Trembling beneath his maddening mood,
High on a rock the giant stood;

His shout was like the doom of death (deeth)
Spoke o'er their heads that pass'd beneath.
His destined victims might not spy
The reddening terrors of his eye,
The frown of rage that writhed his face,
The lip that foam'd like boar's in chase;
But all could see and, seeing, all
Bore back to shun the threaten'd fall,
The fragment which their giant foe
Rent from the cliff and heaved to throw.

• Backward they bore; yet are there two
For battle who prepare:

No pause of dread Lord William knew
Ere his good blade was bare;
And Wulfstane bent his fatal yew,
But ere the silken cord he drew,
As hurl'd from Hecla's thunder, flew
That ruin through the air!.

Full on the outlaw's front it came,
And all that late had human name,
And human face, and human frame,
That lived, and moved, and had free will
To chuse the path of good or ill,
Is to its reckoning gone,

And nought of Wulfstane rests behind,
Save that beneath that stone,
Half-buried in the dinted clay,
A red and shapeless mass there lay,
Of mingled flesh and bone!

As from the bosom of the sky
The eagle darts amain,

Three bounds from yonder summit high
Placed Harold on the plain.

As the scared wild-fowl scream and fly,
So fled the bridal train;

As 'gainst the eagle's peerless might
The noble falcon dares the fight,

But dares the fight in vain,

So fought the bridegroom; from his hand

The Dane's rude mace has struck his brand,

Its glittering fragments strew the sand,

Its lord lies on the plain.

Now, Heaven, take noble William's part,
And melt that yet unmelted heart,

Or, ere his bridal hour depart,

The hapless bridegroom's slain!'

This little picture certainly displays a lively imagination, and a spirited course of narrative; and, as one better thing

always

always induces another, the versification is more régular and the language less objectionable than we find them elsewhere. We should add, to complete the strange story, that Harold had heard a deep voice, (previously to these events,) which apprized him that, if he did not restrain his passion at the highest pitch of its fury when next aroused,

• The gate of repentance shall ope for him never.'

He relents, therefore, at the warning of Gunnar; Lord William is spared for the fair Metelill; and Harold, in due process, claims the hand of Mademoiselle Eivir, late Gunnar, of breeches-memory. We had almost forgotten to say that a furious combat with Odin, the genuine deity of the Scandimavian mythology, has taken place before: but, at length, of Witikind's son shall the marvel be said, That on the same morn he was christen'd and wed.'

(End of Canto the sixth.)

In the rencontre with the deep voice, and in Harold's defiance of the spectre who claims an authority over him, we recognize a most extraordinary similarity to several passages in the late dramatic poem of Lord Byron; where Manfred, the hero, behaves in a manner unaccountably resembling that of Harold on the occasion above mentioned; and which occasion is also the same in both works. Every circumstance forbids the idea of plagiarism in the noble author; whose work (we suppose) was written in a foreign country, and, to all appearance, at or about the time at which Harold the Dauntless was first published in England. The coincidence, however, shews how liable are the wits of modern poets, of whatever eminence, to run in the same channel.

i..

We shall now furnish those poets, and their readers, with some beacons of bad style, from the puny performance which we are reviewing at present: uniting the follies of versification and the phrenzies of language, and leaving our readers to distinguish between their degrees of demerit.

"Count Witikind was a joyful man.”

Count Witikind's only offspring and heir.'
Ireful wax'd old Witikind's look.'

Up then arose that grim convertite.'

But he must own repentance's power.'

With Kyrie Eleisen came clamorously in

The war-songs of Danesman, Norweyan, and Finn.'

The subjoined couplet is distinctly imitated from "Grim

King of the Ghosts," in the "Tales of Terror:"

And

*And the tempest within, having ceased its wild rout,
Gave place to the tempest that thundered without.'
Harold the Dauntless.

"Soon as ceased was the rattling of skeleton feet,
The clattering of jaw-bones directly began."

Tales of Terror. ·

How superior the original, in vivid and picturesque' description !

To continue:

• He has seized on the Prior of Jorvaux's purse.'
Sore snorted the palfrey."

< Up he started, and thundered out, "Stand!"'

Up he started' is the commencement of a stanza in another little romantic poem that lives in our memory, but which is not famous for its elegance.

And such thou can'st not be back and home!'

And they whisper'd the great master fiend was at one
With Harold the Dauntless, Count Witikind's son.'
'The good old prelate lies lapp'd in lead.'

In the chapel still is shewn!!!"

O Swift, Swift, where art thou, with thy Lilliputian lyrics!

'So will'd the prelate, and canon and dean

Gave to his judgment a loud amen.'

(End of Canto the first.) Frequently, throughout this volume, we discover an attempt at humour, such as was often successfully mixed in the old romances with their graver effusions; and the author is far from being unsuccessful in all efforts of the kind: but, assuredly, he too often endeavours to reply "by a fool-born jest," as King Harry called it, to the censures which he must have anticipated from the pen of criticism.

Our readers will already have observed the thin covering of self-satisfied laughter that is thrown over much of the nonsense of this poem; and almost every page will furnish additional examples. The introduction, on the contrary, has a playful happiness about it which we are very glad to commend: but we must draw to a conclusion. Allons, donc !

• When the Sun is in his power.'

We have heard that an English officer in Spain, who shared and enjoyed the charges of our cavalry on their enemies, exclaimed,. "If this is fighting, it is very like foxhunting!"

7*

hunting!" and we think that, if this be versification, it marvellously resembles whistling!

And braid with flowers her locks of jet,

As when in infancy.'

The song that young Metelill sings on her own accomplishments is wonderfully like the song of that interesting youth, who "Call'd the dark plumb from forth his Christmas pie, And cried, in self-applause, How good a boy am I !" Loves of the Triangles.

The pious Palmer loves, I wis,

Saint Cuthbert's hallow'd beads to kiss ;
But I, though simple girl I be,

Might have such homage paid to me!'

Tum, tiddle, tiddle, tiddle, te!

We fear that the author will not be much delighted with the number of similarities which we have detected in Harold the Dauntless to his tuneful brethren: but we trust that the first which we mentioned, where it is still more out of the question that he should have been the plagiarist than Lørd Byron, will soothe his wounded spirit. . Cheered by this hope, we proceed to observe a striking likeness, in the following passage, to a well-known scene in one of our happiest English specimens of dramatic humour. Harold sees a ghost, which he had seen before in Galilee, and in Cephalonia, that other while,' as it is elegantly termed :

"Dost see him now?" The page, distraught
With terror, answered, "I see nought!

And there is nought to see!"'

"I see the ships! I see," &c.

"Daughter! those ships thou can'st not see

Because- they're not in sight."

The grave Governor of Tilbury Fort is here represented by Gunnar, the little foot-page; and the romantic Tilburina appears in the character of Harold the Dauntless.

I do defy thee and resist

The kindling frenzy of my breast' — (brist);

And down I'll knock thee with my fist,

we beg leave to add, as bringing the rhyme back to its due melody.

An alter'd man Lord Harold rose,"

and an altered' author we hope his poet will rise from his present defeat. Let him frame his next attempt, if he still feels with the youth in the Æneid the ardour of enterprize, REV. SEPT. 1817.. « aliquid

C

"aliquid jamdudum invadere magnum

Mens agitat mihi, nec plaudâ contenta quiete est ;" (VIRG.) if he must write on, we say, let him frame his next attempt on a more rational model; and we are sure, from many indications in the present work, that he will succeed better under the controul of closer trammels. The labour of correction may little suit at first with the sopha, and its presiding deity, Ennui, to which this author alludes: but he will find a pleasure in the results of the task which none but an active mind, judiciously employed, can experience; and he will have ample reason in future to thank the caustic and the knife, which may occasion some present suffering;

"ab ipso

Ducet opes animumque ferro."

HORACE.

ART. III. Modern Judaism; or a brief Account of the Opinions, Traditions, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Jews, in modern Times. By John Allen. 8vo. pp. 450. 12s. Boards. Hamilton. 1816.

IT

T was said by a late prelate of the church of England, in his celebrated reply to "The Age of Reason," that if he were not a Christian he would be a Jew. So fully was the mind of that most excellent and learned man impressed with the truth of the scriptural history of the Jewish people, and so strongly did he deem it confirmed both by antient profane histories and by the present circumstances of the world, that he appears to have considered that, by subscribing to their religious creed, he should adopt a system of belief and worship on the whole more just and rational than any, with the exception of Christianity, that could elsewhere be found. It would certainly be a circumstance of no very pleasing nature to be placed in the predicament which we have just supposed; yet we are inclined to think that few considerate and seriously disposed persons would refuse so far to coincide with the right reverend divine, as to place Judaism second in rank (though most assuredly longissimo intervallo) to the religion of Christians: few, we apprehend, would not agree with him that, if we must resort to infidelity, it were far better that it should be combined with at least a partial knowlege of the Deity, and with a belief in some portion of the Holy Scriptures, than with an idolatrous system of worship, a contemptuous rejection of the whole of God's written word, or a total disbelief of every revelation from heaven.

The