THE literary annals of this country before the tevolution present few names entitled to a permanent celebrity. Many of the earlier colonists of New England were men of erudition, profoundly versed in the dogmas and discussions of the schools, and familiar with the best fruits of ancient genius and culture, and they perpetuated ther intellectual habits and accomplishments among their immediate descendants; but they possessed neither the high and gentle feeling, the refined appreciation, the creating imagination, nor the illustrating fancy of the poet, and what they produced of real excellence was nearly all in those domains of experimental and metaphysical religion in which acuteness and strength were more important than delicacy or elegance. The "renowned" Mr. THOMAS SHEPHERD, the "pious" Mr. JOHN NORTON, and our own "judicious" Mr. HOOKER, are still justly esteemed in the churches for soundness in the faith and learned wisdom. as well as for all the practical Christian virtues, and in their more earnest "endeavours" they and several of their contemporaries frequently wrote excellent prose, an example of which may be found in the attestation" to COTTON MATHER'S " Magnalia," by JOHN HIGGINSON, of Salem, which has not been surpassed in stately eloquence by any modern writing on the exodus of the Puritans. In a succeeding age that miracle of dialectical subtlety, EDWARDS, with MAYHEW, CHAUNCEY, BELLAMY, HOPKINS, and others, demonstrated the truth that there was no want of energy and activity in American mind in the direction to which it was most especially determined; but our elaborate metrical compositions, formal, pedantic, and quaint, of the seventeenth century and the earlier part of the eighteenth, are forgotten except by curious antiquaries, who see in them the least valuable relics of the first ages of American civilization. The remark has frequently been quoted from Mr. JEFFERSON, that when we can boast as long a history as that of England, we shall not have cause to shrink from a comparison of our literatures; but there is very little reason in such a suggestion, since however unfavourable to the cultivation of any kind of refinement are the necessarily prosaic duties of the planters of an empire

to turn their attention to mental luxuries, they had but to enter at once upon the most advanced condition of taste, and the use of all those resources in literary art acquired or invented by the more happily situated scholars to whom had been confided in a greater degree the charge of the English language. When, however, the works of CHAUCER, SPENSER, SHAKSPEARE, and MILTON were as accessible as now, and the living harmo nies of DRYDEN and POPE were borne on every breeze that fanned the cheek of an Englishman, the best praise which could be awarded to American verses was that they were ingeniously grotesque. There were displayed in them none of the graces which result from an aesthetical sensibility, but only such ponderous oddities, laborious conceits, and sardonic humors, as the slaves of metaphys. cal and theological scholasticism might be expected to indulge when yielding to transient and imperfect impulses of human nature. Our fathers were like the labourers of an architect; they established deeply and strongly in religious virtue and useful science in foundations of an edifice, not dreaming how great and magnificent it was to be. They did well their part; it was not for them to fashion the capitals and adorn the arches of the temple.

The first poem composed in this country was a description of New England, in Latin, by the Reverend WILLIAM MORRELL, who came to the Plymouth colony in 1623, and returned to London in the following year. It has been reprinted, with an English translation made by the author, in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Mr. GEORGE SANDYS, while "treasurer for the colony in Virginia," about the year 1625, wrote probably the earliest English verse produced in America. MICHAEL DRAYTON, author of the "Polyolbion," addressed to him an epistle in which he says

"My worthy George, by industry and use,
Let's see what lines Virginia will produce;
Go on with OVID, as you have begun

With the first five books: let your numbers run
Glib as the former: so, it shall live long

And do much honor to the English tongue."

his "Paraphrase upon the Psalms," and "Songs selected out of the Old and New Testaments." DRYDEN and POPE unite in praising his poems, and his version of the Book of Psalms has been described as incomparably the most poetical in the English language.

The oldest rhythmical composition from the hand of a colonist which has come down to us is believed to have been written about the year 1630. The name of the author has been lost:

"New England's annoyances, you that would know them, Pray ponder these verses which briefly do show them. "The place where we live is a wilderness wood, Where grass is much wanting that's fruitful and good: Our mountains and hills and our valleys below Being commonly cover'd with ice and with snow: And when the northwest wind with violence blows, Then every man pulls his cap over his nose: But if any 's so hardy and will it withstand, He forfeits a finger, a foot, or a hand.

But when the spring opens, we then take the hoe, And make the ground ready to plant and to sow; Our corn being planted and seed being sown, The worms destroy much before it is grown; And when it is growing some spoil there is made By birds and by squirrels that pluck up the blade; And when it is come to full corn in the ear, It is often destroy'd by raccoon and by deer. "And now do our garments begin to grow thin, And wool is much wanted to card and to spin; If we get a garment to cover without, Our other in-garments are clout upon clout: Our clothes we brought with us are apt to be torn, They need to be clouted soon after they 're worn; But clouting our garments they hinder us nothing, Clouts double are warmer than single whole clothing.

"If fresh meat be wanting, to fill up our dish,

We have carrots and pumpkins and turnips and fish:
And is there a mind for a delicate dish,

We repair to the clam banks, and there we catch fish.
'Stead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies:
We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon;
If it was not for pumpkins we should be undone.

"If barley be wanting to make into malt,

We must be contented and think it no fault;
For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips

Of pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.....
"Now while some are going let others be coming,
For while liquor 's boiling it must have a scumming;
But I will not blame them, for birds of a feather,
By seeking their fellows, are flocking together.
But you whom the LORD intends hither to bring,
Forsake not the honey for fear of the sting;
But bring both a quiet and contented mind,
And all needful blessings you surely will find."

The first book published in British America was "The Psalms, in Metre, faithfully Translated, for the Use, Edification and Comfort of the Saints, in Public and Private, especially in New England," printed at Cambridge, in 1640. The version was made by THOMAS WELDE, of Roxbury, PICHARD MATHER, of Dorchester, and JOHN ELIOT, the famous apostle to the Indians. The translators seem to have been aware that it possessed but little poetical merit. "If," say they, in their preface, the verses are not always so smooth and elegant as some may desire and expect, let them consider that God's altar needs not ur polishings; for we have respected rather a

plain translation, than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrase, and so have attended to conscience rather than elegance, and fidelity rather than poetry, in translating Hebrew words into English language, and DAVID's poetry into English metre." COTTON MATHER laments the inelegance of the version, but declares that the Hebrew was most exactly rendered. After a second edition had been printed, President DUNSTER,* of Harvard College, assisted by Mr. RICHARD LYON, a tutor at Cambridge, attempted to improve it, and in their advertisement to the godly reader they state that they "had special eye both to the gravity of the phrase of sacred writ and sweetness of the verse." DUNSTER's edition was reprinted twenty-three times in America, and several times in Scotland and England, where it was long used in the dissenting congregations. The following specimen is from the second edition:

PSALM CXXXVII.

"The rivers on of Babilon

There when wee did sit downe, Yea, even then, wee mourned when Wee remembered Sion.

"Our harp wee did hang it amid,

Upon the willow tree,

Because there they that us away
Led in captivitee

"Requir'd of us a song, and thus
Askt mirth us waste who laid,
Sing us among a Sion's song,

Unto us then they said.

"The LORD's song sing can wee, being
In stranger's land? then let
Lose her skill my right hand if I
Jerusalem forget.

"Let cleave my tongue my pallate on If mind thee doe not I,

If chiefe joyes o're I prize not more Jerusalem my joy.

"Remember, LORD, Edom's sons' word, Unto the ground, said they,

It rase, it rase, when as it was
Jerusalem her day.

"Blest shall he be that payeth thee,

Daughter of Babilon,

Who must be waste, that which thou hast
Rewarded us upon.

"O happie hee shall surely bee
That taketh up, that eke

The little ones against the stones
Doth into pieces breake.

Mrs. ANNE BRADSTREET, "the mirror of her age and glory of her sex," as she is styled by a contemporary admirer, came to America with her husband, Governor SIMON BRADSTREET, in 1630,

HENRY DUNSTER was the first president of Harvard College, and was inaugurated on the twenty-seventh of August. 1640. In 1654 he became unpopular on account of his public advocacy of anti-predobaptism, and was compelled to resign. When he died, in 1659, he bequeathed legacies to the persons who were most active in causing in the Magnalia, is the following admonition, by Mr. his separation from the College. In the life of DUNSTER,

SHEPHERD, to the authors of the New Psalm Book:

"You Rozb'ry poets keep clear of the crime
Of missing to give us very good rhyme.
And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen,
But with the texts' own words you will them strengthen."