inimitable
delicacy, if not the same power, in many of the happier passages of
Madame de Souza and Madame Cottin--to say nothing of the more lively and
yet melancholy records of Madame de Stael, during her long penance in
the court of the Duchesse de Maine.

We think the poetry of Mrs. Hemans a fine exemplification of Female
Poetry--and we think it has much of the perfection which we have
ventured to ascribe to the happier productions of female genius.

It may not be the best imaginable poetry, and may not indicate the very
highest or most commanding genius; but it embraces a great deal of that
which gives the very best poetry its chief power of pleasing; and would
strike us, perhaps, as more impassioned and exalted, if it were not
regulated and harmonized by the most beautiful taste. It is singularly
sweet, elegant, and tender--touching, perhaps, and contemplative, rather
than vehement and overpowering; and not only finished throughout with an
exquisite delicacy, and even severity of execution, but infused with a
purity and loftiness of feeling, and a certain sober and humble tone of
indulgence and piety, which must satisfy all judgments, and allay the
apprehensions of those who are most afraid of the passionate
exaggerations of poetry. The diction is always beautiful, harmonious,
and free--and the themes, though of great variety, uniformly treated
with a grace, originality, and judgment, which mark the same master
hand. These themes she has occasionally borrowed, with the peculiar
imagery that belongs to them, from the legends of different nations, and
the most opposite states of society; and has contrived to retain much
of what is interesting and peculiar in each of them, without adopting,
along with it, any of the revolting or extravagant excesses which may
characterize the taste or manners of the people or the age from which it
has been derived. She has transfused into her German or Scandinavian
legends the imaginative and daring tone of the originals, without the
mystical exaggerations of the one, or the painful fierceness and
coarseness of the other--she has preserved the clearness and elegance of
the French, without their coldness or affectation--and the tenderness
and simplicity of the early Italians, without their diffuseness or
languor. Though occasionally expatiating, somewhat fondly and at large,
among the sweets of her own planting, there is, on the whole, a great
condensation and brevity in most of her p