n Mesopotamia, within a "sacred
mansion" of high architectural pretensions.

"On rocks of adamant the walls ascend,
Tall columns heave, and sky-like arches bend;
Bright o'er the golden roof the glittering spires
Far in the concave meet the solar fires;
Four blazing fronts, with gates unfolding high,
Look with immortal splendor round the sky."

In the spacious court of the capitol of the world stands the statue of
the Genius of Earth, holding Truth's mighty mirror in his hand. On the
pedestal are carved the noblest arts of man. Beneath the footstool of
the Genius,

"all destructive things,
The mask of priesthood and the mace of kings,
Lie trampled in the dust; for here, at last,
Fraud, folly, error, all their emblems cast.
Each envoy here unloads his weary hand
Of some old idol from his native land.
One flings a pagod on the mingled heap;
One lays a crescent, one a cross to sleep;
Swords, sceptres, mitres, crowns and globes and stars,
Codes of false fame and stimulants to wars,
Sink in the settling mass. Since guile began,
These are the agents of the woes of man."

It will be observed that Barlow improved slightly upon the old loyalist
cry, "_Une loi, un roi, une foi._" One government, one reverend sire
elect, and no religion, was his theory of the future of mankind.

Few men in these degenerate days have the endurance to read the
"Columbiad" through; but "Hasty Pudding," which Barlow celebrated in
verse as good sound republican diet, may be read with some pleasure. It
belongs to the same class of poems as Philips's "Cider," Dyer's
"Fleece," and Grainger's "Sugar-Cane," and is quite as good as most of
them.

There is little to be said about Alsop. He was a scholarly gentleman,
who published a few mild versions from the Italian and the Scandinavian,
and a poem on the "Memory of Washington," and was considerate enough not
to publish a poem on the "Charms of Fancy," which still exists, we
believe, in manuscript. In some verses extracted from it by the editors
of the "Cyclopaedia of American Literature" we recognize with interest
that traveller of the future who is to moralize over the ruins of the
present,--known to all readers as Macaulay's New-Zealander, although
Goldsmith, Kirke White, and others had already introduced him to the
public. Alsop brings this Wandering Jew of literature from Nootka Sound
to gaze on "many a s