through all the scenes of low and vicious life, detailed in these pages. The vicissitudes of that miserable class, from which she emanated, are but little varied; short periods of uneasy splendour and gaiety, horribly forced and unnatural, interrupted continually, or for ever succeeded by disease, and want, and misery, by daily violation of the almost inextinguishable remains of female delicacy, by constrained submission to brutal insult, by fictitious delight where indifference or disgust are really felt, by naked and houseless famine, and the deeply knowing sense, that there is no hope, that all is irretrievable; this is their complication, comprisal, collection, and sum of bitterness.

If Lady Hamilton escaped some part of the dismal catalogue of evils above enumerated; if, by unusual address, and eminent personal accomplishments, she attained a situation in life, which for her might well be called exalted; if, because our higher classes were found wanting in the stern, yet dignified discipline of former times; she was for a while victorious, and out-faced the good and tried severity of English society; if she was flattered, admired by many, and loved even to his own ruin, by one who had no equal in his day; yet let her not be held up as an instance of successful or unpunished vice; let it not be imagined, that she was free from all visitation. She suffered with the lowest before her exaltation: in the midst of it she encountered much anxiety, and many most bitter mortifications; after it closed, when the foolish and the wicked, who had basked in her sunshine, fled from her distress, and the good and the great, whom she had injured, duped, and misled, were no longer at hand to uphold her, she became indeed an object for the pity of the most inveterate malevolence. Desolate, bereft, and abandoned, harassed by creditors, stripped of comforts, that long use and declining age had converted into necessaries, for some time a prisoner in her own country, and then an exile from it—is it in short possible to imagine any lot more cheerless or gloomy, than the last years, the drooping sickness, and the death-bed of Lady Hamilton.

ART. VII. The Field of Waterloo: a Poem. By Walter Scott. 8vo. pp. 56. Constable, Edinburgh; Longman and Murray, London. 1815.

IT would be difficult to point out a nation in which Poetry and Patriotism have for so long a period been more cultivated, or less united, than in our own. Though plants of the same soil of 8

liberty,

liberty, and flourishing each with unabated vigour, they refuse to twine around the same stock. The genius of our best poets, when passing events demand their strains, appears paralysed and unstrung. Were we to account for this phenomenon, we should refer it to that spirit of generous reserve, which forms so distinguishing a feature in our national character. To do great deeds is the privilege of a British Hero; to hear that they are done is the glory of the British nation. The more simple and unvarnished the tale of their achievements, the more perfect is the sense of triumph which it imparts. The feelings of the heart which rise out of present events are of a nature too vivid and penetrating to be embodied in words; and the greater the magnitude of the event, the less are the powers of language adequate to its expression. Upon a feeling so native and so true, all the meretricious ornaments of poetry are lost either in apathy or disgust. The simple names of Talavera, of Vittoria, of Waterloo, raise in the hearts of the British nation a spirit and a warmth, to which the Epinicia of Pindar or Milton would appear flat and insipid. The natural consequence of this sensation appears to be, a general distate of all panegyric upon actions so noble, and a determined neglect of every attempt to clothe them in appropriate song. The task therefore of celebrating these great events has generally fallen to men of inferior talents, or if one of a higher order shall step forward to celebrate the glories of his country, his efforts appear nerveless and constrained, from the anticipation probably of the cold reception which awaits his too patriotic

muse.

We cannot say that the Poem before us is an exception to these conclusions. But if W. Scott has, in the facetious language of the Newspapers, fallen in the field of Waterloo, it is to be ascribed not so much to the unsuccessful display of his usual powers, as to the insuperable difficulties of his subject. Whatever poetry shall attempt even to pourtray, much more to adorn the actions performed in that day of glory, will be rewarded with a chaplet, not of the bay of victory, but of that weed which rots itself on Lethe's wharf. Mr. Scott has visited the very field of slaughter; he has presented us with a graphic description of the country, and with a gazetted detail of the events of the day; but still his poetical fidelity stands him in no stead. The picture indeed is animated, and the language full of spirit; but we read it with the same sort of sensation which an officer, who had been present at the battle, would feel in seeing a panorama of the fight.

The allusion to the state of the fields at the time of the battle, and the expectation of harvest, is well described, especially in the latter and the more difficult part of the simile.

M m

VOL. IV. NOVEMBER, 1815.

"But

"But other harvest here

Than that which peasant's scythe demands,
Was gather'd in by sterner hands,
With bayonet, blade, and spear.
No vulgar crop was theirs to reap,
No stinted harvest thin and cheap!
Heroes before each fatal sweep

Fell thick as ripen'd grain;
And ere the darkening of the day,
Piled high as autumn shocks, there lay
The ghastly harvest of the fray,
The corpses of the slain."

P. 14.

The hovering of death over the fatal plain is finely conceived, although we do not quite adinire his summons to the bloody banquet as his guests were not to devour but to be devoured.

"Death hover'd o'er the maddening rout,

And, in the thrilling battle-shout,
Sent for the bloody banquet out

A summons of his own.

Through rolling smoke the Demon's eye
Could well each destined guest espy,
Well could his ear in ecstacy

Distinguish every tone

That fill'd the chorus of the fray-
From cannon-roar and trumpet-bray,

From charging squadrons' wild hurra,

From the wild clang that mark'd their way,—
Down to the dying groan,

And the last sob of life's decay

When breath was all but flown."

P. 17.

The address to Buonaparte is rather too long, and in parts devoid of spirit. The poet, however, has drawn an admirable simile from his Scotch mountains, which is applied with peculiar happiness to his subject.

"Or is thy soul like mountain-tide,

That, swell'd by winter storm and shower,
Rolls down in turbulence of power
A torrent fierce and wide;

'Reft of these aids, a rill obscure,
Shrinking unnoticed, mean, and poor,
Whose channel shows display'd

The wrecks of its impetuous course,
But not one symptom of the force

By which these wrecks were made!" P. 28.

The idea, that upon this single contest the name, the empire,

perhaps,

perhaps, even the existence of Buonaparte depended, is admirably expressed.

"Fate, in these various perils past,

Reserved thee still some future cast ;-
On the dread die thou now has thrown,
Hangs not a single field alone,
Nor one campaign-thy martial fame,
Thy empire, dynasty, and name,
Have felt the final stroke;

And now, o'er thy devoted head

The last stern vial's wrath is shed,

The last dread seal is broke." P. 31.

As the panegyric upon the Duke of Wellington has appeared in most of the public papers, we shall not extract it; the stanza is sufficiently stately, but somewhat stiff.

We now come to a part of the poem which will command much more general attention and admiration. An epicedium upon those who fall in their country's cause, will always find a passage to the heart of an Englishman, when panegyric fails in its purpose. Mr. Scott has succeeded admirably in this part of his poem. The following thoughts are not indeed new, but selected with judgment, and expressed with a delicate and disciplined feeling.

"Here piled in common slaughter sleep
Those whom affection long shall weep;
Here rests the sire, that ne'er shall strain
His orphans to his heart again;
The son, whom, on his native shore,
The parent's voice shall bless no more;
The bridegroom, who has hardly press'd
His blushing consort to his breast;
The husband, whom through many a year
Long love and mutual faith endear.
Thou can'st not name one tender tie
But here dissolved its reliques lie!
O when thou see'st some mourner's veil,
Shroud her thin form and visage pale,
Or mark'st the Matron's bursting tears
Stream when the stricken drum she hears;
Or see'st how manlier grief, suppress'd,
Is labouring in a father's breast,

With no enquiry vain pursue

The cause, but think on Waterloo." P. 36.

When our poet proceeds to name the departed heroes of the day, his selection is not less happy; the following lines are more truly classical, than any which we have yet seen of the same author.

M m 2

"Thou

"Thou saw'st in seas of gore expire
Redoubted PICTON'S Soul of fire-
Saw'st in the mingled carnage lie
All that of PONSONBY Could die-
DE LANCY change Love's bridal-wreath,
For laurels from the hand of Death-
Saw'st gallant MILLER'S failing eye
Still bent where Albion's banners fly,
And CAMERON, in the shock of steel,
Die like the offspring of Lochiel;
And generous GORDON, 'mid the strife,
Fall while he watch'd his leader's life.-"

P. 38.

Our extracts will conclude with the following passage, which
we consider as unrivalled in beauty and pathos.
"The poor sot-
dier's lowlier name," is a new and most classical idea. Though
the lines come home to the heart of the reader, yet he will find
no general nor common place application. The peculiar cir-
cumstances of situation are so artfully interwoven as exclusively-
to point out the field of Waterloo.

"Forgive, brave Dead, the imperfect lay!
Who may your names, your numbers, say?
What high-strung harp, what lofty line,
To each the dear-earn'd praise assign,
From high-born chiefs of martial fame
To the poor soldier's lowlier name?
Lightly ye rose that dawning day,
From your cold couch of swamp and clay,
To fill, before the sun was low,

The bed that morning cannot know.~
Oft may the tear the green sod steep,
And sacred be the heroes' sleep,

Till Time shall cease to run;

And ne'er beside their noble grave,
May Briton pass and fail to crave
A blessing on the fallen brave

Who fought with Wellington!" P. 39.

We have selected for our readers the most brilliant parts of the poem before us; should they be discouraged however from purchasing the remainder by this declaration, we would protest against their resolutions by informing them that the profits arising from its sale are dedicated by its patriotic author, to the national fund for the sufferers of Waterloo. The dedication of his talents and of their produce upon this altar, is no mean offering from such a man as Walter Scott, and we trust that it will be accepted with the gratitude which it deserves.

ART.

1