453 and earn her hand by helping him to root out those impious Ghebers whom he so much ab hors. The spirit of the patriot bursts forth at this; and, without revealing his name or quality, he proudly avows and justifies the conduct of that luckless sect; and then, relenting, falls into a gentler and more pathetic strain. the best parts of Mokanna, it has a far more interesting story; and is not liable to any of the objections we have been obliged to bring against the contrivance and structure of that leading poem. The outline of the story is short and simple.-Al Hassan, the bigotted and sanguinary Emir of Persia, had long waged a furious and exterminating war against the votaries of the ancient religion of the landthe worshippers of Mithra, or his emblem, Or could this heart e'en now forget! "Oh! had we never, never met! Fire-then and since designated by the name How link'd, how bless'd we might have been, of Ghebers. The superior numbers of the Had fate not frown'd so dark between! invader had overcome the heroic resistance Hadst thou been born a Persian maid; of the patriots, and driven them to take refuge in a precipitous peninsula, cut off from the Through the same fields in childhood play'd, In neighb'ring valleys had we dwelt, land by what was understood to be an im- Then, then, while all those nameless ties, At the same kindling altar kneltpassable ravine, and exposing nothing but In which the charm of Country lies, bare rocks to the sea. In this fastness the Had round our hearts been hourly spun, scanty remnant of the Ghebers maintain them-Till Iran's cause and thine were one; selves, under the command of their dauntless While in thy lute's awak'ning sigh leader, Hafed, who is still enabled, by sudden heard the voice of days gone by, and daring incursions, to harass and annoy Returning hours of glory shine! And saw in ev'ry smile of thine their enemy. In one of those desperate en- While the wrong'd Spirit of our Land terprises, this adventurous leader climbs to the summit of a lofty cliff, near the Emir's God! who could then this sword withstand? Liv'd, look'd, and spoke her wrongs through [thee!palace, where a small pleasure-house had been built, in which he hoped to surprise this Far as the grasp of Fate can sever; Its very flash were victory! bigotted foe of his country; but found only Our only ties what love has wove But now! Estrang'd, divorc'd for ever, his fair daughter Hinda, the loveliest and gentlest of all Arabian maids-as he himself expresses it. "He climb'd the gory Vulture's nest, And found a trembling Dove within!" This romantic meeting gives rise to a mu- 'Twas bright, 'twas heavenly-but 'tis past! To glad me with its soft black eye, When he smiles sternly at the idea of danger, she urges him to join her father's forces, And then, then only, true to love, When false to all that's dear beside! The land of him who could forget When other eyes shall see, unmov'd, Thou'lt think how well one Gheber lov'd, his skiff at the foot of the precipice, and "Such were the tales, that won belief, And such the colouring fancy gave The pageant of his country's shame; Of a first smile, so welcom'd he The sparkle of the first sword drawn Whose life, as free from thought as sin, The Persian lily shines and towers, Has fall'n upon her golden flowers. Not the pure, open, prosp'rous Love, When the blue waters rise and fall, "Such was the golden hour that broke Beneath no rich pavilion's shade, For awning o'er her head are flung."-p. 233-236 In friendship's smile, and home's caress, Collecting all the hearts sweet ties -Into one knot of happiness!"'—pp. 215-217. The Emir now learns, from a recreant priShe soon discovers, in short, that she is a soner, the secret of the pass to the Gheber's retreat; and when he sees his daughter faint captive in the hands of the Ghebers! and with horror at his eager anticipation of their shrinks with horror, when she finds that she final extirpation, sends her, in a solitary gal-is to be carried to their rocky citadel, and to ley, away from the scene of vengeance, to the quiet of her own Arabian home. "And does the long-left home she seeks Light up no gladness on her cheeks? The flowers she nurs'd-the well-known Where oft in dreams her spirit rovesOnce more to see her dear gazelles Come bounding with their silver bells; Her birds' new plumage to behold, And the gay, gleaming fishes count, She left, all filleted with gold, Shooting around their jasper fountHer little garden mosque to see, And once again, at ev'ning hour, To tell her ruby rosary, In her own sweet acacia bower.Can these delights, that wait her now, Call up no sunshine on her brow? No-silent, from her train apartAs if ev'n now she felt at heart The chill of her approaching doomShe sits, all lovely in her gloom groves. As a pale Angel of the Grave."-pp. 227, 228. Her vessel is first assailed by a violent tempest, and, in the height of its fury, by a hostile bark; and her senses are extinguished with terror in the midst of the double conflict. At last, both are appeased-and her recollection is slowly restored. The following passage appears to us extremely beautiful and characteristic: "How calm, how beautiful comes on The stilly hour, when storms are gone; When, 'stead of one unchanging breeze, the presence of the terrible Hafed. The galley is rowed by torchlight through frightful rocks and foaming tides, into a black abyss of the promontory, where her eyes are bandaged and she is borne up a long and rugged ascent, till at last she is desired to look up, and receive her doom from the formidable chieftain. Before she has raised her eyes, the well known voice of her lover pronounces her name; and she finds herself alone in the arms of her adoring Hafed! The first emotion is ecstasy.-But the recollection of her father's vow and means of vengeance comes like a thundercloud on her joy;—she tells her lover of the treachery by which he has been sacrificed; and urges him, with passionate eagerness, to fly with her to some place of safety. "Hafed, my own beloved Lord,' She kneeling cries-' first, last ador'd! Half what thy lips impassion'd swore, I pray thee, as thou lov'st me, fly— Those eyes before me beaming thus, High burst in air the fun'ral flames, pp. 283, 284. Hafed is more shocked with the treachery to which he is sacrificed than with the fate to which it consigns him:-One moment he gives up to softness and pity-assures Hinda, with compassionate equivocation, that they shall soon meet on some more peaceful shore -places her sadly in a litter, and sees her borne down the steep to the galley she had lately quitted, and to which she still expects that he is to follow her. He then assembles dirge, of great elegance and beauty, of which This sad story is closed by a sort of choral his brave and devoted companions-warns we can only afford to give the first stanza. them of the fate that is approaching-and exhorts them to meet the host of the invaders" in the ravine, and sell their lives dearly to their steel. After a fierce, and somewhat too sanguinary combat, the Ghebers are at last borne down by numbers; and Hafed finds himself left alone, with one brave associate, mortally wounded like himself. They make a desperate effort to reach and die beside the consecrated fire which burns for ever on the summit of the cliff. "The crags are red they've clamber'd o'er, The rock-weed's dripping with their gore- Now Hafed sees the Fire divine- And must I leave thee with'ring here, The mark for every coward's spear? - And fires the pile, whose sudden blaze Have harm'd one glorious limb, expires!" The unfortunate Hinda, whose galley had been detained close under the cliff by the noise of the first onset, had heard with agony the sounds which marked the progress and catastrophe of the fight, and is at last a spectatress of the lofty fate of her lover. "But see what moves upon the height? What bodes its solitary glare? Shrin'd in its own grand element ! Farewell-farewell to thee, Araby's daughter! (Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea) No pearl ever lay, under Oman's green water, More pure in its shell than thy Spirit in thee." p. 284. The general tone of this poem is certainly too much strained. It is overwrought throughout, and is too entirely made up of agonies and raptures;-but, in spite of all this, it is a work of great genius and beauty; and not only delights the fancy by its general brilliancy and spirit, but moves all the tender and noble feelings with a deep and powerful agitation. The last piece, entitled "The Light of the Haram," is the gayest of the whole; and is of a very slender fabric as to fable or invention. In truth, it has scarcely any story at all; but is made up almost entirely of beautiful songs and descriptions. During the sumImer months, when the court is resident in the Vale of Cashmere, there is, it seems, a sort of oriental carnival, called the Feast of Roses, during which every body is bound to be happy and in good humour. At this critical period, the Emperor Selim had unfortunately a little love-quarrel with his favourite Sultana Nourmahal,-which signifies, it seems, the Light of the Haram. The lady is rather unhappy while the sullen fit is on her; and applies to a sort of enchantress, who invokes a musical spirit to teach her an irresistible song, which she sings in a mask to the offended monarch; and when his heart is subdued by its sweetness, throws off her mask, and springs with fonder welcome than ever into his repentant arms. The whole piece is written in breathed nothing but intoxicating gas during a kind of rapture, as if the author had its composition. It is accordingly quite filled with lively images and splendid expressions, and all sorts of beauties,-except those of reserve or simplicity. We must give a few specimens, to revive the spirits of our readers after the tragic catastrophe of Hafed; and we may begin with this portion of the description of the Happy Valley. "Oh! to see it by moonlight,-when mellowly The light o'er its palaces, gardens and shrines; Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes When the Spirit of Fragrance is up with the day, The character of Nourmahal's beauty is much in the same taste: though the diction is rather more loose and careless. "There's a beauty, for ever unchangingly bright, Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender, eves, Now melting in mist and now breaking in gleams, When pensive, it seem'd as if that very grace, Then come! thy Arab maid will be This strain, and the sentiment which embodies, reminded the offended monarch of his charming Nourmahal; and he names her name in accents of tenderness and regret. "The mask is off-the charm is wrought!- p. 334. We have now said enough, and show enough, of this book, to let our readers understand both what it is, and what we think of it. Its great fault certainly is its excessive finery, and its great charm the inexhaustible copiousness of its imagery-the sweetness and ease of its diction-and the beauty of the objects and sentiments with which it is conAnd where it most sparkl'd no glance could discerned. Its finery, it should also be observed, In lip, cheek or eyes, for she brighten'd all over,Like any fair lake that the breeze is upon, is not the vulgar ostentation which so often When it breaks into dimples and laughs in the sun." disguises poverty or meanness-but the expp. 302, 303. travagance of excessive wealth. We have said this, however, we believe before-and suspect we have little more to say. en We can give but a little morsel of the Mr. All poets, who really love poetry, and live in a poetical age, are great imitators; and the character of their writings may often be as correctly ascertained by observing whom they imitate and whom they abstain from imitating, as from any thing else. Moore, in the volume before us, reminds us oftener of Mr. Southey and Lord Byron, than of any other of his contemporaries. The resemblance is sometimes to the Roderick of the first-mentioned author, but most frequent ly to his Kehama. This may be partly owing to the nature of the subject; but, in many passages, the coincidence seems to be more radical-and to indicate a considerable conformity, in taste and habits of conception. Nourmahal herself, however, in her Arabian Mr. Southey's tone, indeed, is more assumdisguise, sings a still more prevailing ditty-ing, his manner more solemn, and his diction of which we can only insert a few stanzas. "Fly to the desert, fly with me! Our Arab tents are rude for thee; 'Our sands are bare; but down their slope weaker. Mr. Moore is more lively-his figures and images come more thickly; and his language is at once more familiar, and more strengthened with points and antitheses. In other respects, the descriptive passages in Kehama bear a remarkable affinity to many in the work before us-in the brightness of the colouring, and the amplitude and beauty of the details. It is in his descriptions of love, and of female loveliness, that there is the strongest resemblance to Lord Byron-at least to the larger poems of that noble author. In the powerful and condensed expression of strong emotion, Mr. Moore seems to us rather to have imitated the tone of his Lordship's smaller pieces-but imitated them as only an original genius could imitate-as Lord Byron himself may be said, in his later pieces, to have imitated those of an earlier date. There is less to remind us of Scott than we can very well account for, when we consider the great range and variety of that most fascinating and powerful writer; and we must say, that if Mr. Moore could bring the resemblance a little closer, and exchange a portion of his superfluous images and ecstasies for an equivalent share of Mr. Scott's gift of interesting and delighting us with pictures of familiar nature, and of the spirit and energy which never rises to extravagance, we think he would be a gainer by the exchange. To Mr. Crabbe there is no resemblance at all; and we only mention his name to observe, that he and Mr. Moore seem to be the antipodies of our present poetical sphere; and to occupy the extreme points of refinement and homeliness that can be said to fall within the legitimate dominion of poetry. They could not meet in the middle, we are aware, without changing their nature, and losing their specific character; but each might approach a few degrees, we think, with great mutual advantage. The outposts of all empires are posts of peril:--though we do not dispute that there is great honour in maintaining them with success. There is one other topic upon which we are not quite sure we should say any thing. On a former occasion, we reproved Mr. Moore, perhaps with unnecessary severity, for what appeared to us the licentiousness of some of his youthful productions. We think it a duty to say, that he has long ago redeemed that error; and that in all his latter works that have come under our observation, he appears as the eloquent champion of purity, fidelity, and delicacy, not less than of justice, liberty, and honour. Like most other poets, indeed, he speaks much of beauty and love; and we doubt not that many mature virgins and careful matrons may think his lucubrations on those themes too rapturous and glowing to be safely admitted among the private studies of youth. We really think, however, that there is not much need for such apprehensions: And, at all events, if we look to the moral design and scope of the works themselves, we can see no reason to censure the author. All his favourites, without exception, are dutiful, faithful, and self-denying; and no other example is ever set up for imitation. There is nothing approaching to indelicacy even in his description of the seductions by which they are tried; and they who object to his enchanting pictures of the beauty and pure attachment of the more prominent characters would find fault, we suppose, with the loveliness and the embraces of angels. (November, 1814.) By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. The Excursion; being a Portion of the Recluse, a Poem. 4to. pp. 447. London: 1814.* THIS will never do! It bears no doubt the unfortunately not half so visibly as that of his stamp of the author's heart and fancy: But peculiar system. His former poems were I have spoken in many places rather too bitterly and confidently of the faults of Mr. Words worth's poetry: And forgetting that, even on my own view of them, they were but faults of taste, or venial self-partiality, have sometimes visited them, I fear, with an asperity which should be reserved for objects of Moral reprobation. If I were now to deal with the whole question of his poetical merits, though my judgment might not be substantially different, I hope I should repress the greater part of these vivacités of expression: And indeed so strong has been my feeling in this way, that, considering how much I have always loved many of the attributes of his Genius, and how entirely I respect his Character, it did at first occur to me whether it was quite fitting that, in my old age and his, I should include in this publication any of those critiques which may have formerly given pain or offence, to him or his admirers. But, when I reflected that the mischief, if there really ever was any, was long ago done, and that I still retain, in substance, the opinions which I should now like to have seen more gently expressed, I felt that to omit all notice of them on the present occasion, might be held to import a retractation which I am as far as possible from intending; or even be represented as a very shabby way of backing out of sentiments which should either be manfully persisted in, or openly renounced, and abandoned as untenable. I finally resolved, therefore, to reprint my review of " The Excursion;" which contains a pretty full view of my griefs and charges against Mr. Wordsworth; set forth too, I believe, in a more temperate strain than most of my other inculpations, and of which I think I may now venture to say farther, that if the faults are unsparingly noted, the beauties are not penuriously or grudgingly allowed; but commended to the admiration of the reader with at least as much heartiness and good-will. But I have also reprinted a short paper on the same author's "White Doe of Rylstone,"-in which there certainly is no praise, or notice of beauties, to set against the very unqualified censures of which it is wholly made up I have done this, however, not merely because I adhere to these censures, but chiefly because it seemed necessary to bring me fairly to issue with those who may not concur in them. I can easily understand that many whose admiration of the Excursion, or the Lyrical Ballads, rests substantially on the passages which I too should join in admiring, may view with greater indulgence than I can do, the tedious and flat pas sages with which they are interspersed, and may consequently think my censure of these works a great deal too harsh and uncharitable. Between such persons and me, therefore, there may be no radical difference of opinion, or contrariety as to principles of judgment. But if there be any who actually admire this White Doe of Rylstone, or |