of those who are to be wives and mothers, we should encourage the genius of our lyric poets to its utmost attainable perfection. We should remember the flexibility of the female mind in early youth, and the readiness with which it receives either a good or an evil impulse. We should consider the extreme sensibility of women to the charms of music, and their sympathy with the tone of feeling, which the words connected with that music breathe. We should reflect too upon the striking effects which, in countries where such poems have been more highly valued, the songs of love, of war, and of patriotism have produced, not upon women only, but upon bearded men:' and thus be led to take a more liberal view of an art which, rightly directed, must be essentially conducive to the cultivation of the warmest, and tenderest affections of the heart. Before we proceed to the direct examination of Mr. Moore's poems, we must be permitted to say a few words about the qualities which we conceive to be the most essential in a song. The first requisite appears to be a decisive tone of feeling, whether joyous or melancholy, tender or heroic. In the next place, the versification, we think, should be free from all forced inversion; a species of construction which saves the trouble of the writer by increasing that of the reader; which checks the flow of sympathy even at its crisis; and renders the representation of nature a distortion of her features and not a reflection. We will mention only one more quality essential to a song,it should be very short. There is some difficulty, no doubt, in producing a strong effect upon the feelings within the small compass of two or three stanzas; but this makes it the more necessary to allure superior talents into the undertaking. Ambition is not appalled by difficulties when honour lies beyond them; and if the reputation of song writing were placed on a more equal footing with that of other poetry, the additional toil which songs require would be counterbalanced by the more general circulation which their association with music usually obtains for them. In one or other of these requisites most of the older songs are obviously defective: and the praise of producing a large and interesting collection, not only free from cramp versification and prolixity, but distinguished for positive excellence, was reserved for the poet whose works are now before us. Of his original and fatal error, the sacrifice of decorum at the altar of love, that crime for which, in his youth, he 'lost the world, and was content to lose it,' the present volumes happily retain no traces. The soul of his poetry has transmigrated into a purer form; and the verse, which once courted admiration by meretricious enticements alone, now steals to the heart with a surer interest, by the modesty which softens and consecrates the influence of beauty. The most remarkable fault, in the plan of the present work, is a superabundance of ballads upon topics merely Irish. If Mr. Moore were a person whose writings were not calculated to extend beyond the narrow circle of a few discontented place-hunters in Ireland, he might strike his harp in vituperation of government until its strings cracked, without molestation from us; but as this work, not only from the author's previous fame, but from its own intrinsic merits, is likely to attract considerable attention, we put it to Mr. Moore's own judgment, whether he would not have consulted his reputation more effectually by excluding all topics of a local or political nature; topics, which by impartial readers are generally scanned with indifference, and by no small number of zealous partisans with absolute disgust. At the same time it is but justice to confess that there are some of this class (particularly the third song in the third number, beginning' Oh! blame not the bard') of which, in our opinion, the energy and pathos have seldom been exceeded. In the next place, it must be observed, that our poet is but too prone to run into strained, incorrect, and remote resemblances, so that he becomes confused, and sometimes even unintelligible. Yet he has the skill to disguise his inaccuracies in language so elegant, and melody so lulling, that though the fallacy be perceptible to the reader, the hearer is almost inevitably deceived. There are also two or three songs in the collection, partaking of that character which, for want of a more classical title, has been usually styled, the namby-pamby. Such are, While gazing on the moon's light,' in the third number, and What the bee is to the flowret,' in the fourth. There are also a few, though but a few, which have no striking beauty, and no glaring demerit. But, when we have set aside all those passages which are faulty for political and local partialities, or the intermixture of false and far-fetched thoughts, or the introduction of incoherent metaphors and epithets, or a simplicity bordering upon childishness, or the mere absence of positive merit-there will still be left a large body of songs, exhibiting, we venture to say, a greater variety, and a higher tone of excellence than this order of poetry has often before attained. The most careless reader must be struck by the imagery of the following stanza: there is an old tradition that Lough Neagh suddenly rose above its level, and overwhelmed a whole region: long after which event, according to Giraldus, the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers, still rearing themselves beneath the waters.' 'On Lough Neagh's bank as the fisherman strays, Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime, In the delineation of that deep and settled melancholy, which affects the heart with a dead, yet aching heaviness, and makes life appear a blank, uninteresting alike in its pleasures and its pains, Mr. Moore is peculiarly successful. 'As a beam o'er the face of the waters may glow, Oh, that thought in the midst of enjoyment will stay,' &c. &c, Nor is he less so, where a gleam of gaiety is admitted to relieve the sadness of the sentiment; as in the eighth song of the first number: 'O think not my spirits are always as light, And as free from a pang, as they seem to you now; No, life is a waste of wearisome hours, Which seldom the rose of enjoyment adorns! May we never meet worse in our pilgrimage here, When these blessings shall cease to be dear to my mind! But they who have lov'd the fondest the purest, But send round the bowl; while a relic of truth Is in man or in woman, this pray'r shall be mine:- And the moonlight of friendship console our decline!' Of his grace and facility in narrative, our readers may take the ballad called Eveleen's Bower,' as an example: Oh weep for the hour, The Lord of the Valley with false vows came! From the Heaven's that night, And wept behind her clouds o'er the maiden's shame. The clouds past soon From the chaste cold moon, And Heaven smil'd again with her vestal flame! When the clouds shall pass away, Which that dark hour left upon Eveleen's fame. On the narrow path-way, Where the Lord of the Valley cross'd over the moor! On the white snow's tint, Show'd the track of his footstep to Eveleen's door. The next sun's ray Soon melted away Every trace of the path where the false Lord came: Which alone can remove That stain upon the snow of fair Eveleen's fame.' Mr. Moore possesses, we think, in an eminent degree, the virtue of poetical spirit, that excellence which redeems so many faults. When his feelings are roused, he pours them out with an eloquent energy, which sweeps along as freely as if there were no shackles of rhyme or metre to confine its movements. 'We swear to revenge them!-no joy shall be tasted, Yes, monarch! though sweet are our home recollections, Of all the charms, however, which the poetry of these volumes may be thought to possess, there is none so captivating to us, as its genuine tenderness: VOL. I. New Series. T Ꭲ 'Though the last glimpse of Erin with sorrow I see, In exile thy bosom shall still be my home, And thine eyes make my climate wherever we roam.' And if there had been no political allusion, we might have recognized, as one of the most affecting poems in the English language, the address of the lover to his mistress: When he who adores thee has left but the name Of his fault and his sorrows behind, Oh! say, wilt thou weep, when they darken the fame Yes, weep! and, however my foes may condemn, For Heaven can witness, tho' guilty to them, I have been but too faithful to thee! With thee were the dreams of my earliest love, In my last humble pray'r to the Spirit above Oh bless'd are the lovers and friends who shall live But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give, Is the pride of thus dying for thee!' On the whole, the songs accompanying the Irish melodies, contain, together with some faults, a proportion of beauties more numerous and striking than can readily be found in any similar work with which we are acquainted. The author has the merit of setting an example, which, though it may not be easily equalled, will, in all probability, be imitated, and we hope, not without benefit to literary taste and national character. The Letters of the British Spy. 12mo. London, 1812. THIS little volume was first of all printed in an American Daily Paper, called the Virginia Argus. They are pretended to have been originally written by a young Englishman of rank during a tour through the United States, in 1803, &c. Member of the British Parliament. But they were in reality written by an American, and are a creditable example of the progress of the Americans in elegant literature; they contain some curious and interesting remarks on subjects of geography and general literature, with moral and political observations occasionally interspersed. The author, whoever he may be, seems to have considerable skill in delineating characters, but this portion of his work will create less interest here than on the other side of the Atlantic. We are glad that the proprietors have reprinted it in this country, and should be inclined to suppose that they will find it answer their purpose. British Critic. |