And still I heard amid the leaves
The night wind's murmuring tone;
But from my heart the weary pain
Forevermore had flown;
I knew a mother's prayer for me
Was breathed before the throne.
Nothing can be more touching than Miss Forten's allusion to her sainted mother. In some of her other poems she is more light and airy, and her muse delights occasionally to catch the sunshine on its aspiring wings. Miss Forten is still young, yet on the sunny side of twenty-five, and has a splendid future before her. Those who know her best consider her on the road to fame. Were she white, America would recognize her as one of its brightest gems.
WILLIAM H. SIMPSON.
It is a compliment to a picture to say that it produces
the impression of the actual scene. Taste has,
frequently, for its object works of art. Nature, many
suppose, may be studied with propriety, but art they
reject as entirely superficial. But what is the fact?
In the highest sense, art is the child of nature, and is
most admired when it preserves the likeness of its
parent. In Venice, the paintings of Titian, and of the
Venetian artists generally, exact from the traveller a
yet higher tribute, for the hues and forms around him
constantly remind him of their works. Many of the
citizens of Boston are often called to mention the
