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 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 neglect 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 with a Dutch, or a Chinese pleasure-house, where every part is meant to be beautiful, and the result is deformity-where there is not an inch of the surface that is not brilliant with colour, and rough with curves and angles,-and where the effect of the whole is displeasing to the eye and the taste. 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, truly and exquisitely beautiful; and the general design of his pieces extremely elegant and ingenious: all that we mean to say is, that there is too much ornament— too many insulated and independent beauties-and that the notice and the very admiration they excite, hurt the interest of the general design, and withdraw our attention too importunately from it. Mr Moore, it appears to us, is too lavish of his gems and sweets, and it may truly be said of him, in his poetical capa city, that he would be richer with half his wealth. His works are not only of rich materials and graceful design, but they are every where glistening with small beauies and transitory inspirations—sudden flashes of fancy that blaze out and perish; like earthborn 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 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 are alike in the excess of their means of attraction --and fail to interest, chiefly by being too interesting. We have felt it our duty to point out the faults of our author's poetry, particularly in respect to Lalla Rookh, but it would be quite unjust to characterize that splendid poem by its faults, which are infinitely less conspicuous than its manifold beauties. There is not only a richness and brilliancy of diction and imagery spread over the whole work, that indicate the greatest activity and elegance of fancy in the author; but it is every where pervaded, still more strikingly, by a strain of tender and noble feeling, poured out with such warmth and abundance, as to steal insensibly on the heart of the reader, and gradually to overflow it with a tide of sympathetic emotion. There are passages indeed, and these neither few nor brief, over which the very genius of poetry seems to have breathed his richest enchantment-where the melody of the verse and the beauty of the images conspire so harmoniously with the force and tenderness of the emotion, that the whole is blended into one deep and bright stream of sweetness and feeling, along which the spirit of the reader is borne passively through long reaches of delight. Mr Moore's poetry, indeed, where his happiest vein is opened, realizes more exactly than that of any other writer, the splendid account which is given by Comus' of the song of His mother Circe, and the sirens three, Amid the flowery-kirtled Naiades, Who, as they sung, would take the prison'd soul, And though it is certainly to be regretted that he should occasionally have broken the measure with more frivolous strains, or filled up its intervals with a sort of brilliant falsetto, it should never be forgotten, that his excellencies are as peculiar to himself as his faults, and, on the whole, we may assert, more characteristic of his genius. The legend of Lalla Rookh is very sweetly and gaily told; and is adorned with many tender as well as lively passages— without reckoning among the latter the occasional criticisms of the omniscient Fadladeen, the magnificent and most infallible grand chamberlain of the haram-whose sayings and remarks, by the by, do not agree very well with the character which is assigned him-being for the most part very smart, snappish, and acute, and by no means solemn, stupid, and pompous, as one would have expected. Mr Moore's genius, perhaps, is too inveterately lively, to make it possible for him even to counterfeit dulness. We must now take a slight glance at the poetry. The first piece, entitled the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, is the longest, and, we think, certainly not the best of the series. The story, which is not in all its parts extremely intelligible, is founded on a vision, in d'Herbelot, of a daring impostor of Milton, who was much patronized by the illustrious House of Egerton, wrote the Mask of Comus upon John Egerton, then Earl of Bridgewater, when that nobleman, in 1634, was appointed Lord President of the principality of Wales. It was performed by three of his Lordship's children, before the Earl, at Ludlow Castle.-See the Works of the present Earl of Bridgewater. the early ages of Islamism, who pretended to have received a later and more authoritative mission than that of the Pro phet, and to be destined to overturn all tyrannies and superstitions on the earth, and to rescue all souls that believed in him. To shade the celestial radiance of his brow, he always wore a veil of silver gauze, and was at last attacked by the Caliph, and exterminated with all his adherents. On this story Mr Moore has engrafted a romantic and not very probable tale: yet, even with all its faults, it possesses a charm almost irresistible, in the volume of sweet sounds and beautiful images, which are heaped together with luxurious profusion in the general texture of the style, and invest even the faults of the story with the graceful amplitude of their rich and figured veil. « Paradise and the Peri» has none of the faults just alluded to. It is full of spirit, elegance, and beauty; and, though slight in its structure, breathes throughout a most pure and engaging morality. The Fire-worshippers» appears to us to be indisputably the finest and most powerful poem of them all. With all the richness and beauty of diction that belong to the best parts of Mokanna, it has a far more interesting story; and is not liable to the objections that arise against the contrivance and structure of the leading poem. The general tone of the Fire-worshippers is certainly too much strained, but, in spite of that, 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 fascinating descriptions. On the whole, it may be said of «Lalla Rookh,» that íts great fault consists in its profuse finery; but it should be ob served, that this finery is not the vulgar ostentation which so often disguises poverty or meanness-but, as we have before hinted, the extravagance of excessive wealth. Its great charın is in 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 conceived. " Whatever popularity Mr Moore may have acquired as the author of Lalla Rookh, etc., it is as the author of the Irish Melodies» that he will go down to posterity unrivalled and alone in that delightful species of composition. Lord Byron has very justly and prophetically observed, that Moore is one of the few writers who will survive the age in which he so deservedly flourishes. He will live in his 'Irish Melodies'; they will go down to posterity with the music; both will last as long as Ireland, or as music and poetry.»> If, indeed, the anticipation of lasting celebrity be the chief pleasure for the attainment of which poets bestow their la bour, certainly no one can have engaged so much of it as Thomas Moore. It is evident that writers who fail to command immediate attention, and who look only to posterity for a just estimate of their merits, must feel more or less uncertainty as to the ultimate result, even though they should appreciate their own productions as highly as Milton his Paradise Lost; while they who succeed in obtaining a large share of present applause, cannot but experience frequent misgivings as to its probable duration; prevailing tastes have so entirely changed, and works, the wonder and delight of one generation, have been so completely forgotten in the next, that extent of reputation ought rather to alarm than assure an author in respect to his future fame. But Mr Moore, independently of poetical powers of the highest order-independently of the place he at present maintains in the public estimation-has secured to himself a strong hold of celebrity, as durable as the English tongue. Almost every European nation has a kind of primitive mu b. |