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Submit this description of music to one who has no soul for poetry, and he will tell you that it not sense, that it is a sad jumble of disconnected and incoherent ideas, and that although it may be a correct metaphor to liken darkness to "the raven's down," yet music could not smooth its surface," nor could "darkness smile." Now I admit that Milton is not here logically true, and that the figure cannot be submitted to any rules of criticism; yet we, nevertheless, bow before the genius which could give birth to a thought whose very extravagance is beauty; and while we cannot prove its truth, we feel it.

I come next to speak of Passion. Passion is indispensable to the poet. It has by some been mistaken for Imagination, but they are totally distinct in their character. Passion may exist without imagination, although imagination is usually accompanied by passion. The poet whose passion is most impetuous, is always the greatest favorite with the world-he conquers mankind, for he speaks the language of the heart. Passion is a mighty power which impels imagination and sustains her in her lofty flights. The poet who would live in the memory of man, must combine taste and judgment with passion; and passion without the higher faculties of imagination, and fancy, although it may endow him with an ephemeral reputation, and enable him to astonish and dazzle for the time, can never entitle him to rank with those whose honours increase as time progresses, and who have won to themselves an abiding immortality. Byron is a poet of passion, and had his imagination been equally vigorous, he might have ranked with Milton and Shakspere.

"Could I embody and unbosom now

That which is most within me-could I wreak
My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw

Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings strong or weak,

All that I would have sought, and all I seek,

Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe-into one word,

And that one word were lightning, I would speak!—
But as it is I live and die unheard,

With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword."

This is passion, but nothing more. The highest examples of real passion in the whole range of English literature are contained in Shakspere's tragedy of King Lear. Here the Poet revels in passion; here is an impetuosity, a force, which carries everything before him. When Lear calls upon the Heavens to avenge his wrongs, "for they are old like him;" when he curses Gonerill," May she feel how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child! Away! away!" or when he exclaims "Do not laugh at me; for, as I am a man, I think this lady to be my child Cordelia ;" and she cries "And so I am, I am!" Shakspere carries passion to sublimity. "The explosions of his passion are as terrible as a volcano: they are storms turning up, and disclosing to the bottom the rich ocean of his mind, with all the glitter of its wondrous wealth."

Jun.

T. T.,
City of London Institution.

201

LÜTZEN; A BALLAD.

PART I THE MARCH.

COME, Memory, whisper of the deathless dead,
The doers of great deeds, in time no more;
Come, bright eyed Spirit, who, in years long fled,
From Mulla's grassy haunts bade Spenser soar
To worlds more fair than mortal eye e'er saw,

Who by sweet haunted Avon's murmuring stream
Cam'st down to dwell with him whom all adore,
World-worshipped Shakspere, and in many a dream
Did'st bid, his fixed dilated eyes before,

Clad in the garb of frail mortality,

The stormy passions rise-people once more
With thronging forms, for me, void vacancy!
Come, winged Imagination, come! for me

Call up the buried past-bid those who are not, be.

"Now, by the God in whom I trust, this Wallenstein shall know
He may not beard the Lion thus and 'scape without a blow,
I long this proud Duke to unearth: Kniphausen say no more!
Saxe Weimar we will meet in fight, this thunderbolt of war.
I'll see in open field how well he merits his high name,
And strike on Lützen's plain a blow for Saxony and fame;

The prey lies prostrate at his feet, his black bands wait the word,
And gloat o'er looked-for spoil, and shrieks that never may be heard.
Let fiery Pappenheim march on, and, furious, curse the day

On which he led from Lützen's field his cuirassiers away.

Give orders for our instant march, they know not we are near,

They'll know when rolls our musquetry, and bursts our charging cheer."
Thus spoke our sovereign lord the king, the Lion of the North-
Hurrah! Gustavus leads again his Swedes to battle forth.
"Tis a cold dark November night-the heavy fog lies low,
Yet who rejoices not to hear," Fall in to meet the foe?"
With one rejoicing bound to arms our dauntless soldiers spring,
The rescued towers of Naumberg with shouts and laughter ring.
Now let Holk's butchering Croats keep a sharp look-out to-night,
Nor soundly dream of Saxon spoil till waked to death or flight;
These sackers of proud Magdeburgh may chance ere morn to find
That vengeance, long delayed but sure, was tracking them behind;
These slaughterers of women, of infants, and the old,
May wake to shriek for mercy they only give for gold.

We swear these brigands shall receive the mercy that they show,
The quarter of New Brandenburgh, sharp-thrust and home-struck blow.
Hurrah!-he from whom Tilly fled will crush this Wallenstein,
And make the name of Lützen known as Breitenfeldt has been.

Hours pass, and still the frozen earth gives back our measured tramp,
Day will be up and Night have fled long ere we reach their camp.
A thousand curses on the long rough road we've had to tread,
Those fleecy clouds already in the east are tinged with red!
And hark! there speaks a cannon from yon tower of Weissenfels,
Again, again, that thundering voice our march to Friedland tells.
They mark us as from these defiles pours forth our speeding host,
See! Collerado fast withdraws his Croats from their post;

His fleetest horsemen, like the wind, are spurring o'er the plain,
And Wallenstein shall learn we come ere one will tighten rein.
This moon-gazer will find those fierce hard riders better far,
For warning him of our approach, than planet, fiend, or star.
Yet, oh! Lord Duke, you well may on both saints and devils call-
Gustavus comes! God wot, I'll swear you'll need the aid of all.

Splash, splash: the Emperor's self could not wish us a road much worse-
The plough that turned these clods and he who drove it take my curse-
I'm ankle deep each step I move. Why, Comrades, 'tis past noon,
And Lützen seems to fly from us-we shall not reach it soon,

For hours have passed since yon tall spire first met my gladdened eye,
Long leagues our weary feet have trod, and yet it seems not nigh;

If over many miles of this ploughed land is laid our way,

A dollar to a creutzer we shall not fight to-day.

Our ranks have lost the bounding step with which they marched at morn,
We shall not fight the worse, I trow, for sleeping till the dawn,

No chance now of surprising them, our dauntless king must own,
Long ere this hour our coming to Friedland has been known;
Well, courage will achieve as much as craft could ever do.
He who would fain have played the Fox can play the Lion too.

No chance of victory to-day-the sun is in the west,
The narrow bridge too o'er yon swamp admits but two abreast.
The last faint lingering light of day will be departing fast,
Ere of our long array the whole across its stream have past.
I guess there'll be hot work too, ere that narrow bridge we cross.
Look! yonder flying Croats pause before our passing horse.
They will be on them ere the whole upon the plain enlarge!

God, strike with those who strike with Thee. They halt! they form! they charge!

Now gallant Swedes, now dauntless Scots, wait not for trump or drum,
Like thunder on their squadrons burst as on they charging come.
Look! noble Stalhouse forms our line, against the foe they pour,
As rush the Baltic's roaring waves against its rock-bound shore.
Hurrah! they burst upon them, and back their squadrons sweep,
As Norway's craggy cliffs fling back the billows of the deep.
The butchering Croats waver-the dastards, see, they fly!
Strike home, they spare none, now in vain let them for mercy cry.
Who gallops towards our noble king? He spurs his foaming steed
As if the life and death of all hung on his furious speed.
I know him by his snowy plume, Saxe Lauenburgh, 'tis he;
He comes!-he flings himself to earth. What may his tidings be?
"Great king, their standard bearer bore him bravely in the strife,
He sought to turn the routed foe, and lost his flag and life.
Accept it as an omen of the fate of Lützen's fight,

Like yonder horse will Friedland fly before to-morrow's night.
Ha, ha! the Croats' pennon bears that which much they lack,
The fools brought Fortune with them, but failed to take her back."
"My thanks, brave Duke, it must be so, to doubt I will not yield,
And, if I live, I'll thank thee then, upon that nobler field."
Gustavus turus: marked you his tune had more of grief than mirth?
And, as a summer cloud's light shade floats o'er the sun-lit earth,
Across his noble brow the glow of sadness seemed to steal,
And chase the gladness far away success had made him feel?
I never saw him thus before the news of victory greet.
Pray Heaven it bode no harm to him-no need to fear defeat !

Well, Lützen's long-sought plain we've reached with weary limbs at last,
As the faint light of lingering day is westward speeding fast;
But for the fog we should descry the foe, they must be near.
Yonder they stand-they see us too-their call to arms I hear,
The gathering mist is thickening-now their ranks are lost to sight-
Darkness comes down upon the plain, to-day we shall not fight.
Hark to the order-" Halt-to prayer." Now well may every one
Pray that he lie not stark and cold ere sinks to-morrow's sun-
For hearts are throbbing high with hope in many a gallant breast,
That death's cold hand ere one day pass shall freeze to ceaseless rest.
Well, thus I'd rather die than drag on life till I am hoary.
If I must die let life be given for king, for God, and glory.
With pike at head, and gun at hand, now sleep till breaks the light,
To-morrow's bloody work will ask an untired arm. Good night.

W. C. B.

TACT AND TALENT.
CHAPTER III.

"Beware of them, Diana! their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens."-
ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

"AND SO Letty has come home from school," mused Charles Sandon, as he rode towards his uncle's residence at Hampstead. "I wonder if she is much changed. They say she is growing quite a woman; but I hope she has not thrown away her innocent gaiety, and learned to look demure and formal. And yet I should not mind how cold she grew to all the world, so that to me her voice was soft and kind, and her smile sunny and joyous." But I have some scruples, gentle reader, about playing eaves-dropper to the private thoughts of persons who wish to keep their own counsel; therefore we will accompany the rider to his uncle's house, and wait patiently the development of circumstances. The servant took his horse at the gate, while he walked round to the side door, which he opened and entered with the air of a familiar and frequent visitor. On the hall table lay a bonnet and shawl, and a small, very small, glove. It must be an elegant hand which owned it; and so thought Charles Sandon, as with a quickened pulsation of the heart he opened the parlour door. "Where is Letty-where is my cousin?" said he; and a light step bounded across the room to meet him. Her appearance was indeed changed, having become considerably taller and more womanly, while her dark-brown hair, which used to fall about her shoulders in the careless ringlets of unpretending girlhood, was now gathered into a Grecian braid at the back of the head-except a few tresses which were left to play upon her cheek, and fall on her graceful neck. Charles Sandon immediately exclaimed that he had never seen any one so improved in so short a time. And then her spirits were as light and buoyant as ever, time had not changed them; and as she laughed and talked of her pleasure at returning home, and her joy at seeing her dear cousin again, and looked innocently into his face with her glad bright eyes, he felt, notwithstanding his previous wishes, that he should have been happier if her pleasure had been more subdued-if she had taken pains to hide, and yet had betrayed

it. The father felt a pride which none but fathers know, as he watched her every motion, and listened to her every word: and when she left the room to dress (for they were going that evening to a party at the Sinclairs), he could contain his feelings no longer. "Charles," said he, "perhaps it is only a father's foolishness, but I feel very proud of that girl; she is so gifted and full of spirits, yet so gentle and affectionate, that I do feel very proud of her."

"And you well may, uncle," replied Charles," I don't see how you could help it. What will that man feel who is happy enough to obtain her for his wife?"

"Aye, she will make some one very happy by-and-by, no doubt," replied the father; "but not yet awhile. She is quite a child yet, only sixteen, you know, Charles; four or five years hence will be time enough for her to begin to think of such things."

"You have perhaps observed, uncle," said Charles, "that my affection for Letty is not that of a mere cousin. I have watched the gradual development of her mind, and more than that, of her heart : I need not tell you that the more I see of her, the more I love her. May I be assured that should I succeed in gaining her love, I shall meet with no opposition from you?" The father fixed his eyes upon the carpet, and remained for some time silent. At length he raised his head, and cast a searching look on his nephew. "Have you ever said anything to her of your feelings, or hopes for the future ?” Charles assured him he had not. "It is well," he replied; "she is but a child, and should not have her unsophisticated mind poisoned with the flatteries of a lover. Poor thing! it is time enough yet for her to begin to feel she is a woman. Look ye, Charles: I believe you to be an honourable young man, and one in every respect worthy of the girl; but then, it is quite preposterous now; besides, it would spoil the child to put such things in her head. Promise me you will not teach her, by any means, that your love towards her is more than that of a cousin, till I give you leave; and, some day, Charles, some day—————"

"You will not refuse me your consent! A thousand thanks for that hope. Uncle! you may trust me: I will not betray your confidence in me."

When they reached the Sinclairs', a great part of the company had already arrived; and Charles Sandon was not a little surprised to see his friend Wyliehart among the guests. He was evidently exerting himself to the utmost to fascinate the prima donna of the eveningthe handsome but haughty Miss Sinclair : it was also evident that he made no impression, except that he annoyed her with his importunities, and wearied her with his conversation. Charles was amused at his perseverance, and had made his way to the recess, where they were standing, in order to whisper a word of badinage in Wylie hart's ear, when he caught the sound of Miss Sinclair's voice, speaking in no very flattering tone. "I thank you, Sir," said she, with a curl of the lip, "for the great distinction you confer upon me, but if you begin to boast of your monopoly, it is high time it should be done away with. I am sorry I cannot dance with you to-night: I am engaged for the rest of the evening." And the proud girl swept away from him with a majestic and disdainful air, which made him feel for a moment, and but for a moment, how contemptible he was in her

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