LITERARY CRITICISM. Summer and Winter Hours. By Henry Glassford Bell. 8vo. Pp. 174. London: Hurst, Chance, and Co. Edinburgh: Henry Constable. 1831. THE author says in his preface,-" This volume has been entitled 'Summer and Winter Hours,' because its contents are, in truth, the fruits of such hours, snatched at intervals from literary pursuits of a graver and more Continuous, though not more congenial, kind. The author was desirous of publishing a selection of his fugitive pieces, more as an intimation of his poetical existence, than as any attempt to prove himself entitled to the highest honours of the Muse. If he live, he will put his capabilities as a poet to a more ambitious and arduous test." It seems to us that the best way of reviewing a work like this, will be to present our readers with pretty copious extracts, prefixing to each a brief statement of the view with which it has been selected, and closing the whole with a sketch of the peculiar character of mind and talents which they evince. Our first quotation shall consist of some passages from a poem entitled "Mary, Queen of Scots," in which the author has judiciously selected the most picturesque and characteristic events of the various stages of that unhappy lady's history, and made them succeed each other like a beautiful gallery of portraits. The first fragment is highly graphic, and breathes at the same time a spirit of peace and happiness; the second is not less picturesque, but more powerful and elevated; the third has all the melody and solemnity of a requiem. "It was a stately convent, with its old and lofty walls, And gardens with their broad green walks, where soft the footstep falls; And o'er the antique dial-stones the creeping shadow past, And, all around, the noonday sun a drowsy radiance cast. No sound of busy life was heard, save from the cloister dim, The tinkling of the silver bell, or the sisters' holy hymn. And there five noble maidens sat beneath the orchard trees, In that first budding spring of youth, when all its prospects please; Price 6d. And traitors to her councils came, and rebels to the field; The Stuart sceptre well she sway'd, but the sword she could not wield. She thought of all her blighted hopes-the dreams of youth's brief dayAnd summon'd Rizzio with his lute, and bade the minstrel play The songs she loved in early years,-the songs of gay NaThe songs, perchance, that erst were sung by gallant Chatelar: They half beguiled her of her cares, they soothed her into They won her thoughts from bigot zeal, aud fierce domestic But hark! the tramp of armed men! the Douglas' battlecry! varre, smiles, broils I knew the eye, though faint its light, that once so brightly Even now I see her far away, in that calm convent aisle, away; Her neck is bared-the blow is struck-the soul has pass'd The following passage, from the ballad of "The King's Daughter," is a beautiful and unaffected picture. Rosalie's lover has just told her that he must forsake her for a royal The weight of royalty had press'd too heavy on her brow; bride. "There was a smile on Rosalie's lip, But a tear in her blue eye shone; "And down fell her ringlets of chestnut hair, And she hid her face in her lover's arms, "Then slowly rose she in her bower, "She flung her golden ringlets aside, And a deep blush crimson'd her cheek,- "Thou wert not born for a cottage, love, Nor yet for a maiden of low degree; Thou wilt find thy mate in the King's Daughter- There is much truth to nature in "The Altered House." "Old man! I pray thee, tell me why that house, To claim them for his own. A doom is on them. Upon the summer threshold of their years They fade and wither, just when life is strong, And the bright world in broader vistas lies.'” "Lines on leaving a Summer Residence" are concei ve in a mingled spirit of playfulness and deeper thought,of indulgence in pleasing retrospection, slightly tinged with sarcasm, which leaves a relish on the critical palate. We could have wished something else substituted in lieu of the fourth line of the first stanza, which strikes us as a forced conceit; and of the "eagle glance" in the first line of our second fragment quoted below, which looks like attempting to give energy by dint of strong words-two faults of rare occurrence in Mr Bell's poetry. "Adieu, my merry-hearted friends! adieu, with scarce a sigh, My absence will not cloud one brow, nor dim one sparkling eye: We met in smiles-why part in tears? In this brief world of ours, The natural sun should not be hid by artificial showers. "It may be, that, in after times, a thought will sometimes rise Because no more within my soul there dwell Thoughts fresh as flowers that fill the mountain dell With innocent delight; Because I am aweary of the strife That with hot fever taints the springs of life, "Why is my spirit sad? Alas! ye did not know the lost-the dead, Ye never stood with us 'neath summer skies, "Why is my spirit sad? I see that others, in whose looks are lit "I would not be less sad! My days of mirth are past. Droops o'er my brow The present is around me ; There are only one or two pieces which we could have wished omitted. "The Scarf of Gold and Blue," and "The Dark Knight," are well enough; but they are little more than repetitions of the old story of chivalry, love, and bravery. They are pretty, but deficient in character and human interest. Our objections to "The Uncle-a Mystery," and the "Tale of the Desolate," are The passion is strained and exag Of all our merry summer freaks beneath the summer skies; of a graver nature. And, with a soft and painless sigh, some rose-lipp'd girl may say, I would that he were here to-night,-that wild one far away! gerated, the incidents are after the vulgar, horrible fashion of Lewis's Tales of Terror. This is an unhealthy style of literature, most alien to the manly tone of Mr Bell's mind. With these exceptions, the volume before us is altogether of a pleasing and superior cast,-of a character which is pretty fairly represented by the specimens we have submitted to the reader. The most prominent features of Mr Bell's poetry, as far as we can judge from the volume now before us, are manly vigour and clearness; just, and often impassioned feeling; great power of picturesque description; and sound judgment. We know that these characteristics are by no means expressed, with the full power in which they are possessed by him, in the fugitive pieces now before us; but we scarcely imagine that any person will peruse the volume without finding bold and distinct traces of them. From a mind so constituted, and so enthusiastically bent upon distinguishing itself, we anticipate, in the future, productions of no ordinary merit. We may be allowed, in noticing the work of one who has been identified with this Journal from its commencement till a very recent period, to venture upon an expression of private feeling-a liberty which our readers may rest assured we shall but rarely take with them. We would observe that the frank spirit in which we have criticised this book, is a test of that rigid control of all individual bias (as well friendly as inimical) that shall ever mark our critical judgments. At the same time, we esteem it a high compliment to him, in whose strength of mind we have sufficient confidence to venture upon a free and unexaggerated expression of our opinion, without fear that the slightest scurf should dim the brightness of his friendship. It is indeed with no slight effort that we have kept ourselves from expressing our opinion of the author, rather than of a work which, however beautiful, we know he considers but as the voice of his unbended moments. We have stood side by side with Mr Bell for some time, and know him to be a man of strong natural genius, energetic in his character, warm and constant in his affections. He has-by his own talent and activity backed by no wealthy and influential publisher-by no great name in literature-established this Journal in a fair repute and extended circulation. It is now clear of the land, and in the deep and safe sea, where it will be comparatively easy to steer its course. How his successor in command shall acquit himself, time alone can show. He is gratified to think, that while most of the old friends and contributors of the Journal continue their assistance, some new ones have already been gained. For his own part, he pledges himself to unwearied exertion and fearless independence. He seeks no patron but the public, and from it all that he asks is a free field and no favour. The History of France. By Eyre Evans Crowe. Vol. II. (Being the Cabinet Cyclopædia, Part XV.) London : Longman, Rees, and Co. 1831. MR CROWE'S second volume brings down the history of France from the assassination of Henri IV., in 1610, to the Legislative, or second National Assembly, in 1792. This is the most important period in the whole history of France. That which preceded it shows the gradual tendency of an unorganized state towards a constitution. | Itself shows the gradual consolidation of a despotic, and consequently a bad one, together with its necessary end, a bloody and disgraceful dissolution. That which has succeeded has not yet come to its close-the mazy turns and intricacies of the portentous drama, are yet but half unravelled; its end we cannot even conjecture, although amid all its violence, and worse, amid the vacillation and imbecility of the greater part of those who live in it, there is cheering appearance of good gaining, by slow degrees, the ascendency over evil. It may, perhaps, be not altogether displeasing to some of our readers if we illustrate a little more at length our opinion of the tendencies of the first and second period of French history-the first extending to the consolidation of the empire under Henri IV.,—the second to the overthrow of the monarchy by the Revolution. Without attention to the bias which the working of these preceding ages had given to the character of Frenchmen and the constitution of their state, (and they have hitherto been turned to only by partisans, either of factions or systems, who sought, by a distorted representation of them, to bolster up their own theories,) the true nature and probable effects of that apocalyptic chapter, the French Revolution, can never be comprehended. The first rude government of France was, like that of every state that arose upon the ruins of the Roman Empire, a mere compromise. Its efficacy depended entirely upon the personal character of the sovereign. The kingdom was nominally under a monarch. The various districts into which it was necessary to portion it out, with a view to the enforcing of law and police, were under the control of delegates appointed by the crown. These, however, men of large property and influence, and remote from the sovereign, gradually arrogated to themselves an undue share of power. The provinces became in reality so many federate states, owning a shadow of allegiance to one common head. But there were, moreover, scattered plentifully through the kingdom, large and populous cities, little states of themselves, which had preserved their separate existence amid the wreck of a former empire, and had been received, with their republican institutions, and the right of self-government, into the bosom of the state. There were, therefore, even in that rude age, when the rights of man were words unbreathed, undreamed of, rights of property and independence vested in individuals ready to contend for them, and to tell an encroaching sovereign," Remove not the ancient landmarks which thy fathers have set.' The kings had then no greater permanent forces at their command than their personal domains enabled them to support. Their only means of attaining a commanding attitude was to conciliate as many of the magnates of the realm as enabled them to overawe and repress the remainder. This was no regulated constitution, but a compromise between anarchy and despotism, each watching its moment to snatch the ascendency. Under the feeble monarchs who held the sceptre during the wars of England, the nation seemed resolved into a thousand petty principalities. Under Louis XI., and again under Francis I., men of energy, the will of one was the law. Under the descendants of the latter it again relapsed into anarchy. When confusion had reached its greatest height, Henri IV. and Sully arose to construct a new state out of the fragments of the old. The progress of learning and of the Reformation had introduced an inextricable confusion into the factions which agitated France. Religious hatred had arrayed the nation under two hostile banners. It was no longer the nobles jealous of the communities of the burghers, and seeking to crush them: the Catholic peer was linked to the Catholic citizen. It was no longer family feuds alone that banded the magnates of the realm against each other: those of one faith were called upon to merge their private animosities in devotion to the cause of their party. But, under this seeming unity, the elements of discord were busy at work. Many, who rallied round the Huguenot standard, cared little for religiontheir concealed object was political liberty. Many a nobleman was confirmed in his faith by hatred of a rival house. Hence, distrust among allies, faithlessness, and desertion. Men lost sight of the great objects, to attain which the struggle had commenced. Their hearts grew cold. But although the nation sighed for peace, its intestine broils seemed as interminable as their cause had become indefinite. All parties had confidence in the honour and integrity of the king and his minister. They were willing to give up their own rights, provided their antagonists were placed in no better situation. Thus the immunities and privileges of the whole kingdom were surrendered into the monarch's hands. The commencement of the second era finds the French womanhood, unenforced by either firmness or sagacity," king the only recognised source of power and legislation we are fully entitled to call in question the depth and in the state. The legislative assemblies of the provinces sagacity of his mind. When we find inferences like the and the kingdom have fallen into abeyance. The muni- following, we are entitled to doubt his logical acuteness: cipalities have been deprived of their corporate rights." In the elections for the tiers état, or commons, we find The only remnant of a privilege in the hands of the subjects was the federal assembly of the Huguenots. The powers vested in this body were, however, too great to be consistent with the preservation of order in any nation. They never could be contemplated as permanent. They were the mere result of a want of ability or will in the majority of the nation to compel the minority at once to unconditional acquiescence in the new constitution. Such a state of affairs could not last; but must terminate either in the subversion of government, or the suppression of an anomalous imperium in imperio. By the skilful management of the court, the reformers were gradually disunited and disarmed, and finally subdued. The boast of Louis XIV. became a political truth-in France the king was the nation. The task of the author who undertakes to write the history of such a system of government, from its establishment under Henri IV. till its overthrow under Louis XVI., is neither easy nor unimportant. He is called upon to paint the gradual reduction of the citizens and peasantry to a state of mere animal existence; of the nobility, to the condition of imbecile and haughty intriguers. He must show-not in vague statements of generalities, as is admissible in the essayist, but by a concise, well-arranged selection of ascertained facts, which paint the state of society-the gradual formation of character in the two classes. The modifications further superinduced by the varying character of the rulers, must, moreover, be clearly shown:-the effects of the stern despotism of Richelieu (Louis XIII. was king but in name); of the vainglorious self-will of Louis XIV.; of the dissolute habits of the Regent and Louis XV. The reader must be made to see how the kingdom was governed by physical, not by moral force-how, when the expensive habits of the court, by introducing irretrievable confusion into the finances, loosened the grasp of power, there was no hold left to restrain the wild will of an untutored populace. Above all, he must be made to see that the aspirations after all that is generous and good, which literature can cherish even in the most demoralised societies, when unwedded to practical views of life, and confirmed habits of self-government, become the most dangerous elements in popular commotions. In short, this period of French history, if properly treated, cannot fail to be a clear demonstration of the fatal effects of a despotic government, and its inevitable tendency to break down into anarchy. Mr Crowe has entirely failed in producing such a bhistory. His narrative is a succession of anecdotes smartly told; of remarks sometimes ingenious-always showy; of chronological notices of the births and deaths of princes; the favour and disgrace of ministers; of occasional fragments of statistical detail. But there is no continuous narrative of the nation's progress in civilisation, or retrograde movements-no clear views of its constitution, laws, and manners. The book is good enough for such as read merely with a view to obtain such superficial knowledge as may enable them to talk plausibly in society; but it is not a history of France from which solid or satisfactory information is likely to be derived. We are not much addicted to verbal criticism, regarding it in most instances as low, captious, and quibbling. It may, however, occasionally be turned to account; in as far as an author's style is sometimes indicative of the peculiarities of his mind. When, for example, we find an author endeavouring to be striking by the use of outof-the-way words and phrases, such as "legists," "he intervened with success in the squabbles of the different orders," or attempting to supply strength of thought by strength of language, in phrases like "she was simple those chosen to represent the people, to be universally either lawyers or financiers; the only two issues indeed for the plebeian to rise to eminence. Hence it was that in past times of trouble, when the great towns stood forth in support of liberty, butchers and men of vile trades were its leading supporters; and their ferocity marred the cause more than their zeal aided it." What necessary connexion there is between lawyers being the representatives of the commons, and butchers their leading patriots, is more than our sagacity can discern. Again, when we find him successfully enunciating in general terms an important moral truth, but losing himself under a cumbrous heap of vague imagery when he seeks to illustrate it, we may be sure that his mind is deficient in clearness and comprehensiveness. Of such failures, the following passage is an apt instance: "Had Richelieu, with all his genius and sagacity, undertaken for liberty what he achieved for royalty, his age would have rejected, or misunderstood him, as it did Bacon and Galileo. He might, indeed, as a man of letters, have consigned such a political dream to the volume of an Utopia, but from action or administration, he would soon have been discarded as a dreamer. Liberty must come of the claim of the mass; of the general enlightenment, firmness and probity. It is no great physical secret, which a single brain finding may announce and so establish it is a moral truth, which, like a gem, hides its ray and its preciousness in obscurity, nor becomes refulgent till all around it is beaming with light." Lastly, when we find a man gravely laying down a mistaken notion as an ascertained fact, we may fairly doubt his acquaintance with his subject. "The great cities of France," says Mr Crowe, "had never succeeded in obtaining any thing like chartered right." We think our readers will, after perusing these specimens, admit that there is a presumption in favour of the judgment we now pass upon Mr Crowe:-He is a writer of considerable liveliness; of right feeling, and possessed of rather more than an average share of the information now so generally diffused; but he is totally deficient in the great requisites of a historian. : We have spoken rather favourably above of his powers as a story-teller. Here is a specimen : BRISACH. "The name of this town reminds us not to pass over the celebrated father Joseph, a Capuchin friar, the follower and confidant of Richelieu. We can scarcely imagine a statesman and an ambassador clothed in a monk's frock less mingled in all the intrigues of the French court, and its and sandals: yet such was father Joseph-a name more or negotiations with others. His influence was known, and he was dreaded by the court as a kind of evil spirit; in fact the demon of Richelieu. Although the latter never procured for his monkish friend the cardinal's hat, which he demanded, still the people called father Joseph his 'grey eminence,' at once to distinguish him from, and assimilate him to, his red eminence' the cardinal. They had been friends from youth; congenial spirits in ambition, depth, and talent; the monk, however, sacrificed his personal elevation to that of the cardinal. Richelieu was much indebted to him:-it was Joseph that roused and encouraged him, when stupified and intimidated by the invasion of Picardy; and it was said that, after his death, Richelieu showed neither the same firmness nor sagacity. When father Joseph was on his deathbed, Richelieu stood by it: it was a scene such as a novelist might love to paint. The conversation of the two ecclesiastics was still of this world; and the cardinal's last exhortation to the expiring monk was, Courage, Father Joseph, Brisach is ours!' a form of consolation characteristic of both." THE mocking-bird, we are told by naturalists, has no notes of its own, but imitates felicitously those of every other feathered vocalist. There are an immense number of mocking birds among the "sweet singers" of our day. The writings of this class of the great natural family of poets remind us of an opera by Bishop-pretty in its general effect, but with almost every successive passage reminding us of a different composer. In perusing their well-turned couplets, we are continually tempted to saythat's Moore, that turn is Coleridge all over, these are Scott's octosyllables. The poetry of a mocking-bird is of that kind which constitutes nice light summer reading for young ladies. It is always musical, and never overburdened with meaning. It is like the drowsy and monotonous hum of gnats in a summer evening. It might be read with great pleasure and delight by the dwellers in Thomson's Castle of Indolence. We mean Mr Riddell is a mocking-bird—an elegant and amiable one, and yet but a mocking-bird. We do not mean that he sits down with a deliberate and forethought felonious intent to perpetrate plagiarism,-that he is aware his versification as well as his thoughts are but the echoes of the poet's voices he has read ringing in his ears, after he has forgot the source they were derived from. simply, that the native and unaided powers of Mr Riddell's mind never would have prompted or enabled him to build the lofty rhyme. But he has an ear capable of feeling pleasure in the jingle of versification; and, having some odd snatches of rhyme and metre stored up in his memory, he is enabled to string them into a plausible whole, which is his own in virtue of the arrangement and fitting of the different parts, although not one of them is original. Even had our author possessed more originality of thought and versification, we should have objected to his writing of the subject he has attempted to grapple with, in the style he has done. There is an austerity about the simple grandeur of the primeval records of our race, unsusceptible of expression in that dancing and luscious verse, which is so well adapted to the butterfly passions and adventures of a vale of Cashmere. The destruction of a world-the simple grandeur of the rescued patriarchs—— have no alliance with " gushings" and " flushings," with "stealings" and revealings.' We cannot fancy the wife of Ham, sitting in the ark with a clairshach on her knee, singing such an Irish melody as the following: 66 "These ringlets yet are dark and long, And the eye has lost not all its light, Though it might not aye its tears among Be all so blue and all so bright, As yet it seem'd, ere the lily white Had chased the shadow of the rose, That they told (who told?)—if e'er they told aright- Ere this fading form had ceased to stand The man who attempts to paint the deluge by introducing a young lady whimpering over the reminiscences of fancy balls, can have little of the deep and hallowed feeling of a poet about him. Noah's anthem seems to have been composed in emulation of Horace Smith's "FireKing." "Even now, the strong barriers that girdled the deep Even James Wilson, however, will admit the following "dainty device of the ladie and the crow" to be prettily imagined: "But Japheth's wife, so brisk of mood, In finding what could not be found.” The verse we are about to quote notices a curious fact respecting the effect of frost upon ashes-another proof of the author's conversance with natural history: "Afar the mountain tops were seen, But the wave-worn mountains were not green, The winter day is on the wane.", It only remains to be noticed, that indifferent as our opinion of the merits of this poem is, it contains several passages that indicate higher powers than we should have, from its general tenor, inclined to give the author credit for possessing. Among these, is the impressive prelude to the deluge: "When the secret council of the sky Trembled afar through all created mind. "The sinful sons of men in homes below "The azure sky, that scarce a cloud had known A wildly sicken'd, melancholy hue, Pale as the light that tampers with the gloom Athwart the wild weeds and the churchyard dews." This passage is far from perfect, but it contains germs of true poetical feeling. Illustrations of British Ornithology. By Prideaux John NATURAL HISTORY is an accumulation of facts, drawn Ham's song, on the contrary, seems modelled upon the from the researches and observations of a variety of in style of Tate and Brady. dividuals, who have devoted their attention to its multifarious departments. Every book, therefore, which has for its object the illustration of one of its divisions, is, when judiciously managed, a valuable acquisition to physical knowledge. Nothing so materially contributes to |