"It is impossible not to be struck with the harmony of the original words as they are placed in this stanza. The very sound is graceful, as well as musical; like the motion of the winds and waves, blended with the majestic movement of a gallant ship. 'The sails were filled' conveys no association with the work of man; but substitute the word _trimmed_, and you see the busy sailors at once. The word 'waft' follows in perfect unison with the whole of the preceding line, and maintains the invisible agency of the 'light winds;' while the word 'glad' before it, gives an idea of their power as an unseen intelligence. 'Fading' is also a happy expression, to denote the gradual obscurity and disappearing of the 'white rocks;' but the 'circumambient foam' is perhaps the most poetical expression of the whole, and such as could scarcely have proceeded from a low or ordinary mind." All this is well--but what follows is not so. "It may be amusing"--says Miss Stickney, at page 189, "to see how a poet, and that of no mean order, can undesignedly murder his own offspring"--and she proceeds to extract, from Shelley, in illustration, some passages, of whose exquisite beauty she has evidently not the slightest comprehension. She commences with "Music, when soft voices die Vibrates in the memory-- Odours, when sweet violets _sicken_, Live within the sense they quicken." "Sicken" is here italicized; and the author of the "Poetry of Life" thinks the word so undeniably offensive as to render a farther allusion to it unnecessary. A few lines below, she quotes, in the same tone of criticism, the terrific image in the Ode to Naples. "Naples!--thou heart of men, which ever pantest Naked, beneath the lidless eye of Heaven!" And again, on the next page, from the same author-- "Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all We can desire, O Love!" Miss Stickney should immediately burn her copy of Shelley--it is to her capacities a sealed book. MISS SEDGWICK'S SKETCHES. _Tales and Sketches. By Miss Sedgwick, Author of "The Linwoods," "Hope Leslie," &c. &c. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard._ This volume includes--A Reminiscence of Federalism--The Catholic Iroquois--The Country Cousin--Old Maids--The Chivalric Sailor--Mary Dyre--Cacoëthes Scribendi--The Eldest Sister--St. Catharine's Eve--Romance in Real Life--and the Canary Family.