as a painter of character, true to the life of Pope has the merit of more copiousness and spirit as Hogarth.' The more he and variety, to Dryden belongs the charm is examined, the more he rises in the of a closer and compacter fable, and of a estimation of the reader. This is a fer- single and undisturbed aim. Pope scatters tile and healthful field to dig in. Spen- his ridicule like hail among the leaves; ser is somewhat better treated; Shakspeare Dryden hurls down the condensed fire of "no one should ever cease reading." In his indignation, with a fury that rends the returning to the smaller bards, a rich boughs asunder. We learn from Nichols cluster of names tempts the reader, who that Gray placed the Absalom and Achitois, however, recommended, if of "limit-phel in the first rank of poems. With reed opportunities," to read such poems as gard to his historical plays, one remark may Johnson and other critics point out. But be made to show how unsafe a hand-book on consulting Johnson's work as a "hand- the biographies of Johnson afford, even in book to the facts," and finding there a slight particulars; he praises the Spanish very unpromising account of Collins and Friar for what he calls "the happy coinciGray, would a reader of limited opportuni- dence and coalition of the two plots." A ties be likely to look out for the opinions of criticism proved by Hallam to be utterly other critics of better taste? Surely not without foundation; the comic scenes in and Collins and Gray would be lost to him. this play, consisting entirely of “an intrigue, When Pycroft does venture upon a note of which Lorenzo, a young officer, carries on information, by way of supplement to John- with a rich usurer's wife; but there is not, son, we cannot bestow upon it unlimited even by accident, any relation between his commendation. Of Dryden he writes, "His adventures and the love and murder which Fables, Annus Mirabilis, and translation of go forward in the palace." Virgil, are the most celebrated." Is this criticism true? do these poems afford an outline of the poet's temper of mind and invention? would any one gather from it that, in the art of arguing in rhyme, he had attained to a consummate mastery, and that in crushing vehemence of sarcasm, he stood alone in English verse?— "Medios violentus in hostes, Fertur, ut excussis elisus nubibus ignis." We cannot compliment Mr. Pycroft on his estimate of Pope. The Rape of the Lock may be, and we think it is, the best of all heroi-comical poems; but where do we read or hear that the Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard" is the most immoral and impious poem ever sanctioned?" Its morality we admit to be questionable-or, rather, quite unquestionable-but is it impious? Of course its immorality is essentially irreligious; and, therefore, in a certain sense, We are not objecting to the works speci- impious; but the analogy is forced, and is fied. His Fables are for the most part ad- not that intended by the objector. It is remirable. The Annus Mirabilis was one lated of Harvey, the discoverer of the circuof his early works, and Hallam commends lation, that he would sometimes fling away its continuity of excellencies, placing it Virgil, in which he took great delight, deabove Waller's Panegyric, and Denham's claring that it had a devil. Eloisa's letter Cooper's Hill. The translation of Virgil seems to have excited the feelings of our is remarkable for its occasional splendor, critic with equal vigor, though in a different but it is not happily accomplished. Hear direction. Nor should we say that his anHallam again. "Dryden was little fitted ger was entirely misplaced. Hallam, refor a translator of Virgil; his mind was cording the influence exercised by Abelard more rapid and vehement than that of his upon the temper of his age, alludes in a note original, but by far less elegant and judi- to the injustice of Pope, in putting into the cious. This translation seems to have been mouth of Eloisa, in what he calls this unmade in haste; it is more negligent than rivalled epistle, the sentiments of a coarse any of his own poetry, and the style is often and abandoned woman; the real cause of almost studiously, and, as it were, spiteful-her refusal to marry Abelard being an ardent ly vulgar." Whoever wishes to understand affection, that shrank from interposing any the peculiar genius of Dryden, should read obstacle to his career of ecclesiastical digniMac Flecknoe. He looked upon it with ty. In truth, all sweeping condemnations great affection. "If any thing of mine is are unwise and impolitic. When Burnet good," he said at Will's, "it is my Mac-denounced Dryden as a monster of immed Flecknoe." It was the original of the Dun-esty and impurity of all sorts, he awoke the ciad, and Scott reminds us, that if the satire indignant remonstrance of Lord Lansdowne, which obtained a qualifying apology from beyond all poets, but that out of that walk, the bishop's youngest son. Gray believed and especially in his moral delineations, he that Pope had a good heart: we think so always became verbose; here, truly, he too; and we think also with Atterbury that" had not the art of giving effect with a few in moral subjects, and in drawing charac- touches." ters, he outdid himself. Even in this very It will have been apparent, from the preepistle, with what beauty of sentiment, and vious observations, that we consider the light of religious fervor, he describes the suggestions offered for a course of reading pure and tranquil delights of a mind sur- in English poetry, to be very insufficient. rendered to holy thoughts and contempla- Now if we were drawing up a course of tions: "Grace shines around her with serenest beams, not. The character of Thomson is not correct. "All admire the sensibility and natural beauty of the Seasons." All ought, but do Horace Walpole was insensible to their charm. "But," says Pycroft, "he had not the art of giving effect with a few touches." Stranger still: why this was the very art which he had! When he described the autumnal gale, brushing with shadowy gust the field of corn, is there one man outside the Ophthalmic Hospital, who does not see the ears rustling, glistening, darkening? Mr. Wordsworth's Susan never saw the trees wave with a greener coolness in the valley of Lothbury. In truth, no true poet, brought up at the knees of Nature, and taught to read her book in the open air, ever failed to possess and to indicate this faculty. It is the eyesight of his art; what masters in this kind were Virgil and Horace! Thus, when the first writer says in the third Georgic, "Aut sic ubi nigrum Ilicibus crebris sacra nemus accubet umbra," Keble remarks, that it creates the scene before us. "Rem universam ante oculos ponit, quasi quodam jactu pencilli, illud accubet." So Horace charms the spectator with the magic of a word, "Ustica cubantis Levia personuere saxa." With regard to Thomson, Pycroft would have been imparting to his pupil a correcter notion, if he had preserved the distinction, so happily suggested by Gray, between the two different styles of the poet. In the art of describing the appearances of nature, he thought that Thomson possessed a talent It is reading, adapted not to any age, but to the young and inexperienced student, we should never begin by telling him that Johnson's Lives would be his hand-book of poetry. We should rather say to him, Your time is short, and your opportunities of study are small; you do not, therefore, wish to criticise but appreciate verses. Begin, then, by reading carefully the little sketch of English poetry which Southey inserted by way of episode in his Memoir of Cowper. brief, and necessarily imperfect, and shows one remarkable omission in the case of Goldsmith; but every fragment by such a writer, on such a subject, possesses a distinct value. Having done this, you will be able to glance, with some advantage, at the same author's Specimens of the poets from Chaucer to Jonson. When you have looked over these, buy the Specimens selected by Campbell. Our friend Mr. Nickisson will supply you with a copy for fifteen shillings. The book is well worth the money; the biographical sketches are very elegant, and the preliminary essay gives a popular and instructive view of the progress of our verse. This will be your second step. Now take Warton's History, not as it came from the pen of its author, but rich with the spoils of time. Purchase the edition issued by Tegg in 1840, in three volumes, which, embracing the additions and corrections of Price in 1824, has been improved by the numerous notes and illustrations of living scholars. You will find in these volumes abundant treasures, not only of poetic, but of general literature. First, there is Price's very interesting preface; then come the Dissertations on the Origin of Romantic Fiction; On the Introduction of Learning; and on the Gesta Romanorum-each and all full of charms to every lover of taste and antiquity. Warton had a fine eye for the gray majesty of our elder literature; and to his patient hand we owe many a sweet flower of thought that bloomed among the ruins of works which their architects expected to have been immortal. He had the enthusiasm of the minstrel, will be necessary to have made some protake up the page of the philosopher of Highgress in suggestive criticism, before you gate. For example, the illustration of the union in Shakspeare of the creative power and intellectual energy, seems, at first glance, more difficult than the faculty it is thought to illustrate; he compares them Southey said wittily, and perhaps truly, of Warton's rhymes, that they resembled a new medal, spotted with artificial dust; his powers of execution were certainly inferior" to two rapid streams that, at their first to the quickness of his perception. But he meeting within narrow and rocky banks, was an admirable guide to the buildings, mutually strive to repel each other, and inwhich he had neither skill nor vigor to de- termix reluctantly in tumult, but, soon findsign to erect. The outline of the drama is ing a wider channel and more yielding only slightly and almost parenthetically in- shores, blend and dilate, and flow on in one cluded in the survey of Warton. The stu- current, and with one voice." A few modent who has sufficient curiosity and pa- ments of reflection, however, will disperse tience of research, will examine the subject the obscurity; and these should be willingly in the pages of Mr. John Payne Collier; or, bestowed. The water is generally clear in with more ease and pleasure, in his recent proportion to the depth of the spring. biography of Shakspeare. Of the subsidi- Again, no reader should omit Gray's essay aries to Warton it is not necessary to speak. on English metres, which Mathias printed Percy, to whom modern poetry owes so in his edition of the poet's works. It was large a debt, carries his letter of recom- to have formed a chapter in the history of mendation in the title-page. Southey's poetry that Gray projected, but subsequentspecimens of the later English poets were ly relinquished. The remarks on Lydgate intended as a supplement to the specimens should also be read, as a model of what of the earlier writers by Ellis; the one series criticism ought to be-at once calm, genconcluding with Charles II., the other com- erous, sensitive, and refined. Some of the mencing with his successor James. Southey prefaces to the Aldine poets will shed light considered that the two, combined, might upon several obscure pages of our poetic be consulted for a view of the rise, progress, and decline of our poetry. Of the specimens produced by Southey it may be observed, that they were selected upon a wrong principle; they give notices of poetasters, not of poets, and, with a few exceptions, contribute illustrations, not to the history of imagination, but of dulness. Among other defects, Southey, in this work, falls into the error already mentioned in Johnson. He wants the faculty of perceiving and commending the genius of those who differed from his own theory of taste. Thus, he had the courage to say that Pope had nothing in common with Milton and Shakspeare, except verse; but, surely, he There is another kind of books essential had the power of moving the heart and of to the useful pursuit of poetical knowledge delighting the eye; and, in the picturesque works on taste. Pycroft offers a very and the pathetic, he belonged to the same scanty supply. Burke and Alison are the family, though it may be as the youngest chief authors of reputation whom he menbrother. The occasional essays of men of tions. He refers, indeed, to the critical eminence, upon various poets and their papers in the Quarterly and Edinburgh works, will furnish entertaining opportuni- Reviews, and especially to Wilson's articles ties of improving the taste. It is very in- on Spenser, so elaborately commended by teresting to look on Ariosto, painted by Hallam. The professor has few admirers Titian and illustrated by Sismondi. Per- more ardent than ourselves; but, while we haps, of modern writers, Schlegel and delight in reading, we should be slow to reColeridge will give the deepest insight ceive all his critical canons. That elointo the imagination of Shakspeare; only it quence, which Hallam compares to the Every annals. Warton's history terminates at the “Turn'd to this sun, she casts a thousand dyes, And, as she turns, the colors fade or rise." QUEEN ISABELLA OF SPAIN.-A very interesting anecdote appears in some of the continental journals, respecting the young Queen Isabella of Spain. It seems that her Majesty, meeting the her carriage and walked with the priest who carprocession of the holy sacrament, descended from ried the viaticum to the lodging of a young girl who was dying of consumption. The young girl was wretchedly poor, and her Majesty, before she left her, emptied the contents of her purse, and rush of mighty waters, bears the reader too | which familiarity and research are calcuswiftly along" in the stream of unhesitating lated to bestow. Criticism is only of any eulogy," for him to examine, with sufficient real value when it works under the light accuracy and care, the scenery through and heat of a presiding and governing which he is being hurried. With all his taste:faults of mysticism, we look on Coleridge as a soberer guide. His feeling of the beautiful is equally intense, and his utterance of it is somewhat more restricted. When he seems to be most cloudy, an earnest gaze will commonly pierce the mist. Hallam says, that he does not quite understand the remark of Coleridge, that "Spenser's descriptions are not in the true sense of the word picturesque, but are composed of a wonderful series of images, as in our dreams." To us, the meaning of the passage is sufficiently obvious. The descriptions of Spenser frequently want that exquion her return to the palace, ordered that a further site harmony and adjustment of parts, which sum, equal to about 310 francs, should be forwardwe seldom look for in vain in the represent-ed to her, with a small daily allowance in addition. ations of Virgil or in the pictures of Raf- Nor was this all. She desired two of her physifaelle. He could not restrain the ardor of cians to attend and report to her whether there his fancy to that chastity of composition there was still hope for the invalid if she could was any hope of recovery. Having declared that which rejects every word or color not re- get into the country, the queen immediately isquired to give force and tone to the deline-sued orders that she should be removed to one of ation. Hence it happens that his pictures her own farm-houses. This admirable proof of have a glittering haziness, like a landscape greatly increased the popular devotion of which her Majesty's active practical benevolence, has viewed in the glimmer of an autumnal sky, the young queen is the universal object in Madrid. when the rising sun is beginning to kindle-Court Journal. the vapor over the remote villages. To this indulgence of the fancy, also, is to be attributed the discord between the MEMORIAL TO DR. DALTON.-A meeting has images introduced, when the relation of been held among the inhabitants of Manchester, parts to each other and to the whole is not be given to a public memorial in honor of their ilfor the purpose of determining on the character to preserved. And this is the characteristic lustrious townsman, the late Dr. Dalton-a philoof all the scenery of dreams. In this man- sopher who, as one of the speakers expressed it, ner, we think that the remark of Coleridge "found chemistry an art, and left it a science;" becomes more intelligible. His critical and we think they have done themselves very works must be diligently perused. We great honor by the sentiments expressed on the occasion. The general impression was in favor would also refer to three writers not men- of a permanent professorship of chemistry, as suittioned by Pycroft, but of rare merit and ex-ed to the wants and interests of the locality, and cellence in their art; Price on the pictur- the most appropriate expression of the claims of the illustrious dead to honor amongst his townsesque, Whately on landscape-gardening, men and throughout the world. This is in the and Payne Knight on the beautiful. Gil- right spirit; which does the noblest homage to pin's various publications on woodland learning when it spreads it-holds up the example scenery will suggest many thoughts of in- of the great in the form which best helps its teachWe think, also, that Reynolds' dis-ing, and supplies the peculiar wants of a neighborhood, in the name of the departed genius which courses ought to be combined with every served in that same ministration, all its days. A course of poetical reading. We like to see town that can boast a Dalton, would overlook a the Muse of Painting holding her lamp over great means of distinction, wanting a school of the book of Fancy. Especially, we recom-chemistry; and, as was observed by another of mend Price and Whately, as being less might be only the first to some great future unithe speakers, "the step they were now taking known, and far less generally read. The versity." There seemed to be a feeling, among lights which they bring the sister arts to some, that a statue should be added to the professhed upon each other, are extremely beauti-sorship; and a hint, offered in the way of comful. Payne Knight, with less of elegance, three noble streets about to be opened by the corpromise, was received with favor: has more of learning, and is far beyond poration, that which was still unnamed should be Burke in all the acuteness and precision called Dalton Street."—Athenæum. terest. that "of YOUNG ENGLAND. From the Edinburgh Review. 1. Coningsby; or, the New Generation. By B. D'Israeli, M. P. 3 vols. evo. London : 1844. 2. Historic Fancies. By the Hon. George Sydney Smythe, M. P. 8vo. London: 1844. 3. England's Trust, and other Poems. By Lord John Manners, M. P. London: 1844. HAVING been sometimes asked, What do the terms Young England' import? we have been induced to gratify the less informed of our readers with a notice of the very small party who rejoice in that name -a notice brief and slight, but which may suffice, for the present, to give some idea of its composition and pretensions. Should any circumstances occur to invest it with further importance, we may hereafter be induced to resume the subject in a more detailed and elaborate manner. said of the garden of his friend Dr. Dela ny: 6 You scarce upon the borders enter, But we are far from intending or wishing to depreciate the attainments of the party. There never was one which, for its numbers, has produced so many parliamentary diters of verse are particularly numerous : speakers and so many authors. Their inTam multa genera linguarum sunt in hoc mundo! et nihil sine voce est!' Among the chief ornaments of the fraternity are those named at the head of this article. Their works may be said to contain a pretty full exposition of their political creed, and exemplification of their intellectual powers. Both the one and the other appear to us to have been misapprehended in some respects. By themselves and their immediate followers, they have been made the victims of exaggerated encomium. They are possessed by the evil spirit of a We must, however, say that this party, coterie. When Mr. Smythe dedicates his though small, and in some of its aspects ra"Historic Fancies' to Lord John Manners, ther laughable, is yet entitled to more at- he takes occasion to designate that very tention than it seems to have received. But amiable young nobleman as 'the Philip this claim arises more perhaps from the Sydney of our generation;' and, in return, causes from which it has sprung, and the the Poems of this modern Sydney are ‘ adfeelings of which it is the exponent, than miringly as well as affectionately inscribed from any immediate practical results to to his friend.' In Coningsby,' the indiwhich it can lead. Though, as just stated, viduals who compose the party are so clearit is nowhere numerous, it has nevertheless ly designated, and some of the likenesses had some influence on the proceedings of are so striking, that the addition of their the House of Commons, owing to the abi- names would only be a needless formality; lity of its members in that house. In the and they are held up to public veneration House of Lords it is not avowedly repre- as the future regenerators of England and sented by more than one lay peer and a of mankind. Being for the most part bishop. But its influence is greater than young men, their historian, Mr. D'Israeli, its numbers, and its organization is on the declares war against age, and proclaims whole complete. After a curious inspec- that England is alone to be saved by its tion and enumeration of the limbs and fea- youth; and he decides with equal confitures of a new-born infant, we recollect dence, that the very restricted circle of once upon a time to have heard that the which he is the eulogist, contains all the first observation of a wondering but intel-patriots and apostles who are to produce a ligent child was-' Dear baby has got a lit-new order of things. Thou art the man!' tle of every thing.' So it is with Young he says to his hero, with all the emphasis of England.' It has got a little of every a self-inspired and self-accredited prophet. thing; a little of history, somewhat more of On the other hand, those who depreciate metaphysics, a small portion of unintelligi-Young England,' represent them as vain, ble theology, expanded and inflated into an enormous bubble, bright in prismatic colors, but bursting at the first touch of a feather; and a very little political economy, almost as bubble-like and inflated-not to mention other smaller accomplishments. As Swift disappointed, and selfish adventurers, with whom the spreta injuria formæ is the only moving power; and who, if they had been admitted to a share in the distribution of political honors, would have been the panegyrists of much that they are now the loud |