mountain -. u Mercy and forgiveness to all 
the sinners of the earth, thou only art re¬ 
jected .” — [after a long pause .] Why don’t 
you laugh ? 
Daniel. Dreams come from God. 
Had Francis dreamt all this, lie 
would have hesitated to relate it, and 
would only, in his first terror, have 
let escape the critical confession ; still 
the entire passage is conceived with 
colossal boldness and extent of fancy ; 
it is worthy of the author of the Apo¬ 
calypse ; and is perhaps better fitted for 
epic than dramatic use, as the excess of 
detail clogs that rapid march of emo¬ 
tion which scenic dialogue requires. 
The yjthxor.vg ’e owvg is there, who can 
imprint her tread in a heart of marble ; 
but the horror exceeds the limits of 
welcome excitement. It is nobler, 
however, so to err with Schiller than 
to be correctly right in the lamer 
forms of Lessing. 
Young, in his Revenge, lias given to 
our country a specimen of this class of 
drama, in which the style, the senti¬ 
ments, the personages, are alike hy¬ 
perbolic, and therefore in keeping ; and 
lie wisely preferred to prose a metrical 
diction, as more akin to bombast. But 
Schiller’s force is decidedly greater 
than that of Young ; although it was at 
this period less curtailed and pruned 
by taste and judgment. 
( To be continued.) 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
NEWS FROM PARNASSUS. 
No. X. 
THE BACKWOODSMAN, A POEM ; by 
J. K. PAULDING, Philadelphia. 
MERICAN literature, the very 
mention of which, some years 
since, would have drawn forth a with¬ 
ering smile of contempt from the self- 
sufficient critics of our own country, 
and opened a boundless field for tlie 
display of their captious and fastidious 
powers, is daily becoming, by its rapid 
and marked improvement, an object of 
increasing interest and attraction, both 
to the scholar and the philanthropist. 
The former has already been indebted 
to it, for many a welcome addition to 
his intellectual banquet; and to the 
latter, its acknowledged progress is a 
source of the most pleasurable feelings, 
because it affords the strongest proof 
that can be adduced of the growth of 
the human mind, and the advancement 
of the best interests of social life among 
our Transatlantic brethren. The style 
[Oct. K 
of their state papers has long exhibited 
a model of accuracy and clearness in 
that department of composition; and 
many of their recent prose publications, 
both on serious and entertaining sub¬ 
jects, may fairly dispute the palm with 
most European productions. But it is 
in the greatly increased demand for 
works of poetry, that we perceive the 
most striking indication of the rapid 
strides that refinement and cultivation 
are making in the United States. 
Poetry, if not a mental superfluity, is, 
at least, a mental luxury; and an 
appetite for it is seldom felt among 
any nation, till an adequate supply of 
what is necessary and indispensable 
has been first obtained. Indeed, the 
existence of such an appetite warrants 
the presumption, that, as far as the 
possession of the useful and requisite 
arts of life are concerned, they have 
already acquired what Lord Bacon 
calls, “ the habit of being happy.” 
Under the influence of these opinions, 
it has afforded us no small pleasure to 
observe the awakened sensibility to the 
“ magic power of song,” ■which has 
long been strengthening with the Ame¬ 
rican public ; and we feel considerable 
gratification in introducing the present 
poem to the notice of our readers, both 
because the author has presented no 
unworthy or unacceptable tribute to 
the wreath of the Columbian muse, 
and because his work is an additional 
evidence, that the eager demand of his 
countrymen for poetical literature, may 
meet with an adequate supply in the 
resources of native genius, without the 
humbling consciousness of being wholly 
or constantly dependent on foreign ta¬ 
lent for their intellectual entertainment. 
The tale of the poem is extremely 
simple, indeed, we almost think, too 
much so. It is the narrative of Basil, 
an industrious labourer, near the Hud¬ 
son river, who imprudently marrying 
very early in life, and having a nu¬ 
merous infant family to provide for, is 
exposed, for some years, to the united 
evils of hard labour and severe poverty. 
At length, in a very cold winter, he is 
deprived by sickness of the use of his 
limbs for a considerable time, and, on 
his recovery, having no prospect before 
him, in his present situation, but a 
recurrence of the same sufferings which 
he has already experienced, he resolves, 
undismayed by the appalling accounts 
given by his neighbours, of the dangers 
and privations to which he is about to 
expose himself, and their earnest at¬ 
tempts 
News from Parnassus.. .No. X. 
