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

NOVEMIER 11, 1854. after of her grandchildren ! And then, may she arrive at that great curse, so much declined by fair ladies, old age ! May she live to be very old, and yet seem young ; be told so by her glass, and have no aches to inform her of the truth! And when she shall appear to be mortal, may her lord not mourn for her, but go hand in hand with her to that place where we are told there is neither marrying, nor giving iu marriage ; that, being there divorced, we may all have an interest in her again ! My revenge being im mortal, 1 wish all this may also befit' their posterity to the •oiid's end, and afterwards ! -- He was so completely a master of eornpli went that with him to sing was usually to flatter. He addresses some lines to Sacoha rissa as the lady who can sleep when she pleases, and the editor in a note says : Saccharissa's portrait at Penshurst is curiously sugges tive of this power of sleeping at pleasure. The languish. ing softness of her large dreamy eyes, notwithstanding the latent tire they conceal, betrays the luxurious sense of deep repose indicated in the poem. There is much beauty in the conception of the " soft god " being always eager to enfold so lovely a form:— No wonder sleep from careful lovers flies, To bathe himself in Sacchariasa's eyes. As fair Manna once from earth to heaven, By strife and loud impiety was driven ; So with our plaints offended, and our tears, Wise Somnus to that paradise repairs ; Waite on her will, and wretches does forsake, To court the nymph for whom those wretches wake. More proud than Pliwbus of his throne of gold Is the soft god those softer limbs to hold ; Nur would exchange with Jove, to hide the skies In darkening clouds, the power to close her eyes; Eyes which so far all other lights control, They warm our mortal parts, but these our soul ! The image is equally pretty of the strings of a lute trembling with joy as a lady touches OF MY LADY isanELLs PLAYING THE LUTE. Such moving sounds from such a careless touch ! So unconcerned herself, and we so much ! What art is this, that with so little pains Transports us thus, and o'er our spirits reigns? The trembling strings about her lingers crowd, And tell their joy for every kiss aloud. Small force there needs to make them tremble so ; Touched by that hand, who would not tremble too ? The lines to Lady Rich are very elegant, and those to a lady's girdle have something of Greek delicacy and refinement: — No monarch but would give his crown, His arms might do what this has done. • • A narrow compass ! and yet there Dwelt all that's good and all that's fair. Give me but what this ribbon hound, Take all the rest the sun goes round. But, perhaps, the most elegant of all his coin. Aliments is that TO A LADY SINGING A SONO OF IDS COMPOSING. Chlorin ! yourself yon so excel, When you vouchsafe to breathe my thought, That, like a spirit, with this spell Of my own teaching, I am caught. That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which, on the shaft that made him die, Espied a feather of his own, Wherewith he wont to soar so high. Had Echo with so sweet a grace, Narcissus' loud complains returned, Not for reflection of his face, But of his voice, the boy had burned. Waller wrote but few songs, but among them is one of the most charming in our language, marked by all his usual grace of compliment, and by a higher sentiment than gene rally actuated him. Though well known, we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of extracting so unique and sparkling a gem : Go, lovely Rose ! Tell her that wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that's young, And shims to have her graces spied, That htelst thou sprung In deserts, where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired; Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. Then die ! that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee; How small a part of time they share That are so wondrous sweet and fair! Waller must have written for effect, as lie took snt'h extreme care to polish his verse, and it is probable that the lines at the conclusion of his sacred pieces had been lorl meditated by him as an appropriate termination to his THE PRESS. poetical career. The poet wrote nothing else in his age which would lead us to suppose that he was then capable of producing these enti neatly-beautiful lines. But whether they were long meditated as an appropriate " finis" to the poet's labours, or whether they were the last flash of his inspiration as it leapt up with a kind of supernatural strength and lustre be fore sinking into darkness, it must be admitted that no author's poetical works could end in a finer or more ennobling strain : The seas are quiet when the winds give o'er; So, calm are we when passions are no more ! For then we know how vain it was to boast Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost. Clouds of affection from our younger eyes Conceal that emptiness which age descnes. The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made; Stronger by weakness, wiser men become, As they draw near to their eternal home. Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new. Mr. Bell has edited this volume very satis factorily. We may differ from him on parti cular points, but are quite willing to do justice to his diligence, skill, and discrimina tion. In the memoir and notes he has brought together just the kind of information the reader will desire to know. It is full, but not tedious, and conveyed in a crisp and pleasing style. As matter of taste sonic obvious explanatory notes had better have been omitted, we think. It is hazardous to presume too much on the igno rance of the class for whom this edition is adapted. Waller, we fancy, will meet with few readers requiring to be told that the " nymph that sprung out of the sea " was Venus ; that " Thetis' son," for whose bright shield the Argive peers contended, was Achilles ; that, again, " the mother of Achilles" was Thetis ; that the " blue eyed virgin" of the Iliad was Minerva ; that " the Egyptian Queen " re nowned for her graces was Cleopatra; that he who stole celestial fire" was Prometheus; or that he who Conversed with the Almighty face to face was Moses. These notes are of the class which most readers will be inclined to resent as impertinent. Mr. Bell, we see, has acted on a system in inserting them, as they run through the volume, and are probably borrowed from some older edition ; but in any case they might, with more advantage, have been altogether omitted. Recollections of Literary Characters and Cele brated Places. By Mrs. Thomson. London: Bentley. THESE volumes consist chiefly of reprints of some articles contributed to periodicals on interesting ruins and noble residences, inter spersed with personal recollections of some recently deceased literary and scientific cha racters. Amongst the places described are Ham-house, Holland-house and its inhabi tants, Whitehall and its predecessors, Kenil worth, with chapters from history on the siege of Ragland Castle,the defence of Latham house, and more matter of a similar kind. Amongst the eminent persons gossipped about are L. E. L., Wilkie, Chantry, John Galt, Dr. Parr. Mrs. Siddons, Thomas Campbell, and Dr. Maginn—a motley list of eminent persons, but for that very reason giving good subjects for anecdotic recollections. We cannot say that Mrs. Thomson has cast any new light upon those artistic and literary celebrities, about whom much has already been written, but, combined with her sketches of old historical houses, her present work may be accepted as light, readable, and entertaining. it appears that, for the sake of convenience, her writings for the periodicals purported to be from a male pen, and the phrase " a man like me " (throughout the volume) often seems incon gruous. The work opens with an account of Dr. Maginn, and the following is a graphic likeness of that singularly-endowed cha racter : I made my way into the very thick of the throng; elbowed a poetess to the right, trod upon the slipper of a lady historian, touched the saintly shoulder of some Charlotte Elizabeth of the day, and, more formidable than all, brushed, maybe, the sacred dust off the sleeve of a reviewer. All were standing, all were listening to some one who sat in the middle of a group; a low-scatisl man, short ill stature, was uttering pleasantries, and scattering witticism about him, with the careless glee of his country ...this was Maginn. Ilia articulation was impeded by a 1073 stutter, yet the sentences which he stammered forth were brilliant repartees, uttered catboat sharpness, and edged rather with humour than with satire. His & countenance was rather agreeable than striking ; its expression sweet, rather than bright. The grey hair, coming straight over his forehead, gave a singular appearance to a face still bearing the attributes of youth. He was thirty or the re about* (yes, saucy neice of mine. thirty is still young) ; but his thoughtful prow, his hair, the paleness of his com plexion, gave him many of the attributes of age. . . t looked on for a moment, as the crew id authors, reviewers, playwrights, and novel-weavers paid homage to la - . Mag ia n. lie was then in the zenith of his glory—the glory which radiated from John Kill or sent forth a rich stream of light from the pages of Fraser. His conversation was careless and Abend, and but for the impediment of speech would have had the charm of a rich comedy. ilia choice of words was such as 1 have rarely met with in any of sty cou temporaries. Such was Magiun, as he appeared in his days of health. One point has been omitted by Mrs. Thomson in her sketch of his per sonal appearance. The peculiarity of his aspect was increased by the disproportional size of his large head. In his decline Mrs. Thomson saw him again, and sketches him thus:— The next time I saw this ill-starred son of genius was in a friend's house, very early one morning, as Itr. Maginn was going away to France. He and I were fur some minutes alone in a room together. It was a dingy, London morning, and the room corresponded to the day—a lodging house room. It was not dirty, to speak individually ; but a general air of antiquity, of long-established dustiness, of confirmed, ingrained, never-to-bc•effaced uncleanliness sat upon every article in the appartinent, even to the top of the bell-ropes. The fire was not lighted—it was September ; the window was open sufficiently to chill the susceptible frame of Msginn as he paced to and fro, never looking towards me, waiting for our common friend. I shut the window. He looked towards me for an instant, stam mered out a " Thank you." His face was then of a leaden, ashy hue ; his grey hair had become thin ; his dress—hut why expatiate upon thal,—yet it looked sorrowful, and shattered, like its wearer, and I fancied it meant much. Both pictures of that unhappy scholar are painfully like. Maginn was a wan whose memoirs, if properly written, would be pathetic and instructive, but it is not likely that he will ever find a biographer. In his literary, as well as in his personal, character there was a strange mixture of strong and weak points. His scholarship was various, and, we can critically add, it was also most profound. With the classical works of anti quity ho was intimately conversant, and in the literature of European languages he was deeply read. His attainments attracted the particular notice of the deepest-read men of his time, and, amongst others, that of the late celebrated Archbishop Magee, who remained on the friendliest terms with Magnin up to the time of the archbishop's death. It was, as we happen to know, while walking home from a committee of the House of Lords, lean ing on Maginn'a arm, t hat the fatal illness of which that learned prelate died first manifested itself. As a journalist and political writer Maginn's forte lay in hitting off ephemeral persons and passing topics, with a style popular in manner, but whimsically diversi fied with curious reading. He suffered from that mental idiosyncrasy that almost always appears in the helluo librorum. His attain ments weighed down his originative faculties, and it was only in short bursts of conversa tional excitement, or in sonic fierce passage from his trenchant pen, that he displayed the force of his faculty. For political writing, properly so called, Maginn was not suited. His thinking in politics sprung from feeling, and not from logical reflection, and it wanted that moral determination and definiteness of creed required for an English political writer. In argumentative and illustrative faculty he was surpassed by many journalists of his age; but in scholarly knowledge, ready humour, and versatility of intellect, he had no superior. We know something of his life and habits, but this is not an opportunity for describing one whose special originality lay in blend ing much of the knowledge of Porson with many of the accomplishments of Theodore Hook. Mrs. Thomson would have done better by avoiding references to what was called " The Fraser Duel." She is not informed of all the circumstances of the ease, as we could easily show, but the topic is not one atiltsble for dis cussion. In connection with Maginn she alludes to Griffin the Irish novelist, and refers to " The Collegians " (p. use of ties. " most powerful of the neglected novels of the