Where they tear up the earth with their When moving gently o'er the shadows dun Of evening-and their verge to silver fangs. Wets the cold urn with tears, and mournful thinks, While his sad spirit, sorrow-broken, sinks, None now can sing my angel Psyche-none! Krilov and Khemnitzer follow; and from the short specimens which are given of their style, they seem to be pleasant writers of fables: which is said to be a very favourite mode of composition among the Russian poets. Next in order, are some extracts from Bobrov's oriental poem, entitled The Khersonida; which Mr. Bowring takes occasion to compare with Lallah Rookh. The following is good: Thou wondrous brother of the prophet, sun! So brightly on Medina's temple burning, And scarce less beautiful the crescent moon, In the dim light, the sacred vigils keeping O'er the blest ashes on earth's bosom sleeping. Picture of God! upon the prophet's shrine Tulips and aloes and narcissus' sweet, We do not find any thing very attractive in the extracts which Mr. Bowring next gives, from Bognadovich's celebrated poem, called Duswhich follows is extremely naive and henka (Pysche); but the song pretty. I'm fourteen summers old I trow, "Tis time to look about me now: I Twas only yesterday they said, was a silly, silly maid ; "Tis time to look about me now. The shepherd-swains so rudely stare, I'm such a fool I can't reprove I must reprove them I declare. O what is this that speaks within? The shepherd cries, "I love thee, sweet; "And I love thee," my lips repeat: Kind words, they sound as sweet to me As music's fairest melody; "I love thee," oft my lips repeat. His pledge he brings, I'll not reprove; Ono! I'll take that pledge of love; To thee my guardian dog I'd give, Could I without that guardian live: But still I'll take thy pledge of love. My shepherd's crook I'll give to thee;→ Ono! my father gave it me And treasures by a parent given, 99 1821.7 But stay, my shepherd! wilt thou be The rest of the contents of this interesting volume, are chiefly songs, -anacreontic, amatory, national, &c. The following is by Davidov; -and if it is not so graceful and elegant as some of Moore's, it is quite as gay and characteristic. While honouring the grape's ruby nectar, All sportingly, laughingly gay; We determined-I, Silvia, and Hector, To drive old dame Wisdom away. "O my children, take care," said the beldame, "Attend to these counsels of mine: Get not tipsy! for danger is seldom Remote from the goblet of wine." "With thee in his company, no man Can err," said our wag with a wink; But come, thou good-natured old woman, There's a drop in the goblet-and drink!" She frowned--but her scruples soon twisting, Consented:-and smilingly said: "So polite there's indeed no resisting, For Wisdom was never ill-bred." She drank, but continued her teaching: "Let the wise from indulgence refrain ;' And never gave over her preaching, But to say, "Fill the goblet again." And she drank, and she totter'd, but still she Was talking and shaking her head: until she 66 prudence" Was carried by Folly to bed. The next we shall give, by Kostrov, is equally Moore-ish. The rose is my favourite flower: On its tablets of crimson I swore, That up to my last living hour I never would think of thee more. I scarcely the record had made, Ere Zephyr, in frolicsome play, On his light, airy pinions convey'd Both tablet and promise away. The last extract we shall make is a national song, the name of whose author is unknown. We give it on account of its being characteristic of the national poetry of Russia -particularly by reason of the repetitions of the end of one line at the beginning of the next-which produces a very peculiar, and in many cases, a very good effect. A young maid sat upon the streamlet's side, And thought most tearfully on her bitter fate; fled: Alas! love's flower of hope is withered! well may that lonely flower decay and die! She calls in vain-she wipes her tears away: Thee, rapid streamlet! they may fill, and roll Over thy bosom-make thy bed of tears: "I had adorned me for that faithless friend, That faithless friend is fled:- he hath stolen all, All my possessions but my grief :—that grief He left in mercy, if that grief can kill. Come death! I veil me in thy shadows dim To thee I fly, as once I flew to him!" Upon the whole, we consider this volume as one of the most agreeable and interesting that has come before us for some time past. It was put into our hands quite unexpectedly, and very late in the month; but we have proceeded to notice it without delay, both on account of the public, who will be anxious to know the character of a work on so novel a subject; and that the translator may not remain in doubt as to its probable reception. It is proper to state that, in our extracts, we have chiefly considered variety and characteristicness; so that what we have brought forward, may be regarded as a fair general specimen of the work-not as a collection of all its best parts. We cannot close this hasty notice without expressing our decided admiration of the manner in which the translation is made-at least, as far as we are enabled to judge: for we do not pretend to determine as to its faithfulness to the originals. It is evident, that Mr. Bowring possesses a very elegant and cultivated taste a copious flow of language, and great skill and variety of versification. the It is proper to add that, among principal Russian poets, whose names and works we have had occasion to mention, Karamsin, Batiushkov, Zhukovsky, Dmitriev, and Krilov, are still living, and enjoying the popularity which they so well deserve. A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF EDWARD PERRINSON, THE POET. To the Editor of Baldwin's Magazine. SIR,-Although somewhat ad- before my threshold, and set the roses weeping and drooping at my windows. I must here take leave to remark, how refreshing it is to stand at the door in a summer rain, and see the flowers trembling with pleasure, and pluming themselves in the shower, and hear the unceasing whispers of the leaves while they are feeding. My evenings, after tea, are passed in arranging papers, which are fragrant with age and endearing recollections, or in writing a letter to a friend in town, or in finishing a book (I never be gin a book of an evening, for the closing of the day calls for harmonious occupation, and unfits the mind for fresh undertakings,)—or in perusing one of my own old sonnets, written many years since, to the charming Miss Charlotte D who was then on a visit at the house of the intelligent Mrs. Y or in conning my own favourite stanzas to the inimitable Myra, (the present Mrs. -,) whose light youthful image is still in my heart.-Whose fatal smiles are ever in my eyes, nearly as bright as when first I gazed upon them!—I must here turn from my paper to read those stanzas again;-I think they are certainly in my best style.-How well do I remember worthy Tom Cartwright (a man of admirable poetical taste and judgment), worthy Tom Cartwright liked them so well that he begged a copy for the Gentleman's Magazine, and there, in that sacred mausoleum, these hopes of my heart lie entombed for ever.-The following are the stanzas, for I cannot resist copying them, and you will judge for yourself, how strong that passion must have been, which could give birth to such lines. • I rent a cottage on the southern coast of Devonshire, which is white fronted, and smothered with roses all the year round. I grow my own lettuces, and play a rubber twice a week. Thank Heavens! stage coaches do not pass my door every hour-and my cottage is not near a market town. My neighbours consist of a shooting parson-an ill-tempered maiden lady, who keeps a school,- —an ungrammatical surgeon, and his son, who has literally walked the hospitals,- -one gentleman,-three jilts,-and a halfpay lieutenant. My taxes are moderate. They say that you repeat your lines, 2. Those who are doom'd to hear you through I remember that this epigram "made a great noise at the time," though the garrulous subject of it has long since ceased to echo himself, and the writer of it is gathered from a society, of which he was the life, to a far better and happier existence.-Ah, those were pleasant days!-Poor Jack Garnet, he used to wear ruffles, and to write extempore verses, but he is dead, for all his jokes!-Well! ject I had intended to address you But I am wandering from the subupon; however, garrulity is the verbial fault of age, and I do not pretend to be better than my neighproMr. Editor, I should put down my bours. If I had you now by my side, pen, and building my hands the one upon the other, discuss with you the are recorded by Mr. Campbell in his merits of divers poets, whose names late work, without any peculiar me rits on their side to justify such a record, and to the serious banishment of many a hapless genius, I have lately been lounging over this same book of Mr. Campbell's, and have been amusing myself, after a fashion, with his odds and ends of biography;-the work has made me melancholy, I fear,—for Mrs. Thomson, my housekeeper, (a descendant, I sometimes think, from the author of the Castle of Indolence) catches me now and then in low spirits over my souchong, and I often myself feel that I am either desponding or bilious.* Yesterday evening,—and I am now coming to the subject of my letter,yesterday evening I was perusing the life of Burns, which appears to have been written with more than common care, by the amiable author of the Pleasures of Hope;"-I was reading much in the spirit of the Exile of Erin's return to his home, when I came to the following passage ;"He (Burns) now prepared to embark for Jamaica, where his first situation would, in all probability, have been that of a negro-driver, when, before bidding a last adieu to his native country, he happily thought of publishing a collection of his poems. By this publication he gained about twenty pounds, which seasonably saved him from indenturing himself as a servant, for want of money, to procure a passage. With nine guineas out of this sum he had taken a steerage passage in the Clyde for Jamaica; and, to avoid the terrors of a jail, he had been for some time skulking from covert to covert. He had taken a last leave of his friends, and had composed the last song, which he thought he should ever measure to Caledonia, when the contents of a letter from Dr. Blacklock, of Edinburgh, to one of his friends, describing the encouragement which an edition of his poems would be likely to receive in the Scottish capital, suddenly lighted up all his prospects, and detained him from embarking." It appears, then, that we are indebted to mere chance for the works of one of the noblest poets of this or, perhaps, of any age; had the post failed (supposing the letter to have been committed to such a conveyance), or had the friend of Dr. Blacklock neglected to show that worthy man's eulogies to Burns, the life of the latter might have been lost in a land of sugar-canes. All those charming songs, which read like music, and which leave a melody in the heart, sweet as though Apollo had touched its sentient strings;-all those divine pieces of wit and tenderness and melancholy would have been silent for ever!-It is scarcely possible to believe that upon so slight an hair depended the life and gallant joy of "Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen." It almost seems that Fate could not have checked the brave and sweeping speed of such a mad-cap song! And who, when he saddens happily and dreamingly over those true-hearted lines,— Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear, Who can dwell upon the lone and melodious tenderness of these gentle verses, and ever believe that they might not have been !—I feel a second youth while reading them!-They appear to shed a young and charmed light over aged feelings!Could a burning clime have checked such a heart as Burns' from remembering and singing that "Sweet fa's the Eve on Craigie burn."-Could negrohair have made him forget that "Sae flaxen were her ringlets!" Alas Yes!-All these sweet watch-words of immortality owe their being to the chance breath of praise. Had Dr. Blacklock thrown down his penDuncan Gray would never have wooed Mary Morison would have danced unheeded through "the lighted ha',"- and silence would have trod the banks of Galla-Wata! I love Burns dearly; and I reverence the name of Dr. Blacklock. There are many instances in the lives of the poets, of the blessed ef Mr. S, my ungrammatical friend of the lancet, prefers the latter, and endeavours to counteract the effects of bad biography by bitter medicines. |