PREFACE. I GATHER these essays out of the anonymous and desultory writing of many past years-not because I suppose them to possess any particular literary value, but simply to show what little part I may have taken in various discussions. Written in moments snatched from the labors of an exacting profession, they are more imperfect than they would have been with a larger leisure at my command. They are reprinted, however, substantially as they were first published I have pruned away certain redundances with a pretty free hand here and there, where the meaning seemed obscure, I have added a sentence or a paragraph to help it out but no change has been made in any sentiment or thought. To have rendered the essays what I should now like them to be, would have been tore-write them, which was impossible. My political and social pa. pers I hope some time or other to collect into a volume like the present. CONTENTS . PAGE RRYANTS P OERI . S . .......................... 9 JEREMY BENTHAM AN D LAWR EFORM .. .......... 2 2 EDWARLDIV INGSTO AN N D HIS CODE . ........... 56 IOTLEY R S I SE O F THE DUTCHR EPUBLI . C . ...... 4 2 2 EMERSO O N N ENGLAX .. D .. ................... 441 EARLIER WRITINGS. BRYANTS POEMS. E design to express our opinion of the merit of these poems. To speak what we think, plainly and freely, will only be discharging a debt of gratitude that has been accumulating for a long while. That they should have passed through four large editions is some indication of the existence among us of a pure taste at least, the author has no right to complain. He has found favor enough to satisfy a vanity more inordinate than we take his to be. His verses have been read extensively, and praised as often as they were read quoted frequently, and always with admiration and re published time and again in every magazine and newspaper from the land of the Pilgrims to that of the Cherokees. The more accomplished his readers, the keener their relish of the repast which he has furnished. Nevertheless, would not some of his warmest admirers be surprised to learn his true rank as a poet Suppose me were to compare him, not with the ever-during few, with Spenser, hakspeare, Milton, who hold the Poems by William Cullen Bryant. Fifth Edition. Harper Brothers, I 8 39. From the Democratic Review, Oct. 1839. first place, but with those just below them, with Collins, Cowper, Vordsworth, and their like, mould it betray any want of critical sagacity We confess it is our conviction, that, estimated according to the strictest rules of art, his poetry is not inferior to their best. lJTithout running a formal parallel, we shall endeavor to state why and in what respect we think so, by describing what we conceive to be its chief characteristics. Sometimes we are disposed to think exquisite grace and propriety of expression his principal excellence. It seems as if his whole study had been how his thoughts might be most beautifully uttered. Not only are ivords not misused, which would be small praise indeed, but none occur that any process of refinement can improve. Iheir precision is remarkable, unaccompanied as it is by any loss of elegance or force. Warmth and richness are not sacrificed to mere dry and meagre chastity. Most writers, when they attempt neatness, become hard and cold flexibility is exchanged for accuracy and their frigid phrases, perhaps well adapted to a metaphysical treatise, are altogether out of place in verse...