plete one. The writers of this volume combine two qualifications for the work of dissipating this ignorance. They have a direct personal knowledge of Brazil, gained during a long residence in the country, and they have carefully studied every valuable book on its history and resources. The manners, customs, laws, government, productions, literature, art, and religion of the people have all been carefully observed under circumstances favorable for accurate investigation. The result is a valuable, interesting, and attractive volume, well worthy of being extensively read. The elegance of its mechanical execution, and the profusion of engravings illustrating the text, will add to its popularity, if not to its value.
The Poetical Works of Leigh Hunt. Now first entirely collected. Revised by himself, and edited, with an Introduction, by S. Adams Lee. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 2 vols. 18 mo.
Leigh Hunt has outlived all the enmities and enemies provoked either by his merits or his demerits, and is especially interesting as the sole survivor of the illustrious company of poets with whom the mind instinctively associates him. Some burnt out; some died out; some dried up; but he remains the same cosey, chirping, fine-natured, and self-pleased singer, who won the love of Shelley and Keats, and roused the wrath of Gifford and Wilson. We are glad to welcome his collected poems in their appropriate attire of "blue and gold," and trust they will have a wide circulation in the United States, as the genial poet is himself to be a participant in the profits of the publication. We wish that a word of ours could be influential in assisting this veteran of letters to reap from the publication something more substantial than fame, yet in some degree the expression of it,—something which shall give him assurance that his volumes are on thousands of parlor tables, because the proofs of it are palpable in the increased comforts afforded to his old age. And certainly the poet deserves a wide circle of readers. Though he does not succeed in the delineation of the great and grand passions of our nature, he is very successful in the sphere of its humane and tender sentiments; and though open to criticism for the jaunty audacity with which he coins dainty sweetnesses of expression rejected by all dictionaries, and for an occasional pertness in asserting opinions of doubtful truth, he is so lovable a creature that we pardon his literary foibles as we would pardon the personal foibles of a charming companion and friend. He has a genuine love for all cheerful and cheering things, and power enough to infuse his cheer into other minds. Disliking all internal and external foes to human comfort, he is equally the enemy of evil, and of the morbid discontent which springs from the bitter contemplation of evil. His nature is essentially sprightly and sensuous, with here a bit of Suckling and there a bit of Fletcher, carrying us back to an elder period of British poetry by the careless grace and freedom of his movement, and proving his connection with the present by the openness of his mind to all liberal thought and philanthropic feeling. Good-humor and benevolence are so dominant in his nature, that they prevent him from having any deep perceptions of evil and calamity. He is personally affronted when he sees the thunder-cloud push away the sunshine from life; and God, to him, is not only absolute Good, but absolute Good Nature.
It would be easy to quote passages from these volumes illustrative of his acute observation, his largeness of sympathy, his delicacy and daintiness of touch, his sweetness, humor, pathos, and fancy. As a specimen of the playful and beautiful ingenuity of his mind, we extract a portion of his little poem on "Love-Letters made of Flowers."
"An exquisite invention this,
Worthy of Love's most honeyed kiss,
This art of writing billets-doux
In buds and odors and bright hues!
In saying all one feels and thinks
In clever daffodils and pinks;
In puns of tulips; and in phrases,
Charming for their truth, of daisies;
Uttering, as well as silence may,
The sweetest words the sweetest way.
How fit, too, for the lady's bosom!
The place where billets-doux repose 'em.
"What delight, in some sweet spot
Combining love with garden plot,
