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380 THE LEA DEB. [No. 317, Satcrday.
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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 Poetry. Nothing Is More Remar...
issued by Holyoake and Co ., and called Shadows of the Past , by Lionel H . Holdreth . Coining from the office of the Reasoner , and claimed by the Reasoner as the poetry of Secularism , it is liable to an interpretation which would scarcely be correct . Mr . Holdreth , as we conceive , is Theistical in his final tendencies ; but there is a painful alternation , throughout his slim verse pamphlet , of doubt and belief , as if he had had no other object in writing than to record his own inner conflicts . The effect , therefore , is morbid and depressing , as all such self-anatomy must be . Yet it is -not without a redeeming nobility of sentiment . A certain dramatic unity—though not very easy to understand or define—seems to run through the whole brief collection , so that the last poem appears to suggest an obscure comment on the first , and to be its natural completion ; and the moral of the hook is that
duty is better than pleasure , and that the brilliant creations of fancy , while proper to the morning of life , should in time give place to the heroic determination to combat life ' s realities , for the sake of final truth . The moral , however , is incomplete , since the discharge of duty is not necessarily antagonistic to enjoyment , or to a keen perception of , and delight , in , the celestial world of ideality . Still , there is a noble suggestion of self-sacrifice in Mr . Holdreth ' s verses which gives them a sweet , sad grace , and religious calm . Their faults are , want of health and lieart-sunshine , and a consequent faintness and flaccidifcy . The power to enjoy , and to be merry—to eat , drink , and laugh—is one of the essential elements in all sterling poetry ; and Mr . Holdreth would be all the better for quaffing a little of the cordial wine of Chaucer and Shakspeare , and thinking less of the disappointments of the world after this fashion : — We err , and suffer , and grow wise . Through suffering borne , and errors proved . Shame on the coward heart , that cries " I would that I had never loved . " Who hath not loved hath never known The training of a manly soul , To suffer and to stand alone , And wait Life ' s signal at the goal . But this—to lean against the gate , And watch the scerie with passion rife ;—Aimless and objectless to wait , And live to earn the means of life ; To see the ruin of the Right , The triumph of the wrong I . scorn , To , watch and not to aid the fight ;—Was it for this that I was born ? If not for this , for what ? I ask . No answer comes , nor ever will . And can it be , my earthly task la but to suffer , and be still ? Through all the future doth mine eye Bange , seeking rest , and findeth none . It is so full of vacancy I cannot bear to look thereon . Though life ^ be dark with grief and crime , Though virtue wait and suffer long ; Yet , ere the end , the lapse of Time Confirms the right , confounds the wrong . Truth must prevail . Meanwhile , endure . Of worldly peace let worldlings boast ; Amid the storms of life , be sure , The loftiest spirits suffer most . AJbiqnia : a Pilgrimage . Canto the First . By Henry Brown . ( Charles Fox . ) - ~* iere is a voice from Mile End , speaking to us , like the two preceding voices , about the people , their hopes and aspirations . The poem , which is ! nf" /« t-, T stanza , affects Spenserian allegory ; and we have no « 5 l A , y T ? > and " erst , " and « f eftsoons , " ana " certes , " and ycieped . However , m the midst of all this old phraseology , we learn some new things , as that the English worker has
earn d a proud and lasting name , And many a bold , enduring trophy won , — where should you suppose ? Well , you'll never guess ; so read and learn at once . Why # _ in the regions of the stars and sun . This is very interesting . We are also told that
The mind of man , oh , ' tis a wondrous thing J It ^ appears , moreover , that the " broadcloth " of the artisan is fashioned into a garb of classic grace " —which we should hardly have suspected from what we have seen in pictures of the ancient Greek and Rorann costume . Ana Mr . Brown speak 3 to us of some " beaming " roses , and altogether keeps quite a curiosity shop . Attached to his great work , Albionia , is a smaller achievement—some" Lines on Visiting the Tomb of the Emperor Napo-* eon i . —m which we are promised ft wonder in the future , surpassing any-™ JP yetjjxperienced . The shade of the Little Corporal is being And ia those coming worlds of time , far looming into name , Voiceis , yet unattuned , shall ring with peons laic ) to thy fame : Marengo , FriedlandL Austorlitz . Aroola . Jena— tlieao
. . mall be immortal vyllablev , sounding on ev ' ry breeze . S ^ S ^ J ' nOti If the breez ( > must become a chatter-box , we trust he mri * ff v < 5 ODaethin K pleasanter . But to have five words , whatever they of MiW P T l nned iato oup ears » >« no * a pleasant prospect . Mr . Brown , ' s-, " ^ -Pty 7 ° \ *> »» no poet ; but ho seems to write with a good intention , a iTe ako handa ^ d part . a n 2 J ?!! T w y ? another minstrel of the popular class—Mr . S . H . Bradbury , wS ? E -E fc ^ * " * ' who solaces his leisure hours by lyrical effusions S' ^ f « . A " i !" f , P ubUshed under th « romantic and harmonious signaenSl ? 5 7 * n £ " ' / J * 8 om <) of whicl 1 " now collects in a little volume —with S »? Hdal ° S * he *> ad V B / ano / ze , and other Poems ( London : Bogue ) wnn ms proper patronymic attached . Mr . Bradbury is not without a
shinings-vdth no end of things " luscious , " and « me ^ w ?^ S « dSuT * and voluptuous " -til at length , though many of the said materials for poetry are noble in themselves , we are sick with the indiscriminate surfeit . The Renaissance style m architecture and art , with its morbid appetite for incessant provocatives of ornament , has here met its counterpart in verse . Mr Bradbury has the same love which we have noticed in some other of our modem poetasters of talking perpetually about the stars , which he and his brethren seem to regard in no other light than as a species of golden beads for the adornment of verse ; and he has likewise ( which we have also remarked in various ultra-modern versifiers ) a disagreeable habit of introducing the name of the Supreme Being with an undue familiarity , which we are sure is JS ^^^^ Sj * ° - g , , . meant ior
natural faculty for the ornate and splendid ; we have no doubt he has a real sensitiveness to forms of beauty , a genuine perception of whatever is ^ oi ** and sensuously striking •; but he has the most ill-ordered and one-sidSS we have ever beheld reflected in a collection of verses . The utter absent of harmony and repose-the entire want of self-control-the lack of intellectua power of thought and of spirituality - the reckless , purposed ' oft ^\ T g i " ° ^ rSeouf lmaS € s > sometimes good in themselves / more often bad , and generally without any other meaning than mere disp ay ? £ the City tradesman loads his fingers with an armour of jewelled rings f merely £ S ! £ fl , ? glltter in tlie eyes of his flunkeys ) -all this Sets Mr Bradbury ' s volume a painful monument of perverted cleverness We read of stars moons , sunsets , and sunrises-of jewels , gems , gold , and silver -of roses lilies , and flowers in general-of odours , blushfs , azu ? e skie ? billows of the sea , dew , rainbows , wine , feasts , nectar , music , birds , aneel / young ladies love , languors , swoons , fire , and flame - of crimson and il £ &? V -d litteringsand sparkWs ' £
an expression ot religious feeling , but which often has an opposite effect . JNot only does he load his sense with unnecessary epithets , but half his matter is formed of comparisons . Everything is " like" something else Thus , we are told of a certain child that " love summered round her , like some young rose , all pale and wild . " The same little lady ' s lips were
Like rubied paths of luscious light , A purple season to the sight ! ( The note of admiration is Quallon ' s own—and well may he employ it ) . Moreover , the voice of the same phenomenon was clear as sparkline wine " arid it " flutter ' d with music " s
Like to a trembling , moon-kissed vine ! ( Again the note of admiration is the author ' s own . We may add that he has a tendency to use this point , as if lie were perpetually mocking himself ) . Mr . Bradbury , we repeat , has in him some of the materials for poetry ; but as yet he is no more a complete poet than a single wall is a house . The Modern Scottish Minstrel ; or , the Songs of Scotland of the past half Century .- with Memoirs of the Poets , and Sketches and Specimens in English Verse of the most celebrated Modern Gaelic Bards . By Charles Rogers , LL . D ., F . S . A ., Scot . In six volumes . Vol . II . ( Edinburgh : A . and C . Black ) . —Poems by James Ballantine . ( Edinburgh : Thomas Constable ) . — We feel perplexed'in our minds with respect to both these volumes . We
ought , by good rights , to obtain a report " From Our Own Scotchman "but we do not happen to be furnished with one . We must plead guilty to sharing Lamb ' s " imperfect sympathy" with Scotch poetry ; and we must also confess that a large part of the volumes before us we are unable to comprehend owing to the shallowness of our studies in that dialect which some North Britons would have us believe is the only genuine English . It is true , that Mr . Rogers appends to his collection a brief glossary for the benefit of those who are only in the accidence of their Scotch ; but to boggle our way after this fashion through an impulsive ballad , is very unsatisfactory work . We must therefore be content to call the attention of our Scotch readers ( if that be needful ) , and of our Scotch-loving English readers , to the two books , and to hint our own opinion of them with the modesty of aliens . They seem to us , then , to exhibit the Southern vivacity , and tendency to h'rical
expression , winch are rather singular characteristics of our ultra-Northern brethren ; but at the same time to possess in ample measure all that enormity of commonplace , that nauseous superfinery belonging to factitious simplicity of language and sentiment , that wearisome repetition of particular lines in the burden of ballads , that love . of obvious sing-song measures , like the " crooning" of the local bagpipes , and that intense nationality , or provincialism , of sentiment , which we generally observe in Scotch poetry . Mr . Rogers ' s collection , however , is of value , as a contribution to the literary history of the North ; and his translations from tlie Gaelic are interesting . Perhaps we ought not to have included the book under the head of " Latter-Day Poetry ; " but it fell in with a number of others .
Arctic Enterprise . A Poem in Seven Parts . By Chandos Hoskyns Abrnhall . ( Hope and Co . )—Behold 137 post octavo pages of heroic couplets ( thirty-four lines to the page ) , followed by seventy- two pages of notes ; the object of the whole being to celebrate the various expeditions to the Polnr regions which terminated in the grand discovery of the north-west passage by Captain M'Clurc in 1853 . There is a strange mixture of the poetical and the practical in thisvolume , which , however , acquires a touching interest from being " Dedicated by Permission to Lady Fmnklin , in admiration of her patience , pcx * severancc , and fortitude , under trials unexampled ia the annals of her country . " The verses ore not only accompanied by the notes already alluded to , but by a matter-of-fact list of officers in the Erebus and Terror , and of expeditions sent in search of Sir John Franklin . Mr . Abrnlmll writes in a stylo the very opposite of the modern " spasmodic school , " his manner being that which prevailed through the greater part of last century j but we fear we cannot say that his readers will gain anything by the change .
Poems . By W . R . Cassels . —We noticed this volume in a previous batch , but take the present opportunity of confessing that we did not do entire justice to the author ' s faculty . We remarked that h « had intense devotion to poetry combined with imperfect powers of expression . Such is the fact ; but it is also a fact that , with much that is weak , there are evidencea in the volume of real poetical power . A heap of yersc-volumes yot encumbers our table ; but we must postpone any further criticism to another occasion .
380 The Lea Deb. [No. 317, Satcrday.
380 THE LEA DEB . [ No . 317 , Satcrday .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 19, 1856, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19041856/page/20/
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