He hath piped the loud "ay, ay, Sir !"
O'er the voices of the main

Till his deep tones have the hoarseness
Of the rising hurricane.

But oh, a spirit looketh

From out his clear blue eye,
With a truthful childlike earnestness,
Like an angel from the sky.

A venturous life the sailor leads
Between the sky and sea,

But, when the hour of dread is past,

A merrier who than he?

The toie of some quatrains entitled "Alone," differ* materially from that usual with Mrs. Hewitt. The idea is happy and well managed.

Mrs. Hewitt's sonnets are upon the whole, her most praiseworthy compositions. One entitled "Hercules and Omphale" is loticeable for the vigor of its rhythm.

Reclined, enervate, on the couch of ease,

No more he pants for deeds of high emprize;
For Pleasure holds in soft voluptuous ties
Enthralled, great Jove-descended Hercules.
The hand that bound the Erymanthean boar,
Hesperia's dragon slew with bold intent,
That from his quivering side in triumph rent
The skin the Cleonaan lion wore,

Holds forth the goblet—while the Lydian queen,

Robed like a nymph, her brow enwreathed with vine,
Lifts high the amphora brimmed with rosy wine,

And pours the draught the crowned cup within.
And thus the soul, abased to sensual sway,

Its worth forsakes—its might foregoes for aye.

The unusual force of the line italicized, will be observed. This force arises first, from the directness, or colloquialism without vulgarity, of its expression :—(the relative pronoun "which" is very happily omitted between "skin" and "the")—and, secondly, to the musical repetition of the vowel in "Cleonean", together with the alliterative terminations in "Cleonæan" and "lion." The effect, also, is much aided by the sonorous conclusion "wore." Another and better instance of fine versification occurs "For. gotten Heroes."

And the peasant mother at her door,

To the babe that climbed her knee,
Sang aloud the land's heroic songs—
Sang of Thermopylæ―

Sang of Mycale—of Marathon

Of proud Platea's day—

Till the wakened hills from peak to peak
Echoed the glorious lay.

Oh, godlike name !—oh, godlike deed!
Song-borne afar on every breeze,

Ye arc sounds to thrill like a battle shout,
Leouidas! Miltiades!

The general intention here is a line of four iambuses alternating with a line of three; but, less through rhythmical skill than a musical ear, the poetess has been led into some exceedingly happy variations of the theme. For example;—in place of the ordinary iambus as the first foot of the first, of the second, and of the third line, a bastard iambus has been employed. These lines are thus scanned:

And the peasant moth | er at | her door |

4 4

2

2

2

is well varied by a trochee, instead of an iambus, in the first foot; and the variation expresses forcibly the enthusiasm excited by the topic of the supposed songs, "Thermopyla". The fifth line is scanned as the three first. The sixth is the general intention, and consists simply of iambuses. The seventh is like the three first and the fifth. The eighth is like the fourth; and here again the opening trochee is admirably adapted to the movement of the topic. The ninth is the general intention, and is formed of four iambuses. The tenth is an alternating line and yet has four iambuses, instead of the usual three; as has also the final line—an alternating one, too. A fuller volume is in this manner given to the close of the subject; and this volume is fully in keeping with the rising enthusiasm. The last line but one has two bastard iambuses, thus:

Ye are sounds to thrill | like a bat | tle shout |.

4 4

2

Upon the whole, it may be said that the most skilful versifier could not have written lines better suited to the purposes of the

poet. The errors of "Alone," however, and of Mrs. Hewitt's poems generally, show that we must regard the beauties pointed out above, merely in the light to which I have already alluded— that is to say, as occasional happiness to which the poetess is led by a musical ear.

I should be doing this lady injustice were I not to mention that, at times, she rises into a higher and purer region of poetry than might be supposed, or inferred, from any of the passages which I have hitherto quoted. The conclusion of her "Ocean Tide to the Rivulet" puts me in mind of the rich spirit of Horne's noble epic, "Orion."

Sadly the flowers their faded petals close
Where on thy banks they languidly repose,
Waiting in vain to hear thee onward press;
And pale Narcissus by thy margin side

Hath lingered for thy coming, drooped and died,
Pining for thee amid the loneliness.

Hasten, beloved!—here! 'neath the o'erhanging rock!
Hark! from the deep, my anxious hope to mock,
They call me back unto my parent main.
Brighter than Thetis thou—and ah, more fleet 1
I hear the rushing of thy fair white feet!
Joy! joy!—my breast receives its own again!

The personifications here are well managed. The "Here!— 'neath the o'erhanging rock!" has the high merit of being truthfully, by which I mean naturally, expressed, and imparts exceeding vigor to the whole stanza. The idea of the ebb-tide, conveyed in the second line italicized, is one of the happiest imaginable; and too much praise can scarcely be bestowed on the "rushing" of the "fair white feet." The passage altogether is full of fancy, earnestness, and the truest poetic strength. Mrs. Hewitt has given many such indications of a fire which, with more earnest endeavor, might be readily fanned into flame.

In character, she is sincere, fervent, benevolent—sensitive to praise and to blame; in temperament melancholy; in manner subdued; converses earnestly yet quietly. In person she is tall and slender, with black hair and full gray eyes; complexion dark; general expression of the countenance singularly interesting and agreeable.

RICHARD ADAMS LOCKE.

ABOUT twelve years ago, I think, "The New York Sun," a daily paper, price one penny, was established in the city of New York by Mr. Moses Y. Beach, who engaged Mr. Richard Adams Locke as its editor. In a well-written prospectus, the object of the journal professed to be that of "supplying the public with the news of the day at so cheap a rate as to lie within the means of all." The consequences of the scheme, in their influence on the whole newspaper business of the country, and through this business on the interests of the country at large, are probably beyond all calculation.

Previous to "The Sun," there had been an unsuccessful attempt at publishing a penny paper in New York, and "The Sun" itself was originally projected and for a short time issued by Messrs. Day & Wisner; its establishment, however, is altogether due to Mr. Beach, who purchased it of its disheartened originators. The first decided movement of the journal, nevertheless, is to be attributed to Mr. Locke; and in so saying, I by no means intend any depreciation of Mr. Beach, since in the engagement of Mr. L. he had but given one of the earliest instances of that unusual sagacity for which I am inclined to yield him credit.

At all events, "The Sun" was revolving in a comparatively narrow orbit when, one fine day, there appeared in its editorial columns a prefatory article announcing very remarkable astronomical discoveries made at the Cape of Good Hope by Sir John Herschell. The information was said to have been received by "The Sun" from an early copy of "The Edinburgh Journal of Science," in which appeared a communication from Sir John himself. This preparatory announcement took very well, (there had been no hoaxes in those days,) and was followed by full details of the reputed discoveries, which were now found to have been made chiefly in respect to the moon, and by means of a telescope to which the one lately constructed by the Earl of Rosse is a plaything. As these discoveries were gradually spread before the public, the astonishment of that public grew out of all bounds;

but those who questioned the veracity of "The Sun"—the authenticity of the communication to "The Edinburgh Journal of Science"—were really very few indeed; and this I am forced to look upon as a far more wonderful thing than any "man-bat" of them all.

About six months before this occurrence, the Harpers had issued an American edition of Sir John Herschell's "Treatise on Astronomy," and I have been much interested in what is there said respecting the possibility of future lunar investigations. The theme excited my fancy, and I longed to give free rein to it in depicting my day-dreams about the scenery of the moon—in short, I longed to write a story embodying these dreams. The obvious difficulty, of course, was that of accounting for the narrator's acquaintance with the satellite; and the equally obvious mode of surmounting the difficulty was the supposition of an extraordinary telescope. I saw at once that the chief interest of such a narrative must depend upon the reader's yielding his credence in some measure as to details of actual fact. At this stage of my deliberations, I spoke of the design to one or two friends—to Mr. John P. Kennedy, the author of "Swallow Barn," among others—and the result of my conversations with them was that the optical difficulties of constructing such a telescope as I conceived were so rigid and so commonly understood, that it would be in vain to attempt giving due verisimilitude to any fiction having the telescope as a basis. Reluctantly, therefore, and only half convinced, (believing the public, in fact, more readily gullible than did my friends,) I gave up the idea of imparting very close verisimilitude to what I should write—that is to say, so close as really to deceive. I fell back upon a style half plausible, half bantering, and resolved to give what interest I could to an actual passage from the earth to the moon, describing the lunar scenery as if surveyed and personally examined by the narrator. In this view I wrote a story which I called "Hans Phaall," publishing it about six months afterwards in "The Southern Literary Messenger," of which I was then editor.

It was three weeks after the issue of "The Messenger" containing "Hans Phaall," that the first of the "Moon-hoax" editorials made its appearance in "The Sun," and no sooner had I