The Press. — London, England, 1853-09-24 00:00:00

498 welcomed his genius, and drew such bright I auguries of his future fame. But "AU that's bright wart furs— The brightest still the fleetest " and the writ -r of the " Red Fisherman" is numbered with the many other men of glow ing promise, whose threads have been rudely • snapped by the Weird Sisters. We may be excus:4l fur some emotion, as we think over the strange variety of fates that have attended the careers of the Cambridge contemporaries of Praeil. Some, like Sir Bulwer Lytton and Mr. Macaulay, have splendidly realised the expec tations formed of them ; others, thriving and eminently " respeetable," have lost their old inspiration, and mock at their youthful yearn ing for fame ; nut a few have been smothered miller what a great orator has called "the sordid occurrences of life:" and some, like fried and Charles Buller, have heels shrouded from our sight by an untimely death. The " Cambridge Union" was certainly one of the most brilliant debating clubs that ever existed. Other societies of a similar nature may boast of having educated more illus trious orators and greater statesmen, but, joined to brilliant attainments and various literary talents, there was a well-bred tone and sound taste its the members of " the U nion " not always found amongst juvenile orators. The success Of several of the speakers was talked of throughout the University, and was a matter of general allusion at the dining tables in the Innis of Court. K Right'• Quarterly Maya:ate, also, was accepted as a favourable NpCeilllCll of the brilliant versatility of that band of "young men down at Cambridge" who were then beginning to arrest the ear of Lon don. The ballads of " Tristnun Merton," the songs, epigrams, and charades of " Vyvyan .10yeuse," were midterm for literary table talk ; and " Haselfoot" and "Gerard Mont gomery," and " Paterson Aymer," and " Dan vers I leaviside," and " Davenant Cecil," would also be criticised, and the characters of " Knight's contributor' discussed ; and law students would boast of an intimacy with them, and then in discursive strain the conversation would flow on, out without LIMB' an allusion to Macaulay and Praed, stud • Thirlwall and Malden, and Itulwer and Moultrie, and Charles Buller and Davenport Hill, and other names that are now honourably known in the Church, the Senate, and the Law. Sitting in the Cambridge Union thirty years ago, how difficult it would have been for a thoughtful observer to have foretold who of its gifted members would be most successful iu the race for glory ! If the question had gone to a division it is certain, however, that upon three illt`llllierti of the society, who figured prominently between Ist: and 1430, w o uld have rested the greatest number of votes. A majority of voices would have been raised for " Miteaulay and Prated," classed together as rivals, but a considentble number would have been ready to back the pretensions of Charles Buller for the highest parliamentary success. We can fancy the ankl' with which the stub jeet might have been discussed. Macaulay's imposing 11101111er, his unbroken flow of sono rous diction, his command of literary allusions. and the apparent solidity of his matter might have mode him the favourite amongst critical observers. Then it would be said by others that he wits more calculated for sham battles in polities than for real fighting. Some would try to damn him with the praise of being an excellent essayist, but no orator, and hint that he had not so much of personal faseination as the versatile hued, whose vivacity of fancy, playful humour, and sparkling readiness of reply, would have been duly recorded along with his numerous iteademical distinctions pined with such facility. In Praed'm ease, however, there would have been opposition. Ilad he the requisite steadiness of purpose for taking the highest line in political life? Was not his genius east in too frail a mould for sus taining the athletic toils of a leading English atatesman ? Was not there something of a fanciful kind of foppery about his mind that detntoted from his effect ? The objectors would then perhaps have lauded young Charles Buller, with his off hand, easy manner, the neat, sharp stile with which he analysed an ar gument. the Noltitirian lightness of his raillery. the quickness with which be saw a logical THE PRESS. blunder, and the trenchant humour with which he exposed it, and it might have been predicted that young Huller would, in the political race, leave his youthful competitors behind. It is not, indeed, without sorrowful feelings that we think how the bright auguries of their numerous friends have been falsified in the cases of I'raed and Charles Huller. The grim tyrant Death too soon cut short their careers. The late Charles Huller was a poli tician to whose principles we were often op posed, but we esteemed and respected him as a man, and of his memory we think with almost atketionate regard. It gave us pain to see the character of that accomplished gentle man offensively discussed in a recent pamphlet iu two volumes. Nor can we pass the mention of his name without expressing our hopes, that a biography may yet rescue is memory from the insults of the mediocre essayist—not novelist—to whom we allude. !'rued had a far greater range of intellectual power than Charles Buller. His humour was deeper, if less playful and reaq ; and, to use the admirable saying of Sheridan on Tom • Moore, "he could put his heart into his fancy," and produce pictures of uncommon brilliancy. In politics he failed. He made a wrong start, and never recovered his position in the race. He had not the muscle required for a parlia mentary gladiator, and he had little zeal to compensate his luck of sturdy power. Fame he would have gained, if he had concentrated his faculties on literature, and laboured with the enthusiasm of an artist. Thoroughly to appreciate him, one should have known hint itt the " Cambridge Union." Pried, as a young man, was one of the freshest and brightest natures that ever ap 'wowed in it. He had carried all the college honour» with singular ease, as if he did but sport with his faculties ; for he was no mere grinder, skilled in cramming, and sedu lous over his desk. He enjoyed the passing hour, and had much of the careless, gay tone of a man of insouciance. As in the case of other young men, there was some spice of affectation to his levity, and yet by temperament he was a sprightly being, averse to being chained down to monotonous toil. His versatility im peded the concentration of his genius, and, with all his brilliant powers. he scarcely knew himself what pursuit he would ultimately follow. He mixed polities with his poetry, and meditated at once upon the Muses and parliamentary reform ; he aspired to climb Olympus, and aimed at being returned for a rotten borough ; he contributed to the belles knees, and enrolled himself at the bar. We think that he had not passion enough for politics. His affections were not bound up with any special leaders of the age, and he had not that inspiring energy which makes a 1111111 of action. He was too much of a seuti mentalist for success in the fierce political contests of our time. _ . . His verse is now the only means left to a st►anger for judging of P►nted ; and any one with the least taste for poetry must be charnied with the wild and st►angely beautiful " Red Fisherman," certainly one of the most remark able poems of the last thirty years. Its quaint originality, its a►n►besque fancy, and the rhyth tuieal luu•mony of its weird and at6ial strains long linger in the memo►y. Published in one of the annuals, it att►acted immediate notice to the author; and his strange name, Winthrop Mitekworth Pined, was often (lamented upon. Those who were behind the scenes knew him as an active contributor to Knight's Quarterly Magazine, that char►uing miscellany, in which the first pieces of Mr. Macaulay's powers as an essayist are also to be seen. That the various poems and contributions to the be/lea letters of a man with so high a name as P►nted have not been collected in England has been a cause of surprise to many persons. In the American copy before us there is bad spelling 'lnd many ludicrous blunders ; but we think it creditable to Amen eau reade►s that two editions of Praed's poems should have succeeded. We have heard that the English copyright of a conside►able number of these poems belongs to Mr. Alarie A. Watts, and we believe that the poet's widow po►ssesses at power over the rest. If Prated had been a poor man there is little doubt but that his works would long since have been published in SATURDAY, a collected form, for the benefit of his sur vivors. Belonging, however, to au ancient family in high position, he died in affluence. We have been told by one of his nearest kindred that Lady Young (the poet's sister) had undertaken the task of collecting them ; but up to the present time there has been no attempt, save this by American hands, to raise a literary memorial of the gifted and brilliant Prated. We arc sorry that such should be the case, and we hope that his friends will act more kindly by his memory. Apart from any feeling of sympathy for Prated's memory, we should be glad for the sake of literature that these poems were properly edited. His style Was vivid, sparkling, and peculiar to himself. His pensiveness and humour were blended together in a most original fashion. In the middle of a profoundly pathetic passage a flash of quaint drollery would give a strange effect; and in professedly humorous pieces he would startle with his tenderness and pathos. It was in this bizarre sentimentalism and picturesque vivid ness that the essence of his poetical genius resided, and if he had applied himself reso lutely to poetry he would have won great fame. His utterance was at once facile and finished : in the rhythm of his language there is the linked cadence and happy harmony of diction required to give melody to verse, and to impart that sweetness which cannot flow merely from thyme. Without the contemple• tiveness and minute graces of Tennyson, he has all the talent for diction and sense of subtle harmony that we find in the Laureate. Like Thomas Hood, also, hiked was an adept in a quaint talent for panning pathos. But, though Prated often reminds us of both Tennyson and Hood, his taste in poetry was essentially his own ; or, if we are to class him with any particular school, it must be with those early Italian poets who wrote of life and the world in a style at once heroic and comic (not to be confounded with mere mock heroic), and who applied great literary powers to sub jects sportively conceived. NVe think that Prated must have been familiar with many of these poems, such as Pulei's " Morgante Maggiore," and that chef irceurre in the mock romantic style—the " &calla Rapita" of Tassoni. &lost° is the poet of all others who would have delighted the writer of the " Red Fisherman ; " and there are many passages in Boiardo and Berni which Prated would have keenly appreciated. Lord Byron was greatly influenced by the school of poetry to which we refer. In his "Beppo" we can see various traces of his familiarity with the " Rieciardetto " of Fontegueni, as, for in stance, in the passage where he says : " She was nut old, nor young, nor at the years " Which certain people calla certain age," dc., de., when the noble poet was evidently thinking of the lines, ()timid° al giunge al una certa eta, "Ch' to non vogito deal:rived qual &c. &c., in the " Rieciardetto." Mr. Hookham Frere, in his " Whistlecraft " poems, was also a follower of the early romantic Italian poets. We feel that we are justified in ranking Prated with that hehool. His brilliancy of colour, vivacity of tone, and subtle quaintness of unexpected humour, point to that elassifi eatilm. Let us take a couple of passages from the " Red Fisherman," in order to contrast the variety of tint and rapidity of touch which gave such pictorial effect to the colouring of Pnu'd. In describing the "Red Fisherman" guild the first casting of the lines, he says : It might be Time, or it might be trouble, Had bent that stout back nearly double— Sunk in their deep and hollow sockets 'Chat blazing couple of Congreve rockets, And shrunk and shrivelled that tawny skin, Till it hardly covered the bones within. The line the abbot saw him throw Had been fashioned and formed long ages ago, And the hands that worked his foreign vest lAing ages ago had gone to their rest: Yen would have sworn, as you looked on them, Ile had fished in the flood with Ham and Stem! There was turning of keys, and crtsking of locks, As he took forth a bait from hib iron box. Minnow or gentle, wurnt or Al— it sremed not such to the abbot's ryt.; Gaily it glittered with jewel and gem. And its shape was thy share of a diadem.