of it, rather than the mental superiority by which it is obtained, that interferes with their enjoyment. Distinction, however won, usually leads to a passion for more distinction; and is apt to engage us in laborious efforts and anxious undertakings: and those, even when successful, seldom repay, in our judgment at least, the ease, the leisure, and tranquillity, of which they require the sacrifice but it really passes our imagination to conceive, that the very highest degrees of intellectual vigour, or fancy, or sensibility, should of themselves be productive either of unhappiness or general dislike. Harold and his poet next move along the lovely banks of the Rhine, to which, and all their associated emotions, due honour is paid in various powerful stanzas. We pass on, however, to the still more attractive scenes .of Switzerland. The opening is of suitable grandeur. "But these recede. Above me are the Alps, How Earth may pierce to Heaven, yet leave vain man below." On this magnificent threshold, the poet pauses, to honour the patriot field of Morat, and the shrine of the priestess of Aventicum; and then, in congratulating himself on his solitude, once more moralises his song with something of an apology for its more bitter misanthropies. "To fly from, need not be to hate mankind; "The race of life becomes a hopeless flight The cliffs of Meillerie, and the groves of Clarens of course, conjure up the shade of Rousseau; whom he characterises very strongly, but charitably, in several enchanting stanzas;-one or two of which we shall cite as a specimen of the kindred rapture with which the Poet here honours the Apostle of Love. "His love was passion's essence! As a tree In him existence, and o'erflowing teems [seems. ong his burning page, distemper'd though it 66 This breath'd itself to life in Julie, this Thine air is the young breath of passionate thought! Thy trees take root in Love; the snows above Which stir and sting the soul with hope that woos, then mocks. "All things are here of him; from the black pines, Which are his shade on high, and the loud roar Of torrents, where he listeneth, to the vines Which slope his green path downward to the shore, Where the bow'd waters meet him, and adore, Kissing his feet with murmurs; and the wood, The covert of old trees, with trunks all hoar, But light leaves, young as joy, stands where it stood, Offering to him and his, a populous solitude." Our readers may think, perhaps, that there is too much sentiment and reflection in these extracts; and wish for the relief of a little narrative or description: but the truth is, that the descriptions are blended with the expres there is no narrative in the poem, and that all sion of deep emotion. The following picture, however, of an evening calm on the lake of Geneva, we think, must please even the lovers of pure description— 'Clear, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake, With the wide world I dwelt in, is a thing Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring. This quiet sail is a noiseless wing To waft me from distraction! Once I lov'd Torn ocean's roar; but thy soft murmuring Sounds sweet, as if a sister's voice reprov'd, That I with stern delights should e'er have been so mov'd. "It is the hush of night; and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Weeping themselves away, till they infuse The following sketch of a Midsummer night's thunder storm in the same sublime region, is still more striking and original "And this is in the night :-Most glorious night! "For this vile world and I have long been jangling, The reckoning, however, is steadily and sternly made; and though he does not spare himself, we must say that the world comes off much the worst in the comparison. The passage is very singular, and written with much force and dignity. "Thus far I have proceeded in a theme Renew'd with no kind auspices.-To feel Is a stern task of soul!-No matter!-it is taught, Nor coin'd my cheek to smiles, nor cried aloud They could not deem me one of such; I stood "I have not lov'd the world, nor the world me ' O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve; The closing stanzas of the poem are extremely beautiful;-but we are immoveable in the resolution, that no statement of ours shall ever give additional publicity to the subjects of which they treat. We come now to "The Prisoner of Chillon." It is very sweet and touching-though we can afford but a short account of it. Chillon is a ruined castle on the Lake of Geneva, in the dungeon of which three gallant brothers were confined, each chained to a separate pillar, till, after long years of anguish, the two younger died, and were buried under the cold floor of the prison. The eldest was at | length liberated, when worn out with age and misery-and is supposed, in his joyless liberty, to tell, in this poem, the sad story of his imprisonment. The picture of their first feelings, when bound apart in this living tomb, and of the gradual sinking of their cheery fortitude, is full of pity and agony. "We could not move a single pace; We could not see each other's face, The return to the condition of the younger brother, the blooming Benjamin of the family, is extremely natural and affecting. "I was the eldest of the three, And to uphold and cheer the rest, The gentle decay and gradual extinction of this youngest life, is the most tender and beautiful passage in the poem. "But he, the favorite and the flow'r, not The populous and the powerful was a lump, After this last calamity, he is allowed to be Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless at large in the dungeon. "And it was liberty to stride Along my cell from side to side, My brothers' graves without a sod.' He climbs up at last to the high chink that admitted the light to his prison; and looks out once more on the long-remembered face of nature, and the lofty forms of the eternal mountains. "I saw them-and they were the same, They were not chang'd like me in frame; The only one in view; A small green isle; it seem'd no more, The fish swam by the castle wall, The rest of the poems in this little volume, are less amiable-and most of them, we fear, have a personal and not very charitable application. One, entitled "Darkness," is free at least from this imputation. It is a grand and gloomy sketch of the supposed consequences of the final extinction of the Sun and the Heavenly bodies-executed, undoubtedly, with great and fearful force-but with something of German exaggeration, and a fantastical selection of incidents. The very conception is terrible, above all conception of known calamity-and is too oppressive to the imagination, to be contemplated with pleasure, even in the faint reflection of poetry. "The icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air." Cities and forests are burnt, for light and warmth. "The brows of men by the despairing light The flashes fell upon them! Some lay down A lump of death-a chaos of hard clay! There is a poem entitled "The Dream," full of living pictures, and written with great beauty and genius-but extremely painfuland abounding with mysteries into which we have no desire to penetrate. "The Incantation" and "Titan" have the same distressing character-though without the sweetness of the other. Some stanzas to a nameless friend, are in a tone of more open misanthropy. This is a favourable specimen of their tone and temper. 'Though human, thou didst not deceive me, Beautiful as this poetry is, it is a relief at last to close the volume. We cannot maintain our accustomed tone of levity, or even speak like calm literary judges, in the midst of these agonising traces of a wounded and distempered spirit. Even our admiration is at last swallowed up in a most painful feeling of pity and of wonder. It is impossible to mistake these for fictitious sorrows, conjured up for the purpose of poetical effect. There is a dreadful tone of sincerity, and an energy that cannot be counterfeited, in the expression of wretchedness and alienation from human kind, which occurs in every page of this publication; and as the author has at last spoken out in his own person, and unbosomed his griefs a great deal too freely to his readers, the offence now would be to entertain a doubt of their reality. We certainly have no hope of preaching him into philanthropy and cheerfulness; but it is impossible not to mourn over such a catastrophe of such a mind; or to see the prodigal gifts of Nature, Fortune, and Fame, thus turned to bitterness, without an oppressive feeling of impatience, mortification, and surprise. Where there are such elements, however, it is equally impossible to despair that they may yet enter into happier combinations, -or not to hope this "that puissant spirit" "yet shall reascend Self-rais'd, and repossess its native seat.” (November, 1817.) Lalla Rookh; an Oriental Romance. By THOMAS MOORE. 4to. pp. 405.: London: 1817. THERE is a great deal of our recent poetry derived from the East: But this is the finest Orientalism we have had yet. The land of the Sun has never shone out so brightly on the children of the North-nor the sweets of Asia been poured forth, nor her gorgeousness displayed so profusely to the delighted senses of Europe. The beauteous forms, the dazzling splendours, the breathing odours of the East, seem at last to have found a kindred poet in that green isle of the West; whose Genius has long been suspected to be derived from a warmer clime, and now wantons and luxuriates in those voluptuous regions, as if it felt that it had at length regained its native element. It is amazing, indeed, how much at home Mr. Moore seems to be in India, Persia, and Arabia; and how purely and strictly Asiatic all the colouring and imagery of his book appears. He is thoroughly embued with the character of the scenes to which he transports us; and yet the extent of his knowledge is less wonderful than the dexterity and apparent facility with which he has turned it to account, in the elucidation and embellishment of his poetry. There is not, in the volume now before us, a simile or description, a name, a trait of history, or allusion of romance which belongs to European experience; or does not indicate an entire familiarity with the life, the dead nature, and the learning of the East. Nor are these barbaric ornaments thinly scattered to make up a show. They are showered lavishly over all the work; and form, perhaps too much, the staple of the poetry-and the riches of that which is chiefly distinguished for its richness. We would confine this remark, however, to the descriptions of external objects, and the allusions to literature and history-or to what may be termed the materiel of the poetry before us. The Characters and Sentiments are of a different order. They cannot, indeed, be said to be copies of European nature; but they are still less like that of any other region. They are, in truth, poetical imaginations; but it is to the poetry of rational, honourable, onsiderate, and humane Europe, that they belong and not to the childishness, cruelty, and profligacy of Asia. It may seem a harsh and presumptuous sentence, to some of our Cosmopolite readers: But from all we have been able to gather from history or recent observation, we should be inclined to say that there was no sound sense, firmness of purpose, or principled goodness, except among the natives of Europe, and their genuine descendants. There is something very extraordinary, we think, in the work before us-and something which indicates in the author, not only a great exuberance of talent, but a very singular con stitution of genius. While it is more splendid in imagery-(and for the most part in very good taste)-more rich in sparkling thoughts and original conceptions, and more full indeed of exquisite pictures, both of all sorts of beauties and virtues, and all sorts of sufferings and crimes, than any other poem that has yet come before us; we rather think we speak the sense of most readers, when we add, that the effect of the whole is to mingle a certain feeling of disappointment with that of admiration! to excite admiration rather than any warmer sentiment of delight-to dazzle, more than to enchant-and, in the end, more frequently to startle the fancy, and fatigue the attention, by the constant succession of glittering images and high-strained emotions, than to maintain a rising interest, or win a growing sympathy, by a less profuse or more systematic display of attractions. The style is, on the whole, rather diffuse, and too unvaried in its character. But its greatest fault, in our eyes, is the uniformity of its brilliancy-the want of plainness, simplicity, and repose. We have heard it observed by some very zealous admirers of Mr. Moore's genius, that you cannot open this book without finding a cluster of beauties in every page. Now, this is only another way of expressing what we think its greatest defect. No work, consisting of many pages, should have detached and distinguishable beauties in every one of them. No great work, indeed, should have many beauties: If it were perfect, it would have but one; and that but faintly perceptible, except on a view of the whole. Look, for example, at what is perhaps the most finished and exquisite production of human art—the design and elevation of a Grecian temple, in its old severe simplicity. What penury of ornament-what rejection of beauties of detail!-what masses of plain surface-what rigid economical limitation to the useful and the necessary! The cottage of a peasant is scarcely more simple in its structure, and has not fewer parts that are superfluous. Yet what grandeur-what elegance-what grace and completeness in the effect! The whole is beautiful-because the beauty is in the whole: But there is little merit in any of the parts, except that of fitness and careful finishing. Contrast this, now, with a Dutch pleasurehouse, or a Chinese-where every part is meant to be separately beautiful-and the result is deformity!-where there is not an inch of the surface that is not brilliant with varied colour, and rough with curves and angles. and where the effect of the whole is monstrous and offensive. We are as far as possible from meaning to insinuate that Mr. Moore's poetry is of this description. On the contrary, we think his ornaments are, for the most part, |ceive of their proceedings, or to sympathise truly and exquisitely beautiful; and the gene- freely with their fortunes. The disasters to ral design of his pieces very elegant and in- which they are exposed, and the designs in genious: All that we mean to say is, that which they are engaged, are of the same am there is too much ornament-too many insu-bitious and exaggerated character; and all lated and independent beauties-and that the are involved in so much pomp, and splendour, notice, and the very admiration they excite, and luxury, and the description of their exhurt the interest of the general design; and treme grandeur and elegance forms so connot only withdraw our attention too importu-siderable a part of the whole work, that the nately from it, but at last weary it out with their perpetual recurrence. It seems to be a law of our intellectual constitution, that the powers of taste cannot be permanently gratified, except by some sustained or continuous emotion; and that a series, even of the most agreeable excitements, soon ceases, if broken and disconnected, to give any pleasure. No conversation fatigues so soon as that which is made up of points and epigrams; and the accomplished rhetorician, who could not ope His mouth, but out there flew a trope," must have been a most intolerable companion. There are some things, too, that seem so plainly intended for ornaments and seasonings only, that they are only agreeable, when sprinkled in moderation over a plainer medium. No one would like to make an entire meal on sauce piquante; or to appear in a dress crusted over with diamonds; or to pass a day in a steam of rich distilled perfumes. It is the same with the glittering ornaments of poetry-with splendid metaphors and ingenious allusions, and all the figures of speech and of thought that constitute its outward pomp and glory. Now, Mr. Moore, it appears to us, is decidedly too lavish of his gems and sweets;-he labours under a plethora of wit and imagination-impairs his credit by the palpable exuberance of his possessions, and would be richer with half his wealth. His works are not only of costly material and graceful design, but they are everywhere glistening with small beauties and transitory inspirations-sudden flashes of fancy, that blaze out and perish; like earth-born meteors that crackle in the lower sky, and unseasonably divert our eyes from the great and lofty bodies which pursue their harmonious courses in a serener region. We have spoken of these as faults of style: But they could scarcely have existed in the style, without going deeper; and though they first strike us as qualities of the composition only, we find, upon a little reflection, that the same general character belongs to the fable, the characters, and the sentiments,-that they all sin alike in the excess of their means of attraction,—and fail to interest, chiefly by being too interesting. In order to avoid the debasement of ordinary or familiar life, the author has soared to a region beyond the comprehension of most of his readers. All his personages are so very beautiful, and brave, and agonising-so totally wrapt up in the exaltation of their vehement emotions, and withal so lofty in rank, and so sumptuous and magnificent in all that relates to their external condition, that the herd of ordinary mortals can scarcely venture to con less sublime portion of the species can with difficulty presume to judge of them, or to enter into the concernments of such very exquisite persons. The incidents, in like manner, are so prodigiously moving, so excessively improbable, and so terribly critical, that we have the same difficulty of raising our sentiments to the proper pitch for them;-and, finding it impossible to sympathise as we ought to do with such portentous occurrences, are sometimes tempted to withhold our sympathy altogether, and to seek for its objects among more familiar adventures. Scenes of voluptuous splendour and ecstasy alternate suddenly with agonising separations, atrocious crimes, and tremendous sufferings:-battles, incredibly fierce and sanguinary, follow close on entertainments incredibly sumptuous and elegant-terrific tempests are succeeded by delicious calms at sea: and the land scenes are divided between horrible chasms and precipices, and vales and gardens rich in eternal blooms, and glittering with palaces and temples-while the interest of the story is maintained by instruments and agents of no less potency than insanity, blasphemy, poisonings, religious hatred, national antipathy, demoniacal misanthropy, and devoted love. We are aware that, in objecting to a work like this, that it is made up of such materials, we may seem to be objecting that it is made of the elements of poetry,-since it is no doubt true, that it is by the use of such materials that poetry is substantially distinguished from prose, and that it is to them it is indebted for all that is peculiar in the delight and the interest it inspires: and it may seem a little unreasonable to complain of a poet, that he treats us with the essence of poetry. We have already hinted, however, that it is not advisable to live entirely on essences; and our objection goes not only to the excessive strength of the emotions that are sought to be raised, but to the violence of their transitions, and the want of continuity in the train of feeling that is produced. It may not be amiss, however, to add a word or two more of explanation. In the first place, then, if we consider how the fact stands, we shall find that all the great poets, and, in an especial manner, all the poets who chain down the attention of their readers, and maintain a growing interest through a long series of narrations, have been remarkable for the occasional familiarity, and even homeliness, of many of their incidents, characters and sentiments. This is the dis tinguishing feature in Homer, Chaucer, Ari osto, Shakespeare, Dryden, Scott--and will be found to occur, we believe, in all poetry that has been long and extensively popular; or that is capable of pleasing very strongly, or stirring |