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MASSACHUSETTS TO VIRGINIA.

Written on reading an account of the proceedings of the citizens of Norfolk (Virginia), in reference to George Latimer, the alleged fugitive slave, the result of whose case in Massachusetts will probably be similar to that of the negro, Somerset, in Eng

land in 1772.

The blast from Freedom's northern hills upon its southern way
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay :-

No word of haughty challenging, nor battle-bugle's peal,

Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemens' steel.

No trains of deep-mouthed cannon along our highways go-
Around our silent arsenals untrodden lies the snow;

And to the land-breeze of our ports upon their errands far,
A thousand sails of commerce swell, but none are spread for war.

We hear thy threats, Virginia! thy stormy words and high,
Swell harshly on the southern winds which melt along our sky;
Yet not one brown hard hand foregoes its honest labor here;
No hewer of our mountain oaks suspends his axe in fear.

Wild are the waves that lash the reefs along St. George's bank,
Cold on the shore of Labrador the fog lies white and dank;
Through storm and wave and blinding mist stout are the hearts which man
The fishing-smacks of Marblehead, the sea-boats of Cape Ann.

The cold north light and wintry sun glare on their icy forms
Bent grimly o'er their straining-lines, or wrestling with the storms;
Free as the winds they drive before, rough as the waves they roam,
They laugh to scorn the slaver's threat against their rocky home.

What means the Old Dominion? Hath she forgot the day
When o'er her conquered valleys swept the Briton's steel array ?
How, side by side with sons of hers, the Massachusetts men
Encountered Tarleton's charge of fire, and stout Cornwallis then?

Forgets she how the Bay State, in answer to the call

Of her old House of Burgesses spoke out from Fanueil Hall?
When echoing back her Henry's cry, came pealing on each breath
Of northern winds the thrilling sounds of "Liberty or Death!"

What asks the Old Dominion? If now her sons have proved
False to their fathers' memory, false to the faith they loved;
If she can scoff at Freedom, and its Great Charter spurn,
Must we of Massachusetts from Truth and Duty turn?

We hunt your bondmen flying from slavery's hateful hell-
Our voices, at your bidding, take up the bloodhound's yell-
We gather at your summons above our fathers' graves,
From Freedom's holy altar-horns to tear your wretched slaves!

Thank God! not yet so vilely can Massachusetts bow,

The spirit of her early time is with her even now;

Dream not because her pilgrim blood moves slow, and calm, and cool, She thus can stoop her chainless neck, a sister's slave and tool!

All that a Sister State should be, all that a free State may,
Heart, hand and purse we proffer, as in our early day;

But that one dark lothsome burthen, ye must stagger with alone,
And reap the bitter harvest which ye yourselves have sown!

If slavery be a reproach, and too just a reproach it is to the Southern States, surely the citizens of New England may justly pride themselves upon the poetry which has arisen out of the sin and shame of their brethren. Time will inevitably chase away the crime, for national crimes are in their very nature transient, while the noble effusions that sprang from that foul source, whether in the verse of the poet, or the speeches of the orator, are imperishable.

Another of my sins of omission is Mr. Halleck, a poet of a different stamp, with less of earnestness and fire, but more of grace and melody. How musical are these stanzas on the Music of

Nature!

Young thoughts have music in them, love

And happiness their theme;

And music wanders in the wind

That lulls a morning dream.
And there are angel voices heard
In childhood's frolic hours,
When life is but an April day
Of sunshine and of flowers.

There's music in the forest leaves
When summer winds are there,

And in the laugh of forest girls
That braid their sunny hair.

The first wild bird. that drinks the dew
From violets of the spring,

Has music in his voice, and in

The fluttering of his wing.

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Still better than these verses are the stanzas on the death of

his brother poet Drake :

Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days;
None knew thee but to love thee,
None named thee but to praise.

Tears fell when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep;
And long where thou art lying
Will tears the cold turf steep.

When hearts whose truth was proven
Like thine are laid in earth,

There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth;

And I, who woke each morrow
To clasp thy hand in mine,
Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
Whose weal and woe were thine,-

It should be mine to braid it

Around thy faded brow;

But I've in vain essayed it,
And feel I can not now.

While memory bids me weep thee
Nor thoughts nor words are free,
The grief is fixed too deeply

That mourns a man like thee.

This is a true and manly record of a true and manly friendship. There is no doubting the sorrow, honorable alike to the Departed and the Survivor May he be so loved and so mourned!

XXVII.

VOLUMINOUS AUTHORS.

HARGRAVE'S STATE TRIALS.

ALL my life long I have delighted in voluminous works; in other words, I have delighted in that sort of detail which permits so intimate a familiarity with the subjects of which it treats. This fancy of mine seems most opposed to the spirit of an age fertile in abridgments and selections. And yet my taste is hardly, perhaps, so singular as it seems: witness the six volume biographies of Scott and Southey, which every body wishes as long again as they are; witness the voluminous histories of single events-the Conquest of Peru and of Mexico, by Mr. Prescott, the French Revolution of M. Thiers, the Girondins of M. de Lamartine. Even the most successful writers of modern fiction have found the magical effects of bringing the public into intimacy with their heroes. Hence Mr. Cooper (dead I regret to say, but yet imperishably alive in his graphic novels), extended to fifteen volumes the adventures of Leather-Stocking, until every reader offered his hand to greet the honest backwoodsman as if he had been a daily visitor; and Balzac, a still greater artist, brought the same dramatis persona, the same set of walking ladies and gentlemen to fill up the background of his scenes of the "Life of Paris and of the Provinces," with an illusion so perfect and so masterly, that I myself, who ought to have some acquaintance with the artifices of story-telling, was so completely deceived as to inquire by letter of the friend who had introduced me to those remarkable books, whether the Horace Bianchon, whom I had just found consulted for the twentieth time in some grave malady, were a make-believe physician, or a real living man to which.my friend, herself no novice in this sort of deception, replied that he was certainly a fictitious personage, for that she had written two years ago to Paris to ask the same question.

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