How glorious in its action and itself! But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we, To sink or soar, with our mix'd essence make A conflict of its elements, and breathe The breath of degradation and of pride, And men are what they name not to themselves, [The shepherd's pipe in the distance is heard. The natural music of the mountain reedFor here the patriarchal days are not A pastoral fable-pipes in the liberal air, Mix'd with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd; My soul would drink those echoes!-Oh, that I were the viewless spirit of a lovely sound, A living voice, a breathing harmony, A bodiless enjoyment-born and dying With the blest tone which made me!"-pp. 20-22. | At this period of his soliloquy, he is descried by a Chamois hunter, who overhears its continuance. To be thus Grey-hair'd with anguish, like these blasted pines, Ye topling crags of ice! Just as he is about to spring from the cliff, he is seized by the hunter, who forces him away from the dangerous place in the midst of the rising tempest. In the second act, we find him in the cottage of this peasant, and in a still wilder state of disorder. His host offers him wine; but, upon looking at the cup, he exclaims "Away, away! there's blood upon the brim! Will it then never-never sink in the earth? C. Hun. What dost thou mean? thy senses wander from thee. Man. I say 'tis blood-my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours Man. Think'st thou existence doth depend on C. Hun. Alas! he's mad-but yet I must not leave him. Man. I would I were-for then the things I see Would be but a distempered dream. C. Hun. What is it That thou dost see, or think thou look'st upen ? Man. Myself, and thee-a peasant of the Alps Thy humble virtues, hospitable home, And spirit patient, pious, proud and free; 639 The following scene is one of the most poetical and most sweetly written in the poem. There is a still and delicious witchery in the tranquillity and seclusion of the place, and the celestial beauty of the Being who reveals herself in the midst of these visible enchantments. In a deep valley among the mountains, Manfred appears alone before a lofty cataract, pealing in the quiet sunshine down the still and everlasting rocks; and say's 'It is not noon-the sunbow's rays still arch The torrent with the many hues of heaven, And roll the sheeted silver's waving column O'er the crag's headlong perpendicular, And fling its lines of foaming light along, And to and fro, like the pale courser's tail, The Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death, As told in the Apocalypse. No eyes But mine now drink this sight of loveliness; I should be sole in this sweet solitude, And with the Spirit of the place divide The homage of these waters.-I will call her. [He takes some of the water into the palm of his hand, and flings it in the air, muttering the adjuration. After a pause, the WITCH OF THE ALPS rises beneath the arch of the sunbow of the torrent.] Man. Beautiful Spirit! with thy hair of light, At times to commune with them-if that he Son of Earth! I know thee, and the Powers which give thee power! I have expected this-what wouldst thou with me? Man. To look upon thy beauty!-nothing further."-pp. 31, 32. There is something exquisitely beautiful, to our taste, in all this passage; and both the apparition and the dialogue are so managed, that the sense of their improbability is swal out actually believing that such spirits exist lowed up in that of their beauty;-and, with or communicate themselves, we feel for the moment as if we stood in their presence. What follows, though extremely powerful, and more laboured in the writing, has less charm for us. He tells his celestial auditor the brief story of his misfortune; and when he mentions the death of the only being he nad ever loved, the beauteous Spirit breaks in with her superhuman pride. "And for this A being of the race thou dost despise, But peopled with the Furies!-I have gnash'd I was detain'd repairing shattered thrones, A fresh; for they were waxing out of date, This we think is out of place at least, if we must not say out of character; and though the author may tell us that human calamities are naturally subjects of derision to the Ministers of Vengeance, yet we cannot be persuaded that satirical and political allusions are at all compatible with the feelings and impressions which it was here his business to maintain. When the Fatal Sisters are again assembled before the throne of Arimanes, Manfred suddenly appears among them, and refuses the prostrations which they require. The first Destiny thus loftily announces him. 44 Prince of the Powers invisible! This man Which clogs the etherial essence, have been such Made him a thing, which I, who pity not. pp. 47, 48. At his desire, the ghost of his beloved As tarte is then called up, and appears-but re fuses to speak at the command of the Powers who have raised her, till Manfred breaks out into this passionate and agonising address. "Hear me, hear me Astarte! my beloved! speak to me! I have so much endured-so much endure- And woke the mountain wolves, and made the Phantom of Astarte. Manfred! Say on, say on- Man. Yet one word more-am I forgiven? Man. Say, shall we meet again? Phan. Farewell! [The Spirit of ASTARTE disappears. The last act, though in many passages very beautifully written, seems to us less powerful. It passes altogether in Manfred's castle, and is chiefly occupied in two long conversations between him and a holy abbot, who comes to exhort and absolve him, and whose counsel he repels with the most reverent gentleness, and but few bursts of dignity and pride. The following passages are full of poetry and feeling. "Ay-father! I have had those earthly visions. (Which casts up misty columns that become Clouds raining from the re-ascended skies), Lies low but mighty still.-But this is past! My thoughts mistook themselves. Abbott. And why not live and act with other men? Man. Because my nature was averse from life; And yet not cruel; for I would not make, But find a desolation :-like the wind, The red-hot breath of the most lone Simoom, Which dwells but in the desert, and sweeps o'er The barren sands which bear no shrubs to blast, And revels o'er their wild and arid waves, And seeketh not, so that it is not sought, But being met is deadly! Such hath been The course of my existence; but there came Things in my path which are no more." pp. 59, 60. There is also a fine address to the setting sun-aud a singular miscellaneous soliloquy, in which one of the author's Roman recollections is brought in, we must say somewhat annaturally. "The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Than that of man; and in her starry shade I learn'd the language of another world! And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon! upon In his dying hour he is beset with Demons, who pretend to claim him as their forfeit;but he indignantly and victoriously disputes their claim, and asserts his freedom from their thraldom. "Must crimes be punish'd but by other crimes, No colour from the fleeting things without; But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy, Born from the knowledge of its own desert. in this poem; but it is undoubtedly a work of genius and originality. Its worst fault, perhaps, is, that it fatigues and overawes by the uniformity of its terror and solemnity. Another is the painful and offensive nature of the circumstance on which its distress is ultimately founded. It all springs from the disappointment or fatal issue of an incestuous passion; and incest, according to our moders ideas-for it was otherwise in antiquity-i not a thing to be at all brought before the imagination. The lyrical songs of the Spirits are too long; and not all excellent. There is something of pedantry in them now and then; and even Manfred deals in classical allusions a little too much. If we were to consider it as a proper drama, or even as a finished poem, we should be obliged to add, that it is far too indistinct and unsatisfactory. But this we take to be according to the design and conception of the author. He contemplated but a dim and magnificent sketch of a subject which did not admit of a more ac rate drawing, or more brilliant colouring. Its obscurity is a part of its grandeur;—and the darkness that rests upon it, and the smoky distance in which it is lost, are all devices to increase its majesty, to stimulate our curi osity, and to impress us with deeper awe. It is suggested, in an ingenious paper, in a late Number of the Edinburgh Magazine, that the general conception of this piece, and much of what is excellent in the manner of its execution, have been borrowed from “the Tragical History of Dr. Faustus" of Marlowe; and a variety of passages are quoted, which the author considers as similar, and, in many respects, superior to others in the poem before us. We cannot agree in the general terms of this conclusion ;-but there is, no doubt, a certain resemblance, both in some of the topics that are suggested, and in the cast of the diction in which they are expressed. Thus, to induce Faustus to persist in his unlawful studies, he is told that the Spirits of the Elements will serve him "Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids, Than have the white breasts of the Queene o Shadowing more beauty in their ayrie browes Love." And again, when the amorous sorcerer com mands Helen of Troy to be revived, as his paramour, he addresses her, on her first ap pearance, in these rapturous lines "Was this the face that launcht a thousand ships, O! thou art fairer than the evening ayre, Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not More lovely than the monarch of the skyes In wanton Arethusa's azure arms!" The catastrophe, too, is bewaiied in verses of great elegance and classical beauty. Cut is the branch that might have growne full And burned is Apollo's laurel bough [straight That sometime grew within this learned man. Faustus is gone ?-regard his hellish fall, But these, and many other smooth and fanciful verses in this curious old drama, prove nothing, we think, against the originality of Manfred; for there is nothing to be found there of the pride, the abstraction, and the heart-rooted misery in which that originality consists. Faustus is a vulgar sorcerer, tempted to sell his soul to the Devil for the ordinary price of sensual pleasure, and earthly power and glory-and who shrinks and shudders in agony when the forfeit comes to be exacted. The style, too, of Marlowe, though elegant and scholarlike, is weak and childish compared with the depth and force of much of what we have quoted from Lord Byron; and the disgusting buffoonery and low farce of which his piece is principally made up, place it much more in contrast, than in any terms of comparison, with that of his noble successor. In the tone and pitch of the composition, as well as in the character of the diction in the more solemn parts, the piece before us reminds us much more of the Prometheus of Eschylus, than of any more modern performance. The tremendous solitude of the principal person-the supernatural beings with whom alone he holds communion the guilt-the firmness-the misery-are all points of resemblance, to which the grandeur of the poetic imagery only gives a more striking effect. The chief differences are, that the subject of the Greek poet was sanctified and exalted by the established belief of his country; and that his terrors are nowhere tempered with the sweetness which breathes from so many passages of his English rival. (January, 1809.) Reliques of ROBERT BURNS, consisting chiefly of Original Letters, Poems, and Critical Observations on Scottish Songs. Collected and published by R. H. CROMEK. 8vo. pp. 450 London: 1808. BURNS is certainly by far the greatest of our poetical prodigies-from Stephen Duck down to Thomas Dermody. They are forgotten already; or only remembered for derision. But the name of Burns, if we are not mistaken, has not yet "gathered all its fame;" and will endure long after those circumstances are forgotten which contributed to its first notoriety. So much indeed are we impressed with a sense of his merits, that we cannot help thinking it a derogation from them to consider him as a prodigy at all; and are convinced that he will never be rightly estimated as a poet, till that vulgar wonder be entirely repressed which was raised on his having been a ploughman. It is true, no doubt, that he was born in an humble station; and that much of his early life was devoted to severe labour, and to the society of his fellow-labourers. But he was not himself either uneducated or illiterate; and was placed in a situation more favourable, perhaps, to the development of great poetical talents, than any other which could have been assigned him. He was taught, at a very early age, to read and write; and soon after acquired a competent knowledge of French, together with the elements of Latin and Geometry. His taste for reading was encouraged by his parents and many of his associates; and, before he had ever composed a single stanza, he was not only familiar with many prose writers, but far more intimately acquainted with Pope, Shakespeare, and Thomson, than nine tenths of the youth that now leave our schools for the university. Those authors, indeed, with some old collections of songs, and the lives of Hannibal and of Sir William Wallace, were his babitual study from the first days of his childhood; and, co-operating with the solitude of his rural occupations, were sufficient to rouse his ardent and ambitious mind to the love and the practice of poetry. He had about as much scholarship, in short, we imagine, as Shakespeare; and far better models to form his ear to harmony, and train his fancy to graceful invention. We ventured, on a former occasion, to say something of the effects of regular education, and of the general diffusion of literature, in repressing the vigour and originality of all kinds of mental exertion. That speculation was perhaps carried somewhat too far; but if the paradox have proof any where, it is in its application to poetry. Among well edu cated people, the standard writers of this description are at once so venerated and so familiar, that it is thought equally impossible to rival them, as to write verses without attempting it. If there be one degree of fame which excites emulation, there is another which leads to despair: Nor can we conceive any one less likely to be added to the short list of original poets, than a young man of fine fancy and delicate taste, who has acquired a high relish for poetry, by perusing the most celebrated writers, and conversing with the most intelligent judges. The head of such a person is filled, of course, with all the splendid passages of ancient and modern authors, and with the fine and fastidious remarks which have been made even on those passages. When he turns his eyes, therefore, on his own conceptions or designs, they can scarce. ly fail to appear rude and contemptible. He is perpetually haunted and depressed by the ideal presence of those great masters, and their exacting critics. He is aware to what comparisons his productions will be subjected among his own friends and associates; and recollects the derision with which so many rash adventurers have been chased back to their obscurity. Thus, the merit of his great predecessors chills, instead of encouraging his ardour; and the illustrious names which have already reached to the summit of excellence, act like the tall and spreading trees of the forest, which overshadow and strangle the saplings which may have struck root in the soil below-and afford efficient shelter to nothing but creepers and parasites. There is, no doubt, in some few individuals, "that strong divinity of soul"-that decided and irresistible vocation to glory, which, in spite of all these obstructions, calls out, perhaps once or twice in a century, a bold and original poet from the herd of scholars and academical literati. But the natural tendency of their studies, and by far their most common effect, is to repress originality, and discourage enterprise; and either to change those whom nature meant for poets, into mere readers of poetry, or to bring them out in the form of witty parodists, or ingenious imitators. Independent of the reasons which have been already suggested, it will perhaps be found, too, that necessity is the mother of invention, in this as well as in the more vulgar arts; or, at least, that inventive genius will frequently slumber in inaction, where the preceding ingenuity has in part supplied the wants of the owner. A solitary and uninstructed man, with lively feelings and an inflammable imagination, will often be irresistibly led to exercise those gifts, and to occupy and relieve his mind in poetical composition: But if his education, his reading, and his society supply him with an abundant store of images and emotions, he will probably think but little of those internal resources, and feed his mind contentedly with what has been provided by the industry of others. To say nothing, therefore, of the distractions and the dissipation of mind that belong to the commerce of the world, nor of the cares of minute accuracy and high finishing which are imposed on the professed scholar, there seem to be deeper reasons for the separation of originality and accomplishment; and for the partiality which has led poetry to choose almost all her prime favourites among the recluse and uninstructed. A youth of quick parts, in short, and creative fancy-with just so much reading as to guide his ambition, and roughhew his notions of excellence-if his lot be thrown in humble retirement, where he has no reputation to lose, and where he can easily hope to excel all that he sees around him, is much more likely, we think, to give himself up to poetry, and to train himself to habits of invention, than if he had been encumbered by the pretended helps of extended study and literary society. If these observations should fail to strike of themselves, they may perhaps derive additional weight from considering the very remarkable fact, that almost all the great poets of every country have appeared in an early stage of their history, and in a period cont paratively rude and unlettered. Homer wen forth, like the morning star, before the dawr of literature in Greece, and almost all the great and sublime poets of modern Europe are already between two and three hundred years old. Since that time, although books and readers, and opportunities of reading, are multiplied a thousand fold, we have improved chiefly in point and terseness of expression, in the art of raillery, and in clearness and simplicity of thought. Force, richness, and variety of invention, are now at least as rare as ever. But the literature and refinement of the age does not exist at all for a rustic and illiterate individual; and, consequently, the present time is to him what the rude times of old were to the vigorous writers which adorned them. But though, for these and for other reasons, we can see no propriety in regarding the poetry of Burns chiefly as the wonderful work of a peasant, and thus admiring it much in the same way as if it had been written with his toes; yet there are peculiarities in his works which remind us of the lowness of his origin, and faults for which the defects of his education afford an obvious cause, if not a legitimate apology. In forming a correct estimate of these works, it is necessary to take into account those peculiarities. The first is, the undiciplined harshness and acrimony of his invective. The great boast of polished life is the delicacy, and even the generosity of its hostility-that quality which is still the characteristic, as it furnishes the denomination, of a gentleman—that principle which forbids us to attack the defenceless, to strike the fallen, or to mangle the slain-and enjoins us, in forging the shafts of satire, to increase the polish exactly as we add to their keenness or their weight. For this, as well as for other things, we are indebted to chival ry; and of this Burns had none. His ingenious and amiable biographer has spoken repeatedly in praise of his talents for satirewe think, with a most unhappy partiality. His epigrams and lampoons appear to us, one and all, unworthy of him ;-offensive from their extreme coarseness and violence-and contemptible from their want of wit or brilliancy. They seem to have been written, not out of playful malice or virtuous indignation, but out of fierce and ungovernable anger. His whole raillery consists in railing; and his satirical vein displays itself chiefly in calling names and in swearing. We say this mainly with a reference to his personalities. In many of his more general representations of life and manners, there is no doubt much that may be called satirical, mixed up with admirable humour, and description of inimitable vivacity. There is a similar want of polish, or at least of respectfulness, in the general tone of his gallantry. He has written with more passion, perhaps, and more variety of natural feeling, on the subject of love, than any other poet whatever-but with a fervour that is sometimes indelicate, and seldom accommodated to the timidity and "sweet austere com. |