lowing the subtle reasonings of the common law, and regarded with a kind of reverence that complicated fabric, the construction of which has tasked so many acute and vigorous intellects, and which, whatever may be its recommendations or its defects, must be admitted to be a wonderful monument of human ingenuity.
At sixteen years of age he wrote the "Bridal of Vaumond," a metrical romance, in the irregular measure of Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel; but the poem was not published till 1817. It was harshly criticised in a contemporary periodical; but had the reviewer known the extreme youth of its author, the facility of the versification, the brilliancy of many of the conceptions, and the daring wildness of the imagery in various passages, should have caused him to overlook the defects consequent upon an age when the best endowed and most highly cultivated minds have not yet learned to use skilfully their own powers and resources. Mr. Sands, of course, was not gratified with the kind of notice his poem had met with, and never seemed to refer to this early effort with pleasure.
In 1817, he contributed largely to a series of communications in prose and verse, entitled "The Neologist," which were published in the Daily Advertiser, and attracted some attention. About the same time he engaged in a bolder undertaking. In conjunction with his early friend already mentioned, Mr. Eastburn, a young man of a richly graced and furnished mind, he planned a romantic poem, founded on the adventures of King Philip, the Pequod Chieftain. The fable was sketched in a brief interview between the two friends, and afterwards, while Mr. Eastburn was at Bristol, in Rhode Island, and Mr. Sands in New-York, the several portions undertaken by each were written, and transmitted to each other in letters. After the death of Mr. Eastburn, he revised the work, adding some portions, and published it with copious notes in 1820. In the North American Review, it was made the subject of one of the most eloquent and delightful articles of literary criticism, that has ever appeared in this country. The poem deserved the commendation it received—it was a work of high original power—a bold attempt to deal with new and untried materials of poetic imagery and interest-and the success justified the attempt. Mr. Eastburn died in the year 1819, and the surviving author of the work inserted an affecting monody on his death, in a series of papers published in the Commercial Advertiser, entitled "The Amphilogist." Un-
