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Price 6d. or Stamped and sent free by post, 10d. Printed by BALLANTYNE & Co. Paul's Work, Canongate PRICE 6d. light broke in among the gloomy branches. Milton trusted not even to the radiance of external nature, but in the long solitude and uninterrupted darkness of his mind's eye, gorgeous, and strange, and awfully beautiown chamber, painted the visions that arose before his ful, like the tempest-clouds that lift their phantom-shapes out of the bosom of the far-stretched sea. Pollok, too, though but the humble and remote imitator of Milton, dedicated all the years of his allotted time to his one great object. A solitary child,-a youth that mused among the hills, a man who stood apart from his fellow-men, nursing and feeding on his own imaginations,—he completed his task and died. But a new generation has arisen, who find it a mere pastime to mount upon the where angels are poetically said to veil their heads, and feel their effulgent natures fade into dimness. Young men, who have a strong, natural, and healthy liking for the things of this world,-who laugh at a comedy, and become jocund over a bottle of mulled port, fancy all at once that they are able to cope with the mightiest of the fallen cherubim, to tear aside the curtains of the tomb, and to pass into the presence of futurity. This is quite out of character, and out of nature; and though such proceedings may impose upon the credulous for a time, they will soon come to be seen in their proper light, and be set down as a species of stage-trick and clap-trap. THE time has but very recently gone by, since we existed in a sorely exasperated state against Robert Montgomery. The chief cause of our rage was, that he had been most extravagantly and boisterously puffed by a small junto of his friends; and to see people, by a sudden coup de theatre, attempt to place an individual, high and dry, beyond those waves of criticism which are continually fretting and dashing against much better men, invariably puts us into a passion. Had we written of Mont-wings of the morning, and to soar into that presence gomery (not James, recollect, but Robert) in the first impetuosity of our choleric mood, we should certainly have flayed him alive, and sent him forth into the world in a very raw and pitiable condition. But, according to the advice of all sages, we have taken time to count a hundred, and to swallow a tumbler of cold water, since our anger first began to boil; and the consequence is, that we have now become more temperate, and are therefore like ly to be more just. Besides, we observe that a few of the more able and independent critics of the country, who do exist, although certainly rari, et rantes in gurgite vasto, have not permitted Mr Montgomery to walk about altogether scatheless, but have, each after his kind, administered a due proportion of that most wholesome medicine the rod of correction. As coming more immediately under our approbation in this respect, we may particularly mention Fraser's Magazine, No. 1, the Atlas, and the Dublin Literary Gazette. The first offerings having thus been made upon the altar of justice, we feel ourselves called upon to prove our fealty by cool determination, rather than impassioned warmth. Mr Robert Montgomery is a young man, not yet fourand-twenty, we believe; and he possesses a " vaulting ambition," which, though honourable to him, not unfrequently "overleaps itself." This is evident both in the choice and in the management of his subjects. He first gave us the "Omnipresence of the Deity;" then we had "A Universal Prayer, Death, and other Poems ;" and now we have "Satan." We beg to say, once for all, what we believe we have said before, that we hate to see boys and stripplings raving about the Omnipresence of the Deity, uttering Universal Prayers, diving into the mysteriousness of Death, and affecting a hand-and-glove acquaintance with Satan. Of late, this has become rather a fashionable sort of amusement; but it is in all cases bad, because it must in all cases be hollow, heartless, and vague. What does Mr Montgomery know of the Omnipresence of the Deity, or of Death, or of Satan, more than any young man whom we may meet with every day of our lives, at a pleasant evening party, in white kid gloves and dancing pumps? There was a time, when they who dared to tune their harps to those high and solemn themes, felt that, to approach them right, it was necessary to give up to them their whole lives and souls. Dante walked in his "obscure wood," until the fitful One or It is true, that a lofty subject naturally inspires lofty thoughts; but unless these thoughts be original, there is little or no value in them, in as far as regards the modern author. We believe, however, that it is precisely upon this very point that both the young bardling and his readers are most apt to be deluded. The Omnipresence of the Deity, or Death, or Satan, are such vast ideas, that they at all times fill the mind with a sense of sublimity and awe, and could the first existence of these ideas be traced to the creative fancy of any poet, we should not hesitate to pronounce him infinitely the most inspired of all the race. But they owe their origin to a higher source to the page of revelation itself; and all that our limited intellect could understand, or is permitted to know concerning them, has there been set forth. two of the very mightiest spirits which this world has produced, have ventured to trace a little farther the probabilities to which that revelation leads, and though they have failed in adding to our stock of knowledge, they have poured out of the richness of their own conception, a flood of lofty illustrations upon the solemn truths previously communicated. Thousands of far inferior men have also attempted to handle these truths, and have occasionally succeeded in obtaining a borrowed lustre, not from their own merits, but from the sacredness of the subjects with which they mingled themselves. Aware of this fact, it has recently become fashionable among many persons of pretty fair abilities, to attempt to turn it to their own account. All they have to do is to say high-sounding things, and the multitude will not at first discover that they are merely new versions of what has been said before, and to better purpose. They have, besides, this great advantage over persons who choose less exalted topics, that, unless they be down right drivellers, they must repeat many things which himself, as poets only can see and feel? When we speak are in their essential meaning full of poetry, whether of the "style in which Mr Montgomery has hitherto The only draw-written," we mean to imply, that as we can discover no clothed in successful language or not. very wonderful power in the conception of his poems, neither can we be very greatly delighted with their execution. It is but fair that we should explain why this is the case. back is, that these meanings are not new; the changes are rung upon them every Sunday, from every pulpit in Europe. We do not denominate the poor priest or curate a poet of the first magnitude, because he hebdomadally delivers to his congregation the most sublimé and magnificent views regarding the attributes and dispensations of Omnipotence. We know that he only speaks by rote, and judge him accordingly. Why should we place the rhymester on a different footing? His words may be a little more select, and his fancy a little more vivid, than the divine's; but separate the chaff from the grain, and there will be found as much real substance in The language is the possession of the one as the other. their own, but all the rest of their ideas are as old as Isaiah, or as He whom Isaiah foretold. Descending from more general remark to a particular instance,—what is this blank-verse poem in three books, extending to so many thousand lines, and called "Satan," all about? The question is rather a puzzler, and the only answer we can think of is, that it is a poem de omWe are introduced at nibus negotiis, et quibusdam aliis. the commencement to Satan standing on the top of Mount Ararat, and there looking around him, entirely contrary to the established laws of optics, upon all the world. During the whole of the volume the garrulous old gentleman is made to indulge in one unbroken soliloquy, in the course of which he speaks of the changes that have taken place in empires, indulges in a good many hits at crowned heads, says a few words of Napoleon, then descants on India, America, the slave-trade, Europe and its different countries; then moralizes (rather odd, is it not, that Satan should moralize ?) on man, his nature and crimes; delicately touches on the tender subject of original sin, and the introduction of Christianity; falls into a pathetic mode of thinking concerning war and its miseries; gives a great deal of good advice to England, especially suggesting to her not to be so fond of money as she seems to be; visits London, and looks into her palaces, her senate, her ball-rooms, theatres, academies, &c.; and, in conclusion, leaves the full conviction on the mind of the reader, that Satan is on the whole a very respectable person, who has been rather harshly treated. We Such is the sum and substance of Mr Montgomery's poem, and, setting aside its execution altogether, we have no doubt he thinks its conception entitled to much praise. In this opinion we are sorry that we cannot agree. see nothing in its conception but the vague and rash daring of a young man, who has not yet learned to form any proper estimate of his own powers, and who thinks himself able to swim across the Atlantic, because he knows he can swim across a canal. Looking even at the very imperfect abstract which we have given of the multifarious and most comprehensive subjects which his plan made it necessary for him to dwell upon, it must be evident that he trusted more to the weight which the very magnitude of these subjects carries along with it, than to the original, or even generally intelligent, remarks which he was to make concerning them. This is a dangerous rock for a young author to split upon; it lifts him out of the waters only to dash him back the more severely. We would sooner a thousand times be presented with one new and striking thought concerning a simple weed, than a whole volume of antiquated declamation concerning the moon and stars, or principalities and powers. The latter may have the more lofty sound, but the former indicates that creative power which is the highest attribute of mind. Hence, though Mr Robert Montgomery was to write for a thousand years, in the same style in which he has hitherto written, of the Omnipresence of the Deity, and Death, and Satan, and all these grand things, would we place him, think you, side by side with our own Robert Burns, who saw and felt for Mr Montgomery's besetting sins are, vagueness and "Thou wilt not deem such verse supplied At page 20 we meet with the following question : Appall'd, or agonizing in the wrack Again, in no better taste;— "Oh! what a cloud on Liberty was thrown, How deep a gash her dreadless form profaned !" Or, in a style of yet greater coarseness ;"Then Havoc started with a hideous howl; The shriek of violated maids, the curse Of dying mothers, and despairing sires, And dash of corpses, torn from royal tombs, And plunged amid devouring flame, were heard Terrific!-Moscow seem'd a madd'ning Hell.” We are not quite sure that the following passage is English: "Primeval woods, And chieftain wonder-trees, and forest haunts, "For some can dare the imprison'd mind unbar, Or, as a specimen of Mr Montgomery's metaphysics, we should like to know whether our readers can make either head or tail of the passage subjoined: "The atmosphere that circleth gifted minds And that, the throbbing of the fires within!" (???) This is pure nonsense; the following passage, considered as coming from the lips of Satan, only indicates the total absence of all judgment and discrimination : "Methinks I'm challenged to admire a man Adorned with meekness, graced by heavenly love, And in the noiseless vale of humble life Content, and charitably good; whose name Is nobly register'd in realms divine, Though unrenown'd below,-for men forget Th' obscure on earth are oft the famed in Heaven." Satan speaking thus! and not only once or twice, by mistake, but continually throughout the whole poem! Moreover, to add to his sins, Mr Montgomery is particularly anxious to introduce a false coinage of new words, against which we should rebel even although coming from an 66 66 author of five times his standing and weight. Among other specimens we find, paradisal," vasty," impregn," (for impregnated,) "a dew-fall," (meaning a dewdrop,) a most insinuous man,' ," "the greenery of hills," "halls of fictious glare" (obsolete,) " a pest which might pang the heart" (obsolete,)" dareful" (obsolete,) &c. &c. To try Mr Montgomery by another test-a test which all true poetry can stand-let us take a passage at random, print it as a piece of prose, and then see how it will read. Here are some lines about Bonaparte which ought to be good, and, above all, ought not to be commonplace, else they should never have been printed : "Napoleon! on the island rock thou sleep'st; but such a storm thy spirit raised, so full the swell of feeling born of thee, that Time must lend his magic to allay the rush and tempest of opinion into truth, that, taming wonder, stamps thee as thou wert,-a tyrant, in whose passion for a power enthroned above all liberty and law, thou stand'st alone, unparagon'd. Thy race is o'er; and in the rocky isle of ocean, canopied with willow shade, in death's undreaming calm thou restest now; but all the splendid infamy of war, the fame of blood and bravery, is thine: thy name hath havoc in its sound; and Time shall read it while his ages roll,-'twill live when Time and Nature are forgotten words! For, as a noble fame can never die, but proudly passeth on from earth to heaven, there to be hymn'd by angels, and to crown with bright pre-eminence the gifted mind that won it gloriously; so evil fame a fiery torment to the soul must be for ever." This is positively poor prose; a boy at the High School would gain no credit by it. What does it say of Bonaparte that has not been said a hundred thousand times before, and often better, by every puny whipster. Yet sorry are we to state that this is the common sort of reading to be met with in the two first Books of Satan. The third is better, and it is for the sake of the third that we have thought it worth while to be thus minute in our criticism. Mr Robert Montgomery by no means deserves to be altogether put down. He only requires to he rescued out of the injudicious pawings of his absurdly partial friends. He requires to be lowered to a sense of what he really is; and to have the long and arduous way distinctly pointed out to him, which he has yet to overcome. Among our minor aspirants for poetical reputation he holds a respectable place; and by perseverance, and modestly listening to sound advice, he may in time arrive at something higher; especially if he will renounce for ever the hopeless ambition of identifying himself with Satan, and of discoursing de omnibus negotiis et quibusdam aliis. To prove that we are anxious to do him all manner of justice, and have an eye for his beauties as well as his defects, we have selected what we consider the three very best passages in the whole volume, and these we shall lay before our readers. The first, which relates to Byron, though not very original, is spirited, and decidedly above par : LORD BYRON IN ROME. "It was a haggard night; when mortals dream The wanderer roam'd; and when some sickly break He sigh'd, and mused, and then from earth to heaven Of tenderness, wherein the pride of years Had something of the light of heav'n! He breathed The sighs that after ages will repeat; Our second quotation is an apostrophe to the metropolis of our island: LONDON. "But hail! thou giant city of the world! As emanates from thine. The mighty globe Myriads of domes, and temples huge, or high, At once the awe and sceptre of the world!" Our third extract, which is by far the best, and which puts it beyond a doubt that Mr Montgomery has a portion of the divinus afflatus in his composition, may be en titled THE DYING PAINTER. "In a lone chamber, on a tatter'd couch, A soul, and on his cheek a spirit-light Is playing, with that proud sublimity Of thought, that yields to death, but gives to Time Of martyrs:-be it for his epitaph, So sad and lone !-wall'd in by misery, With fancies, and with earth incorporate grew! No wonder then, by Nature thus sublimed, The brain should teem with visions, and his hand And look'd creation!" If in our remarks upon this poem we have dwelt more elaborately upon its faults than its merits, it has been both in the hope of doing ultimately more good to Mr Robert Montgomery himself, and at all events of putting a clearer exposition of our poetical creed into the hands of our readers, as well as of those who may afterwards come before our critical tribunal. The Life of Major-General Sir Thomas Munro, Bart., K. C.B., late Governor of Madras. With Extracts from his Correspondence and Private Papers. By the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M. A., &c. 2 vols. 8vo. London. Colburn and Bentley. We reserve our more detailed account of this interesting work, containing the memoirs of one who adds another to the long list of eminent men of whom Scotland may well be proud, until we have sufficient time to do the volumes the justice they deserve. Meanwhile, we present our readers with the following entertaining and characteristic letter from Sir Thomas Munro to his sister, after he had been nine years in India, when he was twenty-eight years of age, and only a lieutenant in the Company's service. It is highly graphic, and most amusingly descriptive of A YOUNG SOLDIER'S LIFE IN INDIA. Madras, 23d January, 1789. "I have often wished that you were transported for a few hours to my room, to be cured of your Western notions of Eastern luxury, to witness the forlorn condition of old bachelor Indian officers; and to give them also some comfort in a consolatory fragment. You seem to think that they live like those satraps that you have read of in plays; and that I in particular hold my state in prodigious splendour and magnificence-that I never go abroad unless upon an elephant, surrounded with a crowd of slaves-that I am arrayed in silken robes, and that most of my time is spent in reclining on a sofa, listening to soft music, while I am fanned by my officious pages; or in dreaming, like Richard, under a canopy of state. But while you rejoice in my imaginary greatness, I am most likely stretched on a mat, instead of my real couch; and walking in an old coat, and a ragged shirt, in the noonday sun, instead of looking down from my elephant, invested in my royal garments. You may not believe me when I tell you, that I never experienced hunger or thirst, fatigue or poverty, till I came to India, that since then, I have frequently met with the first three, and that the last has been my constant companion. If you wish for proofs, here they are I was three years in India before I was master of any other pillow than a book or a cartridge-pouch; my bed was a piece of canvass, stretched on four cross sticks, whose only ornament was the great coat that I brought from England, which, by a lucky invention, I turned into a blanket in the cold weather, by thrusting my legs into the sleeves, and drawing the skirts over my head. In this situation I lay like Falstaff in the basket,-hilt to point,-and very comfortable, I assure you, all but my feet; for the tailor, not having foreseen the various uses to which this piece of dress might be applied, had cut the cloth so short, that I never could, with all my ingenuity, bring both ends under cover; whatever I gained by drawing up my legs, I lost by exposing my neck; and I generally chose rather to cool my heels than my head. This bed served me till Alexander went last to Bengal, when he gave me an Europe camp-couch. On this great occasion, I bought a pillow and a carpet to lay under me, but the unfortunate curtains were condemned to make pillow-cases and towels; and now, for the first time in India, I laid my head on a pillow. But this was too much good fortune to bear with moderation; 1 began to grow proud, and resolved to live in great style: for this purpose, I bought two table-spoons, and two tea-spoons, and another chair,for I had but one before-a table, and two table-cloths. But my prosperity was of short duration, for in less than three months, I lost three of my spoons, and one of my chairs was broken by one of John Napier's companions. This great blow reduced me to my original obscurity, from which all my attempts to emerge have hitherto proved in vain. "My dress has not been more splendid than my furniture. I have never been able to keep it all of a piece; it grows tattered in one quarter, while I am establishing funds to repair it in another; and my coat is in danger of losing the sleeves, while I am pulling it off, to try on a new waistcoat. "My travelling expeditions have never been performed with much grandeur or ease. My only conveyance is an old horse, who is now so weak, that, in all my journeys, I am always obliged to walk two-thirds of the way; and if he were to die, I would give my kingdom for another, and find nobody to accept of my offer. Till I came here, I hardly knew what walking was. I have often walked from sunrise to sunset, without any other refreshment than a drink of water; and I have traversed on foot, in different directions, almost every part of the country, between Vizagapatam and Madura, a distance of eight hundred miles. "My house at Vellore consists of a hall and a bed-room. The former contains but one piece of furniture,-a table; but, on entering the latter, you would see me at my writing-table, seated on my only chair, with the old couch behind me, adorned with a carpet and pillow: on my right hand a chest of books, and on my left two trunks; one for holding about a dozen changes of linen, and the other about half-a-dozen of plates, knives, and forks, &c. This stock will be augmented on my return by a great acquisition which I have made here,-six tea-spoons and a pair of candlesticks, bought at the sale of the furniture of a family going to Europe. I generally dine at home about three times in a month, and then my house looks very superb; every person on this occasion bringing his own chair and plate. "As I have already told you that I am not Aladdin with the wonderful lamp, and that, therefore, I keep neither pages, nor musicians, nor elephants, you may perhaps, after having had so particular an account of my possessions, wish to know in what manner I pass my leisure hours. How this was done some years ago, I scarcely remember; but for the last two years that I have been at Vellore, I could relate the manner in which almost every hour was employed, "Seven was our breakfast-hour, immediately after which I walked out, generally alone; and though ten was my usual hour of returning, I often wandered about the fields till one; but when I adhered to the rules I had laid down for myself, I came home at ten and read Persian till one, when I dressed and went to dinner. Came back before three; sometimes slept half an hour, sometimes not, and then wrote or talked Persian and Moors till sunset, when I went to the parade, from whence I set out with a party to visit the ladies, or to play cards at the commanding officer's. This engaged me till nine, when I went to supper, or more frequently returned home without it, and read politics and nonsense till bedtime, which, according to the entertainment which I met with, happened sometime between eleven and two. I should have mentioned fives as an amusement that occupied a great deal of my time. I seldom missed above two days in a week at this game, and always played two or three hours at a time, which were taken from my walks and Persian studies. Men are much more boyish in this country than in Europe, and, in spite of the sun, take, I believe, more exercise, and are, however strange it may appear, better able to undergo fatigue, unless on some remarkably hot days. I never could make half the violent exertions at home that I have made here. My daily walks were usually from four to twelve miles, which I thought a good journey in Scotland. You see children of five or six years of age following the camp |