The Dream of a Day, and other Poems, by James G. Percival. New Haven. 1843.

Mr. Percival printed his last book of poems sixteen years ago, and every school-boy learned to declaim his “Bunker Hill,” since which time, he informs us, his studies have been for the most part very adverse to poetic inspirations. Yet here we have specimens of no less than one hundred and fifty different forms of stanza. Such thorough workmanship in the poetical art is without example or approach in this country, and deserves all honor. We have imitations of four of the leading classes of ancient measures, — the Dactylic, Iambic, Anapestic, and Trochaic, to say nothing of rarer measures, now never known out of colleges. Then come songs for national airs, formed on the rhythm of the music, including Norwegian, German, Russian, Bohemian, Gaelic, and Welsh, — Teutonian and Slavonian. But unhappily this diligence is not without its dangers. It has prejudiced the creative power,

“And made that art, which was a rage.”

Neatness, terseness, objectivity, or at any rate the absence of subjectivity, characterize these po............