This
      “ease” or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion
      to regard as ease in appearance alone—as a point of really difficult
      attainment. But not so:—a natural manner is difficult only to him
      who should never meddle with it—to the unnatural. It is but the
      result of writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, that _the
      tone, _in composition, should always be that which the mass of mankind
      would adopt—and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The author who, after the fashion of “The North American Review,” should
      be upon _all _occasions merely “quiet,” must necessarily upon _many
      _occasions be simply silly, or stupid; and has no more right to be
      considered “easy” or “natural” than a Cockney exquisite, or than the
      sleeping Beauty in the waxworks. Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the one
      which he entitles “June.” I quote only a portion of it:—

     There, through the long, long summer hours,
         The golden light should lie,
     And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
         Stand in their beauty by. The oriole should build and tell
     His love-tale, close beside my cell;
         The idle butterfly
     Should rest him there, and there be heard
     The housewife-bee and humming bird. And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,
         Come, from the village sent,
     Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,
         With fairy laughter blent? And what if, in the evening light,
     Betrothed lovers walk in sight
         Of my low monument? I would the lovely scene around
     Might know no sadder sight nor sound. I know, I know I should not see
         The season’s glorious show,
     Nor would its brightness shine for me;
         Nor its wild music flow;
     But if, around my place of sleep,
     The friends I love should come to weep,
         They might not haste to go. Soft airs and song, and the light and bloom,
     Should keep them lingering by my tomb. These to their soften’d hearts should bear
         The thoughts of what has been,
     And speak of one who cannot share
         The gladness of the scene;
     Whose part in all the pomp that fills
     The circuit of the summer hills,
         Is—that his grave is green;
     And deeply would their hearts rejoice
     To hear again his living voice. The rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous—nothing could be more
      melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The
      intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of all
      the poet’s cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the
      soul—while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The
      impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the remaining
      compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or less of a
      similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or why we know
      not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the
      higher manifestations of true Beauty. It is, nevertheless,

     A feeling of sadness and longing
         That is not akin to pain,
     And resembles sorrow only
         As the mist resembles the rain. The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full
      of brilliancy and spirit as “The Health” of Edward Coate Pinckney:—

     I fill this cup to one made up
         Of loveliness alone,
     A woman, of her gentle sex
         The seeming paragon;
     To whom the better elements
         And kindly stars have given
     A form so fair that, like the air,
         ’Tis less of earth than heaven. Her every tone is music’s own,
         Like those of morning birds,
     And something more than melody
         Dwells ever in her words;
     The coinage of her heart are they,
         And from her lips each flows
     As one may see the burden’d bee
         Forth issue from the rose. Affections are as thoughts to her,
         The measures of her hours;
     Her feelings have the flagrancy,
         The freshness of young flowers;
     And lovely passions, changing oft,
         So fill her, she appears
     The image of themselves by turns,—
         The idol of past years! Of her bright face one glance will trace
         A picture on the brain,
     And of her voice in echoing hearts
         A sound must long remain;
     But memory, such as mine of her,
         So very much endears,
     When death is nigh my latest sigh
         Will not be life’s, but hers. I fill’d this cup to one made up
         Of loveliness alone,
     A woman, of her gentle sex
         The seeming paragon—
     Her health! and would on earth there stood,
         Some more of such a frame,
     That life might be all poetry,
         And weariness a name. It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinckney to have been born too far south. Had
      he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked as
      the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so long
      controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting the thing
      called “The North American Review.” The poem just cited is especially
      beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must refer chiefly
      to our sympathy in the poet’s enthusiasm. We pardon his hyperboles for the
      evident earnestness with which they are uttered. It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the _merits
      _of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for
      themselves. Boccalini, in his “Advertisements from Parnassus,” tells us
      that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very
      admirable book:—whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the
      work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing
      this, Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out _all
      the chaff _for his reward. Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics—but I am by
      no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that
      the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood. Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an
      axiom, which need only be properly _put, _to become self-evident. It
      is _not _excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such:—and
      thus to point out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to
      admit that they are _not _merits altogether. Among the “Melodies” of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished character
      as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of view. I allude
      to his lines beginning—“Come, rest in this bosom.” The intense
      energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in Byron.