MR BOWLES is perhaps better known to the rising generation as a critic than a poet: but Sexagenarians like us, and many thousands not yet Sexagenarians, delight rather to think of him in the latter character. It is thirty long years and upwards since he formed the brighest star of a constellation of genius, that rose over Trinity College, Oxford, the beloved abode of honest and elegant-minded Tom Warton. Shades of Headley and Benwell!-but no more. Bowles has lived to fulfil the promise of his brightning dawn; and the author of "Calpe Obsessa," that beautiful Latin poem which we heard him recite, (eheu fugaces, Posthume, labuntur anni!) in the Theatre on Commemoration-day, five lustres ago, has within this fortnight sent us a presentation copy of his "Harold's Grave."

We say that Mr Bowles has lately distinguished himself as a critic. We allude to the Pope controversy, in which we find engaged Mr Bowles, Lord Byron, Mr Thomas Campbell, Mr Southey, Mr Wordsworth, Mr Coleridge, Mr Lloyd, Mr D'Israeli, Mr Gilchrist, Mr M'Dermot, Mr Hazlitt, Mr Hunt, Mr Francis Jeffrey, and Mr Christopher North. We know that we took some small part in the contest, but have been racking our brain in vain, to recollect on which side we fought-or, indeed, what was the precise bone of contention between the belligerent powers. Much was said, we remember, well and ill, about art and nature, manners and passions, fancy and imagination. These are all hard, mystical, and cabalistical words. And as for that other big word POETRY, on whose account, art, nature, manners, passions, fancy, and imagination

were so bothered and badgered, we offer a reward of five hundred pounds' annuity for life to any person who will send in to 17 Princes Street a good, sensible definition of it before Christmas. In this, we fear, somewhat irrational row, Mr Bowles appeared to us to manage his morleys with great strength and skill. He floored his man right and left, very much after the manner of our excellent and peaceable friend, the late Jem Belcher, when clearing a boothful of Johnny Raws. To see a gentleman in gown and cassock acting so strenuous a part, was not a little alarming; and the Stamford grocer cried out, "Foul, foul." But the umpires decided that the grocer had fallen without a blow, and that, therefore, the rector might kick him a little when down, without infringing upon the immutable principles either of poetry or pugilism. Whether this decision was sound, or more agreeable to the laws of the imagination then the fancy, Mr Pierce Egan and Mr John Jackson must determine. Much was said on both sides-and it was even alleged that Mr Bowles, in the exultation of victory over the man of comfits, gave a facer to our good friend Mr D'Israeli, who stripped and turned to; but the friends of both parties (among whom we were) interfered to prevent the contest; and the Rector, we answer for him, manfully held out in friendship his bunch of fives.

All the world knows our merit as peace-makers. We cannot bear to see men of sense and talents quarrelling with one another; and we have staunched many wounds, under which, but for our skill and humanity, the worthy patients would have bled to

rold's sons re-appear, with a large fleet from Denmark, and being joined by an immense confederate army, (a wellknown historical fact,) hope to dethrone the Conqueror.

The canto, which Mr Bowles calls the first, opens with a midnight view of the battlements of Ravenspur Castle, on the Humber, where Adela, daughter of Harold, and Ailric, a monk, are waiting the arrival of tidings from the invading army, which that night hoped to hang the Saxon standard upon the walls of York. Adela seems to have past the three years, since her father's overthrow, in a religious house; and Edgar Atheling, brother to Malcolm, King of Scotland, who has joined the sons of Harold, brings the desired intelligence that York is taken. He then enters into a long detail (always poetical, but in some places rather heavy) of his fortunes, as conected with those of her own brethren, till he is luckily stopt short by the old Monk Ailric, who tells how, after the fatal overthrow of Hastings, he and his brother Osgood humbly begged for the corpse of Harold from the victorious Norman on the field of battle. The following dream of "spectred memory," to use one of Mr Bowles's happy expressions, need not fear comparison with the best passages of any of his contemporaries.

"William was in his tent, Spread on the battle-plain, on that same night

When seventy thousand dead lay at his feet

They, who at sun-rise, with bent bows and

'Your king hath met the meed of broken faith,'

William replied: But yet he shall not want

A sepulchre; and on this very spot
My purpose stands, as I have vow'd to
God,

To build an holy monastery: here,
A hundred monks shall pray for all who
fell

In this dread strife; and your King Harold here

Shall have due honours, and a stately tomb.'

Still on our knees, we answer'd, 'Oh! not so,

Dread Sovereign;-hear us, of your cle

As on to Waltham the funereal car Moved slow. Few and disconsolate the train

Of English earls, for few, alas ! remain'd, So many in the field of death lay cold. The horses slowly paced, till Waltham tow'rs

Before us rose. THERE, with long taper'd blaze,

Our brethren met us, chanting two and two, The 'Miserere' of the dead. And THEREBut, my child Adela, you are in tearsThere at the foot of the HIGH ALTAR lies The LAST OF SAXON KINGS.-Sad Editha, At distance, watch'd the rites, and from that hour

We never saw her more."

Just as the monk is concluding his tale, Godwin, hot from the sack of York, arrives, and clasps his sister Adela to his mailed breast. The day has now risen, and the wearied warrior goes to rest. The autumnal day declines, and in the evening, which is here described in Mr Bowles's best manner, Edmund (the other victorious brother of Adela) comes to Ravenspur with a pretty boy, whose life he had saved in the citadel. Adela kisses the child's forehead and his eyes-the sun sets-and the canto closes.

We are now told that, during the night on which York was taken by the Saxons and Danes, there had been fearful sounds in the wild wolds of Holderness, and spells of death heard amidst the depth of Waltham Wood. It may have been so. But never were the wan and weird sisters more tame, dull, and flat than upon that occasion. The second canto opens with their singsong, which ends, "ho! ho! ho!" and we venture to reply, "ha! ha! ha!" But this is not the only feeble absurdity in the poem. For while these most spiritless spirits were singing to keep themselves awake in Waltham Wood, William the Conqueror was holding court in the Tower of London, then rather damp, as the plaster had not had time to dry, and receiving the homage of his vassal Barons. While Odo is placing a laurelled diadem upon his brow, and a hundred harps resounding Rowland's praise, and

"The Barons and the Prelates, and the Knights,

'Long live the conqueror!' cried, 'a God on Earth.'"

just then the vaulted chamber shakes -the King is frighted out of his wits -breaks up the court-and, flying to a solitary cell, falls down before the

crucifix.

The crucifix shakes, as he is imploring mercy on his sins-and a low moan, as of dying men, is heard at a distance. To our minds, all this is farcical, and something worse than farcical. The witches waddling through Waltham Wood-and then William, crouching and quaking under a blast sent from God, and before the cross of the Son of God, which is profanely said to have shaken, form altogether a mixture of such repulsive images and sentiments, and the whole affair is so poorly and pompously got up, that we would rather than a long summer's evening stroll on the banks of the Tweed, at the romantic Trows, that Mr Bowles had not written the first three pages of the second canto. But it is written, printed, published, and damned.

The Conqueror then starts up and sees a vision of Harold, with the bloody arrow wound in its unvisor'd forehead. This is better, and, had it stood by itself, would have had a powerful effect; but occurring where it does, it passes away, without producing much, if any, emotion on the spectator, along with the other profane and sacred phantasmagoria. He now shrieks upon his Barons, and orders the harpers of Normandy to ring out their full chords to the song of England's conquest. Old Eustace obeys, and sings the song of the battle of Hastings, which is not without animation, although, in spite of the implied anachronism, we suspect the venerable bard to have been a reader of this Magazine, for his ballad-metre puts us woundily in mind of some of those fine translations from the Spanish, which at different times have enriched our Work.

The third canto is full of fine things, and the principal incidents in it afford noble subjects to the painter. The Monks of Waltham Abbey are chaunting a requiem over King Harold's grave, when an armed Norman Knight, in coal-black armour, walks up the middle aisle, and, gazing in silence on the GRAVE OF THE LAST SAXON, kneels down, and mutters a brief prayer; then, heedless of all, paces back through the sounding aisle, and disappears. While the Monks renew their interrupted dirge, the Knight plunges into Waltham Wood, now swinging to the midnight tempest, and comes upon a wild, withered, female