a real event, having reference to a real topography, would shake the whole fabric of profane history! * We verily believe that it would not start a timber of the building. But we meddle not with that question, except to protest against the assumption that the poetic merit of the Iliad is concerned in it, or in the controversy touching the author of that poem. Be of which or what opinion you may upon these points-dash the poet into splinters with Wolf, or cut him asunder with Payne Knight and Thirlwall-the poem itself remains as it was, and is, and ever will be, without father or mother, having neither beginning of days nor end of life-unique, untranslatable, unapproachable. We may be robbed of 'The blind old man of Scio's rocky isle ;' but not all the Wolves in Germany can mar one of the immortal dreams which beguiled him. Mere temperament has much to do in opinions on these curious questions. To many men, the fine old bust of Homer is a conclusive argument for his individuality; it was so to Scott. To others, the union of many voices, the sound of many waters, is the sublimer and more affecting conception of the two; it was so to Coleridge, and it is so to Wordsworth. The controversies to which the scenes, the subjects, and the composition of these marvellous productions of human genius have given birth, must ever be interesting to all scholars as involving a world of history and philology, and even philosophy; but the decision in none of them seems to us of any vital importance to literature for the mere fact's sake. It is not for or against Wolf that a part needs be taken with warmth, but for Homer against Zoilus, in whatever shape he appears; for sound old healthful scholarship against the charlatanism of science ;-for the Muses, in short, it is, that we ought to stand up against their natural handmaids, but in these days would-be mistresses, the Arts. Thus minded, we accept with pleasure and gratitude such delightful results of genial scholarship as these which Mr. Acland has now given us; not careful to believe all that he believes, yet sympathising with his enthusiasm, and respecting his moderation. He, no doubt, will agree with the great master of his university, that probable impossibilities are more allowable to a poet than possible improbabilities;† and that to test Homer literally by the appearances of the district between Koum Kalé and Bounarbashi, or the identity of that district and its localities by Homer, is dealing more hardly with both than they deserve, or than any other heroic poem or heroic scene would bear. We should say * Asia Minor, p. 278. † προαιρεῖσθαι ἀδύνατα καὶ εἰκότα, μᾶλλον ἢ δυνατὰ καὶ ἀπίθανα. Poetic. 44 for for Homer that you have no right to travel out of his record for. any purpose connected with his poem, no matter whether he did or did not mean to describe the features of any actual locality. He might take one of those features and leave another; he might be accurate here, and fanciful there; he might combine or dissociate, or invent; he might do anything as a poet, or maker, so nevertheless that he lawfully produced a true effect of beauty or grandeur to the spectator of the poetic scene. If Homer has done this in the Iliad, he has done enough to prove himself the most accomplished liar the world ever saw 'Qui sic MENTITUR, sic veris falsa remiscet' that educated men believe his word against the evidence of their own eyes. Art. III.1. The Dream and other Poems. By the Hon. Mrs. Norton. London. 1840. The Undying One, and other Poems. London. 1837. 2. The Seraphim, and other Poems. By Elizabeth B. Barrett. London. 1838. Prometheus Bound. Translated from the Greek of Eschylus, and Miscellaneous Poems. London. 1833. The Romaunt of the Page. 1839. 3. Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven. By Maria del Occidente. London. 1833. 4. Irene, a Poem in Six Cantos. Miscellaneous Poems. London. 1833. (Not published.) 5. Poems. By Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley. London. 1833. The Knight and the Enchantress, with other Poems. London. 1835. The Village Churchyard, and other Poems. London. 1835. Fragments and Fancies. London. 1837. Hours at Naples, and other Poems. London. 1837. Impressions of Italy, and other Poems. London. 1837. 6. Solitary Hours. By Caroline Southey. London. 2nd edition. 1839. The Birth-day, and other Poems. London. 1836. The Widow's Tale, and other Poems. London. 1822. Ellen Fitzarthur. London. 1820. 7. Poems, chiefly dramatic. Edited by Thomas Hill-Lowe, Dean of Exeter. London. 1840. 8. IX Poems. By V. London. 1840. 9. Phantasmion. By Sara Coleridge. London, 1837. WE feel that we never did a bolder thing than now we do, in summoning these nine Muses to our Quarter Sessions. ink turns blue with which we write their names. The very It is easy to be critical on men; but when we venture to lift a pen pen against women, straightway apparent facies; the weapon drops pointless on the marked passage; and whilst the mind is bent on praise or censure of the poem, the eye swims too deep in tears and mist over the poetess herself in the frontispiece, to let it see its way to either. Edwin Landseer's drawing must be removed, or we shall hold our court, like the Areopagites, in the dark. Lady Morgan in her recent work, Woman and her Master,'which, like almost all her works, is very clever and very amusing, and which is remarkable as the production of a writer who has evidently had no experience of her subject-complains bitterly that women in general, and English women in particular, are debarred, by the tyranny of man, from the full use of their faculties and the lawful enjoyment of their passions. If the testimony of the accused party were admissible, we should say that, according to our own observation, our countrywomen have and exercise a reasonable liberty in the particulars to which Lady Morgan refers; nor do we believe that any very considerable number of them could be found to subscribe to the truth of her complaint. And at all events, we engage that a counterplea of Man and his Mistress,' shall be signed by an equal and equally respectable number of our countrymen. Be that, however, as it may, Lady Morgan must surely admit that, in one important point, the women of this age and country are an emancipated race. Measuring time from the Wild Irish Girl' to Woman and her Master,' can Lady Morgan, with all her talent, deny that-let Englishwomen labour under what other disabilities they may-they can, and they do, write, print, and publish whatever they like? Is there any fear of the press before their eyes? Do Reviews fright them out of their own way? We declare that, as we observe, the men are much more apprehensive of criticism than their fair fellows, and take it worse when administered. Are publishers wanting? There is Mr. Henry Colburn. Are they underpaid? They obtain thousands. Are they without readers? We wish Milton had as many. There was a time-and we remember it-when matters went otherwise; when the disgust excited by the female smatterer in letters kept the really learned, and therefore modest, woman in retirement; when the vulgar-minded of both sexes took occasion, from the folly of a few poor unfeminine creatures, to sneer at the very notion of learning and genius in any woman; and when— worst of all!-religion was dragged into the question, and serious people doubted whether the pursuit of literature by women were not incompatible with the full and cheerful performance of their social and domestic duties. That time is past in England; the sensual philosophy with which it was so closely connected has lost its hold on the rising spirits of the age; women move amongst us on nobler and truer principles, joint-heirs with men who have begun begun to feel their exalted origin and destiny, and to recognise that inborn dowry of spirit and power, the existence of which the material systems of the last century had denied or obscured. A different tone prevails in society upon this subject; the peculiar talents of women are acknowledged, and the powers common to them and men are, in particular instances of exhibition, fairly appreciated. Hence we see less and less of the prating Miss, or the elderly young lady of letters of some years ago, in proportion as the really cultivated and intellectual woman feels assured of her just place in all good company. Affectation has disappeared with the uneasy singularity of position which provoked it; and the woman of genius or learning, who knows that men are conversing with her on a ground of respect and equality, learns to be humble and sincere. The It is impossible to read the works enumerated at the head of this article-and the list does not comprise all the writings of some of the authors-without a just feeling of pride, and something better, that those authors are our countrywomen. erudition displayed-or rather apparent-in these poems, is of itself such as only very accomplished scholars and regularly trained students can command or understand. But this is not all, or the most remarkable. We are more impressed with the power of thought which is conspicuous in them, and the manifold variety of direction which is given to it. In none is this more observable than in the first of Mrs. Norton's volumes on our list. This lady is the Byron of our modern poetesses. She has very much of that intense personal passion by which Byron's poetry is distinguished from the larger grasp and deeper communion with man and nature of Wordsworth. She has also Byron's beautiful intervals of tenderness, his strong practical thought, and his forceful expression. It is not an artificial imitation, but a natural parallel: and we may add that it is this her latest production, which especially induces, and seems to us to justify, our criticism. The last three or four years have made Mrs. Norton a greater writer than she was; she is deeper, plainer, truer. There is a meaning, an allusion, an aiming, throughout the larger part of this volume, which of course we can but imperfectly understand, and in which we can take but the interest of contemporary strangers: yet we could not read the following Dedication to the Duchess of Sutherland-most worthy of the poetess and her patron-without feeling our heart swell with we know not what emotion: 'Once more, my harp! once more, although I thought A wandering dream thy gentle chords have wrought, And And unto Thee-the beautiful and pure- And Fancy's generous wing is faintly furl'd; In days when poverty was twin with song; Nor wandering harper, lonely and ill-starr'd, Cheer'd by some castle's chief, and harbour'd long; Woke with a warmer heart the earnest meed of praise! not crush'd, my heart. And some, who might have battled for my sake, Thou gav'st me that the poor do give the poor, Kind words and holy wishes, and true tears; The lov'd, the near of kin, could do no more, Who chang'd not with the gloom of varying years, But clung the closer when I stood forlorn, And blunted Slander's dart with their indignant scorn. And mar the freshness of her snowy wing,- To crimson with a faint false-hearted shame; For from thine own good thoughts thy heart its mercy drew. VOL. LXVI. NO. CXXXII. 2 C And |