gree, a father's still-the two characters, father and king, so high to our imagination and love, blended in the reverend image of Lear-both in their destitution, yet both in their height of greatness the spirit blighted and yet undepressed-the wits gone, and yet the moral wisdom of a good heart left unstained, almost unobscured-the wild raging of the elements, joined with human outrage and violence to persecute the helpless, unresisting, almost unoffending sufferer; and he himself in the midst of all imaginable misery and desolation, descanting upon himself, on the whirlwinds that drive around him-and then turning in tenderness to some of the wild motley association of sufferers among whom he stands all this is not like what has been seen on any stage, perhaps in any reality, but it has made a world to our imagination about one single imaginary individual, such as draws the reverence and sympathy which should seem to belong properly only to living men. It is like the remembrance of some wild perturbed scene of real life. Every thing is perfectly woful in this world of wo. The very assumed madness of Edgar, which, if the story of Edgar stood alone, would be insufferable, and would utterly degrade him to us, seems, associated as he is with Lear, to come within the consecration of Lear's madness. It agrees with all that is brought together;-the nightthe storms-the houselessness-Glo'ster with his eyes put out-the foolthe semblance of a madman, and Lear in his madness, are all bound together by a strange kind of sympathy, confusion in the elements of nature, of human society and the human soul. Throughout all the play, is there not sublimity felt amidst the continual presence of all kinds of disorder and confusion in the natural and moral world; a continual consciousness of eternal order, law, and good? This it is that so exalts it in our eyes. There is more justness of intellect in Lear's madness than in his right senses -as if the indestructible divinity of the spirit gleamed at times more brightly through the ruins of its earthly tabernacle. The death of Cordelia and the death of Lear* leave on our minds, at least, neither pain nor dis appointment, like a common play ending ill-but, like all the rest, they shew us human life involved in darkness and conflicting with wild powers let loose to rage in the world;—a life which continually seeks peace, and which can only find its good in peacetending ever to the depth of peace, but of which the peace is not here. The feeling of the play, to those who rightly consider it, is high and calm, because we are made to know, from and through those very passions which seem there convulsed, and that very structure of life and happiness that seems there crushed,-even in the law of those passions and that life, this eternal Truth, that evil must not be, and that good must be. The only thing intolerable was, that Lear should, by the very truth of his daughter's love, be separated from her love: and his restoration to her love, and therewith to his own perfect mind, consummates all that was essentially to be desired-a consummation, after which the rage and horror of mere matter-disturbing death, seems vain and idle. In fact, Lear's killing the slave who was hanging Cordelia-bearing her in dead in his arms—and his heart bursting over her-are no more than the full consummation of their reunited love—and there father and daughter lie in final and imperturbable peace. Cordelia, whom we at last see lying dead before us, and over whom we shed such floods of loving and approving tears, scarcely speaks or acts in the play at all-she appears but at the beginning and the end-is absent from all the impressive and memorable scenes; and to what she does say, there is not much effect given ;—yet, by some divine power of conception in Shakspeare's soul, she always seems to our memory one of the principal characters-and while we read the play, she is continually present to our imagination. In her sisters' ingratitude, her filial love is felt-in the hopelessness of the broken-hearted king, we are turned to that perfect hope that is reserved for him in her loving bosom in the midst of darkness, confusion, and misery, her form is like a hovering angel, seen casting its radiance on the storm. Turning from such noble creations For some admirable observations on this subject, see the Essays of Charles Lamb—a writer to whose generous and benign philosophy, English dramatic literature is greatly indebted. as these, it is natural to ask ourselves, is the age of dramatic literature gone by, never to be restored? Certainly the whole history of our stage, from the extinction of that first great dynasty, down to this very day, shews rather a strong dramatic disposition, than a strong dramatic power; and the names of Rowe, Otway, Lee, and Lillo, are perhaps as far above the most favoured of this age, as they are beneath all those of the age of Elizabeth. It is not to be denied, that the whole mind of the country is lowered since those magnificent times; and that its intellectual character has become more external. With respect to the drama, the state of society was then more favourable to it, passing from the strong and turbulent life of early times, yet having much of their native vigour, and much of their pristine shape and growth. The reality of life is seldom shewn to our eyes; and each now sees, as it were, but a small part of the whole. He sees a little of one class. The dark study of the constitution of our life is no longer to our taste, nor within the measure of our capacity; and therein lies the causes of their hopelessness who believe that the tragic drama is no more. Some have thought that the vast number of standard plays is the cause why new plays are not produced. But genius does not work on a consideration of the supply in the market, of the stock on hand. In whatever way it has power to bring itself into sympathy with the heart of its people, so as to dwell in their love and delight, it will go to its work in obedience to such impulses; and surely there is always change enough from one generation to another to make a new field for dramatic composition, or for any kind of literature, so as to enable a mind of power to write more entirely to the passions of his contemporaries, than any one living before him has done. It seems to us that the poetry of our days has not dealt enough with life and reality. They surely contain elements of poetry, if we had poets who were capable of bringing to use the more difficult materials of their art. Some critics have conceived, that the matter of poetry might become exhausted; but the opinion is not likely to gain much credit amongst us. The bolder opi But nion, that all conditions of human life, for ever, will contain the inexhaustible matter of that art, seems more suitable to our genius. There has been a decided tendency in our own days, to prove the capacity of some apparentÏy unfavourable states of life. it may be questioned, whether the experiment has yet found eminent success. What is wanting to poetry in ages like ours, seems to be rather the proper composition of the minds of poets, than a sufficiency of matter in the life from which they would have to paint. The minds of civilized men are too much unpoetical, because the natural play of sensitive imagination in their minds is, in early years, suppressed. They are cultivated with poetry indeed, but that is an unproductive cultivation. Every mind has, by nature, its own springs of poetry. And it may be conceived, that if nature were suffered to have a freer development in our minds, we should grow up, looking upon our own life with that kind of deep emotion, with which, in earlier ages, men look upon the face of society; with something like a continuance of those strange and strong feelings, with which, as children, we gazed upon the life even of our own generation. We begin in imagination; but we outgrow it. We pass into a state which is not of wisdom, but one in which imagination and natural passion are suppressed and extinct, and a sort of worldly temper and tone of mind, a substitute for wisdom, is adopted,-like it, only in its immunity from youthful illusions. But wisdom retains the generosity of youth without its dreams, whereas this worldly wit of ours parts with youth and generosity together; and yet, while it dispels those pardonable dreams, does not exempt us from deceptions of its own, and from passions which have the ardour, but not the beauty of youth. What Poet of the present day is there, who, grasping resolutely with the reality of life, such as our own age brings it forth, has produced true, simple, and powerful poetry. Two have made approaches to this kind, Cowper and Wordsworth. But the poetry of Cowper wants power. And though Wordsworth has expressly applied himself to this part of poetry, yet the strongest passion of his own mind is the passion for nature; and his most 1819.] Campbell's Specimens of English Poetry, &c. powerful poetry may be called almost This appears to us the true test of the mind which is born to poetry, and is faithful to its destination. It is not born to live in antecedent worlds, but in its own; in its own world, by its own power, to discover poetry; to discover, that is, to recognize and distinguish the materials of life which belong to imagination. Imagination discovering materials of its own action in the life present around it, ennobles that life, and connects itself with the on-goings of the world; but escaping from that life, it seems to us to fly from its duty, and to desert its place of service. The poetry which would be produced by imagination, conversing intimately with human life, would be that of tragedy. But we have no tragic poet. Schiller is, perhaps, the only great tragic poet who has lived in the same day with ourselves. And wild and portentous as his shapes of life often are, who is there that does not feel that the strange power by which they hold us is derived from the very motions of our blood, and that the breath by which we live, breathes in them? He has thrown back his scenes into other times of the world: but we find ourselves there. It is from real, present life, that he has borrowed that terrible spell of passion by which he shakes so inwardly the very seat of feeling and thought. The tragie poets of England, in the age of 231 our dramatic literature, have shewn The whole character of our life and literature seems to us to shew in our cultivated classes, a disposition of imagination to separate itself from real life, and to go over into works of art. It may appear to some a matter of little consequence; and perhaps they will think that it is then beginning to confine itself to its right province. We think there are many who will not be so easily satisfied; and to whom it will appear, that such a separation, if it be indeed taking place, cannot be affected without grie vous injury to the character of our minds. We think it possible, that the great overflow of poetry in this age may be in part from this cause.And there seems to us already a great disappearance of imagination from the character of all our passions. But life is still strong. And wherever men are assembled in societies, and are not swallowed up in sloth or most debasing passion, there the great elements of our nature are in action: and much as in this day, to look upon the face of life, it appears to be removed from all poetry, we cannot but believe, that in the very heart of our most civilized life-in our cities-in each great metropolis of commerce-in the midst of the most active concentration of all those relations of being which seem most at war with imagination-there the materials which imagination seeks in human life are yet to be found. It were much to be wished, therefore, for the sake both of our literature and of our life, that imagination would again be content to dwell with lifethat we had less of poetry, and that of more strength; and that imagination were again to be found as it used to be, one of the elements of life itself; a strong principle of our nature living in the midst of our affections and passions, blending with, kindling, invigorating, and exalting them all. Then might the spirit of dramatic literature be revived. SINCE our Review of Curran's Letters to the Rev. H. Weston was printed, we have seen the Life of Curran by his Son (published by Messrs Constable and Co.), a most interesting book, of which we shall give some account in our next Number. We have many apologies to offer to the author of the article on Dr Clarke's last volume, containing the Narrative of his Tour in Lapland, &c. for having delayed its insertion once more. It shall certainly appear in our next. The same gentleman's Critique on Mitford's fifth volume, and the History of Alexander the Great, is already in types, and will probably appear at the same time. Polito soon. We are desired by our friend who wrote the Review of Bainbridge's complete Angler in this Number, to say, that he recommends most strenuously, to his angling friends, a work on the same subject, by Mr Carrol, published by Constable. In his note to us, he quotes the following lines from Sir Stephen Stanihurst: "Melodious and compacted strains, In this our lonely northern dell; And shame, I say, on him would quarrel, With our own simple mountain carol. Love's Divertisement, or a Long Line to a Deep Pool, Canto III." We received, some months ago, a very pretty poem, entitled the Troutiad, and addressed to Mr Douglas, one of the Sub-Librarians in the Advocate's Library. We are sorry that this poem had fallen out of the way, as it might have been advantageously introduced as a sequel to the article with which we have baited the tip of our own hook for this month; but shall certainly insert it before the present season be over. Why, by the way, was Mr Douglas omitted by our learned friend, in his enumeration of the famous fly-buskers of Auld Reekie. The article on Lewellyn has also fallen out of sight; but indeed we are afraid the time for inserting it has rather gone by. The reviewer must excuse us for once. As for the novel, although there is not much display of character in it, it abounds in ingenious incident, and must give much amusement to all those who are fond of marble covered literature it is far above the common run. Can any human credulity believe that we are serious in thinking meanly of the SUPPLEMENT? Not at all-quite the reverse. We only think Mr Napier no great shakes of an editor. We patronize the work itself, and wish it every success. It is quite against the rule to review periodical publications; (by the way, why is Mr Waugh's Review so hard upon poor Colburn, about the innocent little quackery of the Vampire?) and therefore cannot think of inserting the review of Encyclopædia Edinensis, published by Peter Hill and Co. The license of a notice page may, however, allow us to say, that this is a very well executed work, and may perhaps, in the end, prove a very formidable rival to most of its more bulky predecessors and contemporaries. We patronize this also, and approve very much of the editor, Dr Millar, who is a man of sound sense, and sound information, and no pretension. "The Devil on Two Sticks on the top of the Ram's-horn," is received. Our Glasgow friends may depend upon this before the Autumn Circuit. "Et tu Brute," (unless you mend your manners) very soon. LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. Ersted's Chemical Philosophy.—IN the year 1812, Ersted, a celebrated chemical philosopher, published at Berlin, a work entitled, Ansicht der Chemischen Naturgesetze." Shortly after its publication we had an opportunity of reading it, and were struck with the beauty and originality of the general views it disclosed. We mentioned the delight we had experienced in the study of this beautiful work to one of our countrymen, who justly ranks amongst the most distinguished chemists in Europe, but found he had been prejudiced against it by erroneous representations in foreign journals. It is, therefore, with infinite satisfaction that we find it is now brought before the British public by Dr Thomson in a manner worthy its high merits. In the last number of the Annals of Philosophy, there is a .luminous and most interesting view of Ersted's work, but we regret the editor has not given the whole sketch in the same number. We trust that ere long it will appear in an English dress, not from the pen of a common translator, but under the eye, or from the hand, of Dr Thomson himself. We are convinced that Ersted's views will contribute, in a very eminent degree, to the advancement of chemical philosophy in Great Britain. And this, indeed, is an effect ardently to be wished for, as this very beautiful science is at present much disfigured by the dull and cloudy visions of heavy speculators, and the no less tiresome and unmeaning doings of the apparatus and per cent. hunters.* Murray on Dew, and the Temperature of the Sea. Mr Murray, the chemist, has published, in Dr Thomson's Annals of Philosophy, the following observations on dew and on the temperature of the sea: On the 5th of last month, in crossing the Bochetta from Genoa to Turin, at half-past seven o'clock, A. M. with a still atmosphere and serene sky, I noted the following observation, which cannot, I think, be explained in any other way than upon the principles laid down by Dr Wells. The external atmosphere was 27° Fahr.; that within the coach 54°. The windows had been shut for a considerable time. The exterior surface of the glass was dry, the inner covered with a thin crust of ice, though exposed to this medium of 54° I lowered one of the side windows about half an inch; this had the effect of causing the ice to disappear very shortly. I explain the phenomenon in the following manner: The ex terior surface of the glass radiated-caloric to the heavens more promptly than it received the warm impressions from within, in consequence of which, the respirable vapour condensed upon the inner surface passed into the state of ice. On admitting the external air, a current was established, and the ice dissolved, though it lowered the temperature considerably. The ball of the thermometer in contact with the ice within,. still supported a temperature of 54°. I should add to these, that no ice formed on the surface of the front windows, and these were overshadowed by the covert of the cabriolet. Now Dr Wells has clearly proved that a cloudy sky, or the prevalence of winds, are circumstances unfavourable to the formation of dew; and that an agitated atmosphere not only prevents the deposition of dew and the formation of hoar frost, ice, &c. but dissolves them as soon as formed. Dr Davy's ingenious researches on the temperature of the sea will no doubt be appreciated by the navigator. By this account we are apprized of the approximation of shoals by a decrement of temperature. This may be the case in the ocean, but circumstances concur, I am persuaded, to modify this law as applied to the approach to land. I kept an exact register of the temperature of the sea on my passage from the Mull of Galloway to Liverpool, and on my voyage from Leghorn to Civita Vecchia; and think I have clearly proved that there is an increase of temperature in the sea off the mouths of rivers. The mean of 14 observations made in St George's Channel is 52-8°. On approaching N.W. buoy, the temperature was 55°, and successively to 60° Fahr. as we approached the river Mersey: here we were among sand-banks. Again: the temperature of the Mediterranean continued nearly uniform at 70.3° Fahr.; but off the river Ombrone, in Italy (even 10 miles at sea), the temperature rose to 71.5°. The experiments were made with care, and frequently repeated. Death of Hornemann.-Baron von Zach has published an account of the death of Frederick Hornemann, a native of Hildesheim, in Lower Saxony, who was sent by the African Association, in 1797, to explore the interior of Africa. Many of our readers will recollect the interesting papers published by the African Association from this enterprising traveller, and the sanguine hopes that were entertained that he would be able to penetrate to Timbuctoo. These hopes The apparatus and per cent. hunters very much resemble, in many things, those gay and innocent beings who roam about in search of plants, and whose ecstasies on the discovery of a weed on a particular dunghill, where it had not before been seen by any botanist, are only equalled by the delight of the chemist, on his inventing a new bend for a tube, or a novel shaped cork for a bottle. VOL. V. 2 G |