Indeed, whatever friends he might have left when he quitted this country, (now nearly 30 years past,) it is difficult to imagine that, if living, they could be so much intitled to his affections as this new race; and certainly there could be none to whom he could have the satisfaction of being so serviceable. The island itself must have been endeared to him as having been first possessed and made habitable by him and his associates, as well as by being the birth-place of his and their progeny. Lieutenant Shillibeer has used some expressions which imply censure on the conduct of the commander of The Bounty, and seem to be intended as a palliation of the mutiny of the crew, on a supposition that they were urged to it by insupportable tyranny. That an idea of such mischievous tendency, and destitute of reasonable foundation, should have been so long entertained, is some cause both for wonder and remark. Unusual severity of punishment or acts of cruelty were not alleged: but a small and accidental discontent, on a trivial occasion, was enlisted in aid of, and joined to, temptations which were of themselves powerful enough to have caused the mutiny; such as a fruitful and delightful country, which furnished provisions with little or no labour, was blessed with a seducing climate, and abounded with females who were very handsome and of licentious manners: to all which was added a supposed clear prospect of impunity in the distance from Great Britain, and in the circumstance of no other British ship being then in the South Sea. It was not believed by the mutineers that the commander, and those who adhered to him, would ever be able to reach England; and it could not be foreseen that this ocean was in a short time to become much frequented by European shipping. As to Fletcher Christian, it was said of him, before he went to the South Sea, that he was known to be "one of the most foolish young men existing in regard to the sex;" a remark which there is no room to doubt, seeing that this very failing was at last the cause of his death: but, in other respects, he appears to have been of good disposition and character. Another fact, which shews the matter in its true light, is that of the owners of ships employed in the South-whale-fishery having found it necessary to prohibit the masters of their vessels from going to Otaheite, because the dissipated manner of living there was an enticement to the greater number of their men to desert. In reply to any charge of cruel treatment or severity exercised in the command of The Bounty having caused the mutiny, one deponent says, I have heard the Captain damn the people like many - other other captains, but he was not angry with a man the next minute." Other depositions, on oath, were to the same purpose, and nearly in the same words. Now, as it is well known and acknowleged that a pun breaks no boncs, in like manner the angry words of a superior officer, which are felt to be merely the expressions of immediate displeasure, are not to be pleaded in excuse, or in the smallest degree to be admitted as a handle, for mutiny. Every part of Pitcairn's Island is fertile, and capable of cultivation; -with yams, bread-fruit, pigs, goats, and poultry, the island was stocked from Otaheite; and the coast abounds in fish. It is said that the intermarriages which had taken place had made a general relationship throughout the colony;' that the greatest harmony prevailed; and that the young women deserve high praise for beauty and innocent simplicity of manners. We have seen that the ships left the island and its inhabitants with their number unbroken, and their manners unaltered; circumstances which are both extremely gratifying. It is impossible not to reflect with interest and anxiety on the probable future fate of the residents in this little garden of paradise, as yet in a state of primitive purity, but whose tranquillity and whose virtue are endangered by the rest of the world becoming informed of their retreat. 1 The remaining part of Lieutenant Shillibeer's detail is occupied with accounts concerning Chili and Peru. He had an opportunity of visiting Lima; which city, he says, contains above fifty churches and chapels. The number of men wearing the monastic habit, I was assured, exceeded 10,000, and of women nearly 6000, which may be considered nearly one-sixth of the population.'--Some papers belonging to the prison of the Inquisition at Lima, which were taken thence when the populace broke open that building, fell into the hands of the author, who intimates an intention of giving them to the public. The Briton returned by Strait le Maire to the Atlantic, and arrived in England in July 1815 thus terminating a voyage of which it is creditable to Lieutenant Shillibeer to have furnished us with the present account. ART. II. Harold the Dauntless; a Poem, in Six Cantos. By the Author of "The Bridal of Triermain." Cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. Boards. Longman and Co. 1817. OUR UR readers may choose the most probable out of two reasons for the obvious inferiority of Harold the Dauntless' to "The Bridal of Triermain." In the last-men - tioned poem, (see M.R. Vol. lxxiii. p. 237.) although constant faults were observable, faults engendered by a servile imitation of Mr. Scott's bad grammar and discordant versification, --still the author manifested much elegance, much imagination, and much composition of a really pleasing and classical correctness. Why, then, has Harold the Dauntless' fallen so short of the promise held out by his predecessor? Either Harold was in fact the younger work, although the later publication of the two; or that common cause of deterioration in the genius of authors, all-destructive flattery, has misled the sanguine and indolent mind of this anonymous poet; and he has fancied that he might play any trick with his Scotish friends, and, through the mediation of their applause, with the public. On his second appearance, however, "Apparent diræ facies, inimicaque Tueda Numina magna Deûm." Criticism can no longer endure protracted tales of terror, or diluted mixtures of nursery-nonsense and antiquarian pedantry, offered to an insulted public in a vehicle of nondescript verse, or rather of fantastical Prose. She turns away, in silent contempt, from such strains as a ricketty child might have indited, or meets with the awful laugh of sarcasm the repugnant invitation of <List to the valorous deeds that were done By Harold the Dauntless, Count Witikind's son!' This invitation leads to nothing, for several CANTOS, as they are called, but a succession of old fairy-tale images, conveyed in phraseology in which singulars and plurals exchange places without ceremony; in which the unhappy articles, definite and indefinite, are banished or recalled at the despotic will of their barbarous enemy; in which all language, in a word, is nearly as much confounded as it was at Babel:- while harmony stands aghast at the violation of all her canons; hearing nothing but the monotonous and heavy cadence of the paviour's mall, (that musical instrument of so many of our contemporaries,) occasionally indeed relieved by the grunt of the paviour himself, as the tool of his laborious, occupation descends from his hands. Let our readers decide on the justness of the simile, when they have read the subjoined extract: Priest, monk, and prelate stood aghast, (Grunt.) We We expostulated, long ago, with Miss Holford, for writing the major part of an ample volume in this burlesque sort of measure; and the pages of many other and more popular writers have been of late frequently defaced with so gross an anomaly. Is it really that noble mother-tongue of ours, that English which Dryden uttered, is it really such a dignified and comprehensive language,—that the pigmies of the time dare to mutilate in so licentious a manner? As to versification ye most incorrigible gossips! when will your vanity cease to make you believe, that your harsh and screaming discords can delight the ear of your countrymen? - All expostulation is lost on the self-sufficient conceit of ignorance; and there is such a conspiracy, or rather such a riotous mob, of bad taste in the country, that the admirers of our antient poetical energy, music, and correctness, hang their heads in despair, while all the sons of disorder exult in their impunity. : "Abruptis Catilina minax, fractisque catenis, Exultat, Mariique truces, nudique Cethegi." LUCAN. We must go on, alas! we must go on, with Harold the Dauntless. This ruffian of the north is the worthy son of the Danish pirate, Count Witikind; and, after having been described as a sort of Orson at the beginning of the book, he turns out a perfect Valentine at the end. He becomes, from being a heathen butcher, a Christian knight, a preux chevalier his gentle foot-page, according to the usual practice, proves to be a woman; and in course they are united, in bonds of affection equally pure, sincere, and lasting. If we had a hundred voices, we could not count all the modern ballad-epics in which this discovery has taken place. Almost every Julio turns out to be a Julia; and, like the Gunnar (Diique Deæque omnes, what an appellation !) of the poem before us, exchanges the fidelity of the boy for the additional tenderness of the female, and becomes at last such an interesting personage as Mrs. Harold the Dauntless. She wanders from the castle of Count Witikind, who has turned Christian for a present of some lands in the county of Durham, in company with the coarse object of her attachment; and, among the many adventures with which they meet, they come to a cottage inhabited by an old witch of the name of Jutta, (wife of the gloomy Wulfstane,) and her daughter the fair Metelill. GUNNAR, JUTTA, and METELILL, form a very interesting trio, and Harold becomes enamoured of the young lady. She, however, has fixed her affections on Lord William; and that young nobleman is now on his way to the parish-church, to be united to all that he holds dear in the said parish, when Harold (who has been urged by the sorceress Jutta Jutta into a dispute with the monks of St. Cuthbert, about his father's dirty acres, and is now on his way to accomplish a weighty adventure imposed by them) appears on the rocks above the procession, and the following scene ensues. We select it because we believe it to be the best specimen of the author's poetical powers in the volume; and we assure him that, if he had not displayed some such capabilities, and did not seem worthy of improvement, we should have been far from wasting so much letter-press in the censure of his extravagancies. Joy shook his torch above the band, The witch deem'd Harold with the dead, The knot 'twixt bridegroom and his bride, "Then May hemlock and mandrake find root in his grave, < Such was their various mood of glee But still when joy is brimming highest, Trembling |