plains, waving their luxuriant foliage in spruce, however, is nearly perfect. It is the free wind. There are other trees appropriate as ornaments for a lawn or yard before a house, which are not proper as road-side shades; and some one or more of these should be planted near every home. The delicately-shaped mountain-ash is one of these, and its fine, soft, green color, its curious pinnatified-leaves, and its abundance of orange-dyed berries, render it a beautiful contrast with the larger and more noble forest-trees above named. This tree is small, and appears to the best advantage embowered among others. The larch, or American hakmetac, is a beautiful tree. Its trim, tapering, cone-shape-its horizontal or slightly-drooping branches, so fairy-like, covered from their very bases with silky tassels of needle-shaped leaves-its bright scarlet blossoms in spring time, peeping like knots of ribbon from among its downy foliage-and its hardy habits conspire to make it an indispensable denizen of every well-kept lawn. The weeping-willow, unless in a very windy exposure, is easily cultivated, is always graceful, and imparts an air of richness and fertility to the ground which it shades. If properly cared for, it will rise above the roof-tree of a cottage, and hang its slender twigs, so curtain-like, covered with wreaths of golden-green leaves far down below the eaves, where they leap and laugh at the music of every passing breeze. But every residence should be in a measure relieved and made to stand out by at least a few evergreens. Firs, cedars, and spruce, are at all times lovely and useful. The balsam-fir is a tree of small size and of rapid growth. It is elegant when young, and ornamental, though rather stiff when old. It should be allowed to branch out from the very ground, and then its symmetrical cone, its darkgreen foliage, its twigs, with its fadeless leaves set all around them, seeming like cords of velvet-and its constancy of color, which makes it the emblem of enduring worth-render it justly a favorite. The American spruce is much like the balsamfir. It differs in being larger; its branches have a more drooping habit, particularly in age; its color is not quite as lively, and its lower branches die and fall off sooner. We consider it too stiff and formal to be desirable. The Norwegian a broad cone, with branches widely spread at the bottom, with very thick foliage of a lively green, and a beautifully-tapering top; it rises to be large and majestic ; and though requiring much room, is not to be omitted from a lawn without the strongest reasons. The cedar, or arborvitæ, is a small tree, with light-green, flat clusters of leaves. It is spindle-shaped, and as it requires very little space, it can always be introduced into the smallest yard. It is well adapted to screens, arbors, and hedges; and as it may be planted close, and readily admits of being sheared, it may be made into a wall, completely impervious to rude eyes in summer and in winter. Before we close we ought perhaps to say a word or two on the cultivation and care of ornamental and shade-trees. All the trees named above are hardy, and will flourish luxuriantly in almost all parts of the United States. They will thrive in most soils and in any exposure. On hilltops, of course they will be beaten by winds, and will not present their foliage in full perfection. In fact there is scarcely an American practice more outrageous than the one, which we have, of perching our houses and seminaries of learning upon the summits of hills. We build castles in the air with an emphasis, and they must, in the very nature of things, present a barren and desolate appearance, or be surrounded by trees gnarled and dwarfish. Houses should be built in valleys, or on a southern or an eastern exposure, if possible, and then the encircling hills will afford to them, and the trees and shrubs about them, a suitable protection. A northern or a western slope, if not too high up the hill, and if the valley from which it rises is not too wide, will answer well where the soil is good. But a hilltop or a high north-eastern or western exposure will attract winds, furious enough to mar and stint any trees, however hardy, which any care may plant or any skill cultivate in the northern states. But with a good situation, any soil, by proper preparation, will produce glorious trees. Great pains however must be taken in transplanting them; and after that they will pretty nearly take care of themselves. The pits in which they are to be set should not be made less than three feet deep, by six to ten feet in diameter; It spirits, removes mental anxiety, and drives from the heart those clouds of depression which business, pursued too eagerly, as is our national habit, generally brings. gives to the soul a sense of her union with nature, and therefore imparts a loftiness and dignity to the thoughts and impulses. It forms the taste on a pure standard, and gives refinement and a kindly sympathy to the whole character. If" he who causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, is a benefactor," much more is he to be honor and the earth which is to fill them, and to cover the roots, should be well pulverized. | A fine loam without manure in it is best for manure is too apt to produce an excess of heat. If the trees are more than two inches in diameter, the pits should be still broader. After digging the pits and mixing well the earth, fill them before the trees are put in by throwing dirt to the middle, and allowing it to form a heap like a cone, the apex of which shall nearly reach the level of the ground. Place the tree on this apex, and see that it is not allowed to stand too low. This soft dirted who rears up around his dwelling or on will settle, and therefore cause the tree to stand a little higher than before transplanting. Now sift on, from the point of a shovel or spade, fine earth against the body of the tree, and it will roll down the sides of the cone among the slender roots, which should be kept by the hands in very nearly a horizontal position, diverging like the radii of a circle. When the pit is nearly filled, a few pails of water, at the temperature of the atmosphere, should be poured on, and after filling with earth, and securing the tree against wind, you have little else to do than to wait and see the summer make it flourish. Great care is required in taking up trees, | and they should very rarely be removed directly from the forest to an open and exposed situation. It is much better to plant them in a sort of clump in some sheltered place, for two or three years, if you do not get them from a nursery. They can then be planted with very little risk. In digging them they should be treated as if they had a tender life; not like stones. The old Greeks-the truest lovers of beauty-believed that every tree inclosed in its bark a wood nymph of great beauty and sensibility; and we ought in transplanting a tree to treat it as if this idea was no fable. The rootsparticularly the fibrous ones-should be nursed as tenderly as a wounded finger in its daily dressings; for through these principally the tree sucks up its nourish ment. The care of trees is always a delight to a lover of the open air and natural scenery, and their cultivation is easy and inexpensive. Scarcely another pursuit or employment is so tranquillizing and elevating. It forces man abroad and teaches him to look upward toward a heaven of purity and loveliness. It soothes the ruffled his meadow-lands and pastures, such glowing piles of living verdure, as shall brighten and bloom at the coming of a thousand spring-times; as shall gather moisture and fling abroad coolness, through the droughts and heats of a thousand summers; as shall crown the lands with glories and abundance, as oft as autumn visits our world; as shall, whenever winter attempts to assert his iron sway, stand in the mid of his desolations, monuments of hope and promise, speaking of better days of life and gladness yet to come. Thrice blessed is such a man; blessed under the weight of his toils while he labors; blessed with the yearly gifts, in leaf, flower, and fruit, which his trees shower upon him; and blessed in the anticipations of gratitude, which coming generations shall bestow upon his everfragrant memory. SLEEP OF PLANTS IN THE ARCTIC REGIONS. Mr. Seemann, the naturalist of Kellett's Arctic expedition, states a curious fact respecting the condition of the vegetable world during the long day of the Arctic summer. Although the sun never sets while it lasts, plants make no mistake about the time when, if it be not night, it ought to be; but regularly as the evening hours approach, and when a midnight sun is several degrees above the horizon, droop their leaves and sleep, even as they do at sunset in more favored climes. "If man," observes Mr. Seemann," should ever reach the pole, and be undecided which way to turn when his compass has become sluggish, his timepiece out of order, the plants which he may happen to meet will show him the way; their sleeping leaves tell him that midnight is at hand, and that at that time the sun is standing in the north. ALEXANDER SMITH AS A POET. [For the National Magazine.] ALEXANDER SMITH AS A POET. ITHIN a year past the literary at Wmosphere has been disturbed by a man of no ordinary pretensions, in the person of Alexander Smith. Of course there was a general commotion in all the circles, and the question was everywhere agitated: Is Mr. Smith a poet? In answer John Bull roared out a thundering affirmative, and Uncle Jonathan, looking quietly over his spectacles, nodded quite perceptibly. We are acquainted with enthusiastic admirers of the new verseman; and if Mr. Smith be on a more familiar acquaintance what he is at first sight, he is not unworthy whatever partiality may have been lavished upon him. But if he prove to be all superfice—if he have succeeded in originating no leading truth, nor in impressing any great idea on the public mind-we must deny him a niche in the Pantheon. It is evident that Alexander Smith is often wrote as the best means of preserving The world will prob- he had accomplished a difficult problem The only work of Smith's which has The "Life Drama," in which our poet is evidently feeling the public pulse with no small anticipation, is a greatly belabored performance of some length. In commencing to read a poem it is but natural that we ask the question Mrs. Partington put to her friend: "What d'ye propose to But just at this point in the deu ?" drama, you are puzzled beyond measure. Any reader who can perceive the scope and bearing of this piece, deserves to be employed at deciphering the obelisks. All its conceptions are confused and indistinct, and you arise from the perusal with a painful sense of confusion doubly confounded. But determined not to be baffled in your intentions to read the last poet, you have proceeded but a short way when you discover with dismay that you are treading Mr. Smith's prothe wheel of Ixion. pensity for imitation amounts to an idiosyncrasy. In a composition of one hundred and forty-four pages, the sun is honorably mentioned sixty-two times; the moon fifty-eight times; the stars seventytwo times; the sea and ocean sixty-seven. These are our author's four ideas. He weaves them into a thousand fantastic shapes, and bids them assume every imaginable hue. and silent that it cannot be metaphorized as the moon; nothing so distant, and bright, and small, as not to resemble a star; nothing so dazzling, and swift, and immense, that it may not be a sun; nothing more vast, or wrathful, or loving, or fickle than the ocean. value as types, these bodies are indispensable in scenery :— There is nothing so pale And besides their "The sea lay stranded on the beach." " sun." My heart swells to him as the sea to the moon, Therefore it is I love the midnight stars.” "We dwelt on slopes against the morning sun. "Here is the sunset, yonder grows the moon; What image would you draw from these?" Were it not for an occasional allusion to grassy slopes, and the positive information that one of our author's scenes is laid in a manor, (though we are not informed where,) we should infer that he had vegetated on some island, where he had never been permitted to see anything but the sea beating upon the beach, or the king of day, blazing athwart the sky, or the queen of night modestly donning her lord's small clothes. One thing is a little surprising-there is not in the whole poem anything like an eclipse or a transit. We were somewhat disappointed not to find an authentic account of a storm at sea. What an admirable scene it would have made! we would not magnify trifling oversights. The four ideas are well developed. But Smith has aped the daring profanity of Bailey with the greatest nicety. His book in this respect is a wax impression of "Festus." His Violet is "fair as God." His heroes berate the Deity just as a postillion would a hack-driver. The following language is used by Walter to his peasant: "Your hand, my friend! For thou and I are sharers in one doom: We are immortals, and must bear such woe That, could it light on God, in agony He'd pay down all his stars to buy the death He doth deny us." But on this article I forbear to quote. Those who have a tooth for the modern school profanity, can pitch in. We will insure them ample satisfaction. Indeed, we think the whole effect of the drama demoralizing. Mr. Smith cannot have the audacity to suppose that he has "held the mirror up to nature," and shown life as it really is. If so, he would cast suspicion over the purest virtue. If so, every man would be a poetaster and a libertine, like Walter; or a woman-hater, like Edward; or a nondescript, like Charles. He has given us but two specimens of a lady-and Heaven save the mark! No, there is another, a young girl, for which see scene tenth. His ladies both keep late hours, and on one occasion Violet carouses all night. The lofty moral courage and elevating influence of woman have no place in Smith's conceptions. But it is objected, Had not the author a right to paint such women as he pleased, so he did it skillfully? We answer, certainly; but we are quarreling with him for creating women only as a pander to man. Had Violet been what she should have been, Walter would not have been the villain he was. "The saddest thing that can befall a soul Is when it loses faith in God and woman; Though the world's throne stood empty in my Lost I those gems, path, I would go wandering back into my childhood, Searching for them with tears." The truth is, the "Drama" is but an autobiography of Mr. Smith under the character of Walter; and as such it represents him in the no very amiable light of a city roué, escaping into the country just often enough to do a little villainy, and pass a few counterfeits on the virtuous tendencies of a country life; while he consummates his glory by writing the book which entertains us at present. But it is as a drama, technically speaking, that this performance is most faulty. It lacks the essential requisite of a drama, which is unity. It is a perfect chaos-a multitude of names are introduced without character, without object, without destiny, without fate. There is not a single character with whom you can sympathize. It is a matter of indifference whether Walter commits suicide or not in his fit of madness, just at the time you should be ready to peril your own life to save him. Othello or Sardanapalus, under similar circumstances, calls forth all the anxiety of your nature. There is no crisis in the playno "time that tries men's souls ;" all is an unbearable monotony in occasions as well as in characters. The dramatis persona move across the stage like the phantasms that appeared to M. Nicolai, each with his eyes upon the floor, each observing the same pace, and each emerging and disappearing in a mist. For example: in scene second, a lady enters. A lady! Expectation is on tiptoe to know who. Is she a Pamela, or a Desdemona, or a Madame Fitz Fulker? In vain do you toil through leaf after leaf, hoping her nature will unfold itself. "Like the innermost leaf in the heart of a rose," she is a masque; and had she not been introduced as a lady, we should be tempted to doubt even that. In scene tenth, an outcast girl enters, into whose mouth this philosophy is put : "Man trusts in God: He is eternal. Woman trusts in man, And he is shifting sand." We submit whether this stately wisdom sits well on such shoulders or not. Again the songs, which in the elder AN AUTUMN MEMORY. dramatists are the life of the performance, in the "Life Drama" only serve to render dullness more insupportably dull. I cannot refrain giving a specimen. Arthur, in apostrophizing old bald-face, breaks out into the following ecstasies :— "O richest joy-giver! Rare warmer of liver! Diviner than kisses, thou droll and thou sage! In sunshine, in rain, a flask shall be nigh me, Warm heart, blood and brain, Fine Sprite, deify me!" The question is not whether such stuff is natural in such a drunken varlet as Walter; but whether such dullness is sufferable? Such are a few of the more prominent faults of Mr. Alexander Smith's "Life Drama." The "Evening at Home" is quite similar. The sonnets are better. It is but justice to allow, however, that there are many passages of striking beauty in this work. On page 25th, a grim old king appears to advantage as follows:"He call'd his faithful herald to his side,With a proud smile 'Go, tell the dead I come!' The warrior with a stab let out his soul, Which fled and shriek'd through all the other world, 'Ye dead, my master comes!' pause And there was Till the great shade should enter." immortality, we would comfort him in his ""Tis not for me, ye heavens! 't is not for me [For the National Magazine.] AN AUTUMN MEMORY. Like inspiration when the lips are dumb. And lifted up their high beseeching arms There is some truth in the remark of Sprinkled on those great ashes! How we look'd Walter : "Earth casts off a slough of darkness, an eclipse of hell and sin, In each cycle of her being, as an adder casts her skin; Lo, I see long blissful ages, when these mammon days are done, Amid the burnish'd branches of old woods we saw The slanting sunlight gilding banks of moss, Stretching, like a golden evening, forward to Dipp'd down the distant waters, all the west, the setting sun.” And speaking of the earth : "She gave us birth; We drew our nurture from her ample breast, But such beauties as these only render more apparent the deformities of the body of the work, just as a strong light increases the apparent blackness of surrounding night. We only feel that "He who uses one truth After a careful reading, we will predict, As if a god had pass'd, grew tranced with light, And large tears well'd in Ida's saintly eyes, there, Then turning with a sweet serenity of face, H. N. POWERS. |