We very seldom buy a volume of new poetry, but the portrait on the first leaf of Mrs. Butler's book, a portrait by the admirable and spiritualizing pencil of Sully, and engraved by the as admirable and spiritualizing burin of Cheney, was worth quite the price of the volume. We have since read the poetry. The picture bears a slight resemblance to the poetess, Mrs. Norton, and the poetry is very like Mrs. Norton's in its intention. But both in features and verse Mrs. Butler is very far that glorious woman's inferior. We have been vexed to see how narrow an escape Mrs. Butler has had, of being a fine poetess, however-how easily with a little consistent labour, and some little unity of senti. ment and purpose, she might have filled out the penumbra which provokingly shows what she might have been-but for the eclipse of caprice or carelessness. We have struck a word in this last sentence which seems to us to be the master-chord of all her poetry-caprice! She begins nobly and goes evenly and beautifully half through her strain, and then falters and winds weakly or inconsequently off. We could quote passages from this book as fine as anything of Mrs. Norton's, but there is no one finished poem in it worth re-printing. In all this, we are looking at it with the world's eye. To a poet, who judges of a fragment, as the connoisseur knows the statue of Hercules, by the foot, this volume is full of genius. There is a massy fulness in the use of epithets and figures that shows a Sapphic prodigality of fervour and impulse, and there is, moreover, a masculine strength of passionateness in the moulding and flinging off of emotion, that, well carried out, would have swept the public heart like a whirlwind. We had marked many passages of Mrs. Butler's book for extract, but on looking at them again, we find the best and most creditable blemished with flaws, and, with strong admiration for what the authoress might have been, we lay the book aside. Our readers will remember, in the Mirror of two weeks ago, a very clever letter, written to us by an anonymous lady who wished to conjure a new bonnet and dress out of her inkstand. The inveiglement upon ourselves, (to induce us to be her banker,) was so adroit and fanciful that we suspected the writer of being no novice at rhetorical trap-one, indeed, of the numerous sisterhood who, denied the concentrated developements of maternity, scatter their burthensome ammunition of contrivance and resource upon periodical literature. We "gave in," however-walking willingly into the lady's noose-on a condition, that she should wear a rose recognizably in Broadway the day she first sported the balzarine and Neapolitan, and afterward send us a sketch of herself and her cousin. The "sketch" we have received and shall give it next week, and when we have seen the rose we shall not hesitate to acknowledge The authoress will find a note addressed to her fictitious name at the Mirror office. In the following parts of the letter which accompanied the sketch, the reader will see that the authoress feels (or feigns marvellously well) some resentment at our suspicions as to her age and quality: the debt. Have you never heard, my de-(pardon! I fear it is a habit of mine to write too "honiedly")-but have you not heard that "suspicion is a heavy armour, which, with its own weight impedes more than it protects." Suspicion is most assuredly a beggarly virtue. It may, now and then, prevent you from being "taken in," but it nips you in the costs most unmercifully. Oh! sharpsightedness is the most extravagantly dear whistle that poor humans ever purchased! That you should suspect me too, when I was opening my heart away down to the core. How could you? "Inveigle" no inveigling about it! I want a bonnet and dress, and said so, frankly and honestly. And I never wrote a line for Graham in my life, no! nor for Godey either. As for le couleur des bas, your keen-eyed hawk pounced on less than a phantom there. From the day that I stood two fool's-cap on my head, because I persisted in spelling “bag, mortal hours with my finger poked into my eye, and a baker," to the notable morning of christening my cousin by her profession, I have been voted innocent of all leaning towards the uncelestial. Indeed it is more than suspected by my friends (cousin 'Bel' excepted) that I affect dame Nature's carpet, rather than her canopy. Maybe I am "some varlet of a man scribbler"-Oh! you are such a Yankee at guessing! "Old" ah, that is the unkindest cut of all! You an editor, and the son of an editor, and not know that "old maids" are a class extinct at the present day, save in the sewing societies, etc., of some western village, subject only to the exploring expeditions of the indefatigable Mary Clavers!" Have you never heard of five-and-twenty's being a turning point, and ken ye not its meaning? Why, faire maydens then reverse the hour-glass of old gray-beard; and, one by one, drop back the golden sands that he has scattered, till, in five years, they are twenty again. Of course, then, I must be "under twentyfive ;" but, as a punishment for your lack of gallantry, you shall not know whether the sands are dropping in or out of my glass. One thing, however, is indisputable: I am not sharp," my face has not a single sharp feature, nor my temper (it is I, who know, that say it,) a sharp corner, nor my voice a sharp tone. So much in self-justification, and now to the little package which you hold in the other hand. I send my sketch in advance, because I am afraid cousin 'Bel' and I might not interest you and the public so much you paid." In truth, I cannot write clever things. Bel' as we do ourselves; and then how are we to "consider might, but she never tries. Sometimes she plans for me; but, somehow, I never can find the right words for her thoughts. They come into my head like fixed-up visiters, and "play tea-party" with their baby neighbours, until I am almost as much puzzled by their strange performances as the old woman of the nursery rhyme, who was obliged to call on her "little dog at home" to establish her identity. No, no! I cannot write clever things, and particularly on the subject to which I am restricted; but if it is the true sketch that you would have for the sake of the information, why here it is. You will perceive that I have been very particular to tell you all. Pray, do you allow us carte blanche as far as the hat and dress are concerned. You had better not, for 'Bel' never limits herself. How soon may we have them? The summer is advancing rapidly, and my old muslin and straw are unco' shabby. Yours, with all due gratitude, FANNY FORESTER. Whoever our fair correspondent may be, old or young, naive or crafty, we can tell her that talent like hers need never want a market. We commend her, thus in print, to those princes of literary paymasters, Graham and Godey, with our assurance that no more entertaining pen strides a vowel in this country. The sketch of "The Cousins," which we shall give next week, has a twixt-tear-and-smile-fulness which shows the writer's heart to be as young as a schoolgirl's satchel, whatever kind of wig she wears, and whatever the number of her spectacles. And she will be as young forty years hence-for genius will be a child, eternity through, in Heaven. If, by chance, the lady is a sub-twenty-fivity, she is a star rising, and we should like to visit her before she culminates. Our MIRROR LIBRARY is so enthusiastically and kindly hailed by the press, that we scarcely feel the successive numbers to need praise from ourselves. The last two that we have brought out need only be mentioned, "THE GEMS OF SCOTTISH SONG," (admirable, and for one SHILLING ONLY,) and another number containing the SACRED POEMS OF MKS. HEMANS and THE HEBREW MELODies of lord byroN-the last the best shilling's worth ever given in literature. FIVE DOLLARS WILL NOW BUY (at wholesale price) all the NUMBERS OF OUR BEAUTIFUL LIBRARY, UP TO fifty-a mass of choice reading equalled by no volume of miscellany in the world. |