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ing. Of such a production, however, we can speak only in general it is written with more vigour than care, but it contains passages of the most touching description, and natural pathos. We give a specimen nearly at random.

Fathers, and mothers! this is what we lost:
Hopes are all wither'd, purposes all crost;

A moment's thunder-clap, and he has perished!
And villain Time will savagely demolish

Death's leavings,-cracking his fine forehead's polish,
And breaking-up the frame we nurs'd and cherished!
But this is not yet done :-

There still remains, though in the grave, OUR SON ;
His limbs are cold, but they are perfect still!
Sure not a creature yet hath pierc'd its way
To make commencement on his, precious clay,-
On him we could not save, to have its will.
Cold rains have fallen; he lies dark and damp,
While we sit dully round our fireside lamp:
Ah! he'd have edg'd himself a place
To let it shine upon his happy face!
That happy face, so mild, and fair,-
Oh, Paul !-our love, our ceaseless care!
Now, then, is the dismal but fit season,-
While yet he is, but is not here,-
To abjure forgetfulness, as heinous treason
To him I stretch'd upon the bier :
In the devotion of our broken spirits,
We swear to think upon his merits:
No change of fortune shall perplex us,
No other loss shall ever vex us;
Each living look, howe'er respected,
Shall be with his last look connected,
And all that seem'd worth counting on
Shall but remind us he is gone.
When conversation takes a flow,
We'll shuddering think of his pallid lips;
And when the sunshine spreads a glow,
We'll think how dreary death's eclipse

When it falls on the tender flowers of the earth,
Dear in their natures, and fair from their birth!
Life must run on, and wants must have their means,
But we will walk the field like one who gleans
After the sheaf is carried,-stooping low
For little; without heart or power to sow,
But picking what is scatter'd, as we downward go.
Life must run on,-but it will be through weeds
Alas, it has turn'd from the cheerful meads,
And sedgy and dull, no matter how short,
'Twill wear on its way to that gloo y port,

Where the sea of oblivion comes up on the coast,

And we shall sink where our child has been lost!' p. 7-10.

The following passage is powerfully written: the figure of
Death becoming the mourner's companion, reminds us of an
exquisite passage in Shakspeare, which probably suggested it.*
This midnight moment on his death-bed seem'd
The first and last,-the single point of life;
The Past was scattering like a vision dream'd
Of fading comfort, and of useless strife:
Pageants of pleasure, visitings of pain,
Mingled and melted like a phantom-train;
A Show that had been,-acting good and ill,-
Made exit now into a cloudy space,

Which all that ever would be could not fill,
For nature's seeds had there no growing place.
From all the Past a chasm did us part,--
The Future was cut off from earthly grace,
For here, 'twixt us and it, there was Death's dart,
About to pierce us nearer than the heart;
And we were failing in that chrystal face
Which was our very Souls' fair looking glass,
In which we saw forms shine, and fashions pass,
And where alone we could our living trace
Its mirror broken, life would show no more,
But all along the road, that stretch'd before,

Was Death,-dark Death! who, when our child was slain,
Would turn to us, never to part again,—

And walk with us,companion mute and chill,-
Through days, or years, up to the time to kill!
It shook him but a little,-twas soon o'er,-
He made one effort, and he made no more :
Life rippled as it left the shore it knew,
And the surge roughen'd as the wave withdrew :
We saw him struggle,-and we still look'd on,-
We saw him settle, and our child was gone!

'Gone!-is Paul gone? Oh, no! we see his form,-
But ah, that touch tells all.-He once was warm!
An instant has but past, and now we feel
A Power hath shut us out, and fixed a seal;
An instant has but past, and here are we
Parted from him by more than land or sea!
Two hours ago, and we could hear him speak,-
Two moments, and he breath'd, though 'twas in pain,-

* Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
'Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me ;
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
• Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
'Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
• Then, have i reason to be fond of grief.'

Queen Constance in "King John."

But now a passiveness is on his cheek,
He will not look,-he will not speak again 1
It fell on us like frost! and we were quell'd,
But passion roll'd below, and soon it heav'd,
And burst the icy heaviness and swell'd,
And went in riot forth, as glad to be reliey'd:
For he was blind, whose could check excess,-
And he was mute whose voice could sorrow bless."

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We must make room for one short extract more.
• Death hath a regal look,-it lies in state-
Its quietness is that of sovereign power;
'Tis placid in the certainty of fate,
And noble, for it hold not of the hour:
A guarding mystery its couch surrounds,
As though it rested far beyond our bounds.
They're tinsel trifles of which kings are proud,

pp. 30-33.

But there's deep majesty in that white shroud. pp. 39–40. There are doubtless some critical readers who will be disposed to think there is an excess in our Author's colouring, an exaggeration in the sentiments and feelings he describes, if not beyond what is natural, beyond what is consistent with strength of mind and manly character. Of this, however, the critic may not be the proper person to judge; let the father decide. Others may object to the quality of some of the sentiments, at least to their negative quality; but in perusing this poem, we considered ourselves as listening to a real history of feeling, rather than to a moral lesson; and we therefore deemed it reasonable that the Author should be allowed to give us the thoughts that came to his mind unsought, rather than the better considerations of which the subject admits, and which we hope it ultimately suggested.

How beautiful is the exclamation of Mr. Cecil on the loss of his child; "Part of myself is gone to heaven: Lord help what "remains to follow!"

The other poems exhibit the same originality of thought, with similar defects of taste in the style, as the principal poem. There is a little tincture, perhaps, of that affectation of originality, which assumes so ludicrous an appearance in some of Mr. Leigh Hunt's poems, and which appears to result from an excessive effort to be forcible. Such expressions as,

• The hubbub of the bursting-in affections,'

have no beauty whatever in our estimation, to redeem them from puerility; and such rhymes as struggling,' and 'juggling,' may be ingenious, but certainly, they are not pleasing. The most silly species of affectation, however, is the affectation of obscurity, as if that were the necessary attribute of the subVOL. VII. N.S.

3 C

lime. Mr. Scott will do well to avoid this petty vice in his future productions. A conception may be in itself very fine, but if it is not fully developed, it cannot deserve the name of poetry, for the essence of poetry is expression, and that wherein the poet principally differs from other men of imaginations equally vigorous, is in the power or art of expression; and expression, in order to be beautiful, must be perspicuous.

The following passage is, we think, faulty in this respect: the author's meaning lies too deep beneath the surface of his expressions; but there is, if we mistake not, considerable grandeur as well as moral beauty in the imagery. The title of the poem is,

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Instinct of the Spirit towards the Past.

• Destruction hath a power to fascinate,
Stronger than that by which it can appal;
Our nature drags us to the gulph of Fate,
To gaze adown its sides precipitate,
And wonder at the fragments of the fall!
There dwells, we know, our Being's Destiny-
And there the Past, and there the Future lie;
The Tree of Life hath sunken there its roots-
And, though the stem may flourish and rise high,
Its branches overhang, and drop their fruits
Back in the depth,-where only we espy,-
Away from earth,-all the earth's certainty.

Our footing is a line:the abyss includes
A vastness upon which the spirit broods;
Still hovering over where it must descend:
All that encourages, rewards, deludes,

Causes the stream of mortal thought to tend

To this great gulph,-where fact and fancy blend.

And hence the Soul is charm'd 'mongst heaps of stone,

Where Ruin lies, in ponderous state, alone;

And twilight, as his pall, is ever spread

As if from some unworldly place were thrown

The shadows of the long departed dead,

That stretch upon the air, from whence life's hue hath fled.",

In petty interests and selfish cares,

Our day is parcell'd out, estrang'd and poor;
It lasts by moments,-'tis enjoy'd in shares,
That little have to love, and less that's sure.
Lest men again the heavens should defy,
Frontiers, and creeds, and tongues, they multiply,
That Babel's scattering ever niay endure!
But, though a thousand streams at variance roll,
There is one ocean that receives the whole;
A mighty unity, whose dark profound
Is yet upbearing,-speaking but one sound,

Which echoes from the deepness of its breast;
And tracing out a path in its great round,

Where meet the North and South, the East and West;
So that extremest parts approach and kiss,

By help of this wild, fathomless, abyss!

And death is wild, and fathomless, and cold,-
Yet doth its awful waste invite the mind
To launch amongst its horrors,-steering bold,
O'er many à lost adventurer, to find

A sole assurance of our general kind.

A name that floats upon its 'whelming wave,
Or a small wreck of some long-founder'd freight,
Are precious prizes which men seek to save ;-
And o'er such fragments feel they more elate,
Than when full on them shines the pomp of living state!'

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pp. 54, 6. The Poem entitled Exercises of the Mind,' is a palpable imitation of Wordsworth's style, of whose poetry Mr. Scott is evidently a fervent admirer. There is something dazzling in the pompous diction of metaphysical poetry, but when we get at the real meaning that is enveloped in the picturesque hieroglyphics of which it consists, it generally proves to be wisdom of a very homely or unimportant description. It reminds us of the awful labyrinthine caverns, of which travellers tell us, which promise the imagination the disclosure of the most romantic wonders; but when penetrated to their inmost recesses, they present nothing but vast chambers of mysterious emptiness, which refer the baffled mind back to ages past for their origin and use.

Two short poems entitled "England," occupy the remaining pages.

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