66

cism of the Quarterly on these

rate works of a servile imita

is easier, no merit is more

said editor insists shall be a branch of literature as exclusively for his family, as a German college once insisted for hereditary mathematics? The whole of the precious display in this paper-the marshalling three or four great names, and placing Sir Walter Scott's inferior productions with Schiller's best-is a sort of Scotch ruse to depreciate Mr. Smith by the contrast. (y) The whole (y) Nothing can be more matter and truth is that, just as Sir Walter Just or sensible than the critipublished one of his least successful works, very dull and absurd novels of "Woodstock," the best part of its story Mr. Smith's. The observaborrowed from Dr. Plot, and re-printed in tions in the review are not brilliant, but they possess the the "Encyclopædia Britannica," from "Plot's higher merit of being very Oxfordshire," many years ago,-Mr. Smith true. Mr. Smith's novels are brought out Brambletye House." The the merest pieces of journeywriter of this chanced to go into a library at work that ever came from the the west end of the town to ask for "Wood- press. They are the elabostock; he was there told that more copies tor, with some little portion of "Brambletye House" were asked for than of taste, but who is wholly of "Woodstock." At Cheltenham, at the destitute of talent. No task libraries, it was altogether preferred by many cheap and vulgar than the readers. If perusing memoirs and chronicles power of making a resembe a sin, God help Sir Walter ! He may be blance, which shall be exact charged with the same crime. In some of in all its parts, and utterly his noblest productions, he has inserted whole false and unlike in its general pages, translated from the German. We say of "Brambletye House" and this, not to depreciate the great fame of Sir "Tor Hill," as regards their Walter, which neither our power nor inclina- originals. The facts which the writer mentions respecttion will allow us to do, but to show how far the" uncharitablenesses " of the editor of which he frequents, may be ing the circulating libraries the Quarterly will carry him-we beg our explained in a very different own pardons for using so decorous a word, way. These books were published by Mr. Colburn, whose in describing his virtues. name is the fashion just now. The "Rejected Addresses" are first cited, Mr. Murray's used to be. Now to prove that Mr. Smith is a mere mimic. mark how good things may The reviewer travels out of the record to gra- come by mean. Had not this bookseller been jealous of his tify the bias of his own malign spirit, to the brother publisher, Mr. Houtmost possible extent. Then there is the race Smith would never have charge of his perusing the chronicles, and been so justly appreciated in borrowing from the same sources that Sir the Quarterly Review. Walter has done-this, in the writer's eyes, is sedition towards Sir Walter, who, we are sure, thinks it no such thing. The exclusive care of the Chronicles of England, is, no doubt, to descend to the aforesaid editor, with the mantle of his father-in-law, and so on to his bairns' bairns, in secula seculorum! The reviewer then gives three or four of his sneering pages to the plots of the novels he is labouring to slander and sink beneath their merits-apologizes for doing it, in an affected

effect. Such are the novels

So

much for the oracles of the public-ED.

regard for the patience of his readers!-recommends Mr. Smith to Dryden and Wilson "Jove's eagle and the gander" again!to learn how to define (we recommend him the Quarterly too, for this, both in precept and example)-and then proceeds to vituperate the "Tor Hill; a work by no means equal to "Brambletye House;" and, therefore, less severely treated on the whole, because it is less feared. Sir Walter Scott and his Crusaders are again lugged in as a contrast. Mr. Smith is styled a "specimen," not superior to a "regiment of writers" of the same kind; a poor compliment to the public, by the bye, who purchased as many or more copies of Brambletye, than of Woodstock, which never would have sold at all but for the great and honoured name it bore. The reviewer next returns to his eternal dissertations upon Shakspeare, Lessing, the Germans, but not to Milton's fearful rival, Wordsworth-we miss him at the winding-up of this exquisite morsel of criticism. This article displays no power, but of cunning, and proves the reviewer deficient in judgment, guilty of gross impolicy towards his father-in-law's honest fame-(by affording ground for the inference that he was jealous of Mr. Smith.) Had the author of "Brambletye House" been thought as miserable a scribe as the reviewer insists he is, the Quarterly would never have noticed him.

We should have preferred noticing this article, paragraph by paragraph, but we have not space, and the little history of the Quarterly at our commencement occupied some portion of our room; this, however, cannot happen in future; and we assure the editor of Mr. Murray's review, that we shall return to him again, nor suffer him to go forth as a literary Colossus, because he fights from behind the shield of his predecessor's name.

There is still another article in this number, which, we imagine, is the production of a lawyer; it is both subtle and absurd. It is on the law of libel; and its principal design is to defend indictment proceedings, and to support the doctrine that "truth is a libel." It shows an artful defence of the existing law, under the mask of disinterested argument, and is curious from convicted libellers; the last proceeding against the Quarterly was,

we believe, by action. Hence that mode is undervalued. No one doubts the convenience of the "indictment" practice when the Quarterly is concerned. The judges always precede their gratuitous harangues to jurors in libel cases, by avowing their sincere attachment to the freedom of the press, as the Quarterly does, with much the same sincerity, we think. We must leave this paper to be refuted by the daily journals. The lesser papers will find it no hard task; for with Tory, Whig, or Radical-with all-it is a common and serious subject. The editor of "Bell's Life in London," or any of his police-reporters, may expose its sophistry, provided he dare try an article under the apostolic covers of the Quarterly, and stand not in awe of the flatulent criticism, and overweaning pretensions of a work, the name of which is now sunk to pretty nearly the level in merit of its contents.

SIBYL LEAVES.*

It is one of the commonest delusions for a man to fancy that he is a poet, when in fact he is very far from being any thing of the kind. Why do men fall into this mistake, and not into similar ones? No one erroneously imagines that he is a mathematician-no one sets up for a carpenter or a watchmaker without a knowledge of the craft. Until it is settled what poetry is, men will never know whether they are poets or not. The uncertainty as to what it is that constitutes the art leads to the uncertainty as to the qualifications necessary to practise it. In the works of real poetry there is so much trick and shallow artifice, that we must not be surprised if young men, finding that they can perform the trick, and understand the artifice, suppose that they are thereby poets. In the poetry of Milton, for instance, there is a sustained march, a pomp of diction, and an affectation of learning, which are very easily reached by men utterly destitute of ideas. It is the same with Byron-his starts, his fitfulness and his gloominess are all particularly easy to imitate. The truly valuable and original part of his writings is hardly that which gained him his fame, and rarely that which arrests the attention of the would-be poet. When strut, and frown, and start are acquired, it is conceived that the thing is done; the only circumstance which ever occurs as being wanted to the young versifier is that he is not a lord. There is some truth in this notion-the union of peer and poet is a powerful recommendation. It will not however do every thing, as may be seen

*

Sybil Leaves; to which is added, A Vision of Eternity. By Edmund Reade, Esq., author of the Broken Heart, and other Poems. London: Longman and Co. 1827. 8vo.

in the instances of Lords Thurlow and Porchester. In the case of Lord Thurlow, his title has even thrown a ridicule upon the portion of merit which his poems really possess. In the case of Lord Porchester it has not even gained him a hearing. These are exceptions which might easily be explained. But to return-a stock of phrases acquired from a popular poet, and properly arranged in a tolerably retentive memory, are the raw material. The aspirant, on beginning to weave them together, finds the process one of great simplicity and ease. The paper is rapidly covered-he reads his production aloud-the swell and roll fill the mouth, and there remains nothing but the eye to be satisfied. A printer and his hot-presser quickly gratify this sense. The poems follow one another in beautiful ordera neat little table of contents appears to usher in the reader to their society-the titles of each poem stand up in handsome capital letters -the SONNET, TO THYRZA, STANZAS, catch the eye. Some lines are long, and some are short; sometimes two or three start from the same point, and sometimes they set out from a shorter distance, and do not travel so far over the page. They are moreover packed up in little packets of four or six or eight lines each, and numbered with the neatness of a pin-maker, with venerable looking Roman letters. Seeing all this, how is the youthful author to help exclaiming with the Italian painter ed io son pittore! Then come the critics, the weekly critics, the Literary Gazettes and Literary Chronicles, which find their account in universal praise; who find "beautiful passages," "tender thoughts," 99 66 99.66 harmony," ease of numbers," and "effusions of genius." Backed by such authorities, who can be surprised that the versifier himself begins to wonder at his own unconscious merit: but when at the end of the month the young poet finds himself raised to the skies in the puffing department of the New Monthly-Campbell's Magazine the magazine of all the talents-then, though the praise is. indeed in very small type, perhaps it may be written by the poet himself, and consequently the happy man's self-satisfaction is greatly magnified. To be sure, the book does not sell, but then there are pecuilar causes for that accident-the next attempt will be more successful, and doubtless bring the solid pudding as well as the empty praise,—and, at any rate, gaining or losing, great poets are not to be sordid; it is fame that raises the clear spirit; posterity must be considered, and present pelf wholly disregarded. Paradise Lost did not sell, at least so they say. Behold then the now confirmed poet daily at his task, with his phrenzied pen, scribbling more tomes, to be gathered unto those that still encumber the catacombs of the publisher's warehouses.

A gentleman of the name of Reade, some short time ago, published a little volume called the Broken Heart. We did not read it, but placed it for future notice by the side of four hundred and ninetynine poetæ minutissimi which adorn our shelves, and do honour to Mr. Reade has the state of the typographical art in this country.

however again opened his battery upon the public, and prefixed to his second work a preface of so much vanity and conceit, that we are tempted to pick him out of the ranks, and expose his folly, for the benefit of himself and the rest of mankind.

* We lately saw in some unsuspected quarter a eulogy of the talents of this nobleman, that will lead us to look at his Moor once more.

Mr. Reade commences by stating, that after the publication of his earliest poem, it had been his intention to give himself up to the composition of a drama on a subject he had long meditated. This great purpose was put aside by, it seems, the limited circulation of that poem. It was noticed, he states, with much approbation by some distinguished periodicals (mark the mischief done by these Literary Gazettes, &c., who are at least critics in the eyes of all they praise) yet, says the author, "owing to his name being hitherto unknown to the public either in periodical publications, or indeed elsewhere, and from other peculiar circumstances," (want of merit of course not being in the number) the public would not lay out its money upon it. This unfortunate accident did not, he says, in the least damp his ardour, but somehow or other he assigns it as a reason why he has not gone into the great design, the completion of which perhaps the public were getting anxious about. In the mean time the poems called the Sibyl Leaves were "fitfully composed," and "from the circumstance of being detached [a rare merit], and consequently more dwelt on [by whom? and why?] are offered with an increased confidence."

If any apology be requisite for not offering pieces of greater length, I would observe, that long poems of considerable excellency already popular are almost countless that among such, even in the very first authors, there is much of detail and otherwise inferior matter, which must necessarily be comparatively heavy; that pieces such as these cannot, at least, fatigue, inasmuch as the candidate for poetical talents, if he has any, must be felt and appreciated almost immediately, each poem standing by itself, in its own unsupported strength or weakness, open to, and challenging the most rigid scrutiny. Moreover, it is in such concentered efforts that the nearest advances to excellence have been made, gold with scarcely an alloy of tinsel; need I make more than an allusion to such names as Gray and Collins? or from the crowd of more modern works, the "Ode in the Vale of Chamouni," by Coleridge, and "The Last Man," by Campbell, the chef-d'œuvres of either author. I need hardly observe that I do not particularly insist on the last of my alleged motives above, though at the same time I will not for a moment be guilty of any false affectation in underrating the following pieces; they cost me much of time and thought, which I feel conscious, whatever the harvest may be, has not been thrown away.

This is a most singular apology for a volume of short poems. Long ones are countless, and short ones being of course scarce, Mr. Reade patriotically steps forward to stop the gap. Then long poems contain "inferior matter;" now "inferior matter "Mr. Reade cannot tolerate; 66 99.66 no alloy," no tinsel,”—all above proof, all light, all perfect. But the poet has other reasons for giving to the world these fitful compositions."

I wish to clear my name and pretensions to be more fully admitted before I offer any composition of a higher stamp, which, whatever its merits or demerits might be, would, in this age of universal poetry, speedily sink and be forgotten, without some fixed and established recollection, even though I should prove myself ever so well qualified for the task. For my own part, I have too much indolence, and no inclination to strive in the crowd of those

"Who dabble in the pettiness of fame; "

the mark of excellence I have set up for myself in poetry is high, and so is the hope through a life of comparative seclusion and meditation, to near, or attain it; not through the hasty ebullitions of continual effort, but from "years that bring the philosophic mind."

These "Sibyl Leaves" then are to stamp the author's name with a "fixed and established recollection:" the meaning of which we take to be, that when the great drama appears, then that all the