MOORES PREFACES AND POEMS.

This volume completes the Juvenile Poems, and contains the Poems relating to America. The latter ere now separated from the mis- cellaneous trifles and fragments with which they were formerly mixed up, s‘ ith the general title of' " Odes and Epistles," and present a pure and distinct account of the impressions produced on the poet by his Transatlantic voyage. The occasional pieces that appeared originally in the " tides and Epistles" are now relegated to their proper position among the "Juvenile Poems"; our hint respecting which appears to have beets in a measure adopted, and a revision, with a view to purgatioe, to have taken place. Some few have been omitted; some, unless our memory greatly deceives us, have been pruned. Enough, however, of the Aristippean doctrines, without the excuse of .Antsneees, still re- mains to satisfy nnybody: its fact, the principle that present enjoy- ment is the end of life, and should be pursued without regard to moral duties or future consequences, and a sort of refined but lascivious sensuality, are too deeply seated in the poems to be easily eradicated. What in a critical sense adds to the evil is, that the poetry itself is commonplace. In the whole batch of juvenile poems in this volume, the only one which rises much

above well-ttmed mediocrity is, I I:td I leisure to sigh and mourn."

The new attraction of the volume is the Preface ; which gives a brief account of Mr. Moonifs American travels.—running cursorily but very agreeably over the leading points of his tour, noticing some of the most striking features of the country, and giving an " explanation" of' those epigrammatic censures tecon At politics, morals, ;Ina manners, of which the tHlowing are eeelples. resdem, Freedom, how I hate thy. cant : Not E•istern bombast, not the savage rant plerlded mach cud:, were they till clutchall it, ccci Roman Nero down Is litissian Paul, Could grate upon my ear Sei mein, so 1J.ise, As t he rank jargan of that factious race. Ito, poor of heart and prodigal of words. Fortfrld to be slaves y.t struggling to he lords. Strut forth. patriats, from iv Negro-marts, And shout flor rights, Ishii rapinejultheir hearts.

ho can. cc ith patience. 7' a m.,:neut see The medley mass of pride misery.

Ot whips and charters, ii c • Of slaving Blacks and .1... • Whites, And all the piebald polit■ ;.. os In free confusion o'er Co: te,1 Away, away I'd rath:r I.

By doubttul tenure from In climes where liberty I. -•

N or ;IIIV right but that of I,: Thm ci.:us to live., where bast..... ..vavcs

Iler fustian flag in mockery • c . • ;

'W here-motley 1:tws admit H..- • • ..rce Be t wixt the vilely slaved and ".. Alike the bondage and the The brute made ruler and the 7•. 7 • eele brute." $CENES AT WASILIN, 'Ti- evening now ; at!, the •;. rn star Solt sighs the lover And tills the ears nt Wuthipulls and vov Tito patriot. crct.it I•s come. Nme pleased retires ;v....7 -lines at liome; Or woo, perhaps. A ,1,35he5 Chartil$,

And dream of freedom in his boadsmahrs arms.

In the evening of his days. Mr. Moon': can talk in enlister strain

of the President : to whose Black Sal" the allusion in the last line of the quotation is evidently made, and speaks thus of his interview with .11:ruritsoN- - At Washington. I passed some days with the English Minister„llr. Merry: and was by him presented at the levee of the rr,sident, Jolerson ; whom found sitting with General Dearborn and one or two other officers, and in the same homely costume, comprising slippers and Connemara stockings, in which Mr. Merry had been received by him—much to that formal Minister's horror— when waiting upon him, in full dress, to deliver his credentials. My single interview with this remarkable person was of very short duration ; but to have seen and spoken with the man who drew up the Declaration of American Independence, was an event not to be forgotten."

The difference that nearly forty years has made in the country

i

through which Mr. Moman passed n his journey from the Atlantic seabord to Upper Canada, is vast and extraordinary : singular must be his impressions on reading a modern traveller's descriptions of the then primmval country he passed through' and, looking at the facilities of steam, it might almost be worth his while to revisit it and compare the impressions of youth with the realizations of age. This is his picture of the now flourishing city of Buffido- " Reaching, for the second time, New York, I set out from thence on the now familiar and easy enterprise of visiting the Falls of Niagara. It is but too true, of all grand objects, whether in nature or art, that facility- of access to them much diminishes the feeling of reverence they ought to inspire. Of this fault, however, the route to Niagara, at that period—at least the portion of it which led through the Genesee country—could not justly be accused. The latter part of the journey, which lay chiefly through yet but half-cleared wood, we were obliged to perform on foot; and a slight accident I met with in the course of our rugged walk laid me up for some days at Buffalo. To the rapid growth in that wonderful region of at least the materials of civilization— however ultimately they may be turned to account—this flourishing town, which stands on Lake Erie, bears most ample testimony. Though little better, at the time when I visited it, than a mere village, consisting chiefly of huts and wigwams, it is now, by all accounts, a populous and splendid city, with five or six churches, town-hall, theatre, and other such appurtenances of a capital. "In adverting to the comparatively rude state of Buffalo at that period, I should be ungrateful were Ito omit mentioning, that even then, on the shores of those far lakes, the title of ' poet '—however unworthily in that instance bestowed—bespoke is kind and distinguishing welcome for its wearer ; and that the captain who commanded the picket in which I crossed Lake Ontario, in addition to other marks of courtesy, begged, on parting with me, to be allowed to decline payment for my passage."

The Falls of Niagara have been frequently described, but never by a true poet. Here is Mr. Moona's account ; in which, if the reader be given to analysis, he will find that the effect is produced with scarcely any description at all.

"When we arrived at length at the inn in the neighbourhood of the Falls, it was too late to think of visiting them that evening; and [lay awake almost the whole night with the sound of the cataract in my cars. The day following I consider as a sort of tem in my life ; and the first glimpse I caught of that wonderful cataract gave me a feeling which nothing in this world can ever awaken again. It was through an opening among the trees, as we approached the spot %% here the full view of the I ails was to burst upon us, that I caught this glimpse of the mighty muss of waters folding smoothly over the edge of the precipice ; and so overwhelming was the notion it gave me of the awful spectacle I was approaching, that, during the short interval that followed, mmgMation had far outrun the reality ; and, vast and wonderful as was the scene that then opened than me, my first feeling was that of disappointment. It would have been impossible, indeed, for any thing real to come up to the vision I had in these few snoods formed of it ; and those awful Scriptural words, 'The fountains of the great deep were broken up,' can alone give any notion of the vague wonders Ihr which I was prepared. " But in spite of the start thus got by imagination, the triumph of reality was, in the end, but the greater ; for the gradual glory of the scene that opened upon me soon took possession of my whole mind; presenting, from day to day, sonic new beauty or wonder, and, like all that is most sublime in nature or art, awakening sad as well as elevating thoughts. I retain in my memory but one other dream—for such do events so long past appear—which can in any respect be associated with the grand vision I have just been describing ; and, however different the nature of their appeals to the imagination, I should find it difficult to say on which ',evasion I felt most deeply affected, when looking on the Falls of Niagara or when standing by moonlight among the ruins of the Coliseum."

For such of our readers as are thmiliar with the "Canadian Boat- song "—and there are doubtless few who are not—the following anecdotes will have an interest apart from that which they possess as relating to the poet.

" While un the subject of the 'Canadian Boat-song,' an anecdote connected with that once popular ballad may, for my musical readers at least, possess sonic interest. A few ...ears since, while staying in Dublin, I was presented, at his own request, to a gentleman who told me that his fittnily Itad in their possession a curious relic of my youthful days—being .the first mitotic n I had made in pencilling of the air and w rd's of the 'Canadian Boat-song,' while on my way down the St. Lawrence ; and that it was their wish I should add my signature to attest the authenticity of the autograph. I assared him with truth that I had wholly forgotten even the existence of such a memorandum; that it would be as much is curiosity to myself as it could be to any one else, and that I bbould feel thankfhl tu be allowed to see it. In a day or two after my request was complied with, and the following is the history of this musical 'relic.

" In my passage down the St. Lawrence, I had with me two travelling.com- panions, one of whom, nameda Harkness, the son of a wealthy Dublin merchant. has liven some years dead. To this young friend, on parting with him at Quela v, glve, as a keepsake, a volume I had been reading on the way- Priestlev's Eeetures on ; and it was upon a fly-leaf of this volume I found i had taken down, in pencilling, both the notes and a few of the words of the ori.inal song by which uty own boat-glee had been suggested. The fol- lowing is the form of my memorandum of the original air- " Then follows, as pencilled down at the moment, the first verse of my Canadian Boat-song, with air and words as they are at present. From all this it will be perceived, that in my own setting of the air, I departed in almost every respect but the time from the strain our voyageurs had sung to us, leaving the music of the glee nearly as much my own as the words. Yet, how strongly impressed Iliad become with the notion that this was the identical air sung by the boat- men—how closely it linked itself in my imagination with the scenes and sounds amidst which it had occurred to me—may be seen by reference to is note appended to the glee as first published, which will he found in the following pages."

The publication of the satire on America drew upon Mr. Moon; the assaults of his own party ; but he was rewarded with the offar of an order of chivalry. " As sums consolation to me for the onsets of criticism, I received, shortly after the apperwance of my volume, a letter from Stockholm, addressed to "The Author of' Epistles, Odes, and other Poems ' ; and informing me that the princes, nobles, and gentlemen, who composed the General Chapter of the most illustrious, Equestrian, Secular, and Chapteral Order or St. Joachim,' had elected me as a Knight of this Order. Notwithstanding the grave and official style of the letter, I regarded it, I own, at first as a mere ponderous piece of pleas:mtry, and even suspected that in the name of St. Joachim' I could detect the low and irreverent pun of St. Joketam. "0mm a little inquiry, however, I learned that there actually existed such an order of knighthood; that the title, insignia, &c. confrrred by it, had, in the instances of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Bouillon, and Colonel Imhoff; who were all Knights of St. Joachim, been anthorizA by the British Court ; but that since then, this sanction of the Order had been withdrawn. Of coarse, to the reduction thus caused in the value of the honour was owing its descent in the scale of distinction to 'such small deer' of Parnassus as myself. I wrote it letter, however, full of grateful acknowledgment to Monsieur llansson, the Vice-Chaneellur of the Order, saying that I was unconseious of having entitled myself by any public service to a reward due only to the benefactors of mankind: and therefore begged leave most respectfully to decline it."

All this is characteristic and pleasing autobiography ; one can only regret that there is not more. Something oh' Moottes mind and life is told ; but how much more remains to tell, by one who has mingled so largely in society, and with historical men, whose characters are public property.