rows and privations damped not the ardour of his soul, his poetic enthusiasm preserved him from sinking into despair. He journeyed on through Strasburg, Nancy, Verdun, Rheims, Luneville, and the chief cities that lay near his route, till he arrived at Calais, and having crossed the channel, once more breathed the pure, free air of his own beloved island. Having slept on his road from Dover in workhouses and in the open fields, he proceeded onward, pennyless and shoeless, and when he reached London he had been the whole day without food. To allay the dreadful-but to him then familiar-cravings of hunger, he went to Rag Fair, and taking off his waistcoat, he sold it for eightpence. Having purchased a penny-loaf and four pennyworth of writing paper, he entered a tavern, and calling for a pint of porter, proceeded to the writing, amid the riot and noise of a number of coalheavers and others, of such glorious effusions as

THE POET'S SABBATH.

"Sabbath! thou art my Ararat of life,
Smiling above the deluge of my cares,-
My only refuge from the storms of strife,

When constant Hope her noblest aspect wears,—
When my torn mind its broken strength repairs,
And volant Fancy breathes a sweeter strain.
Calm season! when my thirsting spirit shares
A draught of joy unmixed with aught of pain,
Spending the quiet hours 'mid Nature's green domain.

'Tis morn, but yet the full and cloudless moon
Pours from her starry urn a chastened light;
'Tis but a little space beyond the noon-
The still delicious noon of Summer's night;
Forth from my home I take an early flight,
Down the lone vale pursue my devious way,
Bound o'er the meadows with a keen delight,
Brush from the forest leaves the dewy spray,
And scale the toilsome steep, to watch the kindling day.

But lo, the stars are waning, and the dawn
Blushes and burns athwart the east ;-behold
The early sun, behind the upland lawn,
Looks o'er the summit with a front of gold;

Back from his beaming brow the mists are rolled,

And as he climbs the crystal tower of morn,

Rocks, woods, and glens their shadowy depths unfold;
The trembling dews grow brighter on the thorn,

And Nature smiles as fresh as if but newly born.

God of the boundless Universe! I come

To hold communion with myself and Thee!
And though excess of beauty makes me dumb,
My thoughts are eloquent with all I see;

My foot is on the mountains,-I am free,
And buoyant as the winds that round me blow!
My dreams are sunny as yon pleasant lea,
And tranquil as the lake that sleeps below;

While, circling round my heart, a poet's raptures glow.

Now the glad sun, from his ethereal throne,
Rains down the mid-day glory of his beams;
The skies sweep round me like an azure zone,-
Rolling in light the far-off ocean gleams;

;

The hills are clothed with splendour, and the streams
Flash with a quivering radiance here and there
Earth slumbers in the depth of summer dreams;
Mysterious murmurs stir the sultry air,

As if all Nature's breast throbbed with unuttered prayer.

Here Health and Piety, twin angels, shed
The healing influence of their hallowed wings;
Here joyous Freedom hovers round my head,
And young Hope whispers of immortal things;
Here lavish Music, dainty Ariel, flings
Mellifluous melody on every hand;

Here mild and many-featured Beauty brings
Dim visions of that undiscovered land,

Where the unshackled soul shall boundlessly expand.

Farewell, my pleasant dream! The sinking sun
Is burning in the bosom of the west;

The joyous lark whose vesper-hymn is done,
Folds his light pinions to his weary breast;

The clamorous rook is hovering round his nest—
The thrush sits silent on the thorny spray,—

The nectar-gathering bee is gone to rest-
The lonely cuckoo chants a lingering lay;

While I, with careless feet, go loitering on my way."

Prince had no sooner filled his paper than he carried it to a number of booksellers in the hope of selling his manuscript for a shilling or two. But, poor fellow, his looks were against him. Who but a poet would have expended half his wealth in buying writing materials, while his poor, weak body was sinking under fatigue and famine? A London tradesman has no greater horror than seeing a starved fellow creature enter his door. The men who would now stand bareheaded in his presence, showed him the way out. He found neither

money, nor sympathy for his sufferings. For two days did the poet wander amidst all the wealth and splendour of the vast metropolis, lying on the cold stones in gateways, or on the bare steps of the mansions of the affluent at night, meeting with no eye to pity, no hand to relieve. Here was this Great Man amidst two millions of human creatures, alone, the greatest man of them all, and the most miserable. On the third day, driven to despair, he left London and proceeded homeward-if we may use the term to one who had no home-applying for relief to the overseer of "merrie Islyngton," by whom he was thrust into the street, with kind permission to starve. But he had a buoyant heart and a robust frame, and at length, by untiring perseverance, he found his way to Hyde, "having slept by the way in barns, vagrant offices, under haystacks, and in miserable lodginghouses, with ballad-singers, match-sellers, and mendicants, fully realizing the adage of Shakspere, that misery makes a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows.' On his route from London, he ground corn at Birmingham, sung ballads at Leicester, lay under the trees at

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Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham, lodged in a vagrant office in Derby, made his bivouac at Bakewell, in Derbyshire, in a lock up,' and finally reached Hyde, but found, alas! it contained for him a home no longer." While he had thus been sceking the means to provide for his family, his wife had been unable to maintain herself, and she was discovered by the poor bard, with her three children, in the poor-house at Wigan. No high-minded man could by any possibility undergo a greater amount of suffering than fell to the lot of Critchley Prince, and yet he never murmured, but bowed in meek submission to Him who rules the destinies of all things.

Prince is not alone in misery; all poets have had more than other men. It is the lot of the man of genius to possess finer sensibilities and more acute emotions than the common race of mankind. There is to him a pervading gloom-a soft, tender melancholy,-unfelt by other men, which adds poignancy to the ordinary woes of life, creates imaginary sorrows, and oftentimes throws a shade over the brightest joy. And thus though he has pleasures more refined than to be tasted by vulgar minds, yet these are no equipoise to his peculiar griefs. Although he has delights that the world knows not of, his misfortunes are more than in proportion, for sorrow is his birthright. And yet how seldom has he from mankind that sympathy and applause which he craves and merits; nay, rather, how often is his fair fame blighted by the mildew of envy. We may, probably, be indebted to Prince's sufferings for his poetry, for Shelley says

"Most men

Are cradled into poetry by wrong,

They learn in suffering what they teach in song."

It is true that in the spring tide of life, when hope gives her blossoms, and fancy sheds around a thousand sweets, the poet cherishes most pleasurable emotions; but when the wintry storms of life break on him, he can more keenly feel the miseries of his lot. Wordsworth does but utter the experience of all his brethren when he says—

"We poets in our youth begin in gladness,

But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness." Old Homer, they tell us, was a beggar, and blind. Milton, we know, was blind and poor; so also was he, the last of his race, who exclaimed, “roll on ye dark brown years for ye bring no joy to the son of Fingal." If poets are not afflicted by nature, their fellow creatures amply make up for the mistake. Mankind has ever gloried in persecuting the great. The mightiest man of the thirteenth century, the immortal bard of Florence, was expelled his native city, and had to wander forth without a home in the wide world. He was condemned to be burnt alive. But these trials added force and intensity to his soul, and Dante astonished the world, and sung his own honours in "everlasting music." The immortal Spenser died at a low London ale house, without the means of paying for his lodging. It is said that his clothes were sold to pay for his bed and supper. Who can forget the sorrows of a Savage, or of a Chatterton? Poor Chatterton! he preferred suicide to starvation. He was offered no alternative. Collins died the victim of a broken heart. Burns-the glorious Burns-saw nothing in this life but disappointment and woe.

Did not Ovid, in the olden time, pour forth lamentations by the lonely

ocean

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Mourning his exile from imperial Rome?"

And was not Tasso doomed to writhe in chains in a gloomy dungeon far from the friends of his childhood?

Prince himself has sung of the unhappiness of the sons of the Muses:

"And where lies Keats, to whom was given

The rarest gift that moves the minds of men?
Beneath the blue of an Italian heaven,

Slain by the poison of the critic's pen.
These and a thousand more have wrestled hard,
Beneath Misfortune's unrelenting ban;
The selfish world withheld the due reward,-
Worshipped the poet, but o'erlooked the man.
Such is the Minstrel's lot; yet do not deem
That all things unto him are sad and cold;
For he hath joy amid the realms of dream,
And mental treasures which can not be told.
His is the universe-around, above,

Beauty is ever present to his eye;

He breathes the elements of hope and love,

And shrines his thoughts in words which ne'er will die.

When ills oppress he grasps the soothing lyre,

And throws his cunning hand athwart the strings,

Feels in his soul the pure etherial fire,

And links his language with eternal things.

Then who would change the Poet's dark career,

For all that power can grant, that wealth can give?
Man's common lot may be his portion here,

But when he dies he does not cease to live!"

Prince, however, has outlived his misfortunes, and brighter and happy days are in store for him. His years are at present but few; may his career be happy and glorious! The prevailing feature of Prince's Poetry is a fervent love of the beautiful; this is with him a passion, it pervades every thought, it is discoverable in every line. He has great powers of description; and in his writings are united two most opposite qualities-vigour and simplicity-intensity and repose. This is an excellence in which few have surpassed him. In every page we perceive the author's power; even when singing of what is humble and lowly he lifts us above the sphere of common and ordinary life, and carries us into the realms of fancy, where he roves free and unshackled as in his native element. And then his simplicity so heart-searching and sincere-it acts upon the soul like a spell, it is irresistible. There is nothing artificial in him; he is a true, genuine son of nature, full of benevolence and truth. His poems betray no indication of want either of scholarship or of refinement; but on the other hand, they bear indisputable evidence that their author is a real gentleman-one of Heaven's nobility. In bidding adieu for the present to John Critchley Prince, we thank him

for the delight which his Poetry has afforded us, and trust that, although his morning of life has been obscured in gloom and darkness, that the evening of his days may be bright and joyous.

an

In conclusion, we would remark, that the Poet can not be " ordinary man, but must form a grand contrast to the mass of mankind." He is great, intellectually great, and we feel that he is so. He is not one to whom life is a dream, who travels through this world to another in a pleasant somnambulency, dead to all reality, and whose pastime is to gambol with airy phantasms,-the creations of an unhealthy imagination: he is awake to all that passes around him; life to him is a great reality-a glorious Fact; he revels in beautyhe grasps at Truth. It is an inferior poetic temperament alone that is satisfied with fictitious pleasures-with artificial excitements; feelings which debase the soul, rather than ennoble it; which paralyse or destroy all the higher sympathies-all pure and virtuous emotions. "No cloak of selfishness," says Isaac Taylor, "is more impenetrable than that which envelopes a pampered imagination. The eyes that can pour forth their floods of commiseration for the sorrows of the romance or the drama, grudge a tear to the substantial wretchedness of the unhappy."

The joys of the true sons of genius, however, are the pure and genuine workings of the soul; they expand the bosom with beneficent energy; they call into activity all the softening influences of sacred love. The true Poet thinks and acts with an irresistible impulse, a "terrible earnestness." He dives into the deepest deep of beauty. His passions are not small, feeble, ordinary; all his emotions, hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, are not like other men's-they differ in kind as well as in quality. I have said that the Poet's distinguishing characteristic is mental superiority. It is the intellect which makes a Poet, not his passions, which are merely the machinery of the intellect. He appears to others to be unconscious of this superiority. True greatness is always thus. The great man has discovered how much he has to learn; what he has learned is as nothing compared with what lies hid: he knows enough to feel that he has all yet to learn. The little man has not learned enough to know the amount of his own ignorance; he is not aware that there is more to be known than the nothing he carries about in his own un-developed scullpiece. He is in all things small; he has no vision; he cannot judge of what is great and glorious in nature or in art; he prizes highly things of no value-he prizes himself. Self is his deity, and at its shrine he worships. These are to him pleasing hallucinations; nor does he wish to be undeceived, for ignorance is his only bliss. The rush-light of his no-intellect is quenched by the extinguisher of self-conceit, and the result is darkness, smoke, and an unpleasant

"He is a thing hollow, superfluous, altogether an insincere and offensive thing." Dr. Walcot calls this species of men

"Puppies! who, though on idiotism's dark brink,
Because they've heads dare fancy they can think."

T. T., JUN.

City of London Institution.