III.
Again that changing moon shall shine,
When storms are o'er within the lake.
Which, like that wayward heart of thine,
Can any other image take:
Mine, graven like memorial-stone,
Is now a memory alone.
'Alhalla, or the Lord of Taladega: a Tale of the Creek War.'—Thus is entitled a narrative poem by Henry Rowe Colcraft, better known as Henry R. Schoolcraft, Esq., an old correspondent of this Magazine. The story turns upon the contests of the Muscogees, their exertions, their discomfitures, and their final fall. It opens at a distant northern point, within a short period after the close of the Creek war, and occupies two days and nights in its action. Its style is a union of the dramatic with the narrative and descriptive; a conjunction well adapted to the character of the story and the nature of its personages. There are appended to the main poem a few selected miscellanies, among which we recognize three or four clever effusions, originally given to the public in these pages. Messrs. Wiley and Putnam are the publishers.
'The New Purchase.'—Our task for these departments of the Knickerbocker was completed, when we received from Messrs. Appleton and Company, a native novel, in two volumes, entitled 'The New Purchase; or Seven and a half Years in the Far West.' By Robert Carlton, Esq. We have not found leisure to read one of its pages; but if we may judge of its merits from the encomiums of two or three of our contemporaries of the daily press, it should prove a work of the most sterling attraction. To say that 'Mary Clavers' must 'look to her laurels,' there being an equally gifted laborer in a kindred field, strikes us as very high praise. We hope, but doubt, to find that precaution in any degree necessary.
'Usury: the Evil and the Remedy.'—The pages of this department of the Knickerbocker were mainly in the hands of the printers, when we received the newspaper folio entitled as above. We are left but space therefore barely to state, that this essay on usury differs entirely from the usual mode of treating that subject, in that it does not rely on the penalties for the repression of the evil, but proposes to root out its existence by a practical, beneficent mode of removing the temptations to, and occasions for, usury. It is for sale at Burgess and Stringer's, corner of Ann-street and Broadway.'
New Works from the American Press.—We have before us several excellent publications, which came too late for notice in the present number. Among them, we may mention three entertaining volumes from the press of Messrs. Lea and Blanchard, Philadelphia, 'The Court of England,' from 1688 to George the Third; 'Nature and Revelation,' or the Second Advent; the beautiful 'Illustrated Prayer-Book' serials of Mr. Hewet; and Peabody's Dartmouth College Address. These publications, with others which we lack space even to mention, will be adverted to in our November number.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] This spirited Song is from 'The Adventures of a Poet, a Tale told in Rhyme,' by F. W. Thomas, Esq., author of 'Clinton Bradshaw,' etc. We have been permitted to peruse the poem in manuscript; and are so impressed with the life and variety of incident which pervade it, and the ease and grace of its execution, that we cannot omit the expression of a hope that it may soon be given in a printed form to the public. The self-complacent tone of the stalwart boatmen of the West, will remind the reader of Dibdin's sailor who 'pitied the poor devils ashore' in a hurricane whose music was so welcome to him on the deep.
Ed. Knickerbocker.