fixed to the letters. The original yet remains in manuscript, and is unquestionably the best biographical account of Cortes in the English language—perhaps the best that has been written.
In the course of the same year, Mr. Sands, along with two of his friends, one of whom was the Hon. Mr. Verplanck, projected a literary miscellany, entitled the Talisman, of which three volumes were published, the last in 1830. To this work he contributed about a third of the contents, and some of the articles furnished by him are among the best of his writings. The "Simple Tale" is a happy example of sly humor and concealed satire. In the "Scenes at Washington," a considerable portion of which was written by him, his talent for ludicrous description and narrative is employed with capital effect; and the "Dream of Papantzin," a poem, the scene of which is laid in Mexico, is admirable for the solemn grandeur of the thought, the magnificence of the imagery, and the flow of the versification. Mr. Sands had an ear for poetic measure cultivated by a study of the varied and flexible rhythm of the ancient classics, by the reading of the old poets of our own language, and by an examination of the rules of versification adopted in the various modern languages with which he was acquainted. By those who consider metrical harmony as identical with monotony, who accuse Milton of not understanding the structure of blank verse, and who charge Spenser with ignorance of the art of versification, because he wrote
Unwenting of the perilous wandering ways—
Mr. Sands may be said to have had a bad ear. But the fact was that he understood how to roughen his verse with skill, and to vary its modulations.
In the beginning of November last, the work entitled "Tales of the Glauber Spa," was published in New-York. The introduction and two of the tales, namely "Mr. Green," and "Boyuca," were furnished by Mr. Sands, and they bear strongly the impress of his mind the peculiar vein of humor and satire in the two former, and the imagery of the latter, so wild and vivid, that the narrative seems to the reader like the recollection of some strange dream, give them a character which could not be mistaken by those who are at all familiar with his writings. One of his latest compositions was a little poem, entitled "The Dead of 1832," which, a few days before his death, appeared anonymously in the Commercial Advertiser. It was an enumeration of the trophies reaped by Death and
