tts. But the good has come to us from the
Connecticut Nazareth.

If Drayton had fought at Agincourt, if Campbell had held a sabre at
Hohenlinden, if Scott had been in the saddle with Marmion, if Tennyson
had charged with the Six Hundred at Balaklava, each of these poets might
possibly have pictured what he said as faithfully and as fearfully as
Mr. Brownell has painted the sea-fights in which he took part as a
combatant. But no man can tell a story at second hand with the truth of
incident which belongs to an eye-witness who was part of what he saw. As
a mere relator, therefore, of the sights and sounds of great naval
battles, Mr. Brownell has a fresh story to tell. Not only so, but these
naval battles are not like any the Old World ever saw. One or two
"Monitors" would have settled in half an hour the fight which Aeschylus
shared at Salamis. The galleys "rammed" each other at Actium; but there
was no Dahlgren or Sawyer to thunder from their decks or turrets. The
artillery roared at Trafalgar; but there were no iron-clads to tilt at
each other, meeting with a shock as of ten thousand knights in armor
moulded into one mailed Centaur and crashing against such another
monster.

But, again, a man may see a fight and be able to describe it truthfully,
yet he may be unable to describe it dramatically. He must have the
impressibility of the poetical nature to take in all its scenes, and the
vocabulary of an artist to reproduce them. But, for some reason or
other, poets are not very often found under fire, unless it be that of
the critics. The temperament which makes men insensible to danger is
rarely the gift of those who are so organized as to be sensitive to the
more ethereal skyey influences. The violet end of the spectrum and the
invisible rays beyond it belong to the poet, farthest from the red,
which is the light that shines round the soldier.

It happens rarely that poets put their delicate-fibred brains in the
paths of bullets, but it does happen. Koerner fell with his last song on
his lips. Fitz-James O'Brien gave his life as well as his chants to our
cause. Mr. Brownell has weathered the great battle-storms on the same
deck with Farragut, and has told their story as nobly as his leader made
the story for him to tell. We cannot find any such descriptions as his,
if for no other reason than that already mentioned, that there have been
no such scenes to describe.

But Mr. Brownell's genius is exceptional, as well as