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Field of death, where'er thou be,

Groan thou with our victory!
Happy day, and mighty hour,

When our shepherd, in his power.

Mail'd and horsed, with lance and sword,

To his ancestors restored,

Like a re-appearing star,

Like a glory from afar,

First shall head the flock of war!"

Alas! the fervent harper did not know
That for a tranquil soul the lay was framed,'
Who, long compell'd in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, sooth'd, and tamed.
In him the savage virtue of the race,
Revenge, and all ferocious thoughts, were dead:
Nor did he change; but kept in lofty place
The wisdom which adversity had bred.

Glad were the vales, and every cottage hearth;
The Shepherd Lord was honour'd more and more:
And, ages after he was laid in earth,

'The good Lord Clifford' was the name he bore."

Vol. i. pp. 136-138.

All English writers of sonnets have imitated Milton; and, in this way, Mr. Wordsworth, when he writes sonnets, escapes again from the trammels of his own unfortunate system; and the consequence is, that his sonnets are as much superior to the greater part of his other poems, as Milton's Sonnets are superior to his. We give the following "On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic :"

"Once did she hold the gorgeous East in fee;

And was the safeguard of the West: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest child of Liberty.
She was a maiden city, bright and free;
No guile seduced, no force could violate;
And when she took unto herself a mate
She must espouse the everlasting Sea.
And what if she had seen those glories fade,
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay,
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid

When her long life hath reach'd its final day :

Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade

Of that which once was great is pass'd away." Vol. i. p. 132.

The following is entitled "London:"

"Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour:
England hath need of thee; she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword and pen,
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited their ancient English dower
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart :

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea;

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on itself did lay." Vol. i. p. 140.

We make room for this other; though the four first lines are bad, and week-day man" is by no means a Miltonic epithet.

"I grieved for Buonaparte, with a vain

And an unthinking grief! The vital blood

Of that man's mind what can it be? What food

Fed his first hopes? What knowledge could he gain?

"Tis not in battles that from youth we train
The governor who must be wise and good,
And temper with the sternness of the brain
Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood.
Wisdom doth live with children round her knees:
Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk
Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk
Of the mind's business: these are the degrees

By which true sway doth mount; this is the stalk

True power doth grow on; and her rights are these." Vol. i. p. 130.

When we look at these, and many still finer passages, in the writings of this author, it is impossible not to feel a mixture of indignation and compassion, at that strange infatuation which has bound him up from the fair exercise of his talents, and withheld from the public the many excellent productions that would otherwise have taken the place of the trash now before us. Even in the worst of these productions, there are, no doubt, occasional little traits of delicate feeling and original fancy; but these are quite lost and obscured in the mass of childishness and insipidity with which they are incorporated; nor can any thing give us a more melancholy view of the debasing effects of this miserable theory, than that it has given ordinary men a right to wonder at the folly and presumption of a man gifted like Mr. Wordsworth, and made him appear, in his second avowed publication, like a bad imitator of the worst of his former productions.

We venture to hope, that there is now an end of this folly; and that, like other follies, it will be found to have cured itself by the extravagancies resulting from its unbridled indulgence. In this point of view, the publication of the volumes before us may ultimately be of service to the good cause of literature. Many a generous rebel, it is said, has been reclaimed to his allegiance by the spectacle of lawless outrage and excess presented in the conduct of the insurgents; and we think there is every reason to hope, that the lamentable consequences which have resulted from Mr. Wordsworth's open violation of the established laws of poetry, will operate as a wholesome warning to those who might otherwise have been seduced by his example, and be the means of restoring to that ancient and venerable code its due honour and authority.*

SOUTHEY. +

We admire the genius of Mr. Southey; we reverence the lofty principles, and we love the tenderness of heart, that are visible in all his productions. But we are heartily provoked at his conceit and bad taste, and quite wearied out with the perversity of his manifold affectations. Not many poets, dead or living, have given proofs of a finer fancy, or drawn more copiously from the stores of a rich and cultivated imagination: stil! fewer have maintained a sublimer tone of sentiment,-or pictured, in more enchanting colours, the simple and innocent affections of our nature; and none has ever made these rich gifts poor" by such an obstinate strain of

*See Vol. xxiv. p. 1. Vol. xxv. p. 355. and Vol. xxxvii. p. 449., in which Wordsworth's other works are reviewed.

Southey's Curse of Kehama.-Vol. xvii. p. 429. February, 1811.

childish affectation; or so perversely defrauded the world of the delight, and himself of the glory, which they were intended by nature to produce. It is this mixed feeling of provocation and delight, that has given that contradictory character to our observations on Mr. Southey's former productions; which, we fear, may have brought our judgment into disrepute with the more uncharitable part of our readers. Our praise and our blame, we suspect, have appeared to be both too strong, to be justly applicable to one and the same performance; and we have been accused, alternately, of malice and of partiality, by those who will not understand, that a long poem may afford matter both for just ridicule and for just admiration. Mr. Southey's case, indeed, we have always considered as an extreme one; and, however awkwardly the censure and applause may stand together in our pages, we must be permitted to say, that nothing could be more sincere and conscientious than our expression of both these feelings; and that it appears to us, that no other expressions could have done full justice to the extraordinary performances by which they were excited. It is Mr. Southey himself that is the grand inconsistent; and the more truly we are charmed by the brilliancy of his imagination, and the truth and delicacy of his feelings, the more we must be offended by the wilful deformities by which he has rendered vain the combination of so many beauties.

Mr. Southey, of course, despises equally our censure and our advice; and we have no quarrel with him for this. We have been too long conversant with the untractable generation of authors to expect that our friendly expostulations should have any effect upon them,-except as exponents of the silent, practical judgment of the public. To that superior tribunal, however, we do think ourselves entitled to refer; and while we, who profess the stately office of correcting and instructing, are yet willing, in most things, to bow to its authority, we really cannot help thinking, that a poet, whose sole object is to give delight and to gain glory, ought to show something of the same docility.

There is, indeed, another and a final appeal-to Posterity,-from the benefit of which we are very far from wishing to exclude any unfortunate persons whose circumstances may reduce them to rely on it. But the cases, we believe, are wonderfully rare, in which that mysterious and inaccessible Judge has ever reversed the unfavourable sentences of the ordinary jurisdictions; and there seems even to be great reason for thinking, that such reversals will be still fewer in time to come. Without resting much upon the superior intelligence of the present age, we believe we may safely pass a large encomium on its indulgence; and may be fairly allowed to doubt, whether any time is at all likely to come, in which every sort of merit will be so sure of being detected and extolled, in spite, and sometimes in consequence, of the incongruities and deformities with which it may be associated. Things are wonderfully changed in this respect, since a licentious and illiterate age withheld from Milton the fame which its successor was so proud to bestow. Poetry is read now, we suppose, by very nearly ten times as many persons; and fifty times as many think themselves judges of poetry; and are eager for an opportunity to glorify themselves as its patrons, by exaggerating the merit of some obscure or dubious writer, in whose reputation they may be entitled to share by contributing to raise it. Thus, in our own time, we have had Mrs. H. More patronising Mrs. Yearsley the milk woman; and Mr. Capel Lofft bringing

forward Mr. Bloomfield the shoemaker; and Mr. Raymond Grant challenging immortality for Mr. Dermody the drunkard; and Sir James Bland Burgess and Sir Brooke Boothby, and Miss Aikin and Miss Holford, and fifty others, patronising themselves, and each other, with the most laudable zeal and exemplary activity. Now, whatever may be its other effects, it is certain that all this competition for patronage and discovery ensures notoriety, and a certain viaticum of praise, to almost every poetical adventurer; and takes away almost the possibility of that neglect which, in former times, stood so often in the way, not merely of reputation, but of fair trial. That a great deal of false reputation will be raised, under such circumstances, and various lots of undeserved and perishable praise be awarded by vanity, partiality, and caprice, cannot indeed be doubted; but it is not so easy to conceive, that any real merit should escape detection, or miss honour, in this sanguine search after excellence, -that the active manure which quickens so many colder seeds should not stimulate the more sensitive fibres of genius,-or that the bright sun, which gilds, with a passing glory, the idle weeds of literature, should fail to kindle into beauty the splendid blossoms of poetry.

But, leaving Mr. Southey the full benefit of his chance with posterity, it is enough for us to observe, that his appeal to the present generation has now been made with sufficient fulness and deliberation; and that the decision, as we understand it, has not only confirmed, but outgone, all that we had predicted as to the fatal effects of his peculiarities. During the last fifteen years, he has put forth (besides the present work) three very long poems,- -no one of which, we think, can be said to have succeeded. That they have all had some readers, and some admirers, we do not mean to dispute; nay, there are many who pass for tolerable judges in such matters, who think they have had a very strange and unaccountable success but the author, and his admirers, and his booksellers, are not by any means of that opinion; and we, for our parts, have no hesitation in saying, that they have not had nearly so much success as it appears to us that they deserve. There have been three editions, we believe, of Joan of Arc-two of Thalaba-and one only of Madoc,-though the last has been six years in the hands of the public, and of a public which has called, during the same interval, for more than ten editions of the Farmer's Boy, and five or six, if we do not mistake, of the Wanderer of Switzerland.

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This, we think, is pretty strong testimony against the taste of a poet, whose genius, we believe, was never lowered, even among those who neglect him, to a comparison with that of Mr. Bloomfield, or Mr. Montgomery. But the inference is still stronger, when we consider the circumstances under which this testimony has been given. Mr. Southey is no longer in his noviciate. Though still in the vigour of life, he has been a full-fledged and industrious author for nearly twenty years; and has not wanted, as we ourselves can testify, for advice and admonition, both laudatory and vituperative. With all these advantages, however, and means of improvement, we are afraid that he is rather less in favour with the public than he was at the beginning of his career. His first poem was decidedly more successful than his second, and his second than his third yet his genius certainly is in no degree impaired; and his judgment and powers of execution may be fairly presumed to have received some improvement. When we find him rather on the decline, therefore, in

public estimation, and discover that his fame, instead of gathering brightness as his course is prolonged, seems rather to waste away and wax dim, it is difficult to suppose that this proceeds from any thing but the misapplication of acknowledged powers, and the obstinacy with which he has persisted in errors of which he received very early warning. The public is naturally disposed to be very kind to the errors of youthful genius; and was entitled, in this case, to look for the speedy correction of faults, for which mere inexperience could scarcely at any time be received as an apology. If such faults, therefore, are long persisted in, their indulgence will be gradually exhausted. What was at first ascribed to inadvertence, will now be referred, with some appearance of justice, to bad taste and perversity; and the reader will turn away, disappointed and disgusted, from an ostentatious display of absurdities that are no longer original.

There is one other peculiarity in the state of Mr. Southey's poetical reputation, from which, we think, that he should take warning, while it is yet time. His admirers, we fear, are not the very best sort of admirers. In so far as we have been able to gather, there are but few persons of cultivated taste and sober judgment in his train; and his glories are celebrated, we think, chiefly by the young, the enthusiastic, and the uninstructed;-persons whose fancies are easily captivated with glitter, exaggeration and novelty, and whose exuberant sensibility is apt to flame out at the approach even of the false fire of bombast and affectation. Not many of the admirers of the ancient or the modern classics are admirers of Mr. Southey; and many of those who applaud him the most warmly, can discover no merit in those celebrated performances. We do not purpose by any means to deny that there are many dull and weak persons among the professed admirers of Homer and Virgil; and that there is much natural feeling in the description of readers whom we have supposed to take delight in Mr. Southey. But it is not of good augury, we think, for his future fame, that his supporters should be all of this description; and that almost all those should be against him, who have any decided relish for what has hitherto been found enduring in poetry. So, however, we take the case very nearly to be. Almost all nice critics and fastidious judges, and the greater part indeed of men of improved and delicate taste, not only refuse to admire Mr. Southey and his colleagues, but treat them with absolute contempt and derision-wonder at such of their friends as profess to think favourably of their genius-and look upon the circumstance of their having made a kind of party in the literary world, as one of the most humiliating events in the recent history of that great society. For our own part, we are a good deal less difficult; and shall continue to testify in favour of Mr. Southey's talents and genius, as resolutely as against his peculiarities and affectations;-considering it indeed as our chief duty, in this matter, to counteract the neglect into which he seems to be falling, both by endeavouring to correct the faults by which it is provoked, and by pointing out the excellences by which those faults are at once enhanced and redeemed.

But, though we cannot sympathise with the undiscriminating scorn and sweeping reprobation which Mr. Southey meets with in very respectable quarters, we think we can see very clearly how such feelings should have been excited; and are very ready to enter into sentiments, which we think, at the same time, have in this instance been carried greatly too far. Southey's faults are peculiarly glaring; and to all improved understandings, wé admit, peculiarly offensive :--but they are combined, in him, with

Mr.

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