production of the rich fancy and warm heart of George P. Morris. Not many weeks since, at a public meeting in London, a gentleman claimed to be heard speak on the ground of his connection with the public press from the time when he was seven years of age. We will not undertake to say that General Morris ran his juvenile fingers over the chords of the lyre at so very early a period; but it is certain he tried his hand at writing for the newspapers when he was yet but a mere boy. While in his teens, he was a constant contributor to various periodicals. Many of his articles attracted notice. He began to acquire a literary reputation; and at length, in 1823, being then in his twentieth year, he became editor of the 'New York Mirror.' This responsible post he continued to hold until the termination of the paper's existence in 1834.

"Morris accomplished an infinity of good in the twenty years during which he wielded the editorial pen. Perhaps no other man in the United States was so well qualified for the noble task he set himself at the outset of his career as editor. American literature was in its infancy, and subject to all the weaknesses of that period. Morris resolved to do his utmost toward forming a character for it, and looked abroad anxiously for such as could aid him in his endeavor. The 'Mirror" will ever be fondly remembered by the American literary man, for it has been the cradle of American genius.

"To him a writer in 'Graham's Magazine' attributes the present flourishing condition and bright prospects of transatlantic literature. He evidently possesses a personal knowledge of General Morris, and discourses right eloquently in his praise. Nor do we think that he overrates his merits in the least. From other sources we have ourselves learned much of the genial nature of George P. Morris, and his gigantic labors as a literary pioneer. Considering its juvenility as a nation, republican America, indeed, has been amazingly prolific of good writers. The large share Morris has had in awakening the latent talent of his countrymen, must ever be to him a high source of gratulation. And then, as an original writer, he has won for himself a high place among literary Americans; he is, in fact, known throughout the States as 'The Songwriter of America;' and we have the authority of Willis for stating that 'ninety-nine people out of a hundred—take them as they come in the census—would find more to admire in Morris's Songs than in the writings of any other American poet.' Willis also tells us, as proof of the General's popularity with those shrewd dollar-loving men, the publishers, that 'he can, at any time, obtain fifty dollars for a song unread, when the whole remainder of the American Parnassus could not sell one to the same buyer for a single shilling!' He is the best-known poet of the country by acclamation—not by criticism.

"Morris seems to have had juster notions of what was required in a song than many who have achieved celebrity as song-writers in England. 'The just office and notion of the modern song' has been defined to be, the embodiment and expression in beauty of some thought or sentiment—gay, pensive, moral, or sentimental—which is as natural and appropriate in certain circumstances as the odor to the flower. Its graceful purpose is to exhibit an incident in the substance of an emotion, to communicate wisdom in the form of sentiment. A song should be the embodiment of some general feeling, and have reference to some season or occurrence.

"It is not a difficult thing to make words rhyme; some of the most unimaginative intellects we ever knew could do so with surprising facility. It is rare to find a sentimental miss or a lackadaisical master who cannot accomplish this INTELLECTUAL feat, with the help of Walker's Rhyming Dictionary. As for love, why, every one writes about it now-a-days. There is such an abhorrence of the simple Saxon—such an outrageous running after outlandish phraseology—that we wonder folks are satisfied with this plain term.

"We wonder they do not seek for an equivalent in high Dutch or in low Dutch, in Hungarian, or in Hindostanee. We wish they would, with all our heart and soul. We have no objection, provided the heart be touched, that a head should produce a little of the stuff called 'nonsense verses'—that this article should be committed to scented note-paper, and carefully sealed up with skewered hearts of amazing corpulence. God forbid that we should be thought guilty of a sneer at real affection!—far from it; such ever commands our reverence. But we do not find it in the noisy tribe of goslings green who would fain be thought of the nightingale species. Did the reader ever contemplate a child engaged in the interesting operation of sucking a lollipop?—we assure him that that act was dictated by quite as much of true sentiment as puts in action the fingers and wits of the generality of our young amatory poetasters.

"We know of none who have written more charmingly of love than George P. Morris. Would to Apollo that our rhymsters would condescend to read carefully his poetical effusions! But they contain no straining after effect—no extravagant metaphors—no driveling conceits; and so there is little fear of their being taken as models by those gentlemen. Let the reader mark the surprising excellence of the love songs; their perfect naturalness; the quiet beauty of the similes; the fine blending of graceful thought and tender feeling which characterize them. Morris is, indeed, the poet of home joys. None have described more eloquently the beauty and dignity of true affection—of passion based upon esteem; and his fame is certain to endure while the Anglo-Saxon woman has a hearthstone over which to repeat her most cherished household words.

"Seldom have the benign effects of the passion been more felicitously painted than in the 'Seasons of Love'; and what simple tenderness is contained in the ballad of 'We were boys together.' Every word in that beautiful melody comes home to the heart of him whose early days have been happy. God help those in whom this poem awakens no fond remembrances!—those whose memories it does not get wandering up the stream of life, toward its source; beholding at every step the sun smiling more brightly, the heavens assuming a deeper hue, the grass a fresher green, and the flowers a sweeter perfume. How wondrous are not its effects upon ourselves! The wrinkles have disappeared from our brow, and the years from our shoulder, and the marks of the branding-iron of experience from our heart; and again we are a careless child, gathering primroses, and chasing butterflies, and drinking spring-water from out the hollow of our hands. Around us are the hedges 'with golden gorse bright blossoming, as none blossom now-a-day.' We have heard of death, but we know not what it is; and the word CHANGE has no meaning for us; and summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest, has each its unutterable joys. Alas! we can never remain long in this happy dream-land. Nevertheless, we have profited greatly by the journey. The cowslips and violets gathered by us in childhood, shall be potent in the hour of temptation; and the cap of rushes woven for us by kind hands in days gone by, shall be a surer defence than a helmet of steel in the hour of battle. No, no; we will never disgrace our antecedents.

"There is one quality in his songs to which we can not but direct attention—and this is their almost feminine purity. The propensities have had their laureates; and genius, alas! has often defiled its angel wings by contact with the sensual and the impure; but Morris has never attempted to robe vice in beauty; and as has been well remarked, his lays can bring to the cheek of purity no blush save that of pleasure."

The following letter, from the pen of Grace Greenwood, is a lady's tribute to the genius of the poet:—

"I have read of