They comprise a great deal of prose and a very little verse, all bound up together, after the thrifty fashion of our fathers, in one portly volume, with dull crimson sides, and double columns of distressingly fine print. The “Poems on Man” are but nineteen in number, and were originally published in a separate pamphlet. They are arranged systematically, and are designed to do honor to American citizenship under its most sober and commonplace aspect. The author is in no way discouraged by the grayness of his atmosphere, nor by the unheroic material with which he has to deal. On the contrary, he is at home with farmers, and mechanics, and merchants; and ill at ease with painters and soldiers, to whom it must be confessed he preaches a little too palpably. It is painful to consider what bad advice he gives to the sculptor in this one vicious line,
“Think not too much what other climes have done.”
Yet, in truth, he is neither blind to the past, nor unduly elated with the present. He feels the splendid possibilities of a young nation with all its life before it; and earnestly, and with dignity, he pleads for the development of character, and for a higher system of morality. If his verse be uneven and mechanical, and the sinewy vigor of Pathfinder be not so apparent as might have been reasonably expected, I can still understand how these simple and manly sentiments should have awakened the enthusiasm of Mrs. Browning, who was herself no student of form, and who sincerely believed that poetry was a serious pursuit designed for the improvement of mankind.
In his narrower fashion, Mr. Cornelius Mathews shared this pious creed, and strove, within the limits of his meagre art, to awaken in the hearts of his countrymen a patriotism sober and sincere. He calls on the journalist to tell the truth, on the artisan to respect the interests of his employer, on the merchant to cherish an old-time honor and honesty, on the politician to efface himself for the good of his constituency.
“Accursed who on the Mount of Rulers sits, Nor gains some glimpses of a fairer day; Who knows not there, what there his soul befits,-- Thoughts that leap up and kindle far away The coming time! Who rather dulls the ear With brawling discord and a cloud of words; Owning no hopeful object, far or near, Save what the universal self affords.”