The populous and the powerful was a lump.

After this last calamity, he is allowed to be Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless

at large in the dungeon.

"And it was liberty to stride

Along my cell from side to side,
And up and down, and then athwart,
And tread it over every part;
And round the pillars one by one,
Returning where my walk begun,
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod.'
He climbs up at last to the high chink that
admitted the light to his prison; and looks
out once more on the long-remembered face
of nature, and the lofty forms of the eternal

mountains.

"I saw them-and they were the same,

They were not chang'd like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high-their wide long lake below,
And the blue Rhone in fullest flow;
I heard the torrents leap and gush
O'er channell'd rock and broken bush;
I saw the white-wall'd distant town,
And whiter sails go skimming down;
And then there was a little isle,
Which in my very face did smile,

The only one in view;

A small green isle; it seem'd no more,
Scarce broader than my dungeon floor,
But in it there were three tall trees,
And o'er it blew the mountain breeze,
And by it there were waters flowing,
And on it there were young flow'rs growing,
Of gentle breath and hue.
The fish swam by the castle wall,
And they seem'd joyous, each and all;
The eagle rode the rising blast;
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seem'd to fly."

A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay!
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea, [dropp'd
And their masts fell down piecemeal: As they'
They slept on the abyss without a surge-
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave
The moon their mistress had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
of aid from them-She was the universe."

There is a poem entitled "The Dream," full of living pictures, and written with great beauty and genius-but extremely painfuland abounding with mysteries into which we have no desire to penetrate. "The Incantation" and "Titan" have the same distressing character-though without the sweetness of the other. Some stanzas to a nameless friend, are in a tone of more open misanthropy. This is a favourable specimen of their tone and temper.

"Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though lov'd, thou foreborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,-
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor mute, that the world might belie."

Beautiful as this poetry is, it is a relief at last to close the volume. We cannot maintain our accustomed tone of levity, or even speak like calm literary judges, in the midst of these agonising traces of a wounded and distempered spirit. Even our admiration is at last swallowed up in a most painful feeling of pity and The rest of the poems in this little volume, of wonder. It is impossible to mistake these are less amiable—and most of them, we fear, for fictitious sorrows, conjured up for the purhave a personal and not very charitable ap- pose of poetical effect. There is a dreadful plication. One, entitled "Darkness," is free tone of sincerity, and an energy that cannot at least from this imputation. It is a grand be counterfeited, in the expression of wretchand gloomy sketch of the supposed conse-edness and alienation from human kind, which quences of the final extinction of the Sun and occurs in every page of this publication; and the Heavenly bodies-executed, undoubtedly, as the author has at last spoken out in his own with great and fearful force-but with some-person, and unbosomed his griefs a great deal thing of German exaggeration, and a fantastical selection of incidents. The very conception is terrible, above all conception of known calamity-and is too oppressive to the imagination, to be contemplated with pleasure, even in the faint reflection of poetry.

too freely to his readers, the offence now
would be to entertain a doubt of their reality.
We certainly have no hope of preaching him
into philanthropy and cheerfulness; but it is
impossible not to mourn over such a catas
trophe of such a mind; or to see the prodigal
gifts of Nature, Fortune, and Fame, thus
turned to bitterness, without an oppressive
feeling of impatience, mortification, and sur-
prise. Where there are such elements, how-
ever, it is equally impossible to despair that
they may yet enter into happier combinations,
-or not to hope this "that puissant spirit"
"yet shall reascend
Self-rais'd, and repossess its native seat.”

(November, 1817.)

Lalla Rookh; an Oriental Romance. By THOMAS MOORE. 4to. pp. 405.: London: 1817.

THERE is a great deal of our recent poetry derived from the East: But this is the finest Orientalism we have had yet. The land of the Sun has never shone out so brightly on the children of the North-nor the sweets of Asia been poured forth, nor her gorgeousness displayed so profusely to the delighted senses of Europe. The beauteous forms, the dazzling splendours, the breathing odours of the East, seem at last to have found a kindred poet in that green isle of the West; whose Genius has long been suspected to be derived from a warmer clime, and now wantons and luxuriates in those voluptuous regions, as if it felt that it had at length regained its native element. It is amazing, indeed, how much at home Mr. Moore seems to be in India, Persia, and Arabia; and how purely and strictly Asiatic all the colouring and imagery of his book appears. He is thoroughly embued with the character of the scenes to which he transports us; and yet the extent of his knowledge is less wonderful than the dexterity and apparent facility with which he has turned it to account, in the elucidation and embellishment of his poetry. There is not, in the volume now before us, a simile or description, a name, a trait of history, or allusion of romance which belongs to European experience; or does not indicate an entire familiarity with the life, the dead nature, and the learning of the East. Nor are these barbaric ornaments thinly scattered to make up a show. They are showered lavishly over all the work; and form, perhaps too much, the staple of the poetry-and the riches of that which is chiefly distinguished for its richness.

stitution of genius. While it is more splendid in imagery-(and for the most part in very good taste)-more rich in sparkling thoughts and original conceptions, and more full indeed of exquisite pictures, both of all sorts of beauties and virtues, and all sorts of sufferings and crimes, than any other poem that has yet come before us; we rather think we speak the sense of most readers, when we add, that the effect of the whole is to mingle a certain feeling of disappointment with that of admiration! to excite admiration rather than any warmer sentiment of delight-to dazzle, more than to enchant-and, in the end, more frequently to startle the fancy, and fatigue the attention, by the constant succession of glittering images and high-strained emotions, than to maintain a rising interest, or win a growing sympathy, by a less profuse or more systematic display of attractions.

The style is, on the whole, rather diffuse, and too unvaried in its character. But its greatest fault, in our eyes, is the uniformity of its brilliancy-the want of plainness, simplicity, and repose. We have heard it observed by some very zealous admirers of Mr. Moore's genius, that you cannot open this book with out finding a cluster of beauties in every page. Now, this is only another way of expressing what we think its greatest defect. No work, consisting of many pages, should have detached and distinguishable beauties in every one of them. No great work, indeed, should have many beauties: If it were perfect, it would have but one; and that but faintly perceptible, except on a view of the whole. Look, for ex ample, at what is perhaps the most finished We would confine this remark, however, to and exquisite production of human art-the the descriptions of external objects, and the design and elevation of a Grecian temple, in allusions to literature and history or to what its old severe simplicity. What penury of may be termed the materiel of the poetry be- ornament-what rejection of beauties of de fore us. The Characters and Sentiments are tail!-what masses of plain surface-what of a different order. They cannot, indeed, be rigid economical limitation to the useful and said to be copies of European nature; but they the necessary! The cottage of a peasant is are still less like that of any other region. scarcely more simple in its structure, and has They are, in truth, poetical imaginations;- not fewer parts that are superfluous. Yet but it is to the poetry of rational, honourable, what grandeur-what elegance-what grace considerate, and humane Europe, that they and completeness in the effect! The whole is belong-and not to the childishness, cruelty, beautiful-because the beauty is in the whole: and profligacy of Asia. It may seem a harsh But there is little merit in any of the parts, and presumptuous sentence, to some of our except that of fitness and careful finishing. Cosmopolite readers: But from all we have Contrast this, now, with a Dutch pleasurebeen able to gather from history or recent ob- house, or a Chinese-where every part is servation, we should be inclined to say that meant to be separately beautiful-and the rethere was no sound sense, firmness of purpose, sult is deformity !-where there is not an inch or principled goodness, except among the na- of the surface that is not brilliant with varied tives of Europe, and their genuine descendants. colour, and rough with curves and angles, There is something very extraordinary, we and where the effect of the whole is monstrous think, in the work before us-and something and offensive. We are as far as possible from which indicates in the author, not only a great meaning to insinuate that Mr. Moore's poetry exuberance of talent, but a very singular con- is of this description. On the contrary, we

It seems to be a law of our intellectual constitution, that the powers of taste cannot be permanently gratified, except by some sustained or continuous emotion; and that a series, even of the most agreeable excitements, soon ceases, if broken and disconnected, to give any pleasure. No conversation fatigues so soon as that which is made up of points and epigrams; and the accomplished rhetorician, who

think his ornaments are, for the most part, | ceive of their proceedings, or to sympathise truly and exquisitely beautiful; and the gene- freely with their fortunes. The disasters to ral design of his pieces very elegant and in- which they are exposed, and the designs in genious: All that we mean to say is, that which they are engaged, are of the same am there is too much ornament-too many insu- bitious and exaggerated character; and all lated and independent beauties-and that the are involved in so much pomp, and splendour, notice, and the very admiration they excite, and luxury, and the description of their exhurt the interest of the general design; and treme grandeur and elegance forms so connot only withdraw our attention too importu- siderable a part of the whole work, that the nately from it, but at last weary it out with less sublime portion of the species can with their perpetual recurrence. difficulty presume to judge of them, or to enter into the concernments of such very exquisite persons. The incidents, in like manner, are so prodigiously moving, so excessively improbable, and so terribly critical, that we have the same difficulty of raising our sentiments to the proper pitch for them ;—and, finding it impossible to sympathise as we ought to do with such portentous occurrences, are sometimes tempted to withhold our sympathy altogether, and to seek for its objects among more familiar adventures. Scenes of voluptuous splendour and ecstasy alternate suddenly with agonising separations, atrocious crimes, and tremendous sufferings;-battles, incredibly fierce and sanguinary, follow close on entertainments incredibly sumptuous and elegant ;-terrific tempests are succeeded by delicious calms at sea: and the land scenes are divided between horrible chasms and precipices, and vales and gardens rich in eternal blooms, and glittering with palaces and temples-while the interest of the story is maintained by instruments and agents of no less potency than insanity, blasphemy, poisonings, religious hatred, national antipathy, demoni acal misanthropy, and devoted love.

could not ope

His mouth, but out there flew a trope," must have been a most intolerable companion. There are some things, too, that seem so plainly intended for ornaments and seasonings only, that they are only agreeable, when sprinkled in moderation over a plainer medium. No one would like to make an entire meal on sauce piquante; or to appear in a dress crusted over with diamonds; or to pass a day in a steam of rich distilled perfumes. It is the same with the glittering ornaments of poetry-with splendid metaphors and ingenious allusions, and all the figures of speech and of thought that constitute its outward pomp and glory. Now, Mr. Moore, it appears to us, is decidedly too lavish of his gems and sweets;-he labours under a plethora of wit and imagination-impairs his credit by the palpable exuberance of his possessions, and would be richer with half his wealth. His works are not only of costly material and graceful design, but they are everywhere glistening with small beauties and transitory inspirations-sudden flashes of fancy, that blaze out and perish; like earth-born meteors that crackle in the lower sky, and unseasonably divert our eyes from the great and lofty bodies which pursue their harmonious courses in a serener region.

We have spoken of these as faults of style: But they could scarcely have existed in the style, without going deeper; and though they first strike us as qualities of the composition anly, we find, upon a little reflection, that the same general character belongs to the fable, the characters, and the sentiments,-that they all sin alike in the excess of their means of attraction, and fail to interest, chiefly by being too interesting.

In order to avoid the debasement of ordinary or familiar life, the author has soared to a region beyond the comprehension of most of his readers. All his personages are so very beautiful, and brave, and agonising-so totally wrapt up in the exaltation of their vehement emotions, and withal so lofty in rank, and so sumptuous and magnificent in all that relates to their external condition, that the herd of ordinary mortals can scarcely venture to con

We are aware that, in objecting to a work like this, that it is made up of such materials, we may seem to be objecting that it is made of the elements of poetry,-since it is no doubt true, that it is by the use of such materials that poetry is substantially distinguished from prose, and that it is to them it is indebted for all that is peculiar in the delight and the interest it inspires: and it may seem a little unreasonable to complain of a poet, that he treats us with the essence of poetry. We have already hinted, however, that it is not advisable to live entirely on essences; and our objection goes not only to the excessive strength of the emotions that are sought to be raised, but to the violence of their transitions, and the want of continuity in the train of feeling that is produced. It may not be amiss, however, to add a word or two more of explanation.

In the first place, then, if we consider how the fact stands, we shall find that all the great poets, and, in an especial manner, all the poets who chain down the attention of their readers, and maintain a growing interest through a long series of narrations, have been remarkable for the occasional familiarity, and even homeliness, of many of their incidents, characters and sentiments. This is the dis tinguishing feature in Homer, Chaucer, Ari osto, Shakespeare, Dryden, Scott-and will be found to occur, we believe, in all poetry that has been long and extensively popular; or that is capable of pleasing very strongly, or stirring