The Press. — London, England, 1854-11-04 00:00:00

a 1 ' ~ Far other are the ways found out of late, Which mortals to that happy place translate : Rebellion, treason, murder, massacre, The chief ingredients now of saintship are, And 'Tyburn only stocks the calendar. In the lines immediately following, " crime " is set as a rhyme to " esteem," " confess " to " images," and " spite" to " wit." These are not the only faults of his verse, as judged by our present standard of taste. His diction abounds in terms descriptive of the grossest manners, and savours too strongly of "the town" as it was in the days of Charles 11. Yet in the flow of particular passages (as in that last cited) something of Drydenian music may be perceived ; and that he was capable (if circumstances had been more propitious) of achieving high success in verse may be admitted. Still we could have been content with extracts from his works. 2. What Mr. Bell has judiciously done in the third volume of the poems of Cowper might be applied with advantage to the case of authors like Oldham. In order to illustrate the state of poetry during the lifetime of Cowper the editor has given us well-chosen extracts from Robert Lloyd, Cotton, Brooke, Darwin, and Hayley, with some neatly-penned critical remarks. In Lloyd we see the style of the town poet, when Cowper was young ; and in Hayley we have the other extreme, of the mawkishly affected, tea-party bard. Of all those versifiers none have written a more enduring and vivid passage than that of Lloyd in the " Author's Apology," where he describes the miseries of an usher : Were I at once empowered to show My utmost vengeance on my foe, To punish with extremest rigour, I could inflict no penance bigger Than using him as learning's tool, To make him usher of a school . . . For me, it hurts me to the soul To brook confinement or control ; Still to be pinioned down to teach The syntai and the parts of speech ! Or, what perhaps is drudging worse, The links, and Joints, and rules of verse; To deal out authors by retail, Like penny-pots of Oxford ale ; —Oh ! 'tis a service irksome more Than tugging at the slavish oar. Yet such his task, a dismal truth, Who watches o'er the bent of youth ; And while, a paltry stipend earning, He sows the richest seeds of learning, And tills their minds with proper care, And sees them their due produce bear, No joys, alas ! his toil beguile, His own lies fallow all the while. The account of Brooke will interest many readers, as it contains some curious facts. Brooke was the precursor of Darwin, and his poem of " Universal Beauty" is entitled to the doubtful distinction of originality in a wrong system of poetry. Any one might sup pose that the following verses had been written after, and not previous to, the appearance of • Dar win : PLANTS THAT OBEY THE INFLUENCE OF THE SUN AND MOON. Here, winding to the sun's magnetic ray, The solar plants adore the Lord of Day, With Persian rites idolatrous incline, And worship towards his consecrated shrine; By south from east to west obsequious turn, And moved with sympathetic ardonrs burn. To these adverse, the lunar sects dissent, With convolutions of opposed bent; From west to east by equal influence tend, And towards the moon's attractive crescence bend; There, nightly worship with Sidonian zeal, And Queen of Heaven Astarte's idol hail. As an instance of the utter oblivion of Brooke's poetry Mr. Bell cites the Edingburgh Review of 1804, professing its ignorance as to the authorship of " Universal Beauty." But, as in many other instances in the early num bers of that periodical, the critics were not versed deeply in literary history south of the border This third volume completes the metrical works of Cowper. Taken as a whole, the edition is at once the best and cheapest extant. The notes are not too numerous, and are carefully written. One of them deserves special extract. After thus printing the first lines of the famous description of the post boy— Hark ! 'tis the twanging horn ! O'er yonder bridge, That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright, He conies, the herald of a noisy world, With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks, News from all nations lumbering at his back— THE PRESS. Mr. Bell subjoins the following note : The punctuation of this passage varies considerably in different editions. In sonic modern editions the first line is printed, Hark! tis the twanging horn o'er yonder brf•Ne— marking the close of the fourth line with a semicolon, and the fifth with a comma. In Mr. s:outhey's edition the first line is given, Hark! tie the tw.oging horn ! o'er yonder bridge— the fourth Hue terminating with a semicolon, and the fifth and seventh will a full point. All the early editions agree in rendering the first line as it is given above; and the fourth edition, which passed under Cowper's revision, has a semicolon at the end of the fourth line, and a comma at the end of the fifth. None of these versions appear to be correct. The semicolon, completing the sense to the end of the fourth line, makes the passage read, " 'Tis the twanging horn over the bridge that estrides the flood." A comma displacing the semicolon, restores the true meaning. The early editions mark the opening words as an exclamation, Harkrtis the twanging horn! The succeeding passage, beginning a new sentence, conse• quently reads, " O'er yonder bridge, he comes," &c.—that is, the postman comes. To which we may add that correct prosody, as well as right punctuation, demands a full stop after the third foot of the first line, which would otherwise be short in measure. PERIODICAL LITERATURE. The first paper in Blackwood, upon " Turkey and its Population," gives much practical information upon the wants and sufferings of the agricultural class. Upwards of twenty millions of persons are engaged in the cultivation of the soil, and hitherto they have been neglected and oppressed by sultan and pacha, taxed and persecuted, impoverished and ruined, till at length the agricultural has in great measure given place to a pastoral life, and a social revolution is slowly but surely progressing. The writer considers that, by a powerful and energetic reform of the existing abuses, Turkey might be made a great grain export • ing country. The reviews of " The Census " and Hacklander's amusing play of The Secret Agent afford some pleasant reading. " Colour in Nature and Art" notices M. de Chevreul's late work, whose "pains taking experiments," it is supposed, will be of great use to portrait-painters, in the proper selection of the accessories best fitted to harmonise with the portrait. The dialogue between Irenteus and Tlepo lemus upon the question of " Peace and War" is cleverly written. Tlepolemus says, speaking of the Emperor Nicholas : As to his sly offer to divide with us the " sick man's" patrimony, the less we say about it the better, for our Government certainly did listen to him, and at first ex pressed its moral indignation so mildly that he might well be excused for not attaching much weight to it. Look you to the numbers of the Times of that date. How ably its healing articles show that Turkey was in the last stage of decline This, I cannot help thinking, was the cause of the aggression upon Turkey, combined with tire licence of invective iu which our journals and even our Ministers indulged against the French . Emperor, making his future friendship seem impossible. The concluding paper, "The War and the Ministry," is an able and dispassionate review of the past causes and present prospects of the war:— Our Ministers (says the writer) from the commencement of the Eastern embroilment, trusted by far too much to the efficacy of diplomatic negotiations which, after all, were but as cobwebs when opposed to the iron will and fixed deter mination of the Czar. They used words of compliment and of faint dissuasion when they should have employed the language of stern remonstrance and of solemn warning ; they were ambiguous and weak when they ought to have been resolute and strong. . . . It is impossible now to read such despatches as those of Lord John Russell without feeling that their tone was infinitely below that which the dignity of the country demanded, or the emer gency of the crisis required. . . . In no capacity has Lord John Russell, unsuccessful in many, failed so signally as in that of Minister of Foreign Affairs. In Lord Aberdeen's timid apprehension and unac countable dilatoriness the writer conceives that the real cause of the present war is to be sought. Notice is then taken of the effect of the Baltic block ade, which is characterised as one against our own people, and not against Russia; as, under the present " humane system " of Lord Aberdeen, we are simply taking from Russia, through neutral ports, as much of her staple produce as formerly, paying at the same time a double price for it! Quotations, we see, are made from the PRESS, which has repeatedly called attention to this subject. Re viewing the underhand conduct of Russia, the writer ably urges the necessity of more vigorous measures and more decisive policy upon our part against that power, and sums up upon the present state of events in clear and forcible words. The hour for effective negotiation was expended in idle talk, and in the issue, on our part, of satin paper des patches, which were utterly discreditable and highly pre judicial to the country, because they left its intentions in doubt, and so encouraged the aggressor in his immediate spoliation. The hour for demonstration was allowed to go _ SATURDAY, by in taidy movements and hesitating advances. Loid Aberdeen need be at no pains to assure the country of his anxious wish for peace—no man doubts that. But the question really is, whether the means which he and his colleagues adopted towards that end were wise and bold, and becoming the dignity of the country, or faint, weak, and pusillanimous. . . . Wemust have no more biby speeches in the midst of bloody conflict, no repetitions of such miserable vindication as the Premier lately uttered —what we demand—what the country demands—is resolute action for the future. . . . It is the bounden duty of Ministers to convene Parliament immediately, in order that the sense of the country may be taken as to the course which we ought to pursue. . . . When the ability of the executive power seems doubtful, or as doubted, it is time for the deliberative to interfere. The present is an excellent number of the New Monthly Magazine. The accomplished editor (Mr. Harrison Ainsworth) shows no small tact in catering for the taste of general rea:lers. In " Harry Brown and the Emperor Nicholas" wo are treated to an amusing extravaganza from the pen of Mr. Dudley Costello, in which one of the innumerable Browns crosses the Russian frontier and meets with divers adventures, until we find him at a private audience with the Emperor Nicholas. The conceited tone of certain recent travellers is amusingly caricatured. The next article is a closely-written review of Richard Grant White, the American commentator on Shakspeare, whose labours threaten to overshadow the laurels of some of our recent English editors of the great bard. " Sir Na haniel" is the author of this essay, and he justly speaks in terms of praise of Mr. White. The battle of the Aln s furnishes a subject for the lyre of Nicholas Michell; but his muse has not been propitious. We commend the next paper, "A Night of Horror,', to the notice of our light, popular dramatists for a capital farce. Keeley or Buckstone would make audiences roar in some of the passages that follow from a lady and gentleman having exchanged carpet bags, and the lover discovering that his Dulcinea was indebted to art for most of her charms. But the gentleman's exercises in poetry were also discovered, and were thus criticised in his presence:— " Ali !" I replied, in fearful embarrassment, and must have looked at the moment as red as a freshlyboiled lobster—" you really cannot imagine how sorry I am for your accident ; if we could only—only discover who made the unfortunate mistake—" " 1 am certain it was a gentleman," she sail, quickly. " i found just at the top—" She stopped suddenly and bit her lips. " You opened the carpet-bag? " " Yes, certainly, but of course by mistake ; the pad locks are all alike, and I did nut find my error till I— till 1—" I knew what was coming now, what must come, for they had been lying at the top. " Found a little book ; that is to say, a few sheets of paper, sewn together, containing poems. Ah, Adolph, if you had only read the verses—" I looked up to her in surprise. I had quite forgotten the confounded verses, but they pleased her. Emilie was an enthusiastic poetess. " You would have killed yourself with laughing at the stuff," the young lady continued, who had now quite re covered her calmness. " I have read a good deal of nonsensical poetry in my time. but never such trash as this—such moonshine and melancholy—such fancies for suicide and similar trash. I was rather bold, and read a few of them; they were too absurd." We suspect that this article must be from the French or German, and Messrs. Tom Taylor and Shirley Brookes have written clever pieces on slighter plots than are presented to them here. Alexander Andrews, in the next article, gives us some amusing anecdotes of the manners of our grandfathers, and of public amusements during the eighteenth century. So late as 1768 we read of women fighting for a wager, and some of the " sports " in fashion were very gross. The fair " Florentia," in " Polperro,'' continues to narrate her ramb les through Corn wall, and it is evident that she must be a charming travelling companion. Then follows a sketchy, anecdotic paper on " Paris in 1854." Full justice is done to Mr. Hannay's " Satire and Satirists, though be is taunted rather sharply with being an imitator of Mr. Thackeray. The next paper, " A City's Desolation," reads heavily, but the writer says that in his next chapters he " will be more gay" — and we hope so. "The Diary of a Winter in Rome" i is rather too slipshod, and the author's judgment s not t.) be trusted. At the close of it there is a ludicrous criticism on Cicero, which cannot be accepted. As will be seen, this number of the New Monthly has a great variety of articles. There is something for readers of every class. We observe that the short notices at the end of the number have been given up. The Dublin University opens with a very good ac count of the " Expedition to the Crimea," com piled from the public sources of information, but well arranged, and giving in detail abetter description of the "Battle of Alma" than we remember to have read, particularly as regards the operations of the French, which have hith erto been rather unfairly neglected in the English reports of the battle. In the leading article of one of our morning contempor. r. -