The piece, entitled Love's Argument, from which we will quote a few stanzas, has much in common with this:

We are afraid this last line has been admitted to help out the rhyme. We may forgive such things in a bad poet, but Mr. Thomas must amend and avoid these errors. There is more of deep feeling in "woe" that we should think natural to Mr. Thomas' muse, but the strain is caught up again with even more vigor, though with a blighting and a blasting philosophy in "The World." In the Anacreontique to Lilliss, the rapture, the warmth, and the intensity of feeling has been well caught from the Teian bard, and there is much of his witching grace of expression. "Memory" has some pretty lines, but many are obscure to us, and the imitation of Shakspeare in the last verse is too adventurous. No one can paint the lily or safely tread in the footsteps of Shakspeare.

We have purposely left for the last a very pretty little song, which exhibits Mr. Thomas' poetical talents in a most favorable light:

THE OLDEN TIME.

"The olden time's long past, and now
(O bitter change to rue)

Friendship has not so warm a glow

And love is not so true;

The very sun sheds not such light,

The moon's not so sublime:
Nor do the stars beam half so bright
As in the olden time.

The flowers that for the brow of spring
Their gaudy chaplets weave-
The birds that matin music sing,
And vespers chant at eve-

Have not the hue-have not the tone-
Seem foreign to the clime;
And glad not as in days by-gone,
In the sweet olden time.

My heart that at the thought of ill,
Once fluttered in my breast,
Like a young bird by fowler's skill
Just stolen from its nest,

Is now by worldly contact turned
Too intimate with crime,

Nor recks the holy lessons learned
In the sweet olden time.

My mother's kiss, my father's smile,
My brother's laugh of joy-

My merry sister's artless wile,
My playmate with his toy,-

The school-my little sweetheart there,
For whom I first wrote rhyme-
Alas! they are not what they were,
In the sweet olden time.

'Tis sad to muse o'er pleasures fled,
O'er hopes that ne'er have bloomed,
O'er memories of revered ones dead,
In the heart's love entombed;
But sadder still on Sabbath-day,

When peals the church bells' chime,
To think the soul's more need to pray

Than in the olden time."

The writer of these lines is blessed with the true poetic faculty; we have read but few songs, except some of Moore's best, which go more directly to the heart than this plaintive song of auld lang syne. We have marked in Italics one line and two phrases, which we should be glad to see amended. "The moon's not so sublime" is very tame and somewhat childish; hopes cannot properly be said never to have bloomed; they bloom but produce no fruit frequent

ly, and that is what Mr. Thomas means in this place; read, then,

O'er hopes that only bloomed.

In the last line the apocope in the word has is awkward; read either "the soul more needs to pray," or perhaps better, To think the soul has need to pray

More than in olden time.

We had intended closing our quotations with this song, but to make the amende honorable for our hypercriticism, we will conclude with our favorite.

It will be perceived that even in this beautiful canzonet there are the same irregularities which detract so much from the excellence of Mr. Thomas' poems. He must be content to undergo the labor of correction.

There is much simliarity of thought, feeling, and style of expression between this and an exquisite little picture song, by a fellow townsman of Mr. Thomas'-Edward C. Pinckney-which we quote here for its beauty, its rarity and also because the early and melancholy death of its author has long removed him from those who are the laurelled upon earth:

"How may this little tablet feign the features of a face,

Which o'er-informs with loveliness its proper share of space,
Or human hands or ivory enable us to see

The charms, that all must wonder at, the work of God, in thee.

But, yet, methinks, that sunny smile familiar stories tell,
And I should know those placid eyes, two shaded chrystal wells;
Nor can my soul, the limner's art attesting with a sigh,
Forget the blood, that decked thy cheek, as rosy clouds the sky.

They could not semble what thou art, more excellent than fair,
As soft as sleep or pity is, and pure as mountain air;
But here are common, earthly hues, to such an aspect wrought
That none, save thine, can seem so like the beautiful of thought.

The song I sing, thy likeness like, is painful mimicry
Of something better, which is now a memory to me,
Who have upon life's frozen sea arrived the icy spot,
Where men's magnetic feelings show their guiding task forgot.

The sportive hopes that used to chase their shifting shadows on,
Like children playing in the sun-are gone, forever gone;
And on a careless, sullen peace, my double-fronted mind,
Like Janus, when his gates were shut, looks forward and behind.

Apollo placed his harp of old awhile upon a stone,

Which has resounded since when struck, a breaking harp-string's

tone;

And thus my heart, though wholly now from early softness free, If touched, will yield the music yet it first received from thee."

We have been thus copious in our extracts from Mr. Thomas' Poems, because, though the volume merits the attention of all our readers, it will in all probability be within the reach of few: and we would, therefore, introduce Mr. Thomas as a Poet, through our extracts, to those who might not otherwise have his writings presented to them. But the

number and the length of our quotations have already occupied so much room, that want of space will prevent us from pointing out to their author the few faults and imperfections which he ought diligently to guard against, as they may be easily prevented.

And we now take our leave of Mr. Thomas, hoping that we may often hereafter meet with new fruits from his muse, and that each may so improve upon the other, as that the autumn of his life may not "unbeseem the promise of his spring."

ART. V.-Theorie des Lois Criminelles, par BRISSOT DE WARVILLE, nouvelle edition, revue, rectifiée et ameliorée d'après les Travaux subsequents de l'auteur, augmentée de Notes, de Remarques, d'Appendices, &c., &c. Paris, 1836.

THE storm of the French revolution, was preceded by brilliant flashes of intellect in every department of philosophy: which, though obscured by the formidable events of the time, have left traces of their splendor in the lives and writings of some of the most unfortunate men of that age. The awful occurrences of this stupendous and general revolution, were never designed by the men whose writings first gave utterance to the thoughts which evolved it. Voltaire, we speak of him as a political writer; and Brissot de Warville, with many others, were too much the friends of humanity, to have wished to bathe in the ocean of blood, which flowed in France, subsequent to their writings, and in a great measure in consequence of them; these contained principles of justice, elaborated from the most refined philosophy. But if the morals of the great mass are unsuited to the melioration contemplated, the practice of Robespierre takes the place of the philosophy of good men. The changes which were sought to be effected by the great men who first moved public sentiment in Europe, at the time referred to, were changes of existing abuses and it is more than probable, that we do not, at this remote day, see in their proper light, the true motives which actuated their labors. We stand as spectators afar off, not affected by the events of the times. They were actors