rican traveller, little frequented parts wherein it lies, will Alas! for her, the beautiful but lone In homage at her feet; she spake, and nations cowered. A high and solemn tone of thought and feeling pervades this poem, sustained by a style severely chaste yet glowing and energetic. It is an affecting and eloquent tribute to the tomb, as it were, of Athenian greatness. "Titania's Banquet" we regard as not only the best piece in the book, but as an effort, singularly successful, to revive, in the true, old English spirit, that beautiful but wellnigh obsolete form of its dramatic poetry, the Mask. The fine play of fancy and the beauty both of thought and expression, exhibited in the subjoined extracts, will, we doubt not, prove a sufficient apology for their length. FIRST FAIRY. Yon star, that but now winked In the horizon, like a glow-worm on Some low moist bank, look! where it mounts and burns SECOND FAIRY. A motley! one would think She'd of their henchmen robbed the courts of all -Spangled with gold and strung with small, white TITANIA. Prince. Thanks! gentle queen: this palace were a home And all the rich embroidery, wherewith The piece closes with the "Song of the Elfin-steersman;" a strange, wild melody, as light as a cobweb, but seeming to inwrap a spell of "power"--in the words of Titania "to set the ocean flowing, As 'twere a brook, and loose the hurricane." Of the "Lyrical pieces," the most free and spirited is the "Song of Liberty"-faultless, as a composition, but embodying sentiments which we should scruple to put into the mouth of a burletta impersonation of Jack Cade. The author has read Goodwin, Shelley and that tribe of Utopian dreamers. As an offset to this Jacobinical outbreak, comes a Herrick-like strain "To Violets," the closing stanza of which reminds one of the tone of an Eolian harp touched by the last sigh of the summer night-breeze. Laugh, while ye may! ere night, I fear, "Twill grieve me, in my early walk To come and find you dead. So weary of a life unstaid, So long I've watched you, flowers, so long At morning and the even-song Ye in my path have played, Like younger sisters, that I feel A sadness o'er my spirit steal At parting, and could almost pray We might together pass away. The best of his lyrics, however, are the amatory; for we know not what else to call them, though their extreme purity and delicacy will hardly brook so marked an epithet. The wonder is, how they ever could have come from the pearls-perpetrator of such things as the "Song" and "Judas." Take for instance the two following. I would have all things, rare and delicate; Or the dissolved pearl that Cleopatra ASPHALT. I know of such, That have so long been buried in the vaults Of inhumed cities, they would drink the light As sands do water. Bring me a bright, a stainless shell, That murmurs of the ocean-wave, And fill it with the drops that well From some old, haunted fountain-cave. The cup is here, and rightly filled, That I would drain to love and thee; From skies of summer, soon will flee. He is conversant with the "Wits of Charles's time;" with Suckling, Sedley, Donne, and the rest of that sparkling, fanciful, but metaphysical and somewhat too courtly set. The chauson beginning "Fill not for me the cup with wine," would have done credit to "Old Ben," and his "Jewess" is as pretty a piece of christian humanity, as ever knelt before a crucifix. We must not forget "The time is gone;" nor "To the memory of a friend;" nor "To a coin found on the plains of Troy," which he makes Perhaps coeval with the days of Jubal, Graved by that Cain whose cognomen was Tubal, a piece replete with humorous and ingenious fancies; nor the pathetic tribute to the memory of poor Wood, the prince of American miniature-painters, whose remains deserve a temple, and want a head-stone. Of the "Sonnets," some are above and none below mediocrity. One of the best is that on Napoleon. It ought to be good, for it purports to have been composed at midnight, as the author was crossing the beach of Aboukir-bay, in Egypt, one of that conqueror's most celebrated battlegrounds. Pause! for a spirit still pervades the spot, Time must despair, and whose imperial shade But course the comet's, that, its meteor car And "from its hair shakes pestilence and war," And sued as bondsmen; at whose feet were laid TWILIGHT AT SEA, OFF DELOS. Far gleaming, spies the solitary sail, The hour when winds are still and stars are pale, Her farewell to the sun. Long, ere the light a sketch," in the manner of Rochester, is as good, in its way, as any thing that scape-grace has left, and evinces a talent for personal satire, which, if he values a whole skin, the owner will do well to exercise on "such as sleep well o' nights." It at least serves as a foil to its neighbor, the subjoined beautiful canzonet, which, though purporting to be an imitation of Herrick, is, we can assure the author, peculiarly his own. He is always at home among the wo men. The dew-drop sparkles on the tree, The moonbeam on the lake, "Tis, to the flower upon thy cheek, The star that's in thine eye. Or speak, and I, as to a lute, Will gently list with mine: Of the "Descriptive pieces," that entitled "Ruins of the temple of Jupiter Panhellenius," is much in the solemn, meditative manner of Wordsworth. The image which closes the following extract, is, we think, uncommonly fine. A proud and lofty structure, in its day! act Under this head, we would we had time to copy the whole of "The Glen and Burial," of "The lost Pleiad," and particularly of "The Mountain Girl," the finest creation, next to the "Banquet," in the book. We cite a single passage. With glossy ringlet, brow that is At once both dark and bright: And cheek whereon the sunny clime Gently, as it reluctant were To leave its print on thing so fair A shadow on a rose. Should Mr. Hill continue to write-and we trust he may-we advise him to eschew politics, leave "Judas" to his proper castigator, the catchpole, never rhyme with a preposition, and to give to those beautiful, but shadowy creations, his women, a little more substance. They want flesh and blood. Possessing a mind at once metaphysical and imaginative, he delights to personify and give "a local habitation and a name" to abstractions. We regard him as one of the best of our native poets, and commend his book to the favorable regards of our readers. PUBLISHED MONTHLY, AT FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM-THOMAS W. WHITE, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. [These stanzas are adapted to the favorite Scottish Air of tion." Necessity drove him to literary labor. He "Jock of Hazledean."] The shade is on thy brow, sweet land, For Autumn rends away the crown, That Summer gave but now. I journey towards a greener clime, There may, perchance, be richer realms, say And when, my pilgrim-wanderings o'er, And by my ingle-side, once more, Do clasp the kindred hand; And tell my listening children, tales Their grateful tears with mine shall fall, Paris, Dec. 18, 1940. COLERIDGE. BY H. T. TUCKERMAN. was too unambitious, and found too much enjoy- A song divine, of high and passionate thoughts, The eye of his Ancient Mariner holds us, in its wild spell, as it did the wedding-guest, while we feel the truth that He prayeth best, who loveth best Coleridge appears to have excelled all his contemporaries in personal impressiveness. Men of the highest talent and cultivation have recorded, in the most enthusiastic terms, the intellectual treat his conversation afforded. The fancy is captivated by the mere description of his fluent and emphatic, yet gentle and inspired language. We The charm of regretful tenderness is upon us are haunted with these vivid pictures of the 'old with as sweet a mystery, as the beauty of the man eloquent,' as by those of the sages of anti-" lady of a far countrié," when we read these quity, and the renowned improvisatores of modern among other musical lines of Christabel : times. Hazlett and Lamb seem never weary of the theme. They make us realize, as far as description can, the affectionate temper, the simple bearing, and earnest intelligence of their friend. We feel the might and interest of a living soul, and sigh that it was not our lot to partake directly of its overflowing gifts. Alas! they had been friends in youth; Doth work like madness in the brain. "No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher." True as this may be in one sense, we hold it an Though so invaluable as a friend and companion, unfortunately for posterity, Coleridge loved to talk and read far more than to write. Hence the unfortunate rule for a poetical mind to act upon. VOL. VII-23 It is not difficult, in a measure at least, to explain, or rather account for, these peculiarities. Coleridge himself tells us that in early youth, he indulged a taste for metaphysical speculations to He was fond of quaint and neglected au It was part of the creed of Coleridge, and his works ply to the poet's inquiry if he had ever heard illustrate its unfavorable influence. His prose, him preach-'I never knew you do any thing generally speaking, is truly satisfactory only when else,' said Elia. It is highly desirable that the it is poetical. The human mind is so constituted prose-writings of Coleridge should be thoroughly as to desire completeness. The desultory charac- winnowed. A volume of delightful aphorisms ter of Coleridge's prose writings is often weari- might thus be easily gleaned. Long after we have some and disturbing. He does not carry us on to forgotten the general train of his observations, isoa given point by a regular road, but is ever wan- lated remarks, full of meaning and truth, linger in dering from the end proposed. We are provoked our memories. Scattered through his works are at this waywardness the more, because, ever and many sayings, referring to literature and human naanon, we catch glimpses of beautiful localities, and ture, which would serve as maxims in philosophy look down most inviting vistas. At these pro-and criticism. Their effect is often lost from the mising fields of thought, and grand vestibules of position they occupy, in the midst of abstruse or truth, we are only permitted to glance, and then dry discussions that repel the majority even of are unceremoniously hurried off in the direction truth-seekers. His Biographia is the most attracthat happens to please our guide's vagrant humor. tive of his prose productions. This desultory style essentially mars the interest of nearly all the prose of this distinguished man. Not only the compositions, but the opinions, habits, and experience of Coleridge, partake of the same erratic character. His classical studies at Christ's excess. Hospital were interwoven with the reading of a thors. He early imbibed a love of controversy, circulating library. He proposed to become a and took refuge in first principles, in the elements shoemaker while he was studying medicine. He of man's nature, to sustain his positions. To this excited the wonder of every casual acquaintance ground few of his school-fellows could follow him; by his schoolboy discourse, while he provoked his and we cannot wonder that he became attached to masters by starting an argument instead of repeat- a field of thought seldom explored, and, from its ing a rule. He incurred a chronic rheumatism by very vague and mystical character, congenial to swimming with his clothes on, and left the sick him. That he often reflected to good purpose it ward to enlist in a regiment of dragoons. He laid would be unjust to deny; but that his own conmagnificent plans of primitive felicity to be realized sciousness, at times, became morbid, and his speon the banks of the Susquehanna, while he wan-culations, in consequence, disjointed and misty, dered penniless in the streets of London. He seems equally obvious. We are not disposed to was at different times a zealous Unitarian, and a take it for granted that this irregular development high Churchman-a political lecturer-a metaphy-of mental power is the least useful. Perhaps one sical essayist-a preacher-a translator-a travel- of Coleridge's evening conversations or single ler-a foreign secretary-a philosopher-an edi- aphorisms has more deeply excited some minds to tor-a poet. We cannot wonder that his produc-action than the regular performances of a dozen tions, particularly those that profess to be elaborate, inferior men. It is this feeling which probably should, in a measure, partake of the variableness led him to express, with such earnestness, the wish of his mood. His works, like his life, are frag-that the "criterion of a scholar's utility were the mentary. He is, too, frequently prolix, labors upon number and value of the truths he has circulated topics of secondary interest, and excites only to dis- and minds he has awakened." appoint expectation. By many sensible readers his A distinguishing trait of Coleridge's genius was metaphysical views are pronounced unintelligible, a rare power of comparison. His metaphors are and by some German scholars declared arrant plagi- often unique and beautiful. Here also the poet arisms. These considerations are the more painful excels the philosopher. It may be questioned if from our sense of the superiority of the man. He any modern writer, whose works are equally limproposes to awaken thought, to address and call ited, has illustrated his ideas with more originality forth the higher faculties, and to vindicate the claims and interest. When encountered amid his grave of important truth. Such designs claim respect. We disquisitions, the similitudes of Coleridge strikingly honor the author who conscientiously entertains proclaim the poetical cast of his mind, and lead us them. We seat ourselves reverently at the feet of to regret that its energies were not more devoted a teacher whose aim is so exalted. We listen with to the imaginative department of literature. At curiosity and hope. Musical are many of the pe- times he was conscious of the same feeling. "Well riods, beautiful the images, and here and there were it for me, perhaps," he remarks in the Biocomes a single idea of striking value; but for these graphia, "had I never relapsed into the same menwe are obliged to hear many discursive exordiums, tal disease; if I had continued to pluck the flower irrelevant episodes and random speculations. We and reap the harvest from the cultivated surface, are constantly reminded of Charles Lamb's re- instead of delving in the unwholesome quicksilver mines of metaphysic depths." That he formed as just an estimate of the superficial nature of political labor, is evident from the following allusion to partizan characters: Fondly there attach A radical causation to a few Poor drudges of chastising Providence, A few examples taken at random, will suffice to show his “dim similitudes woven in moral strains." Of true repentance; but if proud and gloomy, The more elaborate poetical compositions of Coleridge display much talent and a rare command of language. His dramatic attempts, however, are decidedly inferior in interest and power to many of his fugitive pieces. Wallenstein, indeed, is allowed to be a masterpiece of translation-and, although others have improved upon certain passages, as a whole it is acknowledged to be an unequalled specimen of its kind. But to realize the true elements of the poet's genius, we must have recourse to his minor poems. In these, his genugood purpose, implies the same sort of prudence as ine sentiments found genial development. They a priest of Diana would have manifested, who are beautiful emblems of his personal history, and should have proposed to dig up the celebrated char-admit us to the secret chambers of his heart. We coal foundations of the mighty temple of Ephesus, recognize, as we ponder them, the native fire of in order to furnish fuel for the burnt-offerings on his muse, "unmixed with baser matter." Of the "To set our nature at strife with itself for a its altars." "The reader, who would follow a close reasoner to the summit of the absolute principle of any one important subject, has chosen a chamois-hunter for his guide. He cannot carry us on his shoulders: we must strain our sinews, as he has strained his; and make firm footing on the smooth rock for ourselves, by the blood of toil from our own feet." "In the case of libel, the degree makes the kind, the circumstances constitute the criminality; and both degree and circumstances, like the ascending shades of color, or the shooting hues of a dove's neck, die away into each other, incapable of definition or outline." "Would to Heaven that the verdict to be passed on my labors depended on those who least needed them! The water-lily in the midst of waters lifts up its broad leaves and expands its petals, at the first pattering of the shower, and rejoices in the rain with a quicker sympathy than the parched shrub in the sandy desert." 66 'Human experience, like the stern lights of a ship at sea, illumines only the path which we have passed over." "I have laid too many eggs in the hot sands of -On the driving cloud the shining bow, As though the spirits of all lovely flowers Remorse is as the heart in which it grows : juvenile poems, the Monody on Chatterton strikes. Poor Chatterton! he sorrows for thy fate Few young poets of English origin have writ- Fair the high grove, the sea, the sun, the stars; |