The populous and the powerful was a lump, After this last calamity, he is allowed to be Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless at large in the dungeon. And it was liberty to stride My brothers' graves without a sod.' He climbs up at last to the high chink that admitted the light to his prison; and looks out once more on the long-remembered face of nature, and the lofty forms of the eternal mountains. "I saw them-and they were the same, They were not chang'd like me in frame; The only one in view; A small green isle; it seem'd no more, The rest of the poems in this little volume, are less amiable-and most of them, we fear, have a personal and not very charitable application. One, entitled "Darkness," is free at least from this imputation. It is a grand and gloomy sketch of the supposed consequences of the final extinction of the Sun and the Heavenly bodies-executed, undoubtedly, with great and fearful force-but with something of German exaggeration, and a fantastical selection of incidents. The very conception is terrible, above all conception of known calamity-and is too oppressive to the imagination, to be contemplated with pleasure, even in the faint reflection of poetry. The icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air." Cities and forests are burnt, for light warmth. ad "The brows of men by the despairing light Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The flashes fell upon them! Some lay down And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest 'Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd' A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay! There is a poem entitled "The Dream," full of living pictures, and written with great beauty and genius-but extremely painfuland abounding with mysteries into which we have no desire to penetrate. "The Incant. ation" and "Titan" have the same distressing character-though without the sweetness of the other. Some stanzas to a nameless friend, are in a tone of more open misanthropy. This is a favourable specimen of their tone and temper. "Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Beautiful as this poetry is, it is a relief at last to close the volume. We cannot maintain our accustomed tone of levity, or even speak like calm literary judges, in the midst of these agonising traces of a wounded and distempered spirit. Even our admiration is at last swallowed up in a most painful feeling of pity and of wonder. It is impossible to mistake these for fictitious sorrows, conjured up for the purpose of poetical effect. There is a dreadful tone of sincerity, and an energy that cannot be counterfeited, in the expression of wretchedness and alienation from human kind, which occurs in every page of this publication; and as the author has at last spoken out in his own person, and unbosomed his griefs a great deal too freely to his readers, the offence now would be to entertain a doubt of their reality. We certainly have no hope of preaching him into philanthropy and cheerfulness; but it is impossible not to mourn over such a catas trophe of such a mind; or to see the prodigal gifts of Nature, Fortune, and Fame, thus turned to bitterness, without an oppressive feeling of impatience, mortification, and surprise. Where there are such elements, however, it is equally impossible to despair that they may yet enter into happier combination, -or not to hope this "that puissant spirit” "yet shall reascend Self-rais'd, and repossess its native seat." (November, 1817.) Lulla Rookh; an Oriental Romance. By THOMAS MOORE. 4to. pp. 405. London: 1817. THERE is a great deal of our recent poetry stitution of genius. While it is more splendid derived from the East: But this is the finest in imagery-(and for the most part in very Orientalism we have had yet. The land of good taste)-more rich in sparkling thoughts the Sun has never shone out so brightly on the and original conceptions, and more full indeed children of the North-nor the sweets of Asia of exquisite pictures, both of all sorts of beaubeen poured forth, nor her gorgeousness dis- ties and virtues, and all sorts of sufferings and played so profusely to the delighted senses of crimes, than any other poem that has yet come Europe. The beauteous forms, the dazzling before us; we rather think we speak the sense splendours, the breathing odours of the East, of most readers, when we add, that the effect seem at last to have found a kindred poet in of the whole is to mingle a certain feeling of that green isle of the West; whose Genius disappointment with that of admiration! to has long been suspected to be derived from a excite admiration rather than any warmer warmer clime, and now wantons and luxuri- sentiment of delight-to dazzle, more than to ates in those voluptuous regions, as if it felt enchant-and, in the end, more frequently to that it had at length regained its native ele- startle the fancy, and fatigue the attention, by ment. It is amazing, indeed, how much at the constant succession of glittering images home Mr. Moore seems to be in India, Persia, and high-strained emotions, than to maintain and Arabia; and how purely and strictly a rising interest, or win a growing sympathy, Asiatic all the colouring and imagery of his by a less profuse or more systematic display book appears. He is thoroughly embued with of attractions. the character of the scenes to which he transports us; and yet the extent of his knowledge is less wonderful than the dexterity and apparent facility with which he has turned it to account, in the elucidation and embellishment of his poetry. There is not, in the volume now before us, a simile or description, a name, a trait of history, or allusion of romance which belongs to European experience; or does not indicate an entire familiarity with the life, the dead nature, and the learning of the East. Nor are these barbaric ornaments thinly scattered to make up a show. They are showered lavishly over all the work; and form, perhaps too much, the staple of the poetry-and the riches of that which is chiefly distinguished for its richness. We would confine this remark, however, to the descriptions of external objects, and the allusions to literature and history-or to what may be termed the materiel of the poetry before us. The Characters and Sentiments are of a different order. They cannot, indeed, be said to be copies of European nature; but they are still less like that of any other region. They are, in truth, poetica! imaginations; but it is to the poetry of rational, honourable, considerate, and humane Europe, that they belong-and not to the childishness, cruelty, and profligacy of Asia. It may seem a harsh and presumptuous sentence, to some of our Cosmopolite readers: But from all we have been able to gather from history or recent observation, we should be inclined to say that there was no sound sense, firmness of purpose, ur principled goodness, except among the natives of Europe, and their genuine descendants. There is something very extraordinary, we think, in the work before us-and something which indicates in the author, not only a great rxuberance of talent, but a very singular con The style is, on the whole, rather diffuse, and too unvaried in its character. But its greatest fault, in our eyes, is the uniformity of its brilliancy-the want of plainness, simplicity, and repose. We have heard it observed by some very zealous admirers of Mr. Moore's genius, that you cannot open this book without finding a cluster of beauties in every page. Now, this is only another way of expressing what we think its greatest defect. No work, consisting of many pages, should have detached and distinguishable beauties in every one of them. No great work, indeed, should have many beauties: If it were perfect, it would have but one; and that but faintly perceptible, except on a view of the whole. Look, for example, at what is perhaps the most finished and exquisite production of human art-the design and elevation of a Grecian temple, in its old severe simplicity. What penury of ornament-what rejection of beauties of detail!-what masses of plain surface-what rigid economical limitation to the useful and the necessary! The cottage of a peasant is scarcely more simple in its structure, and has not fewer parts that are superfluous. Yet what grandeur-what elegance-what grace and completeness in the effect! The whole is beautiful-because the beauty is in the whole: But there is little merit in any of the parts, except that of fitness and careful finishing. Contrast this, now, with a Dutch pleasurehouse, or a Chinese--where every part is meant to be separately beautiful-and the result is deformity !-where there is not an inch of the surface that is not brilliant with varied colour, and rough with curves and angles and where the effect of the whole is monstrous and offensive. We are as far as possible from meaning to insinuate that Mr. Moore's poetry is of this description. On the contrary, we think his ornaments are, for the most part, | ceive of their proceedings, or to sympathise truly and exquisitely beautiful; and the gene-freely with their fortunes. The disasters to ral design of his pieces very elegant and in- which they are exposed, and the designs in genious: All that we mean to say is, that which they are engaged, are of the same am there is too much ornament-too many insu- bitious and exaggerated character; and all lated and independent beauties-and that the are involved in so much pomp, and splendour, notice, and the very admiration they excite, and luxury, and the description of their ex hurt the interest of the general design; and treme grandeur and elegance forms so con not only withdraw our attention too importu-siderable a part of the whole work, that the nately from it, but at last weary it out with their perpetual recurrence. It seems to be a law of our intellectual constitution, that the powers of taste cannot be permanently gratified, except by some sustained or continuous emotion; and that a series, even of the most agreeable excitements, soon ceases, if broken and disconnected, to give any pleasure. No conversation fatigues so soon as that which is made up of points and epigrams; and the accomplished rhetorician, who could not ope His mouth, but out there flew a trope," must have been a most intolerable companion. There are some things, too, that seem so plainly intended for ornaments and seasonings only, that they are only agreeable, when sprinkled in moderation over a plainer medium. No one would like to make an entire meal on sauce piquante; or to appear in a dress crusted over with diamonds; or to pass a day in a steam of rich distilled perfumes. It is the same with the glittering ornaments of poetry-with splendid metaphors and ingenious allusions, and all the figures of speech and of thought that constitute its outward pomp and glory. Now, Mr. Moore, it appears to us, is decidedly too lavish of his gems and sweets;-he labours under a plethora of wit and imagination-impairs his credit by the palpable exuberance of his possessions, and would be richer with half his wealth. His works are not only of costly material and graceful design, but they are everywhere listening with small beauties and transitory spirations-sudden flashes of fancy, that blaze out and perish; like earth-born meteors that crackle in the lower sky, and unseasonably divert our eyes from the great and lofty bodies which pursue their harmonious courses in a serener region. We have spoken of these as faults of style: But they could scarcely have existed in the style, without going deeper; and though they first strike us as qualities of the composition only, we find, upon a little reflection, that the same general character belongs to the fable, the characters, and the sentiments,-that they all sin alike in the excess of their means of attraction, and fail to interest, chiefly by being too interesting. In order to avoid the debasement of ordinary or familiar life, the author has soared to a region beyond the comprehension of most of his readers. All his personages are so very beautiful, and brave, and agonising-so totally wrapt up in the exaltation of their vehement emotions, and withal so lofty in rank, and so sumptuos and magnificent in all that relates to their external condition, that the herd of ordinary mortals can scarcely venture to con less sublime portion of the species can with difficulty presume to judge of them, or to enter into the concernments of such very exquisite persons. The incidents, in like manner, are so prodigiously moving, so excessively improbable, and so terribly critical, that we have the same difficulty of raising our sentiments to the proper pitch for them;—and, finding it impossible to sympathise as we ought to do with such portentous occurrences, are sometimes tempted to withhold our sympathy altogether, and to seek for its objects. among more familiar adventures. Scenes of voluptuous splendour and ecstasy alternate suddenly with agonising separations, atrocious crimes, and tremendous sufferings;-battles, incredibly fierce and sanguinary, follow close on entertainments incredibly sumptuous and elegant;-terrific tempests are succeeded by delicious calms at sea: and the land scenes are divided between horrible chasms and precipices, and vales and gardens rich in eternal blooms, and glittering with palaces and tem ples-while the interest of the story is maintained by instruments and agents of no less potency than insanity, blasphemy, poisonings, religious hatred, national antipathy, demoniacal misanthropy, and devoted love. We are aware that, in objecting to a work like this, that it is made up of such materials, we may seem to be objecting that it is made of the elements of poetry,-since it is no doubt true, that it is by the use of such materials that poetry is substantially distinguished from prose, and that it is to them it is indebted for all that is peculiar in the delight and the interest it inspires: and it may seem a little unreasonable to complain of a poet, that he treats us with the essence of poetry. We have already hinted, however, that it is not advisable to live entirely on essences; and our objection goes not only to the excessive strength of the emotions that are sought to be raised, but to the violence of their transitions, and the want of continuity in the train of feeling that is produced. It may not be amiss, however, to add a word or two more of explanation. In the first place, then, if we consider how the fact stands, we shall find that all the great poets, and, in an especial manner, all the poets who chain down the attention of their readers, and maintain a growing interest through a long series of narrations, have been remarkable for the occasional familiarity, and even homeliness, of many of their incidents, characters and sentiments. This is the distinguishing feature in Homer, Chaucer, Ari. osto, Shakespeare, Dryden, Scott-and will be found to occur, we believe, in all poetry that has been long and extensively popular; or that is capable of pleasing very strongly, or stirring very deeply, the common sensibilities of our | sist, or the energies they had exerted. T nature. We need scarcely make an excep- make us aware of the altitude of a mountain, tion for the lofty Lyric, which is so far from it is absolutely necessary to show us the plain being generally attractive, that it is not even from which it ascends. If we are allowed to intelligible, except to a studious few-or for see nothing but the table land at the top, the those solemn and devotional strains which de-effect will be no greater than if we had rerive their interest from a still higher princi-mained on the humble level of the shoreple: But in all narrative poetry-in all long except that it will be more lonely, bleak, and pieces made up of descriptions and adven- inhospitable. And thus it is, that by extures, it seems hitherto to have been an indis-aggerating the heroic qualities of heroes, they pensable condition of their success, that most of the persons and events should bear a considerable resemblance to those which we meet with in ordinary life; and, though more animated and important than to be of daily occurrence, should not be immeasurably exalted above the common standard of human fortune and character. become as uninteresting as if they had no such qualities-that by striking out those weaknesses and vulgar infirmities which identify them with ordinary mortals, they not only cease to interest ordinary mortals, but even to excite their admiration or surprise; and ap pear merely as strange inconceivable beings in whom superhuman energy and refinement are no more to be wondered at, than the power of flying in an eagle, or of fasting in a snake. It should be almost enough to settle the question, that such is the fact-and that no narrative poetry has ever excited a great in- The wise ancient who observed, that being terest, where the persons were too much puri- a man himself, he could not but take an interfied from the vulgar infirmities of our nature, est in every thing that related to man-might or the incidents too thoroughly purged of all have confirmed his character for wisdom, by that is ordinary or familiar. But the slightest adding, that for the same reason he could take reflection upon the feelings with which we no interest in any thing else. There is nothread such poetry, must satisfy us as to the ing, after all, that we ever truly care for, but reason of our disappointment. It may be told the feelings of creatures like ourselves—and in two words. Writings of this kind revolt by we are obliged to lend them to the flowers their improbability; and fatigue, by offering and the brooks of the valley, and the stars and no points upon which our sympathies can airs of heaven, before we can take any delight readily attach.-Two things are necessary to in them. With sentient beings the case is give a fictitious narrative a deep and com- more obviously the same. By whatever manding interest; first, that we should believe names we may call them, or with whatever that such things might have happened; and fantastic attributes we may please to invest secondly, that they might have happened to them, still we comprehend, and concern ourourselves, or to such persons as ourselves. selves about them, only in so far as they reBut, in reading the ambitious and overwrought semble ourselves. All the deities of the poetry of which we have been speaking, we classic mythology-and all the devils and feel perpetually, that there could have been angels of later poets, are nothing but human no such people, and no such occurrences as creatures-or at least only interest us so long we are there called upon to feel for; and that as they are so. Let any one try to imagine it is impossible for us, at all events, to have what kind of story he could make of the admuch concern about beings whose principles ventures of a set of beings who differed from of action are so remote from our own, and who our own species in any of its general attributes are placed in situations to which we have never-who were incapable, for instance, of the known any parallel. It is no doubt true, that debasing feelings of fear, pain, or anxietyall stories that interest us must represent pas- and he will find, that instead of becoming sions of a higher pitch, and events of a more more imposing and attractive by getting rid extraordinary nature than occur in common of those infirmities, they become utterly inlife; and that it is in consequence of rising significant, and indeed in a great degree inthus sensibly above its level, that they become conceivable. Or, to come a little closer to objects of interest and attention. But, in order the matter before us, and not to go beyond that this very elevation may be felt, and pro- the bounds of common experience-Suppose duce its effect, the story must itself, in other a tale, founded on refined notions of delicate places, give us the known and ordinary level, love and punctilious integrity, to be told to a and, by a thousand adaptations and traits of race of obscene, brutal and plundering savages universal nature, make us feel, that the char- —or, even within the limits of the same counacters which become every now and then the try, if a poem, turning upon the jealousies of objects of our intense sympathy and admira- court intrigue, the pride of rank, and the cabals tion, in great emergencies, and under the in- of sovereigns and statesmen, were put into fluence of rare but conceivable excitements, the hands of village maidens or clownish laare, after all, our fellow creatures-made of bourers, is it not obvious that the remoteness the same flesh and blood with ourselves, and of the manners, characters and feelings from acting, and acted upon, by the common prin- their own, would first surprise, and then reciples of our nature. Without this, indeed, volt them-and that the moral, intellectual the effect of their sufferings and exploits and adventitious Superiority of the personages 1d be entirely lost upon us; as we should concerned, would, instead of enhancing the be without any scale by which to estimate the interest, entirely destroy it, and very speedily magnitude of the temptations they had to re-extinguish all sympathy with their passions, and all curiosity about their fate?—Now, what | meet her enamoured bridegroom in the degentlemen and ladies are to a ferocious savage, lightful valley of Cashmere. The progress or politicians and princesses to an ordinary of this gorgeous cavalcade, and the beauty rustic, the exaggerated persons of such poetry as we are now considering, are to the ordinary readers of poetry. They do not believe in the possibility of their existence, or of their adventures. They do not comprehend the principles of their conduct; and have no thorough sympathy with the feelings that are ascribed to them. We have carried this speculation, we believe, a little too far-and, with reference to the volume before us, it would be more correct perhaps to say, that it had suggested these observations, than that they are strictly applicable to it. For though its faults are certainly of the kind we have been endeavouring to describe, it would be quite unjust to characterise it by its faults-which are beyond all doubt less conspicuous than its beauties. There is not only a richness and brilliancy of diction and imagery spread over the whole work, that indicate the greatest activity and elegance of fancy in the author; but it is everywhere pervaded, still more strikingly, by a strain of tender and noble feeling, poured out with such warmth and abundance, as to steal insensibly on the heart of the reader, and gradually to overflow it with a tide of sympathetic emotion. There are passages indeed, and these neither few nor brief, over which the very Genius of Poetry seems to have breathed his richest enchantmentwhere the melody of the verse and the beauty the images conspire so harmoniously with the force and tenderness of the emotion, that the whole is blended into one deep and bright etream of sweetness and feeling, along which the spirit of the reader is borne passively away, through long reaches of delight. Mr. Moore's poetry, indeed, where his happiest vein is opened, realises more exactly than that of any other writer, the splendid account which is given by Comus of the song of "His mother Circe, and the Sirens three, And though it is certainly to be regretted that he should so often have broken the measure with more frivolous strains, or filled up its intervals with a sort of brilliant falsetto, it should never be forgotten, that his excellences are at least as peculiar to himself as his faults, and, on the whole, perhaps more characteristic of his genius. The volume before us contains four separate and distinct poems-connected, however, and held together "like orient pearls at random strung," by the slender thread of a slight prose story, on which they are all suspended, and to the simple catastrophe of which they in some measure contribute. This airy and elegant legend is to the following effect. Lalla Rookh, the daughter of the great Aurengzebe, is betrothed to the young king of Bucharia; and sets forth, with a splendid train of Indian and Bucharian attendants, to of the country which it traverses, are exhibited with great richness of colouring and picturesque effect; though in this, as well as in the other parts of the prose narrative, a certain tone of levity, and even derision, is fre quently assumed-not very much in keeping, we think, with the tender and tragic strain of poetry of which it is the accompanimentcertain breakings out, in short, of that mocking European wit, which has made itself merry with Asiatic solemnity, ever since the time of the facetious Count Hamilton-but seems a little out of place in a miscellany, the prevailing character of which is of so opposite a temper. To amuse the languor, or divert the impatience of the royal bride, in the noon-tide and night-halts of her luxurious progress, a young Cashmerian poet had been sent by the gallantry of the bridegroom; and recites, on those occasions, the several poems that form the bulk of the volume now before us. Such is the witchery of his voice and look, and such the sympathetic effect of the tender tales which he recounts, that the poor princess, as was naturally to be expected, falls desperately in love with him before the end of the journey; and by the time she enters the lovely vale of Cashmere, and sees the glittering palaces and towers prepared for her reception, she feels that she would joyfully forego all this pomp and splendour, and fly to the desert with her adored Feramorz. The youthful bard, however, has now disappeared from her side; and she is sup ported, with fainting heart and downcast eyes, into the hated presence of her tyrant! when the voice of Feramorz himself bids her be of good cheer-and, looking up, she sees her beloved poet in the Prince himself! who had assumed this gallant disguise, and won her young affections, without deriving any aid from his rank or her engagements. The whole story is very sweetly and gaily told; and is adorned with many tender as well as lively passages-without reckoning among the latter the occasional criticisms of the omniscient Fadladeen, the magnificent and most infallible grand chamberlain of the Haram-whose sayings and remarks, we cannot help observing, do not agree very well with the character which is assigned himbeing for the most part very smart, senten tious, and acute, and by no means solemn, stupid, and pompous, as was to have been expected. Mr. Moore's genius, however, we suppose, is too inveterately lively, to make it possible for him even to counterfeit dulness We come at last, however, to the poetry. The first piece, which is entitled "The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan," is the longest, we think, and certainly not the best, of the series. It has all the faults which we have, somewhat too sweepingly, imputed to the volume at large; and it was chiefly, indeed, with a reference to it, that we made those introductory remarks, which the author will probably think too much in the spirit of the |