Indeed the manner in which he conducts the army along the Irrawaddy, till within forty miles of Umerapoora, without once adverting to the unwearied exertions of the flotilla under Captain Chads, but for which the troops could not have. advanced a step beyond Prome, is quite inexcusable; the more so as this officer and the men belonging to the Arachne were thirteen months from their ship, during nine of which, both officers and men constantly slept in their boats, and in general lived on salt provisions; and as, to give Captain Chads's own words, although they suffered very considerably both by death and sickness, from exposure, privations, and long confinement, still not a murmur was ever heard; on the contrary, every service was performed with the utmost cheerfulness and alacrity.' put the matter in its clear light by one simple fact; the reader would not discover, from Major Snodgrass's narrative, that any such person as Captain Chads was present with this army, had not his name appeared to the final treaty of peace. The same observation may be made with regard to Sir James Brisbane; though he was joint commissioner with Sir Archibald Campbell, and though he had been repeatedly thanked for his exertions and bravery while in command of the flotilla, his name, like the other, appears for the first time in the signature to the treaty. We do not mean to charge Major Snodgrass with wilful misrepresentation, or intentional slight on the naval service, by the suppression of various affairs in which it was principally concerned; but we do think that an amende honorable is due from him to the Navy, and which, should a second edition of his book be called for, he will do most effectually by availing himself of that authentic publication called the London Gazette.* He will there perceive how much is wanting to render his Narrative of the Burmese War' a faithful record of the brilliant exploits that led to a final peace. We should think he would be glad of an opportunity of rendering this act of justice to a service, without whose efficacious aid it is at least doubtful, whether he and his comrades would have received those additional honours, rank, and emoluments, which have followed the close of the campaign.† He will be reminded of what the valuable services of the navy have been in this war by consulting the following Supplements to the London Gazette:-November, 1824. February 23d, March 25th, April 24th, August 10th, 20th, October 28th, December 13th, 1825; April 25th and 26th, - 1826. +We take this opportunity of noticing an unintentional oversight in the last paper in which we had occasion to mention Burmese affairs: (Article on Baptist Missions, in No. LXV.) The readers of that paper might be led to believe that Mrs. Judson, one of the missionaries' wives, had voluntarily attended the execution of some criminals. We should have taken care to mark the words 'we went to witness, &c.' as quoted by Mrs. Judson (who is we understand a most amiable person) from the Journal of a Mr. Heugh. ART. ART. VIII.-1. Peveril of the Peak. 4 vols.-Quentin Durward. 3 vols.-St. Ronan's Well. 3 vols.-Redgauntlet. 3 vols.Tales of the Crusaders. 4 vols.-Woodstock. 3 vols. 2. Brambletye House, or Cavaliers and Roundheads. A Novel. Third Edition. 3 vols.-The Tor Hill. By the Author of Brambletye House.' 3 vols. London. 1826. 3. Wallenstein: translated from the German of Schiller. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq. A LL countries have had their popular poetry; yet of all the forms of composition, the poetical is the least popular. Pure and elevated poetry in all ages and countries must, indeed, have been an art of most unvulgar acquirement, and of far from general acceptation. It is impossible for an imperfectly developed intellect to comprehend the creations of the highest genius; the utmost that it can attain, is some faint and indistinct apprehension of transcending excellence and beauty. How few can thoroughly relish the great productions of Milton-while the poetry of Bloomfield generally pleases! A genius like Bloomfield's is sure of a wider sympathy. The minds possessing his degree of native energy and cultivation are numerous. He requires not of his reader any extraordinary ability, and no learning; some activity of fancy, some congeniality of feeling, is all that is demanded. His associations are limited; he sees but little more in any object in nature than the most ordinary observer; everything he beholds is as naked as his mind that perceives it: so true it is, that all our perceptions are coloured with the particular character of individual intellect, partake its idiosyncrasy, and are qualified by its acquirements or deficiencies. To such a mind as Wordsworth's The meanest flower that blows, can give while, with Peter Bell, A primrose by the river's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more.' It was with Bloomfield as with Peter Bell; it was with Milton as it is with Wordsworth, but in a different way. Wordsworth clothes the objects of his perceptions with the feelings of his own heart, and the emotions of his own mind; he invests them with human faculties. Milton arrays them in the gorgeous furniture of an intellect rich in classical associations; he clothes them with a very drapery of words; he expresses nothing as an ordinary man would express it; everything seems as if it were the result of continued effort-but it is we who make the effort, not the poet. He He speaks from the fulness of his experience; and poetry, like a passion, draws into the same vortex, and forces, to one common centre, every remembrance; in the hurry and the frenzy of the occasion, re-collects, from each chamber of the understanding and fancy, every image and idea from whatever source derived; and fuses them all together into one glowing mass of illustration and eloquence like a dream, it curdles a long life into an hour.' But the mind not furnished with the same associations has much to learn before it can understand, much less feel, the diction composed from such resources. Thus it is that what is called poetic diction has been built up; and that it fails of effect with all but cultivated minds. It gives majesty to an epic poem, but should be prudently used in dramatic composition. The example of Shakspeare proves that it may be introduced into the higher order of tragic works, and will give them additional value in the estimation of intelligent readers: but it is not essential to the success, and, unmingled with a large portion of other matter, would altogether preclude the performance of a play. These remarks might be easily extended, but sufficient has been said to answer our immediate purpose, which was to account for the comparative unpopularity in our time of the poetical form of composition. Works, however, conceived in the spirit of poetry, but not assuming the poetic form, nor rendered difficult of apprehension, or repugnant to taste by an injudicious employment of poetic diction, are the most popular of modern productions. We mentioned not long ago several reasons why the ancients had no novel; and we might have added this,-that it was not rendered necessary by the state of poetical composition in their time. In its progress and improvement, poetry had not arrived at that condition when it becomes a science as well as an art; demanding much acquired knowledge, as well as great native aptitude, either to write or to appreciate it with judgment and taste. The novel, in short, is an accommodation of the ancient epic to the average capacity of the numberless readers of modern times. It is not probable, that, with the exception of Fielding, the writers in this species of composition deliberately proposed to abide by the rules of the Stagyrite, yet we shall find that all the most skilful and successful of their productions have been conducted conformably to the principles on which those rules were founded. A complete critical examination, therefore, of the conduct proper to the construction and execution of the novel, would tend to develope the laws by which even the loftier efforts of genius should be regulated; See Quarterly Review, for June, 1826. and and even such a hasty survey as we can promise will prove two important truths: first, that the rules of classical poetry originated not merely in caprice and custom, but are founded in truth and general nature; secondly,-that every good writer originates them again in his own mind, and by the laws of his own intellect necessarily prescribes their observance to himself, while engaged in the labour of production. And we may, perhaps, be enabled to illustrate this position, that, unless he does so originate them by the necessity of his own mind, the mere knowledge of them is insufficient to constitute a good writer, and their mechanical observance will fail to produce a lively and vigorous work of imagination: in other words, that his performance, however correct in point of form, will in spirit be discovered to want that foundation in truth and nature which is essentially necessary to support and animate the external resemblance, to produce that harmony between the substance and the visible sign, in which the real charm of Art consists, and without which the imitation must be imperfect, wanting life and voluntary motion. We have, of course, no intention of entering into an historical criticism on this class of fiction from its commencement to its meridian, which is already sufficiently effected in a former paper; nor is it our intention even to extend our illustration over any very large field of instances: our purpose is to glance only at the general subject, and to attempt very briefly a fair estimate of the merits of some recent productions in this way that have obtained attention, and more particularly those of which the titles introduce the present article. The novel is divisible into as many kinds as the narrative poem, or the drama; the interest may be serious or comic, or a mixture of both, and it may be founded on fiction or history. Of the fictitious novel, the class is very extensive, and contains productions of transcendent merit: but we think justice has been already awarded to it, and the principles of its conduct sufficiently expounded and understood. Under this head, St. Ronan's Well might very properly be considered, but in spite of the beautiful · character of Clara Mowbray, and all the noble pathos that hangs about her, this novel is not one of the happiest efforts of its author, nor of the description to which his genius is peculiarly adapted. It is in the novel suggested by historical occurrences, and partly founded thereon, that he is altogether unrivalled; and has established a reputation that will endure as long as the literature of the country. The author of Waverley' evidently came furnished for his undertaking with the energies of genius, and the acquisitions of study. It was impossible to read the work without being convinced that the writer possessed great poetical power and a cultivated imagi nation, with sufficient knowledge of the principles of his art, and much skill in their application. We feel at once that we are in the power and at the will of a master. Tradition and history give up the dead from their burial-places at his bidding, and they pass before us on the stage in the habit that they lived,' and surrounded by the same scenery and customs. They are evidently veritable persons, having life and motion, and subject to all the skiey influences and all the circumstances of life--the social and the solitary, the polished and the rude; they are cultivated and ignorant, philosophic and superstitious, brave and fearful: wisdom and folly, and idiocy and madness, fanaticism and party-spirit, and all the actual conditions of life, are to him as a nurse's tale and an old wife's fable. But it is equally evident that all these persons and circumstances, with all their attributes, are the shapings of the poet's pen. We shall look for them in vain elsewhere; they are not to be found in tradition or history, or in the common world about us; they had their birth-place and their cradle in the brain of the poet, and are the legitimate progeny of his own creative genius. It is granted that much was derived from external sources; but this is the privilege of a poetical mind, to identify all its acquisitions for its own; its knowledge is alchemized and the base metal comes out from the intellectual crucible in the form of gold, and the ore is purified from the dross. That which was before precious in itself, in proceeding through the mint of his imagination, acquires a different impress; when again made current, the coin bears his image and superscription—and rightly: for of the treasure derived from this intellectual commerce, the most part is defaced and the motto worn out, and it must be melted down again, and stamped anew to be fit for use. If, when thus given back to us, his descriptions appear as living symbols, or vivid resemblances of persons and things that we were before acquainted with, so much the better-this is the triumph of the poetic art. Thus it was with Shakspeare. But we shall find that they do not strike as copies merely, but with the force and fervour of originals. Like the statue in The Winter's Tale, you would deem they breathed, and that those veins did verily bear blood; the very life seems warm upon their lips; the fixure of their eyes has motion in it; an air comes from them, and the fine chisel has cut breath.' The poet does not sit down as a limner to a model, in all the drudgery of imitation; his models are in his mind, wherein he discovers a world that is as real in its own way as the world around us. True poetic genius reflects nature by a plastic opera |