ese works will always give them a high value to
the impartial critic. They are far above the mediocrity into which most
religious writers always at first _appear_ to be lost, owing to the vast
amount of thoughts and expressions which they are compelled to share in
common with others. And as there has been awakened within a few years a
spirit of collecting and studying such poetry, we cordially commend this
work to all who share it.

As regards form, one of the more marked poems in this collection is
'The Stricken;' we have room only for the beginning:

Heavy! Heavy! Oh, my heart
Seems a cavern deep and drear,
From whose dark recesses start,
Flatteringly like birds of night,
Throes of passion, thoughts of fear,
Screaming in their flight.
Wildly o'er the gloom they sweep,
Spreading a horror dim,--a woe that cannot weep!

Weary! Weary! What is life
But a spectre-crowded tomb?
Startled with unearthly strife,
Spirits fierce in conflict met,
In the lightning and the gloom,
The agony and sweat;
Passions wild and powers insane,
And thoughts with vulture beak, and quick Promethean pain.

We select this single specimen from its remarkable resemblance to
Anglo-Saxon religious poetry,--by far the sincerest, and, so far as it
was ripened, the soundest, in our language. With the exception of the
Promethean allusion, every line in these verses is singularly Saxon--the
night birds, screaming in gloom--as in the '_Sea Farer_,' where, instead
of joyous mirth,

'Storms beat the stone cliffs,
Where them the starling answered,
Icy of wing.'

The divisions of this work are 'Sinai,' which is in great measure a
commentary on virtues and vices, 'Sonnets on the Lord's Prayer,' and
'Bible Breathings.' Of these we would commend the Sonnets, as forming
collectively a highly finished and beautiful poem, complete in each
detail. The little poem, 'A Thought,' is as perfect as a mere simile in
verse could be.

Robert T. Conrad, who was born in Philadelphia in 1810, and died there
in 1858, first became known to the public by a drama entitled _Conrad of
Naples_, a subject which has been extensively treated by German writers,
Uhland himself having written a tragedy on it. After being admitted to
the bar, Conrad connected himself with the press, but resumed the
practice of law in 1834 with success, being appointed judge of the
criminal sessions in 1838, an