On another occasion, the following circumstance, showing a characteristic feature of the poet, occurred. "A friend noticed that the cap, which had so long peered above the cloak in which the Doctor enveloped himself was becoming altogether too shabby, and left word with a hatter on the main street to present him with a more appropriate, though less poetical covering. In the most delicate way possible, the shopman intimated to the poet that any hat on the counter was at his service-but the poet turned on his heel with con mers hunted the strange looking man off their places as a vagabond. Who could suspect that under that old rusty glazed cap, there was such an imposing head? or that such faded garments could cover an intellectual giant and a remarkable man? But his experience very soon taught him one truth-that it was useless at night to ask for hospitality at the mansions of the rich. In the humble cottages of the poor he was always sure of a welcome. "Time wore on, and the period had expired when the report was to be made. It was far from being ready. Another appropriation was unwillingly made. The second period expired, and still the report was not ready. The legislature then took it upon themselves to pass upon Percival (it is said) a vote of censure. "To a man of Percival's intellectual pride, this must have been exceedingly galling. One could not be surprised if it stung him to the quick or that he recoiled at it as though stung by an adder. "A long difficulty ensued. Percival had accumulated enormous materials. The collected specimens nearly filled a room. A full report, voluminous as it might have been, would have proved an invaluable and remarkable work of a great geologist. But finally, a condensed, and to Percival doubtless, unsatisfactory report, was made. "This experience must have injured Percival, and driven him to the extreme of seclusion again-and of poverty. "We do not know whether it was before or after this incident, that his friends, desirous of aiding him, are said to have made that proposal, the result of which was so half laughable and half serious. He was to lecture to a class of young ladies in a school. His excessive and morbid sensitiveness immediately started a difficulty. How could he face those young ladies? The expedient was finally adopted that he should not face them. "Now young girls have a very strong and no doubt highly censurable proclivity to mirthfulness, (!) and, unaccustomed to being lectured to from behind, they could not sufficiently repress their spirits. The result may easily be guessed the lectures were abruptly terminated. "True or not, this related incident shows how difficult it is to do aught for one in whom the word is so interested, and for whom it would fain do so much. With the simplicity, and earnestness, and confidingness of a child to those whom he momentarily trusted, Percival had the proud, and lofty, and inaccessible hauteur of an intellectual prince, to the world at large." tempt. He would never accept a pecuniary favor of any description. Being at one time somewhat embarrassed by his expenditures on his books, some of his friends made up a purse of fourteen hundred dollars which they tendered him to relieve his difficulties. He would only accept it as a loan, and not only insisted upon giving security, but actually gave it in a mortgage on his library, from which his friends were ultimately reimbursed, principal and interest." We will add, for the sake of illustrating the personal appearance and habits of Dr. Percival, the relation of an incident which fell under the observation of a gentleman who met him while he was making his geological tour. "In one of our customary walks we met with an individual whose aspect, from his occasional wildness of mien, as well as singular dress, attracted our attention. He was clad in an old frock coat, buttoned up to the chin; on his head was a straw hat which looked as if it had been tanned by exposure to the storms of a century, furrowed with seams and somewhat the worse for wear; the rest of his apparel beneath appeared to consist of a rough coarse pair of pantaloons and boots of a similar quality; while from his pocket projected the handle of a hammer. We had met the poet before, but under different circumstances, and were by no means prepared to recognize him in the strange form before us, although it could not be denied that his dress, while somewhat rusty, was appropriate to his vocation. There was only time for us to be informed that it was Percival, when before we could venture a closer observation, he had passed from sight." In 1843 appeared at New Haven Dr. Percival's last published volume of poetical productions, entitled "The Dream of a Day," and other poems, including "Classic Melodies.” In 1854, he was appointed state geologist of Wisconsin, and published his report on that survey in Jan. 1855. It was while engaged in his arduous labors in that field in preparing his second report, his health gave way, and after a gentle decline he breathed his last. This event occurred at Hazel Green, Wisconsin, May 2, 1856. He was therefore sixty-one years old, within a few months. The announcement of the event occurring, as it did, at a distance from his home, in the vigor of his faculties, in the field of his labors, was received with profound sensation throughout the country. Public bodies as well as private citizens united in their testimonials of sorrow, at the unexpected and melancholy bereavement. At the May monthly meeting of the executive committee of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, Mr. Calkins, in announcing the event in an address to the president, made the following among other remarks. "I have been requested to announce in appropriate terms, the painful intelligence of the death of James G. Percival, a name which should be preserved in the memorials of this society, and an event to which is due the most solemn forms of private and public grief. In his mature age, in the ripeness of his fame, with his honors thick upon him-a noble man-of an imperial race-has passed to his long home. Dr. Percival was a man of vast * * * learning. His researches had extended into almost every field of literature and science. * * * * He was a pioneer in AmeriNone but a poet can know the can letters and study. * anguish that tortures a poet's heart. Noné but a poet can know the beauties and delights that intermit his torture—the extremes of his grief and gladness-the glimmer or the gloom in which his spirit reposes. His is the vision, the joy and the sorrow with which no stranger intermeddleth. * * Around the tombs of such as he, it is no weakness to mourn. Nor do we mourn alone. Wherever science has a devotee or learning is reverenced, the death of Percival has been felt as a personal calamity. And a grander chorus of sorrow than ours will ascend. Grander forms will bow and swell the profound lament." From this brief notice of the life of Percival, we turn to a consideration of his poetry-indeed, the two are so inseperably connected that we cannot dwell upon one without incorporating with it the other. If ever a poet was revealed in his works, that poet is Percival. We have always been familiar, more or less, with his poems. However, what we shall say here has been suggested to us by a recent perusal of them. But, first, for a proper understanding of the sub ject, a succinct historical review of the state of American literature, and particularly American poetry at the time when Percival began his literary career, may be desirable. The revival of poetry in England, at the close of the eighteenth century, is one of those phenomena which has been often alluded to by historical writers, but which has failed to receive an altogether satisfactory explanation. To discuss the general causes which have been assigned for the solution of the problem, would exceed our limits: it will be sufficient for our purpose to specify one cause which has had an important bearing in producing the result, viz: the influence of individual mind on the literary character of the age. The connection of literature with the peculiar circumstances of a nation's life, is a matter of historical record. The history of English poetry has been divided by Coleridge into three periods, or sections. The first period he represents as including all the poets from Chaucer to Dryden; the second all those from Dryden inclusive to the close of the eighteenth century; and the third all those of his own generation-among whom we may name as chiefly conspicuous Coleridge himself, Southey and Wordsworth. The first was an era of "strength, youth, and outburst;" the second was one "of cleverness, conceit, and poverty;" and the last period was that "of revival." It is believed that the style of poetic composition embraced in the second era above described, fell into disfavor mostly from the circumstance that the traditionary effusions of the Muse of an earlier period were collected, in several instances, and spread before the reading public in the eighteenth century, thereby creating a taste for verse of a more racy and natural kind. Addison's commendation, in the Spectator, of the ballad of Chevy Chase, was adapted to produce a favorable change in poetic taste, coming as that recommendation did from a master of criticism. The publication by Dr. Thomas Percy of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry doubtless added to the same result; while at a date somewhat later, the giving to the public by Sir Walter Scott of a collection of Scottish traditionary poetry, entitled the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders, must have increased the desire for poetry breathing the language of nature and passion. In America as in England the same thing occurred with reference to its literature, the effects of which have been scarcely less apparent. The American Revolution was only one manifestation of that sudden expansion and vital energy given to thought at this era, which was visible no less in literature than in politics. The poetry of the Revolution was peculiar, and such as was suggested by the character of the times and the exigencies of the country. When the Independence of the nation was achieved, and not till then, the mind of the citizen had leisure to turn to other themes and engage in direct efforts in the higher departments of works of taste and imagination, embodied in more permanent contributions to the national literature. The authority of great names in English poetry, as in Great Britain, has had its influence on the productions of American poets. While some were enamored with the writings of the early English dramatic and epic poets, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, and Milton, others took for their models the later poetical writers, such as Pope, and Campbell. American poetry has always been fragmentary in its character; it was so during the revolution; it has been so in a great measure since-being the production of those who have taken time for such efforts from other more regular employments. With the exception of Dwight's Conquest of Canaan, and Greenfield Hill, Barlow's Columbiad, Trumbull's McFingal, and perhaps one or two others, no considerable continuous poem appears at this period to have been published. The poetry of the Revolution consisted of ballads and odes, adapted to popular airs, mostly of irregular form, in which more attention was paid to the meter than the sense, full of extravagant and metaphorical allusions. In connection with the above mentioned pioneers of American poetry, are found also the names of Hopkins, Alsop, and Theodore Dwight, who belonged to that famous class of individuals called "Hartford wits," whose publications in the "Echo," in 1807, made such a sensation throughout the land. "They consisted of |