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    literary tendencies of this material , cast-iron , steam-engine age have , strange to say been in the direction of extreme spiritual sensitiveness ; but—though we should be among the last to deny the good that has resulted from a deeper glance into the under-lying mysteries of the universe—we think we see evidences of our modern German mysticism having passed the hounds of all healthy use or reasonable purpose . Our poetry , in particular , is fast sinking into a condition the most morbid—into a sickly , debilitated , whining , raving-, melancholy-mad , sentimental , young lady Muse , far inferior to her robust elder sisters . " Abysms , " and " stars , " and " primal depths , " and "chaos voices , " and " spheral melodies , " together with much shedding of tears , and

    wailing as of souls in purgatory , are the chief materials of which the poetry of the last fifteen years has been manufactured . Messrs . Bailey and Read * seem desirous of occupying conjointly the very top of this unpleasant Parnassus ; and it is difficult to say which most deserves the place . Indeed , the character of their minds is so like , that they might be regarded as Corsica * brothers , and that when the one determined on writing his high-flown rhapsodies , the other , informed by some mysterious sympathy , sat down and did likewise—choosing a very similar subject , the same metre ( blank verse ) , the same selection of unwonted words , the same full-blown Miltonic style ( burlesqued , rather than imitated ) , and the same lofty contempt of being understood .

    Regained" where Satan shows the kingdoms of the earth to Christ on the Mount ) , Mr . Bailey's poem would be really fine , allowing for a few drawbacks in the way of wordiness ; for there is a dioratnic succession of pictures , and a sustained pomp of language . This , for instance , is a very grand old legend , excellently told : — Bolotoo , the paradise of gods , Far off in western space , a land of shades ; Where , to chance wanderer , for the future bound , And searching for some secret lost to earth , Tree , temple , tower and grove-clad hills present But permeable forms ; through all he stalks , As through a biiilded vision ; wa ] l , and bark , And cliff , close round the path , he passeth through Unharmed , as water round a diving gull .

    The volume concludes with "A Fairy Tale" —a quaint story very prettily rendered . Mr . Reade ' s " Man in Paradise " is so like Mr . Bailey ' s " Mystic , " that the remarks we have just made on the latter might almost be applied to it . There is a little less harping on strange words ; but Mr . Reade has his favourite phrases too , and dins " the Infinite , " " the Illimitable , " " the Ineffable , " and " the Beautiful , " so constantly in our ears , that we well nigh lose our temper . In the earlier parts of his poem the author seeks to give an account of the creation of the world , according to the modern geological system ; but he only furnishes another instance of the impossibility of combining science and poetry . "We now proceed to give a convincing proof of the identity which we have noted between Messrs . Reade and Bailey , by quoting a passage from each , and fusing them together , without the addition , subtraction , or alteration of one word—the result being a perfect unity both of subject and style : — I looked beneath , me as on waves of flame , Upheaving mountainou sly , molten shapes In seething fluctuation tossed , emerged Or sunk again in whelming depths unseen . I heard the wild throes of the elements , Triad vitalities , air , water , fire , Struggling to formative life as , scroll-like , driven , The pal liable and mighty form of Earth Beneath ine rolled , gathering a substant shape , Semblant of human lineament . Its rocks Chaotic and amoi'phous , petrified fire , Granitic , oolitic ; sand and lime ; ~ Igneous and aquatic beds of stone , Upheaving or collapsing , seemed , iii turn , The awful sport of some Titatian arm , Whose elbow , jogged by earthquakes , wryed the pole . Let the reader exercise his own ingenuity in finding out where the soldering takes place ; he will have no help from us , further than to let him . know that we have absolutely joined on a portion of one of Mr . Reade ' s lines to a fragment of one of Mr . Bailey ' s ! Some of Mr . Reade ' s minor poems exhibit occasional gleams of tenderness and melancholy grace ; but he will never prosper until he gives up his frantic endeavour to wrestle with "the Infinite . "

    Fatigued with the said wrestlings , it is absolutely a relief to turn even to the languid little book entitled Poems , by Walter Whitmore Jones . ( Longman and Co . ) The chief of these poems is ' Cupid and Psyche "a manifest derivative from the earlier manner of Keats and Hood , with a few glimpses of the peculiar style of Shakspeare ' s " Venus " and Adonis , " faintly reflected . Mr . Jones ' s verses are sufficiently weak ; but they are not pompous , and there is sometimes an elegant flux and murmur of words , not unpleasing to listen to when half asleep . Whether Mr . Jones will ever do better or not , is a question which depends on his years . If he be much above two ov three-and-twenty , we fear he is a lost lambkin . Much the same may be said of Poems , by Walter R . Cassels ( Smith , Elder , and Co , )—the same , we mean , as regards Mr . Cassels' prospects for the future . He is probably a member of that large class of enthusiasts whose fate has something of pathos in it—intense devotion to poetry , combined with imperfect powers of expression .

    Of The Maid of Messene and other Poems ( Longman and Co . ) , we may say that Mr . Henry Pember , student of Christ Church , Oxford , their author , has a great faculty of dulncss whcn . be makes any lengthened attempt . He succeeds most in little ballads , where he lncks the opportunity to be tedious . The Poetry of Creation , by Nicholas Michell ( Chapman and Hall ) , is best described as a book of verses very fit to be put in the hands of youth , or to be sent as a Christmas present to country cousins of " the feminine gender . " But it is not meat for men . Mr . Sheldon Chailwick , who issues a volume of Poems ( Boguc ) , has

    been shown by a Scottish contemporary to be an outrageous plagiarist on Mr Alexander Smith , Mr . Gerald Massey , and others . But this is not the onlycharge that qan be brought against him . He is n great sinner in the modern school of pompous mul overwrought fustian . He works the stars unmercifull y j so that not a page , and scarcely n stanza , is free from his astral comparisons . Images of thenxjst exaggerated nnd preposterous character are heaped up , one over another , tvitli utter recklessness ; nnd anything passes current , provided it be glittering > Rj 3 tounding > nnd sonorous . His unhappy Pegasus is never allowed a moment sNajst , but is beaten and spurred till he foams at the mouth . For instance , at p . 137 we ore told how

    Niyht under tlic silvor dome of the moon lutigoth her starry bcUt . Anil at 11 . 11 wo arc reminded of the time " when the spheres sang o ' er the bleating hills . " Yet the arnuitcst cominon-plneu is not ; disdained , as tho following staimi of a bulliul unequalled for foolishness may show : — Oh I my aoldior-lud , my pride , My priilo , Jiiy prido ! JUu voivM lio -would mulco mo bin bride , lib bride , hifi bride ; For tho War l > o has loft iho shore , And u lock of my hnir ho wore .

    Mr . Bailey treats of the sevenfold progresses from perfection to perfection of some divine man , who seems to have been perfect beforehand , and who therefore does not appear to have needed that ordeal of trial and that purification of suffering . Of him we are told that , Initiate and perfect in mysteries , He graduated triumphant . These graduations are described with wearisome repetition , and vith a perpetual harping on such phrases as — Initiate , mystic , perfected , epopt , Illuminate , adept , transcendant , he Ivy-like , lived , and died , and again lived , Resuscitant .

    Mr . Bailey ' s language is indeed of the most astounding kind . To say nothing of his continual and tiring use of compound words ( very noble and eloquent modes of expression if sparingly employed ) , we find no end of "pre-seternal , " " consphserate , " " Tegencrant * " " plenipotent , " " spectrum , " " reboant , " " rnahifestive , " " affied , " " lan ^ uescent , " " supra-natural , '' " prae-potent , " " endogenous , " " orbital aphelion , " " genetic , " " ereanced , " " augurial rites of volant fowl , " " maness " ( for woman ) , &c . The inherent difficulties of so mystical a subject are of course increased by these needlessly peculiar words , and by long and involved sentences , sometimes extending from page to page . The poet , also , takes unwarrantable liberties with words in common use , transmuting nouns into verbs whenever it pleaseth his sovereign will . Thus we are told that a " continuity of soul" has this effect—that it " ones " the various parts of the universe " with the boundless and divine . " Immediately afterwards we read of sonic

    Cloud-breathing dragons homed m heights of air . And , in another poem in the volume before us , Mr . Bailey records that the branches of the Tree of Life "fruit but in heavenly paradise . " To these peculiarities arc to be added rhymed verses in the midst of the blank lines ( left there probably by accident , but exhibiting great carelessness ) , and alexandrines , disagreeably breaking the usual measure of five feet . Such are some of Mr . Bailey's incidental peculiarities . Of the general character of his chief poem we find it difficult to speak , as we honestly confess that it surpasses our comprehension . It lias positively left no impression behind it , but that of a misty brightness and " a sonorous roar of words . Excepting a few lines scattered here and there , the sum total , we regret to say , is something very much akin to bombast . With the utmost desire to fasten on something which we could realty like , we were contiimalty reminded of Bottom ' s celebrated exemplar of " Erclcs' vein—a tyrant ' s vein" : —

    The raging rocks , With shivering shocks , Shall break tho locka Of prison gates ; And Phibbus car Shidl shine from far , And make and unir Tlio fooliali Fates . It is painful to suggest this comparison ; for , in the worst of Mr . Bailey's extravagances , there is evidence that the aberrations are those of a man of faculty , who has eaten of some " insane root . " But the reader shall judge for himself by a few brief passages ; — They whoso cyon l > y spirit-five are purged Move ever up tho roasoout to light , Ott a cceli'stiul gradiant paved with wiiiffs . TUo myth-in sculptured language of the light—Soul-compulsory power , Tho god of psychopoiupouft function— - * Ark crystalline , vtanund by boamy ( jods , To drag tho doepn of space , mul uet fchcHtars , Whoro , iu thoir nobuloun shoals , they shore tho void , And , through old night's Typhonian blindness , shine . Seductive beldame * nnd adulterous ghouls — Ero earth , LUco the libntion of a crown 6 rt bowl , O ' orapillod the depths of tho unknown abyfia . In " A Spiritual Legend "—one of the " other poems " in Mr . Bailey ' s volume—the mutation of Milton ' s st yle is ennied to an extent that is positively ridiculous . It is u mere mocking-bird echo , which wo are astonished that any man of Mr . Bmluy ' s natural powers should have brought hhnsolf to produce . Iho story is founded on that old Gn -stic lcgom ! of the essential distinction between God and matter , and of the creation of the world by arurels . Were it not foi tho staring redox of Milton ( and not only of wutons general manner , but of that magnificent vision in " Paradise

    Untitled Article

    February 2 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER . 115 - — ——^—————^ ^ ^ mmmmm ——^ .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 2, 1856, page 115, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2126/page/19/