a "Cordial compound." The whole of cred, so sublime: whether it be that the cally mixed," our only idea is that of grandeur of reality overpowers the faint gleam of fiction, or that there are deeds too mighty to be sung by living bards, the plains of Waterloo will live in the records of history, not in the strains of poetry. The description of the dance preceding the morning of the battle is well imagined, and excepting the fourth flat and rugged line, is happily expressed. XXI. "There was a sound of revelry by night, men; A thousand hearts beat happily; and when XXII. "Did ye not hear it?-No; 'twas but the wind, meet To chase the glowing hours with flying feet- more, As if the clouds its echo would repeat; LI. "A thousand battles have assail'd thy banks, But these and half their fame have pass'd away, And slaughter heap'd on high his weltering ranks; Their very graves are gone, and what are they? Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as 'Our readers will readily call to mind the following beautiful lines in the Lay of the Last Minstrel. "Sweet Teviot, on thy silver tide Here we have precisely the same 'The noble Lord, as may easily be imagined, is very indignant that order, peace, and legitimate sovereignty should have been restored to Europe. The reflections which succeed partake as little of patriotism as of poetry; let us take the following stanza for an ex- confusion. ample. XXXVI. "There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, scene!" P. 22. The noble Lord cannot find it in bis heart to pay the tribute even of a passing line to the heroic commander, who stands confessed, even by his very foes, the sword of Britain and the shield of Europe. The poetry of Byron stands in far greater need of the name of Wellington, than the name of Wellington does of the poetry of Byron. From Waterloo the noble Lord tra'If this be philosophy, it is unintelli- vels by Coblentz down the Rhine to gible; if it be sentiment, it is unbear- Switzerland. The magnificent scenery able; if it be poetry, it is unreadable. which the banks of that river present is When we come to "spirits antitheti- B VOL. 1. NO. I "He is an evening reveller, who makes "Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven! That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star." Mortals, who sought and found, by dangerous roads, They were of gigantic minds, and their steep aim, the flame And doom'd him to the zealot's ready Hell, "Yet peace be with their ashes,-for by them, It is not ours to judge,--far less condemn; To the sentiments contained in the last stanza, if not to the poetry, we bow with unfeigned respect; but though we would not hastily condemn the frailties and the errors of others, yet we P. 47. would not confound light and dark'The characters of Voltaire and Gibbon are drawn with more discrimina- ness, truth and falsehood, in one undistinguished mass. The same hand which tion than we had reason to expect. committed the sacred charge of truth to What is the noble Lord's opinion of their success, he has not been pleased to impart. What his wishes are he has clearly shown by his anathema against their conquerors. our care, will demand it again unpolluted at our hands. To condemn the error we are commanded; to condemn the person we are forbidden. That final judgment rests in a higher tribunal, which we fear, for the sake of the noble lord and of ourselves, will too surely "deign do more than smile." "The Prisoner of Chillon is the complaint of the survivor of three brothers confined within the Chateau of that name, which is situated between Clarens and Villeneuve: The verses are in the eight syllable metre, and occasionally display some pretty poetry; at all events there is little in them to offend. We do not find any passage of sufficient beauty or originality to warrant an extract, though the whole may be read, not without pleasure by the admirer of this style of versification. The next poem that engages our notice is called DARKNESS, describing the probable state of things upon earth should the light and heat of the sun be withdrawn. To so strange and absurd an idea we must of course ascribe the credit of vast originality. "The world was roid, And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they They slept on the abyss without a surge- grave, The moon, their mistress, had expired before; Of aid from them-She was the universe." P. 30. That for this planet strangers his memory task'd I Were it not that all life must end in one, Of which we are but dreamers;-as he caught way To pay him honour,-and myself whate'er "Your honour pleases,'-then most pleased I shook From out my pocket's avaricious nook "The The noble Lord seems to be in the humour of Timon, to invite his friends to a course of empty dishes, which are finally to be discharged at their heads. 'We must confess that criticism is Profane enough we must own ourselves, unable to reach a strain so sublime as for never did we more heartily laugh this. If this be called genius, as we than at the conclusion of this burlesque ; suppose it must, we are of opinion that in which we think the noble Lord has the madness of that aforesaid quality is shown no ordinary talents. So much much more conspicuous than its inspi- for the "Visit to Churchill's grave." ration. But after the noble Lord has The next poem, called carried us with him in his air balloon to Dream," contains as usual a long hisso high an eminence in the sublime, on tory of "my own magnificent self." a sudden he discharges the gas, and At the conclusion we are tolddown we drop to the lowest depth of "The Wanderer was alone as heretofore, the bathos below. The beings which surrounded him were gone, Or were at war with him; he was a mark For blight and desolation, compass'd around With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix'd In all which was served up to him,.until Like to the Pontic monarch of old days, He fed on poisons, and they had no power, But were a kind of nutriment; he lived Through that which had been death to many "I stood beside the grave of him who blazed men, And made him friends of mountains: with the fully interspersed with bis accustomed stars And the quick Spirit of the Universe He held his dialogue; and they did teach To him the book of Night was opened wide, crudities, but not without a considerable share of poetic merit. The Night Thoughts appear to be the objects of his imitation, but the copy falls very far short of the original. His Lord'Amen, say also we; for till these dia- ship's philosophy is at times of the sect logues are somewhat more intelligible of the "unintelligibles," at least to us than many of the verses in this volume, ordinary mortals, who have been bred we trust that our philosophy neither of up in the schools of common sense. We intellect nor of temper will be put to do earnestly hope that the noble Lord the test by any attempt to interpret will at last take his promised repose, them. The next poem is a Chorus in and write no more, till he can cease to an unfinished Witch Drama, in which, as write about himself. The address to it consists wholly of curses upon some his daughter, with which the Childe devoted victim, the reader will take Harold concludes, under all those cirfor granted that the noble Lord has cumstances with which the public are excelled. too well acquainted, is written in bad 'We fear that the noble Lord will gain taste, and worse morality. The Engvery little credit by the volumes before lish nation is not so easily to be The first is decidedly the best, and whined out of its just and honourable contains some very good lines, plenti- feelings.' us. ART. 2. Christabel,-Kubla Khan, a Vision,-The Pains of Sleep. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq. 8vo. pp. 64. Murray. London. 1816. WE have copied the following article sorry that we cannot offer it as a rarity. from the British Review, not so If 'genius' were merely a divergency much on account of the importance of from the standard of common sense, Mr. the piece of which it professes to treat, Coleridge's claim to it would be incon(which is, indeed, too contemptible to testible, for he has sunk as much below have arrested attention, had not some its level, as ever Milton soared above it. degree of credit been, heretofore, at- But, unfortunately, the difference betached to the name of Mr. Coleridge,) tween sublimity and bathos is so irreas for the justness of its general cri- concilable in nature, that mankind wil ticisms. It is time for the professed never consent to confound them in languardians of morals and arbiters of guage. taste, to interpose the authority with which they are invested, to shield the one, and to rescue the other, from the rude attacks of a wantonness of innovation, that has attempted the violation of poetry of the day. In that light it both. The Christabel' may be regard- must be acknowledged to be an amusing ed, in one point of view, as the ne plus strain of delicate irony. In fact, if the ultra of a school, of which, as it must reductio ad absurdum have any cogency, soon go out of fashion, the curious may 'the Christabel' is a pretty formidable wish to preserve a specimen. We are argument to dispel infatuation. It is possible, indeed, and we are willing to believe it, that Mr. Coleridge intends the Christabel' as a serious burlesque on the models of the "That wild and singularly original modesty, nor be quite unforbearing in and beautiful poem," as Lord Byron its exactions. What we allow it the calls the production which stands first use of as an accessory, it must not conat the head of this article, in terms suf- vert into a principle, and what is grantficiently uncouth, but of a convenient ed to it as a part of its proper machinelength and authoritativeness for the book- ry, it must not impose upon us as the seller's purpose in his announcement main or only object of interest. But of the work, was read by us before Mr. Coleridge is one of those poets who, we saw the advertisement, and there- if we give him an inch will be sure to fore without that prejudice against it take an ell: if we consent to swallow which the above applauding sentence an elf or fairy, we are soon expected would certainly have produced in us. not to strain at a witch; and if we open That the poem of Christabel is wild our throats to this imposition upon our and singular cannot be denied, and if good nature, we must gulp down this be not eulogy sufficient, let it be broom-stick and all. allowed to be original; for there is a We really must make a stand someland of dreams with which poets hold where for the rights of common sense; an unrestricted commerce, and where and large as is the allowance which we they may load their imaginations with feel disposed to give to the privileges whatever strange products they find in and immunities of the poet, we must, the country; and if we are content at the hazard of being considered as with the raw material, there is no end profane, require him to be intelligible; to the varieties of chaotic originalities and as a necessary step towards his bewhich may be brought away from this coming so, to understand himself, and fantastic region. But it is the poet's be privy to the purposes of his own province, not to bring these anomalous mind: for if he is not in his own seexistences to our view in the state in cret, it is scarcely probable that he can which he has picked them up, but so become his own interpreter. shaped, applied, worked up, and com- 'It was in vain that, after reading the pounded, as almost to look like natives poem of Christabel, we resorted to the of our own minds, and easily to mix preface to consult the poet himself with the train of our own conceptions. about his meaning. He tells us only It is not every strange fantasy, or that which, however important, doubtrambling incoherency of the brain, less, in itself, throws very little light upproduced perhaps amidst the vapours on the mysteries of the poem, viz. that of indigestion, that is susceptible of po- great part of the poem was written in etic effect, nor can every night mare the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county be turned into a muse; there must be of Somerset: the second part, after his something to connect these visionary return from Germany, in the year 1800, forms with the realities of existence, to at Keswich, in Cumberland. "Since gain them a momentary credence by the latter date my poetic powers," says the aid of harmonizing occurrences, to the author, "have been till very lately mix them up with the interest of some in a state of suspended animation." great event, or to borrow for them a Now we cannot but suspect that there is colour of probability from the surround- a little anachronism in this statement, ing scene. It is only under the shelter and that in truth it was during this susof these proprieties and corresponden- pense of the author's poetical powers, cies that witchcraft has a fair and legiti- that this "wild and singularly original mate introduction into poetical compo- and beautiful poem" of Christabel was sition. A witch is no heroine, nor can conceived and partly executed. we read a tale of magic for its own sake. Poetry itself must show some -Nondum facies viventis in illa, |