The Press. — London, England, 1858-06-12 00:00:00

landed his hero and heroine in this delightful spot, the author, true to human nature, at once recognizes the results, and permits them to enjoy the only possible alleviation of their exile. After a sojourn of six years in this beautiful and happy solitude, they are taken up by a passing vessel, and with their little girl conveyed back to their native land. Such is the outline of the piece with which Wilson's fame as a poet is principally associated, and which was thought good enough by the severe critics of the north to place him on a par with men who are poets and nothing else. We subjoin a few extracts for the benefit of our ranger readers, to whom " The Isle of Palms" is, we fear, little more than a name : And where shall these happy lovers dwell ? Shall they seek in the cliffs for some mossy cell ? Some wilder haunt than ever hermit knew ? Where they may shun the mid-day heat, And slumber in a safe retreat, When evening sheds her dew ; Or shall they build a leafy nest, Where they like birds may sport and rest, By clustering bloom preserved from sun and rain, Upon some little radiant mound Within reach of the freshening sound That murmurs from the Main? No farther need their footsteps roam : Even where they stand, a sylvan home Steals like a thought upon their startled sight ; For Nature's breath with playful power Bath framed an undecaying bower, With colours heavenly bright. Beyond a green and level lawn, Its porch and roof of roses dawn Through arching trees that lend a mellowing shade. How gleams the bower with countless dyes ! Unwearied spring fresh bloom supplies, Still brightening where they fade. Two noble Palms, the forest's pride, Guarding the bower on either aide, Their straight majestic stems to heaven uproar : There Beauty sleeps in Grandeur's arms, And sheltered there from all alarms, Hath nought on earth to fear. • • • Lo! stretching inward on the right, A winding vale eludes the sight, But where it dies the happy soul must dream : Oh ! never sure beneath the sun, Along such lovely banks did run musical a stream. But who shall dare in thought to paint Yon fairy waterfall ? Still moistened by the misty showers, From fiery red, to yellow soft and faint, Fantastic bands of fearless flowers Sport o'er the rocky wall ; And ever, through the shrouding spray, Whose diamonds glance as bright as they, Float birds of graceful form, and gorgeous plumes, Or dazzling white as snow ; While, as the passing sun illumes The river's bed, in silent pride Spanning the cataract roaring wide, Unnumbered rainbows glow. _ • _ s • ♦ _ • Pure were their souls, as infant's breath, Who in its cradle guiltless sinks in death. No place for human frailty this, Despondency or fears ; Too beautiful the wild appears Almost for human bliss. Was love like theirs then given in vain? And must they, trembling, shrink from pure delight ? Or shall that God, who on the main Hath bound them with a billowy chain, Approve the holy rite, That, by their pious souls alone Performed before His silent throne In innocence and joy, Here, and in realms beyond the grave, Unites those whom the cruel wave Could not for grief destroy ? No fears felt they of guilt or sin, For sure they heard a voice within That set their hearts at rest ; They passed the (lay in peaceful prayer, And when beneath the evening air, They sought again their arbour fair, A smiling angel met them there, And bade their couch be blest. Nor veiled the Moon her virgin•light, But, clear sod cloudless all the night. Hung o'er the flowers where love and 'oeauty lay; And, loth to leave that holy bower, With lingering pace obeyed the power Of bright -returning day. Ostensibly Wilson belonged to the Lake school ; and indeed it is easy to see that he had Southey's rhythm in his ear, and especially " The Curse of Kehama," when he penned such passages as the above. But, though evidently affected by the new canons of poetry laid down by Wordsworth, his more masculine temperament kept hint clear from adopting them in their most literal signifi cation. lie soon, indeed, seems to have dis covered, like his brother poet and sportsman, Walter Scott, that his strength lay elsewhere than in minstrelsy. "The Isle of Palms" ap peared i n 1812, and " The City of the Plague " THE PRESS, JUNE 12, 1858. in 1816 ; but " Maga" had now burst upon a dazzled world, and Wilson at once adopted that form of composition which he may be said to have completely made his own, and in which he has distanced all imitators by as wide an in terval as Scott has in the historical novel. From time to time he contributed short poetical pieces to Blackwood, and in 1825 a collected edition of them was published ; after which date his efforts in this direction may be said, with some trifling exceptions, to have terminated. Wilson's ideal of human excellence evidently had some affinity with that of the ancient Greeks,—the development, and due subordina tion, of every part of our nature, rather than the exclusive culture of any one fa culty. Thus in him the poet, the philoso pher, the critic, the politician, and the athlete were all most happily blended into one splendid whole, but a whole, nevertheless, calculated to make a less distinct impression than many a smaller man in whom one quality alone twinkles with peculiar lustre. The influence of Wilson on society was immense in his generation, and will long continue to be felt. We are conscious of his presence and rejoice in his genial rays as we do in the warmth of the sun ; but future ages will hardly be able to look up to him as a distinct star in the firmament of the Past. He gloried in his broad humanity. He deter mined "not to lose the good of life" in the pur suit of posthumous fame. If it came, it was to come to him like everything else, at no greater price than it was worth. His end was to develope himself and teach others to do the same ; and when this was accomplished, if posterity chose to crown him, they might ; if not, his life would have been equally noble, natural, and free. Essays. By the late George Brimley, M.A., Librarian of Trinity College, Cambridge. Edited by William - George Clark, M.A. Cambridge : Macmillan and Co. ALAS that this volume should come to us inscribed with the sad phrase In Memoriam ! It is published as a memorial of one of the most genial and gifted of modern critics. To those who knew him, it will ever be a source of painful pleasure ; while from strangers it will compel a meed of admiration, and a tribute of regret " for that he died so young." Recollections will endear it to many; its intrinsic value will recommend it to all. George Brimley's life is soon told. The thirty eight years over which it extended were nearly all spent in Cambridge, and half of them were passed within the walls of Trinity College. Pre vented by ill-health from becoming a candidate for University honours, his merits were never theless so apparent that the Master and Senior Fellows of his College, unwilling to lose so bright an ornament of their society, conferred on him the honourable office of Librarian. In this position, with ample leisure and opportunities for study, with the companionship of tried friends and in the neighbourhood of home, his life was made as happy as life can be without health. Of his connection with literature, the friend to whose pious care we are indebted for this volume gives the following account : For the last six years be contributed articles regularly to the Spectator, and occasionally also to Fraser's Magazine, an employment which suited him under the circumstances better than any other, as his bodily feebleness forbade him to attempt any work of scope and difficulty corresponding to his mental powers. To this, his appointed task, he devoted himself with conscientious diligence. Papers found after his decease show the pains he took to qnalify himself for the responsible duty of a literary judge by careful study and elaborate analysis of the books he was about to criticize. Undertaken in this spirit, his work interested and amused him, while at the same time he was cheered and gratified by the attention and admiration which his articles received. In this way, also, he came to reckon among the number of his friends some of the.most eminent literary men of their time. He made no enemies, because, though he never hesitated to state what he be lieved to be right, his own sensitive and affectionate nature guarded him front the wanton infliction of pain upon others. Seldom indeed did a petulant sarcasm or an in considerate jest fall from his pen. Belonging to no patty and to no clique, he was eminently impartial. The selection of the Essays of which this volume is composed has been made with great judgment and discrimination. There are six articles from the Spectator—models of newspaper criticism ; and tour articles of greater length from Fraser's Magazine and the Cambridge Essays. The subjects arc all chosen from con temporary literature, and relate chiefly to works 561 of imagination. Among writers of fictioi, Dickens, Thackeray, Bulwer Lytton, and Kings ley are reviewed; among poets, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Coventry Patmore. The remain ing articles are on 'Wilson's " Noctes Ambro slam," Carlyle's "Life of Sterling," and Comte's "Positive Philosophy." In reference both to poetry and fiction George llrimley had well-defined theories, on which his criticism was based, and by the test of which he tried all works submitted to his judgment—care less of established reputations, and unbiassed by personal affections. His standard of taste was high, but it was unvarying ; and though some might complain that he required too much, none could accuse him of favouritism or subserviency. No more conscientious critic ever existed; but as he made no secret of the laws which governed his decisions, their unswerving application could never give just offence. His theory of poetry is thus stated : A poem must present its subject as an organic whole, which, though made up of parts common, it may be, to an infinite variety of other wholes. is itself distinct from eveey other whole, and is recognizable at once for what it is, an individual not identical with any other individual of the same general character. Any presentation of a subject that falls short of this tends either towards scientific abstraction or towards the utterly inarticulate—that which neither intellect nor imagination have firmly grasped or clearly apprehended. This is the principle which we shall apply to the compositions we are celled to judge, in deciding on their imaginative power. As to questions of form, we have already stated that rhythm, metre, and all that constitutes the mode of expression rather than the substance ( though in art it is hazardous to draw hard lines of distinction between form and substance, where form is not conventional), are spontaneous natural signs of the sitiger's emotion, and, as regards the reader, at once an index to the singer's intensity of poetic temperature—a kind of metronome—and the medium through which the same heat of emotion is kindled in the reader, and he is infused with the passion as well as the imaginative per ception rif the subject. All, then, we have to ask ourselves in reference to the fortn of any particular poem is, whether it does so express the emotion of the writer, and what quality and degree of emotion it expresses—that of a great soul tallied to the height of its subject, or of a little soul vainly stiiiing to warm its thin blood, but puny, starved, and shivering, even in presence of the central fires of the universe. To any poem which will stand the test of the application of these principles, the tribute of our hearty admiration is due, and will he joyfully paid. What will not stand this test is not poetry at all ; and in masque rading under the poetical costume, it is tolerably sure to lose any worth or attractiveness of sincere human speech ; as the voice we may delight to hear in its own natural tones of conversation ceases to charm, and becomes painfully ridiculous, in attempting the accomplishment of singing for which nature has not adapted its organization. His view of the aim and object of fiction is equally lofty and distinct : To make us wiser and larger•hearted—to conduct us through a wider range of experience than the actual life of each generally permits—to make us live in the lives of other types of character than our own, or than those of our daily acquaintance—to enable ns to pass by sympathy into other minds and other circumstances, and especially to train the moral nature by sympathy with noble charac- ters and noble actions—these are the high aims of fiction in the hands of its master wielders ; these are the aims which have raised novels and dramas to an importance which Nature herself indicates in assigning to their pro duction those powers which the consent of all ages allows to rank supreme among the gifts of the human race. We cannot follow the essayist in his application of these theories to the various writers whose works are reviewed in his pages. The task was difficult, for he had to deal with some of the greatest names in contemporary literature, many of them his own intimate friends ; but he per formed his self-imposed duty with a keen discern ment and an unflinching honesty. The loss which literature has sustained in his death can hardly be over-estimated ; but the monument which hie friends have raised to his memory in this volume will amply serve to perpetuate the fame of George Brimley as a judicious thinker, an accomplished scholar, and a Christian gentleman. LITERATURE. The fourth number of the Englishwoman's Journal contains some very sensible articles. The best paper in the number, however, is ore upon Rosa Bun heur, from which we give the following extract : Rasa Bonheur is an indefatigable worker. She rises at six o'clock and paints until dusk, when she lays aside bar blouse, puts on a bonnet and shawl of most unfashionablo appearance, sad takes a turn through the neighbouring streets alone, or accompanied only by a favourite dog. Absorbed in her own thoughts, and unconscious of every thing around her, the first conception of a picture is fre quently struck out by her in these rapid, solitary walks in the twilight. Living solely for her art, she has gladly resigned the cares of her outward existence to an old and devoted friend, • Madame Micas, a widow lady, who with her daughter—au ' 1 ".1