CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 107 



cialities), but because we consider the nearly simultaneous appear- 

 ance of these and other works of a like character, evidence of what 

 our American brethren term a " revival/' or a return of ** the heart 

 of the nation" from the unsatisfying pursuits of war and the frivo- 

 lities of fashionable life, to a taste for the pure and uncloying 

 charms of nature and the country. Several of our poets, about the 

 end of the last century and beginning of the present, endeavoured 

 to give this more healthful direction to the mind ; but amid the 

 fierce contention of political strife, and the clangour and din of 

 arms, their voice was either unheard or made but a feeble impres- 

 sion. Among the number of this glorious band it is enough to 

 mention Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, and Wordsworth; the last 

 named of whom we yet possess, and who is unquestionably the 

 greatest poet of the present day in the sense in which Nature un- 

 derstands a poet, as one who ministereth continually in her temple, 

 listening to the gentlest whisper of her voice, that, having caught, 

 he may convey it, and interpret its deep meaning to the multitudes 

 that stand without. To him is Miss Twamley's volume most ap- 

 propriately dedicated — the offering of a young and beautiful daugh- 

 ter to a revered and venerable sire. 



Fortunate it is for us that he and some others of the tuneful 

 train, perceived that 



" The world is too much with us ; late and soon, 

 Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers ; 

 Little we see m nature that is ours : 



"We have given our hearts away — a sordid boon !" 



and earnestly do we hope that by the mild, but powerful, influence 

 of song we may, ere too late, be enabled to 



*' Win back our way, 

 Our angry spirits healed and harmonized 

 By the benignant touch of love and beauty." 



We deem it not one of the least peculiar of the features attendant 

 upon the revival above spoken of, that the voices calling upon us 

 to return have proceeded from the strongholds, the fastnesses, the 

 very citadels of trade, commerce and manufactures ; from Sheffield, 

 from Leeds, and from Birmingham. Out of Sheffield came the 

 voice of Ebenezer Elliot, like the vivid flash of the lightning bursting 

 from the lurid thunder-cloud, shewing that men whose hands were 

 hard with daily toil, were yet possessed of hearts melting with 

 all the genial feelings, and radiant with all the brightest attributes 

 of humanity. Leeds, too, can boast of one 



" Whose soul can sicken at the tale 

 Of sorrow springing from the sordid ore ; 

 Whose heart can feel for crippled childhood's wail, 

 And scorn the vassal sceptre wielded o'er 

 The infant labourer for a tyrant's store ; 

 Whose spirit wearies of the maniac roar, 

 The mammon-worshipper's idolatry,"— 



