JULIA RUSH WARD. MISS JULIA RUSH CUTLER, the daughter of the late Mr. B. C. Cutler, of Boston, was born in that city on the fifth of January, 1796. Her maternal ancestors were of South Carolina, and her grandmother was the only sister of the famous partisan leader, General Francis Marion. Miss Cutler was married on the ninth of October, 1812, when she was in the seventeenth year of her age, to the late Mi. Samuel Ward, of New York, whose name was long conspicuous for his relations with the commercial world, and who in private Life was eminent for all the virtues that dignify human nature. Mrs. Ward came to New York to reside at a time when Irving, Paulding, Cooper, and others, were making "SI JE TE PERDS, JE SUIS PERDU." THE tempest howls, the waves swell high, Upward I cast my anxious eye, And fix my gaze, amidst the storm, Upon thy bright and heavenly form. Angel of mercy! beam to save; See, tossing on the furious wave, My litt e bark is sorely prest: Oh, guide me to some port of rest; Shine on, and all my fears subdue, Si je te perds, je suis perdu. To catch the ray, my aching sight Nor know my breast one anxious fear- * Written on seeing the device on a seal, of a man guiding a small boat, with his eye fixed on a star, and this motto: "Si je te perds, je suis perdu." their first and most brilliant essays in literature, and her fine abilities, improved by the best culture, brought into her circle the wits and men of genius in the city, who soon perceived that she needed but provocation to claim rank as a star of mild but pervading lustre in their brightest constellations. The compositions of Mrs. Ward are of the class called occasional poems, written with grace and sincerity, with a sort of impromptu ease, and from a heart full of truth and a mind to which beauty was familiar as the air. She died on the ninth of November, 1824, leaving the inheritance of her genius to her daughter, whose literary character is exhib ited in another part of this volume. Lead onward, then, while I pursue, So may the Star of Bethlehem's beam Within my heart the needle lies, While on that Star I keep my eye, Soon to illume those threatening skies, Shine onward, then, and guide me through, LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. LYDIA HUNTLEY, now Mrs. SIGOURNEY, | again as an author until 1822, when she pub was born on the first of September, 1791, in Norwich, Connecticut, a town of which she has furnished an agreeable picture in her Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years Since, and of which she says in one of her poems, Sweetly wild Were the scenes that charmed me when a child: Torrent voices thundering by lished in Cambridge her Traits of the Aborigines of America, a descriptive, historical, and didactic poem, in five cantos. It is a sort of poetical discourse upon the discovery and settlement of this continent, and the duties of its present masters toward the aborigines, but it is too discursive to produce the deep impression which might have been made with such a display of abilities, learn When the pride of the vernal floods swelled high, ing, and just opinions. Its tone is dignified And quiet roofs like the hanging nest Mid cliffs, by the feathery foliage drest. Almost from infancy she was remarkable for a love of knowledge, and facility in its acquisition. She read with fluency when but three years of age, and at eight she wrote verses which attracted attention among the acquaintances of her family. After completing her education, at a boarding school in Hartford, she associated herself with Miss Hyde, (of whose literary remains she was subsequently the editor,) and opened a school for girls at Norwich, which was continued successfully two years. At the end of this period she removed to Hartford, where she also pursued the business of teaching. Some of her early contributions to the journals having attracted the attention of the late Daniel Wadsworth, a wealthy and intelligent gentleman of that city, he induced her to collect and publish them in a volume, which appeared in 1815, under the modest title of Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, which very None well indicates its general character. of its contents are deserving of special commendation, but they are all respectable, and the volume procured her an accession of reputation which was probably of much indirect advantage. * In 1819 Miss Huntley was married to Mr. Charles Sigourney, a reputable merchant and banker of Hartford, and she did not appear Mr. Wadsworth, to whose early perception and libeeral encouragement of the abilities of Miss Huntley we are perhaps indebted for their successful devotion to literature, died at Hartford on the 28th of July, 1848-since the above paragraphs were written. The Wadsworth Athenæum and the Wadsworth Tower are pleasing memori als to the people of Hartford of his taste and liberality. and sustained, and it contains passages of considerable power and beauty, though few that can be separated from their contexts without some injustice to the author. The condition of the Indian before the invasion of the European is thus forcibly sketched in the beginning of the first canto: O'er the vast regions of that western world, Whose lofty mountains hiding in the clouds, Concealed their grandeur and their wealth so long From European eyes, the Indian roved Free and unconquered. From those frigid plains Struck with the torpor of the arctic pole, To where Magellan lifts his torch to light The meeting of the waters; from the shore Whose smooth green line the broad Atlantic laves, To the rude borders of that rocky strait Where haughty Asia seems to stand and gaze On the new continent, the Indian reigned Majestic and alone. Fearless he rose, Firm as his mountains; like his rivers, wild; Bold as those lakes whose wondrous chain controls His northern coast. The forest and the wave Gave him his food; the slight constructed hut Furnished his shelter, and its doors spread wide To every wandering stranger. There his cup, His simple meal, his lowly couch of skins, Were hospitably shared. Rude were his toils, And rash his daring, when he headlong rushed Down the steep precipice to seize his prey; Strong was his arm to bend the stubborn bow, And keen his arrow. This the bison knew, The spotted panther, the rough, shaggy bear, The wolf dark prowling, the eye piercing lynx, The wild deer bounding through the shadowy glade, And the swift eagle, soaring high to make His nest among the stars. Clothed in their spoils He dared the elements: with eye sedate, Breasted the wintry winds; o'er the white heads Of angry torrents steered his rapid bark Light as their foam; mounted with tireless speed Those slippery cliffs, where everlasting snows Weave their dense robes; or laid him down to sleep 91 LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. Where the dread thunder of the cataract lulled Oft the rude, wandering tribes Yet those untutored tribes And summer's heat; while nursed by the same dews, Long near this coast he lingered, half illumed Their sparkling masses, shaming the brief dome At the close of the poem is a large body of curious and entertaining notes, scarcely necessary for its illustration, but welcome as a collection of well written and instructive miscellanies upon the various subjects incidentally suggested or referred to in it. In 1824 Mrs. Sigourney published in prose A Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years Since; in 1827, Poems by the author of Moral Pieces; in 1833, Poetry for Children; in 1834, Sketches, a collection of prose tales and essays; in 1835, Zinzindorf and other Poems; in 1836, Letters to Young Ladies; and, in 1838, Letters to Mothers. In the summer of 1840 she went to Europe, and after visiting many of the most interesting places in England, Scotland, and France, and publishing a collection of her works in London, she returned in the Of the regions which first greeted the Scan- following April to Hartford. dinavian discoverer she says: There Winter frames The boldest architecture, rears strong towers In 1841 appeared her Select Poems, embracing those which best satisfied her own judgment in previous volumes, and in the same year, with many other pieces, Pocahontas, the best of her long poems, and much the best of the many poetical compositions On sped the seasons, and the forest child Might clearly read, upon its heaven writ scroll, The simple sports that charm'd her childhood's In 1842 she published Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands, the records, in prose and verse, of impressions made during her tour in Europe. Two years afterward this was followed by a similar work under the title of Scenes in my Native Land; and in 1846, by Myrtis, with other Etchings and Sketchings. The most complete and elegant edition of her poems was published by Carey and Hart, with illustrations by Darley, in 1848. impulsively from an atmosphere of affectionate, pious, and elevated sentiment, rather than from the consciousness of subjective ability. In this respect she is not to be compared with some of our female poets, who exhibit an affluence of diction, a soundness of understanding, and a strength of imagination, that justify the belief of their capability for the highest attainments in those fields of poetical art in which women have yet been distinguished. Whether there is in her nature the latent energy and exquisite susceptibility that, under favorable circumstances, might have warmed her sentiment into passion, and her fancy into imagination; or whether the absence of any deep emotion and creative power is to be attributed to a quietness of life and satisfaction of desires that forbade the development of the full force of her being; or whether benevolence and adoration have had the mastery of her life, as might seem, and led her other faculties in captivity, we know too little of her secret experiences to form an opinion: but the abilities displayed in Napoleon's Epitaph and some other pieces in her works, suggest that it is only because the flower has not been crushed that we have not a richer perfume. Mrs. Sigourney has acquired a wider and more pervading reputation than many women will receive in this country. The times have been favorable for her, and the tone of her works such as is most likely to be acceptable in a primitive and pious community. Though possessing but little constructive power, she has a ready expression, and an ear naturally so sensitive to harmony that it has scarcely been necessary for her to study the principles of versification in order to produce some of its finest effects. She sings The late Mr. Alexander H. Everett, in a reviewal of the works of Mrs. Sigourney, published a short time before his departure for China, observes that "they express with great purity and evident sincerity the tender affections which are so natural to the female heart, and the lofty aspirations after a higher and better state of being which constitute the truly ennobling and elevating principle in art as well as nature. Love and religion are the unvarying elements of her song....If her powers of expression were equal to the purity and elevation of her habits of thought and feeling, she would be a female Milton or a Christian Pindar. But though she does not inherit The force and ample pinion that the Theban eagles bear, Sailing with supreme dominion through the liquid vaults of air,' she nevertheless manages language with ease and elegance, and often with much of the curiosa felicitas, that 'refined felicity' of expression, which is, after all, the principal charm in poetry. In blank verse she is very successful. The poems that she has written in this measure have not unfrequently much of the manner of Wordsworth, and may be nearly or quite as highly relished by his admirers." 168 THE WESTERN EMIGRANT. All glittering bright, in fancy's frostwork ray. THE PILGRIM FATHERS. How slow yon lonely vessel ploughs the main! Ax axe rang sharply mid those forest shades No, no. All was so still around, methought And savage men, who through the thickets peer Is severed? Can ye tell what pangs were there, |