The Press. — London, England, 1856-07-05 00:00:00

yittraturt. Metes Ambrotiattai. By Professor Wilson. Vol. IV. Edited by Professor Ferrier. London: Blackwoods. tottglrei) ON the general character of thb famous "Noctes" we have nothing to add to our previous remarks. This fourth volume con cludes the portion of them to be republished under Wilson's name. We take for granted that the rest of them are to be let sink, with all their brightness and vivid writing, into the limbo of forgotten periodicalism. We could desire that Professor Ferrier had been more free in his editorial illustrations, and that he had given more notes explanatory of some of the passages in this last volume. One of the great charms in the " Noctes," as they first appeared, was the abundance of good verses interspersed with them. We find in the present volume a poem from a man of genius, now no more, the late B. Simmons, one of the most frequent writers in Blaelcivowl twenty years since. He was a clerk in the London Customs, but his specialty was in poetry, and he had rare sweetness, fire, and intensity. In relation to the contest in the Crimea lately concluded, the following poem in this volume of' the " Noctes" has present interest. The correspondent of the Times in October, 1833, observed : .Some six months since, Achmet Pasha, the In tendant of the Palace, and the Sultan's especial favourite, set out from Constantin ople for Odessa, in order to proceed to St. Petersburg, there to conciliate the favour of the new moister of Turkey—a title the Russians eagerly arrogate for their Czar. Achmet was laden with jewels and other costly presents, but that to which the vanity of the Russians attaches most value was an old sword, aelecied from the ancient Turkish collection, of - handle which the , and scabbard, covered with precious stones, was sent to Nicholas as the weapon of Constan- tine Palenlogue, who died, as you know, in the breach, when the capital was stormed by Mahomet the Second. Simmons wrote a long poem on the subject suggested by that extract, and it has much power. It thus commences : O'er the golden-domed shrines of imperial Stamboul, High rises the morning resplendently cool, Till that proud double daylight is burning in smiles On blue Marmora's waters and olive hid isles. being of an exquisitely Walpolian flavour. Tt was he that used the phrase since become current, " But we must not be too hard on " those miscalled representatives of our " native country. Who knows but that some " day we may be reduced ourselves to being " Irish members of Parliament" ! Lord Cockburn, in his recently published " Memoirs," has (though a Whig) highly lauded these " Noctes" with honest Scotch pride. He has also committed himself to the assertion that the Scotch of " Shepherd's " dialect is the best seen in our literature—a dictum which may be doubted. Many traits of Wilson's character are shown in this volume, especially his ad miration for pugilism, in which he excelled. He was, certainly, a fine creature, and deserves the praise of Hallam, who alludes to him in one place as " a writer of the most ardent and " enthusiastic genius, whose eloquence is as " the rush of mighty waters." He was, beyond question, the most versatile genius in our time. He was a good poet, a vigorous logician, an accomplished philosopher (without a fixed system of his own, but variously learned in all the schools), a consummate master of lan guage, and as a man he was both genial and natural. The ancient critics were fond of using the phrase " the prince of poets," or " the prince of historians," and Wilson might be called " the prince of periodicalists." His mind was a charming magazine iu itself, and he could deal with every topic from Belles Lettres to Boxiana. After all, the Tories fairly met in literary combat the wits of " the blue and yellow." Moore was the only Whig poet (for Byron was no Whig or party man), and Scott, Wilson, and Hogg were Tory bards. We think, too, that more permanent literature has been bequeathed to posterity by T than b - the irthern the Scotch _oriel Jyr —le no_ Whigs. Even in a political point of view Wilson did great service for Conservatism ; but his thinking on many grave subjects is unsuited to our present time. In those portions of the " Noctes" not written by Wilson, there were some capital bits. What can be more vivid and lifelike than the following peep at the leader of the House of Commons in 1831 : " the angelic treble of Lord John," and the " symphonous cadence of the manly bass of Graham," and Mackintosh looking up to the ventilator. The utter failure of Lord Althorp as a parliamentary leader was a main causo in the rapid collapse of the Whigs after the Reform Bill; and what could be expected from the sitter for the foregoing portrait? The Martins of Cro' Martin. By Charlotit Lever. Loudon: Chapman and Hall. MR. LEVER has two capital qualities for a novelist—inexhaustible invention and un tiring spirits. He does not pretend to finish. His sketches are in a broad panoramic style, rudely drawn and highly coloured, but full of striking effects. His fictions are of the full blooded kind. All his characters have an excess of vitality, and when they are in full play it makes sober people almost giddy to watch them. In the " Martins " there is less of boisterous fun than in some of Mr. Lever's previous efforts ; but there is plenty of adven ture of the most dashing kind. The plates, by Phiz, are in keeping with the narrative. We have horses (of course) making impossible plu•'ges; one young lady firing a pistol at a band of Irish savages ; and another, in Cassandra-like attitude, announcing the ap proaching triumph of the Parisians in the Three Glorious Days ; with tumultuous scenes of Irish life in all its varieties. In his " Preface' Mr. Lever frankly tells us that he started with a design which he has failed to carry out : The picture of a new social condition that I desired to develop, I have barely sketched—the greet political change worked on a whole people, merely glanced at. . . . So is it that now my task is completed I grieve to see how little opportunity I have had of dwelling on the great problem which first engaged me in the social working of the Er - • 13111 of '29. It was a - over .mancipation subject which I had long thought and pondered, and in, I hope, a spirit of fairness and justice. Firmly feeling that the great evils of Ireland were rather social than political, and strongly impressed with the conviction that the remedy lay less in legislative enactment than in the growth of habits of mutual charity and good-will, I have regarded the working of the Relief Bill with intense interest as its effects displayed themselves in the two opposite parties. I have seen, or fancied I have seen, great mistakes on both sides—golden opportunities of agreement neglected— happy coincidences of feeling ignored ; and yet, with all this, a more generous forbearing tone has unquestionably . . _ Of North : Has Lord Althorp nothing of the fine old - - All Stsrnboul is astir—the Imaum's minaret sucoeeded; and if we have not reached the happy goal o Spencer face about him ? Is scarce hushed from the Hu of his godliness yet; perfect concord, mach of the bitterness of party has beefs e. The a r e r lines l good d A ea. Th e there . When—your brows to the dust ! Achmet Pasha appears Tic kl er: effaced—much of the rancour of old jealousies forgotten. 'Mid the thunder of horse and the lightning of spears! semblance to some even of the ablest of the race is striking. But so much the worse. I know few things It would take more space than is at our dis In a tempest of splendour—with banner and tromp, more painful than, in visiting some man of great intellec- posal, more time than we have to spare, more By bazaar and atmeydan is winding his pomp, tual rank, to see his son carving the mutton at the foot of patience than we can boast, to unravel Mr. Till it sparkleth away through yon gateway of gol d , his table, so like him that you would have detected the Like a stream in ale sunset triumphantly rolled. connection had you met the youth at Cairo—i-and yet so Lever's plot, and explain its course of action. He doubtless goes forth, the Vicegerent of Fate visibly a fool that your eye is relieved by turning to a dish T h e heroine, Miss Mary Martin, is one of the O'er some them. of that despotelominion; whose state of tur ni p s. L o rd I lt hor p has handsome features, b u t o h ! author's truehearted, danger-spurning, Irish .`, Shot the arch of its empire's plenipotent span how heavily they are carved. His eye is well set, and the girls —a saint for charity, and a Nimrod for From the summits of Zion to yellow Japan. colour is beautiful, but not one spark of fire is there to the chase. A groom, in answer to the ques bring it out of the category of beads. The lips too are ,• she understa nds i,ii, n li s i ta i,, bl ii e ,„ well , , ,,, .' And recollecting what has occurred with the prettily enough defined, but no play of meaning, good or don whe ther " :,astern Question : An the last two years, the bad, beyond a mere booby simper, ever rippler across replies fondly:— ~ „,,,,,, ',,, ..,':- is . . i.. 1 i t 1., 4 concluding stanzas -*Ow read with curious them. His forehead is sinuous low, and eke narrow; the " Doesn't she ! " with a eenteniioasimiact a tie tip. effect : -. , ~ hair coarse, wiry, and growing down into his eyes; the "To bit a horse or to back him—to tube him his paces, whiskers gross, bushy, gruier-like; the cheeks mere and cure him of bad tricks—to train him for harness As for thee—the mistitled—frail shadow of God— patches of padding; the chops chubby and chaw•biennish; double and single—to show him the way over a wall or A On the Janizar's gore-dabbled turban who trod— the nook short, the figure obese; the whole aspasit*at of wide ditch—to make him rise light and come down easy, Anil who. casting thy bigot-sire& trammels behind, a stout, but decidedly stupid fanner of oevozpothiligr. she hasn't a match on this island; and as for training,' Buckled round thy freed spirit the harness of mind. i... in sooee:,, The conversation proceeds ,:= . -i - " ,' —- I added he, with a fresh breath , " did you see Sir Lucius?' Where sew is that "pint, lost Mahmoud the last? Like the Cross, is the Crescent's supremacy put ? North: You should have advised George Crn hank to Scanlan, to whom the horse is shown, IS •arl . , make a study of him for Parson Trullibet, in the new edi. attorney, and an admirer of Miss Kftte! . :( 4 e.' • ••' Then up! and let echoing Christendom tell, non of " Joseph Andrews." That a Moslem could fa ll as a Constantine fell! " He's a nice horse !" said Scanlan, slowly, giving to Tickler: A good hint ; and then his speaking, it is each word a slow and solemn significance. Then, casting Ho! Leopards of Albion and Lilies of France, neither more nor less than a. painful medley of grunt, a keen glance all around and over him, added, " There's a :r Let your flags in the breeze of the Bosphorus dance, stutter, gasp, and squeak. Every moment you expect splint on the off-leg!" Or, by Allah the Awful !if late by a sun, him to break through outright. He hums and haws for "So there is, the least taste in life," said Barnes, ' The Caustic will pasture the steeds of the Don I three minutes, and then hawks up the very worst of all passing his hand lightly over it ; " and was there ever a Simmons had great command of resonant lan possible words, and then flounders on for a little, boggling, horse, worth the name of a horse, that hadn't. a splint? .•• and hammering, and choking, till he comes to another Sure, they're foaled with them! I wanted Miss Mary to gunge, and if disengaged from the drudgery a pp aren tl y f u ll st o p; th en ano th er gran d h us k y bl un d er , let me take that off with an ointment I have, but she of the desk,he might have soared high. As it some superlative beast, to tug him out of the rut ; and wouldn't. ' Its not in the way of the tendon,' Bats she. 'lt .1 wO, some, of the 'Meet celebrated of his con- then another short rumble of agonising dulness ; and then, will never spoil his action, and we'll not blemish him with teniperailea';'iiicognieed his fire and spirit. having explained nothing but his own hopeless incapacity, a mark.' Them's her very words." i At' aril tlineral in Westminster Abbe , down the unhappy lump at last settles, and pulls his hat , y • over the bridge of his nose, and puffing and panting as if Miss Mary plays a great part through the two persons were Ettinding together near the be had been delivered of a very large piece of dough— book. The interest droops after chapter I grave. They entered into conversation. One while " Hear, hear, hear!" bursts in symphonons cadence sixty ', and, sorrowing for the sad catastrophe, .1 was advanced in years, and bore a Celebrated from the manly bass of Graham, and the dignified tenor we are in no mood to welcome the other 1 literary name. "I think," said he, " that a of Lord Advocate Jeffrey, and the angelic treble of the heroine, whose conduct has been so noble Paymaster of his Majesty's Forces (Lord . .T. Russell): " writer of the name of Simmons is one of the and Peel imiles—one little benignant dimple • and puzzling. ‘ 4)1 1 (..I • sa)suo'3. sal' NO r " ilioit promising of our young poets." Itt WO Holmes is troubled with his old cough; and Mackintosh The comic scenes are numerous i one -ogthij,. T to 43iiii4VOns himself that a laurelled bird casts upwards a large grey melancholy eye, as if there best, is the painting an historical piutt*P" wad ' speaking, and his delight nitty "1r were something wrong in the ventilator ; and O'Connell which the N..artins of Cro' Mart* iFis 44 to conceived. The defect of Simmons was thit folds his brawny arms, and shows his teeth like a sportive figure. Mr. Martin, Mary's unolel t os some . ' mastiff; and the honourable member for Preston thrusts 10 f• itilit' too exclusively Byronic ; but he was s clean hands into his pockets, and his cleaner tongue grandee with a sceptre ; nand his. •re Lady ' . . r of . ailetfiery mould that the style suited hii i nto hi s c h ee k. D oro th ea , i s , we su pp ose, a Been of s intellect. ,He was a constant guest at Gore- Shepherds What a pictur! Beauty of times past:—„ 1 .• ,i ,f,i ~; ji , • z hottiKin Lad z i ti ton ' s circle, and was a Well, indeed, may Shepherd Cr' " What a "Is my uncle in the library, ‘ i," ; akigAiii .. of .'... C4%41430.4 1 , 1 ,11 6of his plivitte letter pictur ! " Al! the points tire well seized---b Ji Telt ph ut , oi,f4 foil yit Visi Mg7itisippel ,telt . .ri DA1110V1.1) 9 0 P 139 iLii--- .4, 0 :'ll i..)3. b' . : 1 `,' f '.LAki "' yl~l T , RE, _