his God no sacrifice of blood and tears, whether others’ or his own, but the incense of a grateful and obedient heart, ever ready for love and good works.
It is this childishness, rather this virginity of soul, that makes Prince’s poems remarkable. He has no high poetic power, not even a marked individuality of expression. There are no lines, verses, or images that strike by themselves; neither human nor external nature are described so as to make the mind of the poet foster-father to its subject. The poems are only easy expression of the common mood of a healthy mind and tender heart, which needs to vent itself in words and metres. Every body should be able to write as good verse,—every body has the same simple, substantial things to put into it. On such a general basis the high constructive faculty, the imagination, might rear her palaces, unafraid of ruin from war or time.
This being the case with Prince, we shall not make detailed remarks upon his poems, but merely substantiate what we have said by some extracts.
1st. We give the description of his Journey and Return. This, to us, presents a delightful picture; the man is so sufficient to himself and his own improvement; so unconquerably sweet and happy.
2d. The poem ‘Land and Sea,’ as giving a true presentment of the riches of this poor man.
3d. A poem to his Child, showing how a pure and refined sense of the beauty and value of these relations, often unknown in palaces, may make a temple of an unfurnished garret.
4th. In an extract from ‘A Vision of the Future,’ a presentation of the life fit for man, as seen by a ‘reed-maker for weavers;’ such as we doubt Mrs. Norton’s Child of the Islands would not have vigor and purity of mental sense even to sympathize with, when conceived, far less to conceive.
These extracts speak for themselves; they show the stream of
