On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (5)
-
No. 44ft. OnTOBB* 30.1858.1 THE LEADER. ...
-
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, ART, &c
-
We regard this book, then, only as one m...
-
QUICKSANDS. Quicksands: a Tale. By Anna ...
-
THE POETICAL WORKS OF RICHARD JfURNESS. ...
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
No. 44ft. Ontobb* 30.1858.1 The Leader. ...
No . 44 ft . OnTOBB * 30 . 1858 . 1 THE LEADER . 1157
Literature, Science, Art, &C
LITERATURE , SCIENCE , ART ,
We Regard This Book, Then, Only As One M...
We regard this book , then , only as one more preliminary and tentative soaring- in . an ether in which we believe longer and higher flights will yet be sustained . We must commend the book as simple , popular , hearty , and eminently healthy , but only in this guarded sense , only as one more stone in the foundation of a coming fabric , only as one more blossom , one more earnest" of the fruit of £ ue future . Why entertain , some may ask , so high and exigent an expectation of American poetry ? Why expect great poetry from a middle-aged people , leaving their , paternal seats just at the epoch in national history ,
THE COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH . The Courtship of Miles Standish , and Other Poems . By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . Kent and Co . Another volume of American poems , long expected , often heralded , and by the poet of America most popular , at all events on this side of the sea , across which the " other poems , " grouped together by their writer under the title of Birds of Passage , have flown . Whittier , Bryant , Poe , and Longfellow stand very high upon the steps which lead to the vestibule of the Temple of Genius . And on each lower tier you can set a fair quatrain or so of American songsters . And yet we confess we look to America , with an expectation only whetted , and far from being allayed , for grander poetry and richer song than she has yet given to the world .
when the poetry of heart was dying out and the poetry of head was building itself up > and soon developing amid themselves in their new territory that active industrial strife which is thought by the short-seeing itself to kill the seeds of poetry and make its growth impossible ? This oft-put dogma is easier answered by reference to an undeniable fact thanby any tedious counter-argument . England , the mother stock , has been pursuing the same course industrially , and a \ ery similar course politically , as America , all through the last two hundred years , since the Mayflower Sailed across the seas . If poetry , and great poetry , lias in these
latter days proved itself practicable here , there is no reason why it should not , amid no greater obstacles , prove itself practicable there . Kay , more , there is in America more food for poetic expression than we possess . She has all that we have , and more . The grand parts of English Rational history are hers as well as ours . The Elizabethan Westward Ho ! days are our historic property , but hers too . And does she not still bear in her visage the proofs of descent from Pym and Crormvell ' s Puritans as much as ourselves P And from tho point at which the stream was divided , from the time when she began ^ L ^ A I ^ ^ ^ __ . _ ^ k >_ ** J d » ¦ ¦ —^ majiM >^ *^ k V * VA ^\ r * rf ^ ^ A ^^ I I it V ^^ V ^^ m » tf * ^^ w ¦ » ^^ ba ^^ * % »* to have independent national history of her
. __ . an own , her deeds have been as enkindling as ours . The battle of Bunker ' s Hill ought as naturally to have enkindled poetry as the battle of Trafalgar- —nay , more , for the fight at Bunker ' s Hill was more really and truly pro arts et foels . And yet she has only got Yankee Doodle for a national pecan to set against what Campbell and Dibdin ha \ e given to us , It was not then the spirit of poesy dropping from the clouds to her that was wanting , but the open chalices capacious enough to catch tho inspiring draught . We have around us English lanes , and meads , and hedge-rows , and country chinches ; Kentish well-shaded vales and landscapes watered by Severn and Avon . America has in lier national heart the memory and imprint of all these , but she has , besides , tho silent majesty of her primeval forests , cathedrals of pillars to the sky , the sullen
roar of etornal Niagara— -an cvcr-repcatcd cpio itself—and the boundless infinity of prairies congenial to the eremitism of all high genius . Perhaps the full amount of poetry inherent in the Transatlantic soil and soul will never bo ovokod till tho nation passes througha oruoiblo of tribulation . The man upon whom the cloudless sun has ever shone , never learns the innermost depths of his own nature , and a probation of sorrow is necessary to great' hcartodncss . So is it with nations . The disconsolate maiden of Ettriok Forest , singing of her lover slain at J ? lodden , on the day When the flowers 6 ' tlio for ' ost wore all wed away , Bang nioro dooply and richly poetical words than even thQso which Bums sot to the tune whioh the pibroohs played when the Scots marched to
Bannockburn : and the Caudine Forks and the Syracusan Lines evoked a deeper poetry than Marathon or Lake Regillus . America has been seeking of late the elements ot poetry in her own land and history . This is the only safe beginning . And in the book before us , Longfellow , who has sung of Spain , and Italy , and the Alps , tells an old story of the Puritan days , clothing with his story what is as deep and as old as humanity , very common , therefore very great and poetical . ' _ . _ .. , ¦ „ jr tain of the
Miles Standish , a Puritan soldier , cap baud which had arrived the year before in the Mayflower , " clad in doublet and hose , and boots of Cordovan leather , " strides through his room , while his secretary ( another Milton to a Cromwell ) , the gentle John " Aldcn , sits and writes . R , ose Standish , the hero ' s wife , lies buried " Yonder there , on the hill by the sea . " The captain walks , and meditates , and reads , whilst John Alden is—Busily writing epistles important , to go by the Mayflower , Ready to sail on the morrow , or next day at latest , God willing ! Homeward bound , with the tiding 3 of all that terrible
winter , Letters written by Alden , and full of the name of Priscilla , full of the name and the fame of the Puritan maiden Priscilla . John Alden loves Priscilla . To his dismay Miies Standish breaks his long silence by asking his friend to woo Priscilla for him . He cannot woo her himself , for he says : — I can march up to a fortress and summon the place to surrender ,. But march up to a woman with such a proposal , I dare
not . I ' m not afraid of bullets , nor shot from the mouth of a cannon , But of a thundering "No ! " point-blank from the mouth of a woman , That I confess I ' m afraid of , nor am I ashamed to confess it ! There is in John Alden ' s breast a hard and sore struggle . But Friendship prevailed over love , and Alden went on hia errand .
Through the Plymouth woods he walks , his heart still unsubdued itself , but restrained by his honourable will . He reached his goal , and Heard , as he drew near the door , the musical voice of Priscilla Singing the hundredth psalm , the grand old Puritan anthem , Music that Luther sang to the sacred words of the Psalmist , Full of the breath of the Lord , consoling and
comforting many . Then , as he opened the door , he beheld the form of the maiden Seated beside her wheel , and the carded wool like a snowdrift Piled at her knee , her white hands feeding the ravenous spindle , While with her foot on the treadle sUe guided the wheel in its motion . Who docs not imagine the result of the mission ? A gentle young man sent to an orphan maiden to plend a rough soldier ' s suit ! Long does John Alden most 1 airly , almost ardently , plead his friend's
cause . liut a 9 ho warmed and glowcil , in his simple and eloquent language , Quito forgetful of self , and full of tho praise of his rivn ) , Archly tho maiden smiled , and , with eyes overrunning with lnnghtor , Said , in a tremulous voice , " "Why don ' t you speak for yourself , John ?" This carries us only to the end of the third part
of tho poem . Any vital interest or real p lot ends here ; and what attaches to the remainder is derived from tho anger of Miles Standish , gradually softening into pa ' cilloation and fy ^ l reconciliation ; the modest shame of Priscilla , after the utterance of what she feels to have been asdniowhnt unmnidenly confession , and the rone wed , and ever-renewed , solicitude of John Alden as to whether love or friendship lights for him tho right path . At last all clouds are cleared away ; they are married in the churoh ; tho brido is lifted by her husband to
plicity , very refreshing in our days of spasmodi < lashings of the soul . The metre is well managed We do not learn that English is . as capable as Greet or German of hexameter verse , but at least that Longfellow has fully made use of what capability there is . The poem has not the clear , Scotch reel like ring of Hiawatha , nor do we find the rich , closely painted , summer-day descriptions of " Evangeline , " but there is a closer approach toajiumorous clear-seeingness , and deeper insight into intricacies of character , than we remember to have struck us in any of his former poems .
The book is one which , grown men will read through at a sitting , and to its metre we have proved that little children will nod their heads and beat their feet if vou but rhythmically read it to them .
the back of a white pillioned steer , and through th forest they go home . Like a picture it seemed of the primitive , pastoral ages Fresh with the youth of the world , and recallin , Rebecca and Isaac , Old , and yet ever new , and simple and beautiful always Love immortal , and young in the endless succession o lovers . So through the Plymouth woods passed onward th bridal procession . The poem maintains , without enhancing , tin writer ' s fame . There is the old objective sim
Quicksands. Quicksands: A Tale. By Anna ...
QUICKSANDS . Quicksands : a Tale . By Anna Lisle . Groombridge and Sons . Ox dipping into this volume we thought we had tiiken up an American story , for now : and then we get some rather original specimens of morals and manners from the land of Brother Jonathan , but , after wading forwards , we mended our guess , and made up our mind that the story is really from a strong-minded English authoress . Hereditary insanity , coupled with intoxication , is the subject chosen for illustration . Helen Grey , a beautiful
but somewhat silly young lady , plights her troth to John Howard , a very excellent young fellow , and soon afterwards is introduced to Arthur Huntingdon , a so-so sort of Lothario , with a positive predilection towards intoxicating beverages and incipient insanity , carefully kept out of sight , to whom , she transfers her affections , and ultimately her hand . Alter some strange adventures , Helen becomes aware that a fatal secret hangs over her marriage , which has been brought about by the artful and heartless contrivance of her husband ' s mother and her own mother . At first , she siu'inises that her husband is given to drink . This turns out to be true ; but a mysterious Mr . Brooks , who has just escaped assassination at the hands of Arthur Huntingdon , breaks the real truth to her . Retribution follows . Her husband ' s mother dies , aflef making
a clean breast , duly penitent ; her husband dies a raving maniac in a madhouse ; and her mother marr ies a hard-hearted miser , who , for her nropcr punishment , gives her something more ilian a Roland for an Oliver . These personages being all got out of the way , Helen and John Howard approximate , renew old loves , and join hands for life . We have a word of advico to the lady authoress—it is , not to bo so lavish of pious appeals and Bible and Prayer-book interpellations . Some of the characters moralise quite as well as country parsons would do , and appeals to Heaven aiid tho hand of God arc sprinkled through tho volume as plentifully as blackberries . Such solemn matters arc out of place in ephemeral productions—they savour , to our mind , of irreverence .
The Poetical Works Of Richard Jfurness. ...
THE POETICAL WORKS OF RICHARD JfURNESS . The Poetical Works of Richard Fumes ? . With ft Sketch of hi * Lire , by Dr . Holland , M . A . Partridge nnd Co . Iticiuiu ) Fuiwisss , n man in tho humbler wnlks of industrial life , had much of that stall' in liim wUioh goes towards the composition of a truo i » oel . Xxo Has bocu likened to Burns , but , wo tliiuk , without much judgment . Burns was self-cduoatciI—he was Nature ' s poet—ho did not modol himself on past excellences , ho looked to Nature alone lor ideas , uncl gave voice to his toolings with a rough strength and
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 30, 1858, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30101858/page/13/
-