[A] "Stock, signifies bulks, or beams; holms, _i.e._ islets, or river islands; hence, Stockholm." A FRENCHMAN'S OPINIONS OF AMERICAN FEMALE POETS. We find in the Paris _Revue des Deux Mondes_, for May 15, an article, which we translate for _The International_, on "The Female Poets of America,"[B] by M. E. MONTEGUT. This writer's opinions respecting the influence of Protestantism on the cultivation of poetry may amuse those who remember who have been the greatest poets. It is a part of the cant of criticism to point to mediaeval art as a fruit of the Roman Catholic ascendency--as if the Roman Catholics had done more than the Protestants for high art since the Reformation. But M. Montegut is a man of wit, and his criticism, though we confess that it loses some of its point in our version, will entertain the hundred of our countrywomen who make verses. * * * * * It is an opinion very generally entertained that the Americans are almost exclusively occupied with material affairs, with commerce, and the varied forms of mechanical industry. The volume of Mr. Griswold will contribute to dispel any such idea, for in its four hundred pages, nearly of the size of quartos, there are quoted ninety of the most celebrated female poets of North America: ninety female poets! and all, with few exceptions, contemporary. Why, all Europe could not count a greater number. If therefore, we bear in mind that this voluminous poetic _flore_ contains only the names of women, and that Mr. Rufus Griswold has consecrated two volumes of similar dimensions, one to the Poets of the masculine gender, and the other to the Prose-Writers of both genders, it is difficult to believe in the literary sterility of the United States. But why is it, that among these three or four hundred writers, only three or four are known beyond the Atlantic? It is, that a literature is not altogether composed of harmonious reveries, of elegant imitations, of agreeable fancies; that poetry does not consist in a melodious rhythm only, nor even in a tasteful choice of words, nor in a perfect knowledge of language. Poetry, as well as all the possible expressions of thought and genius, arises from the very depths of the soul. It is the exterior expression of the national life, the recital,--from the lips of an individual animated and transported with the popular spirit--of the mysteries of his country's existence, and the desires, aspirations and convictions of his countrymen. The poet is the interpreter of the moral character of his country to other nations, and his works are the highest embodiment of the manners and habits of life in his country and his time. The poetry which does not fulfil these conditions is not poetry. Any man writing verse, who does not feel himself agitated in a more lively and distinct manner with the desires which torment his contemporaries as a vague fever, who does not know