"Their pathway foliage-curtain'd and moss-grown ;— "Their talk?—the dappled hyacinthine glade Lit up in points of blue,-how soft and treble "A level pond, inlaid with lucid shadows Of groves and crannied cliffs and evening sky, The smaller pieces are upon various subjects, such as usually suggest themselves to the mind of young poets. One, "The Way-side Well," is very. pleasingly written, though not with as much power as the lines on the same subject which are to be found in the volume of Mortimer Collins which we have just noticed. It has, however, a rural simplicity and repose about it that will justify our pausing to quote it : THE WAYSIDE WELL. "O thou pretty Wayside Well, "With a welcome fresh and green Wave thy border grasses, Cup of no Circean bliss, "Morning, too, and eventide, Without stint or measure, "Fair the greeting face ascends, "When a laddie brings her pail Down the twilight meadow, "Clear as childhood in thy look, WAYCONNELL TOWER. "The tangling wealth by June amass'd, Left rock and ruin vaguely seen; Thick ivy-cables held them fast, Light boughs descended, floating green. "Slow turn'd the stair-a breathless height, "A window half-way up the wall It led to; and so high was that, 1855.] A Selection from the Lesser Poems of W. H. Leatham. "Aloft within the moulder'd tower, Dark ivy fringed its round of sky, Where slowly, in the deepening hour, The first faint stars unveil'd on high. "The rustling of the foliage dim, The murmur of the cool grey tide, With tears that trembled on the brim, An echo sad to these I sigh'd. "O Sea, thy ripple's mournful tune!— The cloud along the sunset sleeps ; The phantom of the golden moon Is kindled in thy quivering deeps. "Oh, mournfully!—and I to fill, Fix'd in a ruin-window strange, Some countless period, watching still A moon, a sea, that never change! "The guided orb is mounting slow; The duteous wave is ebbing fast; And now, as from the niche I go, A shadow joins the shadowy past. 231 "Farewell! dim ruins; tower and life; Mr. Allingham, like most modern poets, has tried his hand on the sonnet. They are, to our thinking, not perfect specimens of a species of writing which is very exacting in its requirements both of metre, rhyme, and polish. Nevertheless they are as good as a thousand sonnets that are daily given to the public. Here is one that possesses poetic merit : ON THE SUNNY SHORE. "Checquer'd with woven shadows as I lay Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam; Most idly floating in the noontide beam. Of sea-gulls, whilst a foot in careless sweep If Mr. Allingham cannot lay claim to much originality or great vigour, he has certainly considerable sweetness of versification, and a true appreciation of natural beauties. These, with a cultivated taste, and a sufficient share of judgment, are likely to ensure the production of what will be pleasing. To fulfil that end is the mission of the many who write; to attain to the higher walks of poetry is granted but to the few. The critic who would proscribe the former class would do no good service to literature or to the public. We can well afford to linger over verses such as those before us, and feel not the less relish for loftier themes or higher thoughts, when we have the good fortune to meet with them. We have a great dislike to what are called "fugitive pieces." We suppose they are compositions of so flighty a character, that one is never able to fix them that they are gone as soon as come, leaving no trace behind. From our own experience of such things, we have no great desire to stay them on their course, whether it be upwards on boys' kites, or downwards to the pastrycook's kitchen - nay, we should be rather better pleased to find that they were gone even before they were come. Mr. Henry Leatham* has given us some of this sort of literature, which he calls his "Lesser Poems" (using a word that Dr. Johnson justly calls a barbarous corruption). Whatever fame his greater poems have acquired for him, we do not apprehend it will be largely augmented by the lesser ones. They make no pretension, he tells, to be works of labour or of art. So much the worse for writer and for reader. We know little of any value, either in poetry or in any thing else, * "A Selection from the Lesser Poems of Wm. Henry Leatham." London: Longman and Co. 1855. that can be produced without the one and the other. We do not mean to assume that Mr. Leatham is insensible to the importance of such handmaidens to genius, but he should be slow to offer any thing to the public with such an implied claim to its favour, or such an apology. In truth, we always look upon this announcement as a piece of vanity of the utterer, as who should say, "If I can throw off such things without trouble, what could I not do were I to use the aids of labour and art?" We have a very grave suspicion, now that we have read over these poems, that they are little else than the residuary scrapings of the portfolio of a man who has done and can do a great deal better things-the caput mortuum that remained in the crucible after all the ore had been taken away. There is nothing to censure, there is nothing to praise; a good deal of common-place thought in common-place language. We have gone from cover to cover without finding a new sentiment or feeling a fresh sensation. Let us give one of these poems, perhaps the best in its way : We lation to the sorrow of the bereaved parent; but one scarce expects the public to be much in love with those platitudes who can read their Bibles in the hour of such trials, and learn how David found consolation when his child was taken away from him; and the sublimer comfort which Job took to his soul, while his body was racked with pain, in the contemplation of the resurrection. Mr. Leatham gives us some pieces which he classifies as "humorous." At this side of the Channel we flatter ourselves we have no small relish for, and appreciation of, humour; indeed, our good friends on the eastern side are in the habit of telling us that our taste in that way is somewhat more than is good for us that if we laughed less we would fare all the better. venture to say, however, that very few of his Irish readers will discover much humour in this volume; and were he to read his jeu d'esprit of "Railways and Royalty" in College-green to a convention of carmen (the best critics, by the way, of such matters extant), he would scarce extort a smile from the most mercurial of his auditors, even when he read about Lancaster finding his head between his knees. We have been the less lenient in our observations on Mr. Leatham's mediocrity, because he relies on his previous positions as an author. Had he been a young author, making his first appeal, we should temper our admonition with encouragement, advise him to have constant recourse to "labour and art," to elevate, if possible, his soul above platitudes, and his style above common-places; but we will not take these lesser things from Mr. Leatham, as beggars are doled out the remains of a banquet, after the dainties have been all consumed by worthier guests. Whatever have been our short-comings at home in the way of warlike preparation, one class has, at all events, furnished its quota. We mean the poets; they have been very busy and very valiant withal. They have shed ink with a desperate and most gallant recklessness of that precious fluid. We have had more songs than we can well number, during the last year and a-half; and if the sound of harps could batter down the walls of Sebastopol, as that of horns did those of Jericho, we should have been masters of those obstinate strongholds long since. Have they not been battering the place with their shells? Have they not beleagured the very walls with the testudo ? * The latest ordnance in the way of war-songs that has issued from our poetical arsenal has been furnished by Mr. Bennet. They are as good as any that we have seen heretofore- a remark which we do not intend to convey any extravagant commendation; for we confess we have not yet seen any of those lyrics which are likely to claim a lasting place in the country's literature, to be treasured by our children's children, like "Hohenlinden," and "The Battle of the Baltic," and those fine old sea-songs that have been long, as they still are, the delight and pride of British mariners. Some of these songs, however, which Mr. Bennett has published have this great merit, that they are written in strong, vigorous, manly English, such as a British soldier can understand and a British peasant can sympathise in, and are by no means deficient in spirit, with here and there a dash of pathos, just so much as a soldier can afford to indulge in upon the day of battle, that will elevate his heart without depressing his courage. "The Inkermann" contains some good verses of this description, that may possibly render it a popular favourite. We will quote a portion of it: "When we went up the hills of the Alma, Through their hell-fire of shell and of shot, We did a good day's work that morning, Then a sigh for 11 those who are gone, Bu. ill up, all you who remain ! We'll drink, 'May they come again, boys, soon That, boys, we may drub them again!' "Below they had mustered their thousands; The night and the fog hid them well; Before we could see, they were on us, With shot, and with thrust, and with They swept back our pickets, and yelling, * "War Songs." By W. C. Bennett. London: Effingham Wilson. 1855. verses, short-lived we hope they may prove; and we have learned to recognise no despicable foe in those who inflicted upon us a bloody repulse on the memorable 18th of June, causing the British soldier for once to sigh as he recalls that day in the history of his life, and marking it with a black stone in the fasti of British annals. And here we are still, after many months have passed over-winter, and spring, and summer-beleaguring that fortress which we arrogantly thought would have fallen into our hands within one week after the battle of Alma, while all the time its fortifications seem to rise up under our cannonading, as its soldier hordes grow beneath our slaughter. Well, we have learned wisdom, and gained our learning at a very dear school. Still, let us keep up our spirits, and try to keep up the hearts of those who do battle for us in the Crimea; and so Mr. Bennett gives his aid in his chant "To the Besiegers of Sebastopol," of which we quote the opening and concluding verses: "Foot by foot, and hour by hour, Onward, brave hearts !-forward go! Though its coming must be slow ! What you are right well we know ; Onward, brave hearts!-forward go! "Onward! what shall keep you back? Victors, when your wounds you show! Foot by foot, and hour by hour, Onward, brave hearts!-forward go!" After having perused the volume now before us, we are not quite sure that we understand why the author has so named it, or the particular moral lesson he would wish to inculcate. This much, indeed, is plainly enough deducible, that in all earthly trials a reliance on God is the surest support; but beyond that we do not clearly see our way as to the author's object. We collect, from some introductory lines, that it was written at a period of sickness, which may, perhaps, account for a want of method and completeness about it. Nevertheless, whatever be its drawbacks, it is a composition full of thoughtfulness, and abounds with passages of great beauty. A certain Italian Count Lamballa, despairing of winning the affections of the lady he loves, flies to a convent, and, in the austerities of religion, seeks a close communion with God; but amongst the superstitions and formularies of the brotherhood he cannot find what he wants. Then the desire to go again into the world comes back upon him, and the memory of his love will not be repressed. And so, with the aid of a friendly monk, he escapes from the convent, and secretly regains his own castle. In the meantime his mistress is not without a suitor. We have the somewhat hackneyed device of a rich nobleman becoming the sole creditor of an impoverished father, who flies, leaving his daughter exposed to the plots of her admirer. Julian, of course, intervenes just at the right moment to rescue Lilia from Nembroni, who is prevented running away with her in a chaise-and-pair by the very effective process of a dagger-stroke in the heart, and the lady is conveyed senseless to Julian's castle. Julian discovers that Lilia loves him, and we have some very well written dialogue between the lovers. The failing in the lady's character is evidently a want of strength and reliance on her companion. She shrinks from the stains of blood, though the act had purchased her own freedom. She dreads to fly with the monk and marry him, and yet she yields eventually, and they escape just as he is about to be seized and taken back to his convent. Five years pass away, and Julian is in a meanly-furnished house, at night, bending over the crib of a sleeping child. He is still the same earnest seeker after God, craving hungrily to be filled with spiritual knowledge. A strange misunderstanding arises between him and his wife, each believing that the love of the other is constrained. The scenes between the father and his little child are full of tenderness. The me * "Within or Without:" a Dramatic Poem. By Geo. MacDonald. London: Longman and Co. 1855. |