When doomed to Poverty's sequestered dell, Their woes, their wishes, and their hearts the same— And chase the pangs that worth should never know- V. HOPE, THE MOTHER'S INSPIRATION. In form and soul; but ah! more blest than he! And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away. VI. HOPE SOOTHES EVEN THE POOR MANIAC. Hark! the wild maniac sings, to chide the gale She, sad spectatress, on the wintry shore, Watched the rude surge his shroudless corse that bore But Mercy gave, to charm the sense of woe, VII. HOPE GIVES PLEDGE OF PROGRESS Come, bright Improvement! on the car of Time, VIII. NO HOPE OF HAPPINESS WITHOUT WOMAN Till Hymen brought his love-delighted hour In vain the wild-bird caroled on the steep, Aërial notes in mingling measure played; The summer wind that shook the spangled tree, And still the stranger wist not where to stray. IX. LIFE WITHOUT CHRISTIAN HOPE. Oh! lives there, Heaven, beneath thy dread expanse, Who, moldering earthward 'reft of every trust, Ah, me! the laureled wreath that murder rears, X. HOPE THE SOLE SOLACE IN THE DYING HOUR. Unfading HOPE! when life's last embers burn, What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly XI. HOPE OF FUTURE HAPPINESS INSPIRING. Inspiring thought of rapture yet to be, By artless friendship blessed when life was new? XII. HOPE ETERNAL. Eternal HOPE! when yonder spheres sublime And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below; EXERCISE CXXIX. JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, the great American novelist, was born in Bur.ington, New Jersey, September 15th, 1789, and died at Cooperstown, New York, September 14th, 1851. While yet a child, he went with his family to reside on the borders of Otsego Lake, where his father had acquired a title to some large tracts of land. Here he lived, till his thirteenth year, amid the scenes and circumstances incidental to frontier life. At that early age he was taken out of the midst of home influences, and sent to Yale College. After continuing his connection with the college for three years, he left it of nis own accord, and entered the navy serving for six years, successively, as common sailor, midshipman, and lieutenant. It was during this part of his life, that he acquired that wonderful familiarity with nautical affairs, which is so prominent a characteristic in some of his works. In 1811 he was married, and soon after went to reside in Mamaroneck, in Westchester county, New York, having previously resigned his post in the navy. Here he commenced that splendid career of authorship, which has given him a reputation wide as the world, and enduring as time, and which was continued, both at home and abroad, at comparatively short intervals, till the rapid decline that, by a few months, preceded his death, arrested, and forever, the progress of his pen. His salient points, as a writer, are well shown in the following short sketch by Griswold. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD was born in Rutland County, Vermont, in the year 1815, and died in August, 1857. Though otherwise a large contributor to the literary stock of the country, he is chiefly known by his works on American Literature. These consist of specimens from American authors, with notes biographical and critical, and, as a general thing, display a fair, appreciative spirit in estimating literary merit. Mr. Griswold has don● much to bring American authors into deserved notice. COOPER, THE AMERICAN NOVELIST. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD 1. Cooper has the faculty of giving to his pictures an astonishing reality. They are not mere transcripts of nature, though as such they would possess extraordinary merit, but actual creations, embodying the very spirit of intelligent and genial experience and observation. His Indians, notwithstanding all that has been written to the contrary, are no more inferior in fidelity than they are in poetical interest to those of his most successful imitators or rivals. 2. His hunters and trappers have the same vividness and freshness, and, in the whole realm of fiction, there is nothing more actual, harmonious, and sustained. They evince not only |