The Press. — London, England, 1856-05-17 00:00:00

MAY 17, 1856. and Itlassinissa to take the command of the army. Sophonisba nobly urges her lord to sacrifice all considerations to the claims of his and the act terminates with his c ountry departure for the camp. In the second act, the senate, to save Car thage, have resolved to enter into a conspiracy with Asdruball to destroy Massinissa, and to w in back the aid of Syphax by bestowing Sophonisba upon him. One h' nest senator alone, Gelossa, refuses his assent to the plot. Sophonisba is removed to the palace of Syphax to await his return, and Syphax, confident of the issue, leaves the camp to meet her. Mean while Gelossa reveals the treason to 11Iassi oissa, who, taking advantage of the absence of Syphax, cuts his way through his troops, and joins Scipio. The third act passes principally in the palace of Syphax , who endeavours to force Sophonisba to his wishes. She effects her escape down a subterranean passage which leads into a forest ; but is betrayed by her tire•woman, and followed by Syphax. By this time the palace is invested by Scipio and Massinissa. In the fourth act Syphax overtakes Sophonisba on the verge of the forest and is at last so moved by her resolution, that he pledges himself to employ no more violence, but to await her own inclinations. Upon this promise she returns to the palace, and Syphax invokes a witch who dwells in the forest, the "dreadful Erictho," to aid him by her charms. Erictho grants his wishes; and presently, after some incantations, she assumes the shape of Sophonisba, and, entering veiled, proceeds to the couch. Syphax, believing his happiness complete, hastens under the canopy, and the act closes. The fifth act discloses to Syphax the treachery of the witch, intended to convey the moral that he who would force love must meet condign punishment. Massinissa and Scipio may come upon the scene. Syphax is over come in single combat by Massinissa, who spares his life in consideration of Sophonisba being safe and unstained. The play might with propriety end here ; but the tragic: catastrophe remains yet to be accomplished. Scipio demands Sophonisba as a prisoner to grace his triumph ; rather, however, than bo exposed to such ignominy, she takes poison, and Massinissa causes her dead body to be laid before the Roman victor. Here we have a story of incessant move ment. The incidents are numerous, but never involved in themselves, or extraneous to the main current of the interest ; and the ter mination of each act is so adroitly managed as always to bring us to a moment of suspense and expectation. We are the more anxious to point out these structural principles as being derived from Shakespeare, and pervading, more or less, the whole of the contemporary drama, because they have been generally over looked by editors and commentators, whose attention has been absorbed in other direc tions. Of their importance it is needless to speak. The old dramatists thoroughly under stood the art of securing the sympathies of their audiences ; and while they poured into their dialogue the richest resources of poetry, they trusted mainly for success to the vehicle of action They knew that the highest in spirations of genius would fail if the living interest of the scene were suffered to subside ; and the greatest marvel of their works is that they combined both. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of James Montgomery. Vols. 111., IV., V., and VI. London: Longmans. WHEN we noticed the two first volumes of this Work (PREss, Jan. 27, 1855) we expressed our opinion that the authors had formed an exag gerated opinion of the importance of their subject. Few persons ever led a less eventful life than James Montgomery. After he had settled in Sheffield, his fortunes became fixed. The profit s o f hi s newspaper an d pr i n t in g business, added to the sums he received for Ins writings, gave him an income which, though mode at e , was more t h an suf fi c i ent f or hi s simple wants. He had no strong passions to vex, nor crotchets to mislead, him. The pru dellt poet saved money, and iu 4 1 40 gar V9* THE RE S. tired from business, and for the rest of his life resided in a pretty house on the Mount at Sheffield. Of a modest disposition, he mixed little in the world. His genius was neither vivid nor varied. Its whole force was ex hausted in his poems. He uttered few sayings worth remembering, and wrote few letters worth preserving. The four volumes before us yield only the very tamest materials for biography. Montgomery's letters are com monly diffuse about nothing. Their want of matter is not relieved by elegance of expres sion. They might have been esteemed by the persons to whom they were addressed, but to the stranger they appear little better than twaddle. We are sorry to speak harshly of a work which has evidently been prepared with great care. To Messrs. Holland and Everett, Mont gomery must have appeared a Tritan. Mr. Everett relates that so great was his anxiety to see the poet, that he actually went into the shop at Sheffield, and bought a volume of his poems for five shillings, with the hope that he might catch a glimpse of the renowned author. He succeeded, and considered himself amply repaid for his money. But then, as we are told, the poet " pleasantly replied" to Mr. Everett, when he heard this anecdote, " You " got something for your money." In the nar rative it is duly set forth : The spring of the present year is associated in the mind of one of t h o biographers with very pleasing recollections, as having been the period when he first obtained, what the works of Montgomery had long led him ardently to wish for, a sight of their author, &c. The biographers should have recollected that had Montgomery occupied as great a space in the world's eye as he did in theirs, the public would yet only value his memoirs for what they contained. The scraps of his con versation retailed here are far below the powers of mind which he certainly must have possessed. He seems to have been much in clined to " improve " trifling circumstances as they occurred. A cloud of soot falls down his chimney, and it becomes a iLarning to him„ 'how little a human being is‘n his own hands "at any time." The most trifling incidents are constantly magnified in these volumes. Once when Montgomery was speaking at a missionary meeting, the gaslights went out, and there is a long account of the terribleness of the situation, and of the narrow escape of the poet, through a candle being brought near his face by a man who was employed to place lights in the chandelier. On another occasion he slept in a strange house, and was thrown into consternation by a kitten escaping from a cupboard " Montgomery" says Mr. " told these stories in a strain of vivid ness and sensibility which is but feebly re " presented in the foregoing details." The volumes are full of the like nonsense. Even with a pen in his hand, Montgomery was not always wise. Some of the rhymes given here might with advantage to the poet's re putation have been omitted, as this epitaph for example : She lived, with death before her eye, As one who did not fear to die ; She died, as one exchanging breath For immortality in death : Her &ail is here,—her spirit there, — Eternity ! 0 !ell me where ! Who would imagine that these lines proceeded from the author of that lyric of surpassing beauty, " The Grave"? He was in general rather distinguished for pleasing images and medi tative verse, than for imar , mative fire, but that piece, from its theme and its force, rises to the true sublime. Montgomery must have had moments of genuine inspiration ; he could never have written what he has written other wise. But probably his constant use of his pen, as matter of business, tended to wear down his faculties, and to prevent, except on ram occasions, that concentration of thought and style essential to masterly composition. His prose was weak, very wordy, and entirely wanting in point and colour. The facts concerning Montgomery in these volumes may be told in few lines. In 1813 he published his principal poem, " The World before the Flood "—a composition on which he had laboured with extraordinary care. The biographers tell us that the " work not only " satisfied the large expectations of the au " Olaf§ friends, but elevated his name." We 47 do not, however, find any of those details of success which we are always glad to meet with —as the copies sold, and the profit re ceived by the author. One of the finest images in the poem, it is noted, subsequently reappeared in the verse of Byron. Mont gomery wrote : All else that breathed below the circling sky Were linked to earth by some endearing tie ; He only, like the ocean weed uptoru, And loose among the world of waters borne, Was cast companionless from wave to wave On life's rongk sea, and there was none to save. Byron, in the third canto of " Childe Harold," adopted (perhaps unconsciously) the image in describing his waudei ings For I am as a weed, Flung from the rock on ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surga may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. The few particulars given as to the progress of " The World before the Flood" are valuable as real biography. It is said : During the composition of this poem Montgomery was fond of solitary walking, like Lune going " out to medi tate in the field at the eventide ;" and there is reason to believe that the beautiful scenery around Sheffield often suggested the outlines of those antediluvian pictures which the warmth of his imagination has heightened into something like paradisiacal beauty. The ideas of most persons flow easily when taking exercise in the open air. Those moods of the mind are the happiest which are quite unforced. In the same year, 1813, he made his first appearance as a platform orator, and after wards spoke frequently at missionary meet ings. For some years subsequently we find no entries of greater importance than that he conscientiously declined to admit lottery ad vertisements into the Iris, and that his news paper, under a new foreman, assumed an improved appearance. " Mr. Ray induced his " principal to obtain a new fount of type," &c. In 1819 appeared his missionary poem of " Greenland," and in 1822 he took an active part in the formation of " a literary and philo sophical society in Sheffield." His speech is given here entire, and some thousand copies of it, we are told, were distributed. In 1825 he sold his newspaper, the Iris, which seems to have been too " slow " for the taste of the times, and withdrew from all part in its management. His conduct in the sale was, much to his credit, marked by sensitive honesty. The money agreed on for the cony right (4001.) he left in the purchaser's hands, never intending to call for it should the specu lation prove unsuccessful In 1828 he published his " Pelican Island," which met with only partial favour. A passage in the preface is worth noting, as indicative of the workings of the author's mind : Poetic spirits seem to have seasons of intellectual revelation, when themes long meditated, and apparently meditated in vain, are suddenly presented in such a light that thenceforward they have nothing to do hut by long and patient labour to develop the inspired conception of s few rnomehta. From this date Montgomery seems to have found employment, moderately remunerative, for his pen ; and, having some capital, he be came chairman of the first gas company at Sheffield, which seems to have returned a large dividend, fifteen per cent., to the great discon tent of the town. His life flowed tranquilly on, and in 1835 he was agreeably surprised to receive a pension of 1501. from the hands of Sir Robert Peel. His circumstances were now easy, and his fame was established. The sixth volume carries the memoir down to the close of 1846. We suppose there will be two more tomes, though it is difficult to imagine with what they can be filled. Before concluding, let us give a specimen of the kind of matter the biographers continually intrude on us : On passing a shop•window, the poet suddenly stopped. Montgomery : That is beautifuldooking tobacco : I want a little ; but it is an article on which I presume you can exercise no judgment ?—Holland : No, sir; and posterity will, no doubt, be a little svrprised, should I ever take it by the button and say, " Mr. Montgomery was a smoker 1 " Montgomery replied sensibly enough—" Pos " terity will care nothing about the matter.- What posterity will say has been a sad snar" to the biographers It has tempted them to set down all the local doings and stnall•talk of a manufacturing town, and to make two very drill geutlomeo, by 131411:10 Holland and tiV041614 I C 1, t S a ii Si S tl ci ti n c , II b S C: RI 1 it II e. II d ti sI FI tl tl tl 0: s ii tl .1 • 4, ,pgr