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980 THE LEADER. [No. 342, Saturday,
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THE FOUNTAINS AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE. The...
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The first of the cheap concerts at St. G...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Latter-Day Poet11y. Ouit Table Once More...
¦ Droduced ainon" the genii of the Leeds . manufacturing' furnaces by the Imoke Prevention Actf This is the poem which the age is to welcome " as a rockv and fantastic bluff . " A few good lines in Mr . Combe ' s volume show that better things might , perhaps , be achieved b y him ; . but the . time has not yet come— if it ever -will come—for ranking him among the poets of the ^ Mr . Combe , it has been seen , speaks of . " the extreme abundance of verses" now put forth . In the preface to the volume -we next take up—The Banks of the Wye , and Other Poems ( London : Moore )—we are told that there as a " paucity of poetical writers , " and that the issue of their productions is a , " rare occurrence . " It were to be wished that this latter gentleman could change places with us : he would then find out his mistake , and would in future forbear from increasing the stock by such foolishness as he has here collected into a hundred heavy pages . _ His volume is worth running through , however , as a curious exemplification of the depths of imbecility to ¦ which a human soul can descend . One half of the book consists of some poems-written in accordance with the worst development of the ' heart and impart' personification style which prevailed during the last century , and - which we could scarcely have conceived it possible any man now-a-days ¦ would desire to revive ; the other ha . if . is made up of inanities on subjects of -the moment , in -which a desperate struggle to be witty and humorous is hopelessly maintained , chiefly by means o-f slang . In a poem called " Hold Your Peace "—an adjuration which we feel strongly moved to make to the writer himself- —we read : — Ye saucy Rooks that ever cavr , And drown the " gardens" -with your jaw j" . Obey your brother black-coats' Law , — " Hold Tour peace ! But perhaps the deepest deep of fatuity is reached in THANKS FOB A DINNER OF SAL 5 IOK . How shall I thank y <> u for the fish , With-which you heaped my dinner dish ? It is hot in my powex to do The like kind office now for you , — But hope with interest to repay v Your kindness at some future day . It was , without a word of gammon , A most delicious slic « of salmon ; ¦ More on this theme I'd gladly Write , If I could make my Muse indite , — She ' s in her sulks , and won ' t proceed , — So let the will excuse the deed ! We ' are really too indolent , or we might indulge in a parody on the foregoing , with the title— - " Thanks for a Very Foolish Book" - — and with these two lines : — . It is , witliout a word of chaffing , A book for most excessive laughing . - The most original thing in the volume is the author's accentuation of the word robust , which he turns into robust— : As the staunch Oak its robust limbs put-throws . Gonzaga di Capponi : a Dramatic Romance . By Henry Solly . ( Xongmans . ) We have read the first act of this play , and no more , except in desultory snatches , finding it utterly impossible to struggle through the whole . For here are six acts and 330 pages of painfully dull blank verse , written with a moral purpose—the said purpose being to show that the greatest geniuses , though possessing the highest patriotism and the-purest benevolence at the commencement , are apt in the end to become villains of the deepest dye ¦ unless their ambition be chastened by religious feeling . This is shadowed forth in the career of a Florentine democrat , Gonzaga di Capponi , who begins by being the servant of his fellow plebeians , and ends by becoming their bloodthirsty tyrant- Mr . Solly , like some of the other poets to whose performances we are now introducing the reader , writes a preface wherein he kindly recommends you to " consult" Napier ' s History of Florence , as well as Machiavelli and Sismondi , whose works are " easily accessible "—as if it had never occurred to any one to " consult" these authors before . The preface concludes with the following rhapsody , which , though meant to be pious , is to our minds rather profane : — , With these exfilanatory remarks , tlie author sends his work into the world to play such part as may be according to the will of Him , who in His providence guides a sparrow ' s flight , and who by His children ' s wisdom and folly , by their failures as by their success , is silently and . steadily -working out His grand designs for universal and eternal good . Prefaces to poems , in fact , ai-e apt to be vci'y presumptuous and conceited . Here , in a little volume , called Pebbles ' from Parnassus ( Lsiver ) , are some introductory confidences , by winch the reader is apprized that the accompanying verses are printed more because of " the writer ' s power easily so to Si-oduce them , " than because of " any intrinsic value of their own . " Wo o not know why the public is to be bored with crude poems merely because the writer can easily produce them : however , this particular author is not without a hope that his verses may appeal faintly to the reader ' s heart , " leave an echo there when the page is closed ; " in which case , his " aspirarations will have been amply fulfilled . " A somewhat sickly and sentimental character pervades these poems ; but there are some pretty passages here and there—as , for instance , these lines forming part of a sonnet descriptive of early morning : — Oh Heaven ! how sweet the brcozc , how cool and still Is all ! Earth , air , and water , seem to rest Under some magic , and the distant hill Looks like th' enchanter in green mantle drcst . Whilst the long aisles of odorous chesnut trecw , Through which the sun his earliest aml > er showers , Seem , as they stand unshaken by the breeze , Hugo candelabra lighted with pale flowers , As though o ' ernight some giants' festival Had been , played out , and these the relics all . And this is really striking and line :
At length , one evening ,-when the autumn mist Made phantoms of the mountains , & c . Arden : a Poem . By John Croker Barrow . ( Saunders and Otley . )—This has been written under a singular delusion . The author has imbued himself in Tennyson ' s Maud , but has forgotten that such a poem was ever published , and has accordingly reproduced it—with variations . The story is told in detached lyrics , of divers measures ; the hero is liisown narrator ; and he is a cynic who falls in love , or a lover who becomes a cynic . His father ' s castle is . ¦ -.. . ¦ Built on the beach that maddens the surge , Mocking the notes of its solemn dirge . We think we have read in the Laureate ' s last poem— - Now to the scream of a madden'd beach dragged down by tlie wave . There is a wood behind the father ' s mansion , as in Maud . Of th e clergyman's daughter , Dora , we are told that her face was Cold , and calm , and clear ;
that her eyes were " pale , cold eyes ; " that she-was an " icicle beauty ; " that she had —— purity shadow'd and frozen upon . her . Perhaps the reader may recollect that Mtrud ' s face was a " passionless , pale , cold face , " a " cold and clear-cut face , " Faultily faultless , icily regxilar , splendidly null . Tlieve is a heath , also , at the back of the hero ' s residence- —a spot like the little hollow in Maud , where the suicide was committed , and where the u blood-red heath" and " the red-ribbed ledges'" of th e rock seem to be always blabbing of violent death . So in Arden . The heath is Just such a spot to smother Stains on the purple night-shade died Prom the crimson , life of another—
-In the lean dry moss of its hollows to hide The blood of a murdered brother . Once , in the hero ' s boyhood , a corpse Avas found there , and at night " a skeleton groan palsied the terrified air . " ¦ . " When the dead body in Maud is brought home , the boy hears The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night . Maud is encountered by her lover riding on horseback ; . so Dora must be met similarly mounted : —• — She rode by the sycamore planting tliere , On . her Arab steed . After a while , the hero goes mad , for reasons not clearly indicated ; but he recovers ( as in 3 faud ) on heaving of the war with . Russia ;—I think I must have been mad !
But I soon got better again ; And though my . spirit was sad , ¦ ' I was free from pain 5 And so at the chance of a war I was glad , For I thought of all I should gain—And I went to tlie East , with the heart I had , To seek for death on the plain . Maud is " not seventeen : " Dora , therefore , shall be sixteen . Maud is " the moon-faced darling of all : " Dora also is " moon-faced . " A kiss which the hero just fails in obtaining reminds him of this : — ¦ When a child puts out his mouth ready loop'd For the grape he is destnVd to miss . And that reminds ns of this .--
—Maud with her sweet purse-mouth when my father dangled the grapes . Maud ' s lover thinks that , Howe ' er we may brave it out , we men are a little l > reed . Dora s lover is similarly impressed : — - We are pitiful creatures all , And we grovel about in . the dust ; And each one looks at his neighbour's wall With a feeling of half-distrust . He objects also to " the bondage of gold . " Then tliere is a ball , as in for theris confu
Maud ; and ultimately the lady—or some lady , e a great - sion of ladies—consents to the banns being put up : — She is going to be my bride ! To be the life of my life ! She is going to be my bride ! She is going to be rny wife ! However , an awful catastrophe ensues on the ore of the wedding-day , anu she isn't his wife . And there it ends . To re-writc another man ' s book requires , no doubt , great courage and a noble axidacity ; but it can hardly be called an exercise of original genius .
980 The Leader. [No. 342, Saturday,
980 THE LEADER . [ No . 342 , Saturday ,
. Jff L. Ftivfr" ^Cbht /¦£Lll≪4 * , ^
. < CJje SrfaL , . ¦ A
The Fountains At The Crystal Palace. The...
THE FOUNTAINS AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE . The day on which the last grand fountain demonstration took place at th « Ckvstal Pai . ack having been unpropitious , there will be another—am ) , we arc told , positively the last—watery festival this day . The spectacle is one of surpassing beauty ; and we cannot , therefore , avoid hoping that the clouds may clear off for an hour or so , ami add the gulden splendours of sunlight to tnc vapoury silver of the jets and aqueous columns . A suggestion was made by a correspondent of one of our daily contemporaries , that the day should for the nonce he made a shilling day ; l > ut this has not been acceded to . The aristocratical half-crown shuts out the humble John Smiths and Thomas Joneses . This is to be regretted ; for the greatest glory of " tne Palace " is that it claims to , be the Palace of the Democracy .
The First Of The Cheap Concerts At St. G...
The first of the cheap concerts at St . George ' Hall , Liverpool , took place last Saturday evening , and was highly successful , nearly every ono of the songs being encored by the democratic music-lovers . The Mayor and several members of the municipal council were present , and remained to the end . Tlie scale w admission is the same ns that at the London Monday Evening Concerts—vi 2 . » 3 d ., ( id ., and Is .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 11, 1856, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11101856/page/20/
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