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Paris, the metropolis of the world, invested by hostile forces! Paris, that like Sparta, never saw the smoke of an enemy's camp! After this, the sacking of Rome by pagan Goths, or by catholic imperialists in the time of Clement, may be read with very little emotion. Ah, my God! what will become of my cat if the Cossacks eat him?—vol. ii. p. 161 -163.

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Sparta, Rome, Brennus, Pope Clement, and my cat!

We have examples in abundance of all kinds of absurdity in Greek, Latin, Italian, and above all in English, with which the author endeavours to amuse us, but we have not room to spare for any more extracts. Parodies, as we once before said, should be short-Mr. Mathurin's, though admirably sustained, is too long, and we may venture to say also that the mask is never sufficiently removed we know that the reverend author means to be merry at the expense of novel writers and port-folio pedants, but we regret say that we have heard that some persons, mistaking his book for a serious production, have censured it as degrading, by its folly, its ignorant pedantry, its constant fustian, and its occasional blasphemy, the character of a clerical author; while others, equally well disposed, but more simple, have looked upon it not only as serious but as meritorious, and have praised it as having all the qualities of an excellent novel. Though both these opinions are alike unfounded, we would advise the writer to take warning from them. We are satisfied that he would repel either imputation with equal indiguation, but he ought not to expose himself to such misapprehension; and we are glad to see that instead of the perplexing riddle of a mock romance, he has been employing himself, to the same moral end, on a volume of Sermons' which we have seen advertised, and which we have no doubt will be as excellent in their way as' Bertram' or 'Women,' and at least by their name and character be sacred from any of the misconstructions put on the volumes we have just endeavoured to vindicate.

ART. III. Samor, Lord of the Bright City. An Heroic Poem. By the Rev. H. H. Milman, M.A. 8vo. pp. 374. London.

1818.

THERE is scarcely any department of literature, indeed we

might say of any art or science, in which certain characteristic changes may not be remarked in almost every age, either as to the manner or the degree in which it is pursued. These changes it is always interesting to notice, either for the causes from which they flow, or the consequences to which they give birth. . If we mistake not, a revolution of this nature has been observable of late years in the criticism of this country, especially in that department of it which professes to regulate poetical taste, and assign the rewards

of

of poetical merit; and we shall, perhaps, experience the indulgence of our readers if we take the opportunity, afforded to us by a poem of great power, of explaining the nature of the occasional change alluded to, and of making a few remarks on the consequences resulting from it.

Poetical criticism of old was a laborious task, undertaken with a due respect for the subject of its animadversions, yet sustained with a due sense of its own importance; it was open and responsible; professedly, perhaps ostentatiously, scientific; directed to its own proper objects, and confined within the limits of its own province. Ignorance in the individual might occasionally make this criticism contemptible, or malevolence render it odious; the witlings too of every age have claimed a prescriptive right of amusing themselves at the expense of the critics. But these were not wxea Béλn; they fell innocuous-and, on the whole, however its comparative rank in the scale of literature might vary at different periods, poetical criticism was, and could not fail to be, highly respectable.

We have said that it was confined to the limits of its own proper province; if we were required to explain what we understand that to be, we should say that poetical criticism should properly be conversant with every thing in poetry, but that which flows exclusively and directly from the native power of the poet. It should watch over the correctness of language, metre, imagery, metaphor, the appropriateness of all these both to the character of the whole, and to the particular part under examination. This is one class of its duties; another, though less strictly so, is to observe upon the positive richness and variety of these ingredients, the force and glow of the language, the harmony and changing cadence of the versification, the perfection and grouping of the imagery, the number and vividness of the metaphors. Rising still higher, but still within the same limits, its duty is to consider the choice of the subject in many different points of view, the relation of the parts to each other, the unity of the whole; the conception, the sustainment, the contrast of the personages, the purity of the thoughts and the general moral effect of the poem.

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Our readers may perhaps smile at the terms confined,' and 'limits,' when they consider the arduous, and extensive province which we have assigned to the poetical critic; and we are aware that it might be hard for us to instance any single individual who had filled up with success the outline of duties here sketched. But it is not necessary for our argument that we should do so-it is enough if we have represented fairly the general system on which poetical criticism then proceeded, and the objects usually kept in view by it. The practice, at least of the present day, is very different-poetical criticism is no longer a laborious, or a responsible

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task;

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task; it is chiefly anonymous, and confined to short disquisitions in periodical journals. As no system is digested, and no principles recurred to, little preparation or knowledge is deemed necessary. The lawyer steals an evening from his brief, the merchant from his accounts; the fine gentleman sacrifices a rout or an opera. We intend to speak disrespectfully of no one, but it is manifestly very unlikely that such men should be fitted to fulfil the task they assume according to the description above given of it--but even if they were, it would not answer the purpose with which they undertake it, so to fulfil it. They are in general men of brilliant talents; and they become critics to display those talents in the manner most attractive to the circle in which they move. This is not to be done. by minute and even verbal examination, by analysis, or by recurrence to standards and fixed principles; such criticism would have very little chance of being read with delight discipularum inter cathedras, or of being carried home, and noted down from the 'persiflante' conversation of our literary parties. The criticism, therefore, of the present day, as might be expected, dwells chiefly on topics more attractive in themselves, and which those who profess the art are more qualified to treat in an attractive manner. Thus we have highly wrought, and not very short descriptions of poetry in general, ingenious theories respecting poetic power, genius and association, parallels drawn, and contrasts exhibited between the sister arts; rapturous declamations on fancy, the picturesque, natural beauty, and harmony; general comparisons between the fables of different poems, and the characteristic qualities of different poets, with an artful selection either of the best or worst passages of the work under consideration. It is not surprising that these critiques should be commonly very entertaining, for they are commonly the production of ingenious men writing upon elegant and interesting subjects, subjects too, be it always remembered, upon which it only requires talent to write brilliant and plausible essays. They have too another charm, in the exact quantity of metaphysical knowledge which they presuppose or require in the reader. Of all the gratifications of intellectual vanity and indolence with which the literature and philosophy of the present day abound, there is none so soothing and delicious to minds elegantly informed but not soundly disciplined, as to play upon the surface of metaphysics.

But entertaining as such critiques certainly are, it is manifest that they contribute very slightly to the true ends of criticism; they do not regulate or improve the taste either of the public or the poet. The public, flattered and entertained as it is for a time, is not deceived in the main; it is too plain for the dullest not to see that those who fill the chair of criticism teach none of its princi

ples,

ples, and lay down no rules by which poetry in general is to be judged; the consequence is that they are read and admired, but neither consulted nor remembered. This is not the worst however; for criticism might act indirectly with more force even than by immediate application to the public: if those who write poetry were taught to do so with a proper knowledge of the principles of their art, and with a due observance of them, the taste of those who read it could not long be very uncultivated. But how should the genus irritabile respect the opinions of the modern critic? They see in him in general an ambitious rival, one who approaches them most injudiciously on their own ground, who is not intent upon laying before the world a fair examination of their faults and beauties, but solicitous only that the critique should be at least as shining and poetical as the poem itself.

It would be imprudent probably, and certainly would be invidious for us to insist at greater length upon this irrelevancy of matter, and false brilliance.of manner in modern criticism; but we must briefly notice two errors flowing from them which, as we think, characterise modern poems and poets. As criticism becomes lowly rated, all rules become equally neglected; the only thing sought after is the exhibition of talent; point out to a poet a tame passage in this page, and he answers with a beautiful one in the next; in short no one aims at producing a good and perfect poem, the monumentum are perennius, which former bards delighted to consume a life in building up; but to give proof by brilliant flashes that he might if he pleased have written such a poem.

The other error is a natural one, but it lies at the root of all poetical criticism-it is this, that the poet learns to believe no one but himself or a brother poet competent to judge of his productions; it is, according to his argument, a question of feeling and power, and he who neither feels so acutely, nor wields such mental energies as his own, can be no proper censor of the propriety of their joint result. Now we hate the cant of criticism as much as any wit or poet of any age or nation, and we certainly shall hardly be accused of a desire to shelter its abuses, or excuse the follies of individual critics; but of criticism itself rightly employed, we will say that the poet who denies its jurisdiction has never thoroughly considered, and does not rightly understand, the real nature of the poetic character.

We now proceed to a task, perhaps too long delayed—an examination of the poem before us. Mr. Milman's choice of a subject would have been in many respects a happy one, if all our impressions from history did not run counter to the truth of its catastrophe. He celebrates the defeat and expulsion of the Saxon invaders from this country with the re-establishment of the British monarchy. His

hero

hero is a Briton chief, the Lord of Gloucester, or the Bright City, and the interest of the poem requires that we should place our affections on the British side. This we are well enough disposed to do; for it is a very curious fact, (an instance perhaps of the force of names and words,) that even to this day, a motley race as we are of Saxons, Angles, Danes and Normans, any thing but Britons, we indentify ourselves entirely with these last in reading our early history, and regard the former as invaders and conquerors with whom we have no connection. So far the subject of Samor is well chosen; but unfortunately we have been familiar from our earliest years with Saxon victories and British defeats; and though we find upon examination that the struggle was long and severe, we know that the issue approached nearly to the extermination of the Britons. It is impossible therefore not to feel something unsatisfactory and imperfect in the close of the story; those with whom we sympathize are victorious and exult in the return of peace and freedom-we stand by them in their triumph, like superior beings, and know that their joys are delusive, and their calamities respited only for a moment.

The poem opens at Troynovant, on the return of the Saxons under Hengist and Horsa from a successful expedition against the Picts. The degenerate King Vortigern receives them with a prodigal welcome, and conducts the chiefs to a banquet in the palace. This is described with perhaps somewhat too much of oriental magnificence; but the Saxon warriors and British courtiers, the band of effeminate and parasite court bards, and the white-haired Aneurin shedding indignant tears at the prostitution of his art, and degradation of his country, are spiritedly contrasted. At the close of a war-song Rowena enters the hall she is a very important personage in the poem, and Mr. Milman has lavished on her in this and many other places all the richness of his fancy and language.

'Sudden came floating through the hall an air

So strangely sweet, the o'erwrought sense scarce felt
It's rich excess of pleasure; softer sounds
Melt never on the enchanted midnight cool,
By haunted spring, where elfin dancers trace
Green circlets on the moon-light dews, nor lull
Becalmed mariner from rocks, where basks
At summer noon the sea-maid, he his oar
Breathless suspends, and motionless his bark
Sleeps on the sleeping waters. Now the notes
So gently died away, the silence seemed
Melodious; merry now and light and blithe
They danced on air; anon came tripping forth
In frolic grace a maiden troop, their locks

Flower

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