moment, as a judgment for making himself so hideous, an avenging
Providence had seen fit to petrify him. Since it is out of his own
power, I would gladly assist him to change countenance, for his ugly
visage haunts me both at noontide and night-time. Some other
players of the past generation were present, but none that greatly
interested me. It behooves actors, more than all other men of
publicity, to vanish from the scene betimes. Being at best but
painted shadows flickering on the wall and empty sounds that echo
anther's thought, it is a sad disenchantment when the colors begin
to fade and the voice to croak with age.

What is there new in the literary way on your side of the water?
Nothing of the kind has come under any inspection, except a volume
of poems published above a year ago by Dr. Channing. I did not
before know that this eminent writer is a poet; nor does the volume
alluded to exhibit any of the characteristics of the author's mind
as displayed in his prose works; although some of the poems have a
richness that is not merely of the surface, but glows still the
brighter the deeper and more faithfully you look into then. They
seem carelessly wrought, however, like those rings and ornaments of
the very purest gold, but of rude, native manufacture, which are
found among the gold-dust from Africa. I doubt whether the American
public will accept them; it looks less to the assay of metal than to
the neat and cunning manufacture. How slowly our literature grows
up! Most of our writers of promise have come to untimely ends.
There was that wild fellow, John Neal, who almost turned my boyish
brain with his romances; he surely has long been dead, else he never
could keep himself so quiet. Bryant has gone to his last sleep,
with the _Thanatopsis_ gleaming over him like a sculptured marble
sepulchre by moonlight. Halleck, who used to write queer verses in