts from his poem called the Ages, because we think that our readers will be gratified with such specimens of bold conception and animated description.

The first is a retrospect of the struggles of Christianity to disenthrall itself from the incumbrances of superstition.

Vainly that ray of brightness from above,
That shone around the Galilean lake,

The light of hope, the leading star of love,
Struggled, the darkness of that day to break;
Even its own faithless guardians strove to slake
In fogs of earth, the pure immortal flame;
And priestly hands, for Jesus' blessed sake,
Were red with blood, and charity became

In that stern war of forms, a mockery and a name.

They triumph'd, and less bloody rites were kept
Within the quiet of the convent cell;

The well-fed inmates patter'd prayer, and slept,
And sinn'd, and liked their easy penance well.
Where pleasant was the spot for men to dwell,
Amid its fair broad lands the abbey lay,
Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell;

And cowl'd and barefoot beggars swarm'd the way,
All in their convent-weeds, of black, and white, and grey.

* See Monthly Review, N. S. vol. xciii. pp. 307. and 309.

. Oh,