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Untitled Article
And so hex song 3 -were fair with fairest shapes Of Nise 3 that in reedy rivers roam , And those that haunt the billow-beaten capes , Flinging white arms around the flashing foam , And those that aim their music and their smiles At seamen shallop-borne past purple isles . She sang of the strange flowers that ever thrust Their blooms up towards the heaven they ne ' er behold , And caves where pearls lie prodigal as dust , And spare of veering violet and gold , And constant shells that evermore retain The moody music of the murmuring main . Three stanzas , called Jlusldom , are beantifully conceived , expresses , and modulated : but -we have no room to quote them .
Uriel s mid Other Poems . ( John Chapman . )— -The first of these productions is a drama of winch the characters are not so much men and women as embodied principles . The story represents the intellectual conflict of scepticism and religious belief in this nineteenth century—a subject-which has been ridden to death within the last few yeai's . The present writer , however , we must admit , seems better qualified for developing such a drama ¦ effectively than some wlio have ventured on the same ground . He has apparently read and thought much on the subject , and passed through all those phases of inquiry , doubt , and belief , which form the groundwork of his story . He is therefore enabled to make his characters talk subtly and impressively . His book contains many passages of poetry and emotion ; but , for the most part , the speeches are either prosaic and argumentative , or wild a » d frftsrmentarv . mid a » d fragmentary .
A very different drama is The Vale of Rocks : a Tragedy , in Five Acts , founded upon a Legend of the Reformation . By Henry S . Price . ( Lacy . )—This workmay toe laconically described by the one word " rubbish . " It is a thorough melodrama in its incidents and in the cast of its language ; yet it is -written in blank verse ( very defective in structure ) , and abounds with long , inflated speeches . The-whole play is in the worst style of theatrical common-place . Two poems on the ill-chosen , subject of the Indian war lie before us : — The Modem ami the Hindoo , by a Graduate of Oxford ( Saunders and Otley ) ; and Ex Oriente—Sonnets ( John Chapman ) . — -Both are ludicrously prosaicmere newspaper accounts versified . To the first we may apply a line of the author ' s own i- — Diffusing round a subtile drowsiness .
The writer , though a Graduate of Oxford , seems to be in a state of singular ignorance with respect to the doctrines of the Mahometan faith . He makes some Mussulmans say : — We have come To execute the mission of the Gods . Conceive a , Mahometan , the very keystone of whose religion is the unity of the Deity , talking about " the Gods" ! ^ A few lines from Ex Oriente will show the style of newspaper article writing in which , the sonnets are composed . Lord Canning is being spoken of : — All efforts were exhausted to repel The Sepoy ' s mad delusion ere it grew : Measures of stern repression pass'd , to quell Those bent on mutiny ; and he withdrew A doubtful proclamation : so far well , And praise shall not be stinted where ' tis due .
The sonnets were written in India , and were finished by the commencement of last November , though they are eighty-two in number—which says much for the author ' s industry ; but the publishers to whom they were first sent declined to issue them , on account of the strictures they contain on . some public characters , which , it was thought , might damage the Indian connexion of the firm . The author , in his Preface , admits that there will be found in them Qhe sonnets ] little of fancy and imagination—such were not needed ; their only aim is to give a faithful picture of the roused feelings of Englishmen in India , and to offer a fit tribute to heroic men . " No such picture was needed ; and , as to the tribute- being "fit , " the author should allow his readers to be the judges . Some of the sonnets on other subjects exhibit in-ore of the feeling of poetry ; and the translations from Petrarch at the end of the volume are elegant and p leasant . Autumn Leaves . . Pocnis . By Dunsterville Brucks . ( Edinburgh : Hogg and Sons . ) - —In the first of his poems , Mr . Brucks says that , when a boy , he
swore , Howsoe ' er it be , I will sing a great song before I die—The world shall bo better for me ! This w-aa not a promising announcement ; and , finding ; in the next poem not a little silliness , struggling with some better elements , we began to fear that Mr . Brucks was of small worth . But we soon discovered that he hns fancy , true poetical feeling , emotional sensitiveness , and not a little rhythmical power , though wanting in finish . The poem Amy ' s lleturn , though , on a most hackneyed subject—a poor seduced girl coming homo to die ut her most hackneyed subject—a poor seduced girl coming homo to die ut her
parents' house—ia touched with so much real pathos as to moisten our callous critical eyes . The future success or failure of Mr . Brucks depends upon whether these Autumn Leaves are not in fact Spring Leaves . If the writer be very young , he has a good chance of making himself known ; but , should ho have past the season of youth , the prospect is less hopeful . The ' Travels * of Prince Legion , and Other Poems . By John Lo < iay Brereton . { Longman and Co . )—Superior to the ordinary run of books of verse , nnd far more pleasant , arc these poems by Mr . Brereton . The first ia a dainty piece of fancy and allegory , bright with pictures of fhirylund , grnvo -with a good moral , and ringing with musical uttornnces of well modulated verso . We hope to meet with Mr . Brereton again . The New Dauce of Death , and Other Poems , by Charles Boner ( Chnpmun and Il-all ) , and Poems by an Architect ( Hnrdwuike ) , nro productions alluring no distinctive features lor criticism . The first named is an attempt to show
that Death has been greatly maligned , being a beneficent angel instead of a spiteful devil . The idea is admirable ; but the execution is defective , and the result is duhness .
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THE ECLECTIC REVIEW . The Eclectic Review . ( July . ) New Series . Ward and Co . It may be considered somewhat high praise to pronounce this a sterlingnumber throughout , but the praise is not higher than the number merits ' . The articles are well selected , full of interest , and reviewed in the spirit of true criticism . It is ec [ ual in point of ability to our most pretentious quarterlies ; it is superior in respect to freedom from party bias and from the misleading spirit which reviewers of the modern schools of philosophy , literature , and politics , infuse into their critical speculations , which am
really more in the nature of independent essays embodying and exposing the peculiar views of the writer , than honest analyses of the labours of the authors under review . The number opens with " Recollections of the Last Four Popes , by Nicholas , Cardinal Wiseman . " The tone of the criticism is calm and temperate , but at the same time vigorous and truthful . The gaudy plumage in which the Cardinal has dressed his papal heroes is stripped off , and the premeditated suppressio veri made manifest to all . The reviewer , in a few terse and telling sentences—in strong contrast to the laudatory notice of the At / ienaum , a journal notorious for its papistical leanings—sums up the true value of the so-called " history / 3 lays bare the secret purpose of the wily churchman in giving it to the world . We cannot resist giving an extract : —
V \ e feel bound , then , in honesty to say that -we are more disappointed by its studied reticence than instructed by its revelations . The author lias added little to our knowledge of the public events that mark the Pontificate of his tetralogy of Popes , while his anecdotes are , it must be owned , of a microscopical minuteness , such as scarcely repay tlie pains of gathering them up . Not only has his Eminence baen governed by a discretion which seems to apprehend the sponge of the " Index Expurgatorius" at his back , but the -whole style of the book , in the selection of his matter and his mode of treatment , indicates the presence of a specific aim beyond the mere purpose of amusement , on the cue hand , or of information , on the other . We trace ia it the culinary skill of an ecclesiastical Soyer or Ude , so proportioning spice and condiment tothe known taste
- of his guests , as to impart a zest and . flavour to an unrelishable dish , and seasoning the whole for the English palate . The result is one which does credit to the ability of the niatire de cuisine , but reflects little merit , as we take it , on . the community for whom , he caters . The work is eminently wordy and pictorial , the former partly the vice of the Cardinal ' s style , but both of set intention and purpose of heart . Our readers have some notion , for most have witnessed it in their school holidays , when young / how the professional juggler engages the attention © f the spectator while he contrives his legerdemain . He has his story , his patter , Ms anecdote ; and while he seems most unconcernedly entertaining hia auditory -with words , lie is weaving meantime the magic deception which mimics reality , and yet surpasses belief . Who knows not that half the stock-in-trade of the wizard is his
incantation—that -witches brew no hell-broth without their preludial liell song ? No one understands this better than Cardinal Wiseman , and he practises it to perfection . "We hope -we need not explain that in saying thus much , we make no impeachment of his morals or his integrity , but simply vouch what to our own apprehension is patent in the method he pursues . While he recals his reminiscences , and scatters his anecdotes fe w and far between , he never forgets that he is an ecclesiastic , and a servant of his Church ; and nothing is told and nothing withheld , nothing daubed out and nothing painted in , but with a view to commend the institution he supports and professes . He throws dust with inimitable grace—he means to throw it . Robin and Ajidorson are not more apt at small talk than ia his Eminence , and with the same purpose . Expert as a bull-fighter , he first snares with his mantle before he stabs as the picador . Astute as the fox , ho winds and doubles ostensibly , while he secretly and safely slinks off to his cover . There ia to us an immense amount of clerical thimblerig , far more than of mere authorcrnft , in the long-winded array of words wliich march in goodly procession through the ponderous paragraph . ;
of the Cardinal ' s book . They are fitted to blind , not enlighten ; a veil rather than an apocalypse ; a Delphic enigma , not an intelligible guide . This was in a singular juid quite spontaneous way the impression made upon us as we wended our course through these by no means uninteresting pages ; but especially were we thus affected in the perusal of the life of the Seventh Pius , which occupies nearly half the volume . There ought not to be less in the . shape of incident to declare of that Pontiff , whose life was unusually eventful ; yet here the author more than elaewhere indulges in sundry small cataracts or waterspouts of words , that more than once threatened the conquest of our patience , and the interruption of our task . They consist of—but these belong otherwheres as well—unbounded laudations of the glories of ecclesiastical Rome , and of the superhuman virtues of its rulers . This pomp of -words and shows we take for what it is worth , but will own that wo cannot view without apprehension the calibre , spiritual nnd intellectual , of those English renders for whom pictures of ecclesiastical ceremonies havo charm enough to bo an allurement to apostucy .
The late " Samuel Brown ' s Lectures and Essays" form the subject of the second article . Samuel Brown was no doubt a great thinker , but he was at the same time something of a rhapsodiat . Ilia stylo partakes rather too much of Carlylism and the stilted subtleties of the school of modern German philosophy , but it rises occasionally into eloquence , and has nothing in it of that micaceous superficiality which is the besetting sin of several of our most , " brilliant essayists . " But the gem of the number is confessedly the notice of " Ulrich von llutten "—one , perhaps , of the least known , but one of the highest minds that mediteval Germany has produced . We have ever regarded this pioneer Reformer of the sixteenth century as superior to Luther . He was far before his age . His mind wa 3 simplestrongimd penetrating .
, , His moral and physical courage were far beyond Luther ' s , and though ho does not fill at present so largo a space in the world ' s eye nnd estimation as liis great contemporary , it is bocauso his labours , his learning , the difficulties and dungers he had to overcome , the wit and satire ho wielded to overcome them , hnvo not been recognised as prominently as they ought to be . This masterly notice will , however , serve to awaken attention to the great merits of thu writings of a man whom Luther himself was constrained to admit were tho instruments by which liia own doubts wore dispersed und his mind enlightened nncl confirmed in the great work to which ho gave his great energies . The rest of the number is made up of notices calculated both to interest and enlighten .
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. -No . 438 ,-Jyi . r 10 . - 1858 . L ___ THI LEAJEB . 667
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 10, 1858, page 667, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2250/page/19/
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