The Press. — London, England, 1855-05-12 00:00:00

\ 454 them to resort to antiquity for forms and examples. Oue of them, it must be admitted, announces a comprehensive project in a metrical pain • phlet called Our Country (1), in which ho apparently proposes nothing less than a re view of the whole state of the nation. We have always had doubts of the fitness of such themes for poetical treatment ; and they are not removed by the experiment before us. The " essay "—for so the author describes it on his titlepage—does not strictly relate to the war, but rather to the internal condition of the kingdom, with a view to the supplies for carrying on the war. Within the compass of thirty pages he discusses most of the vexed questions, education, wages, religious distinc tions, representation, emigration, pauperism ; but the national debt is his chevul de ',Wattle. Upon this question, if he does not become actually sublime, it will not be denied that he is perfectly original:— But is it not said we've a national debt Of eight hundred million full pounds, That will grind us gradually into the dust, And sink us all down some time ere long ! These lines, we believe, are constructed on the ballad measure, and would go very pleasantly if they were set to a dance tune. But the essay is not written throughout in this style. It is subject to fluctuations, which impact to the verse the unexpected variety of prose ; as when the author puts the following startling interrogatories arising out of the proposition he has just stated:— Shall we still continue the interest to pay, And tax us twofold for the means ? Shall we still in the future build up the hope, To return the capital? This is only saying, with an artful inversion in the expression, by which the poet exhibits his skill—Shall we still continue to pay the interest, and double our taxes for the means ? or shall we still hope at some future day to pay off the capital ?—very sensible questions under the circumstances. The essay is com posed in the mixed manner of Tupper, War ren, and Confucius, as we have seen the last mentioned philosopher -translated somewhat irregularly in long and short lines in the " Transactions of the Asiatic Society It abounds in excellent advice on the virtues of patience, hope, and patriotism, all three of which, it may be observed, the reader will stand in need of to sustain him to the end. Turning from this piece, which lays bare the domestic concerns of Great Britain, showing that our finances are by no means so flourishing as to justify us in going to war, although the writer is too patriotic not to hope for the best, we plunge at once into protocols and the fatal expedition to the " Taurian land," which Mr. John Dryden Pigott, the author of The Lay of the Crimea (2), informs us means " Land of the Tauri"—that is, Tauric Chersonese, now the Crimea. The policy and diplomacy of the war are chiefly dwelt upon here ; but we are bound to say that, instead of enlightening us on these topics, Mr. Pigott somewhat con fuses our perceptions of them, which, we confess, were not very clear before. A certain habit of clipping current English, as an inge nious class of delinquents used to clip the current coin of the realm in the days of that famous poet whose names Mr. Pigott bears, and an involved use of images by which one thing is made to do duty for another, or by which functions are assigned to things which they cannot by any possibility discharge, have the effect of flinging impenetrable obscurity over the author's meaning. In this respect Mr. Pigott departs widely from the practice of Dryden, whose example he should have been trained up to reverence, if not to emulate. It is not easy to illustrate these peculiarities by specimens without trespassing too largely on our space. But we may briefly indicate their character : On Alma's ridge the thick-set legions frown, In glare of hostile pomp that streams afar; On Alma's flood the serried ranks look down, That glows beneath the blazonry of war! The deep-mouth'd culy'rin's roar—the bayonet's jar— Sleep on those heights awhile, &o. (1) Our Country. An Essay. London: 11 tirdw ieke. I' 2) The Lay of the Crimea. By John Dryden Pigott, Author of 1 The Patriarch of tlie Nile," eco. Louiloo ; THE PRESS. In these few lines we have several eccentrici ties. Mr. Pigott speaks of the ridge of Alma as if it were a mountain. He also drops the article, as if the Alma were a country or a continent. How would it do to say, The pas sage of Rhine ? In the second line he omits the article again, and gets good measure at the expense of bad English. The third and fourth lines require to be repunctuated to clear up their meaning ; and iu the fifth and sixth there are two palpable blunders, which may, possibly, have been intended as grand writing. It is not the " roar " or the "jar " that sleep on the heights, but the culverin and the bayonet ; and if Mr. Pigott had only trusted, as his baptismal ancestor would have done, to the direct expression, instead of trying to ex tract an extra effect from it, he would have produced an intelligible, if not very novel, image. The omission of the article, or of what some grammarians call the definitive adjective, is a favorite form. E.v. yr.:— Scarce guess'd that [ ] Autocrat would e'en pursue—. From [ ] destin'd shore the mighty armament — What sage so strong may weaker minds enlist, To take for [ ] stream once more his film of shadowy mist. The last line we presume means a or the stream; and the author truly suggests that it must be a weak mind that could mistake a film of mist for a stream. Complex images of a similar kind abound. Thus : nor martial ray Which blinds such fond idolators of Pow'r, ➢lay gild Affection's void— Here we have a martial ray blinding in one direction and gilding iu another. Admitting that it is competent to a ray to gild anything, by what process is it supposed to gild a void ? Again : With quicken'd steps but sure th' impetuous Gaul Assails in furious dash the seaward steep ; Wing'd with elastic foot that fears no fall, He scales a precipice at ev'ry leap. Mark the variety of incongruous actions per formed in this quatrain. The impetuous Gaul is described assailing the steep with quickened step in a dash, and scaling a preci pice by a leap, his . foot all the time being a wing which prevents him from falling. In the same stanza a " clambering eagle," who really has no necessity to clamber, is discovered flapping the crag where this singular exploit takes place. Of a higher character, and different com plexion, are Sonnets on the War (3), by Alexander Smith and the author of " Balder, a series of vignettes in verse illustrating the horrors of war•, and some of its historical accessories. They are very unequal; and the attempt to blend the familiar and the solemn is a signal failure. The subject will hardly bear this kind of treatment, which requires the soundest judgment to redeem it from bur lesque and offence. Such are the sonnets in which the wounded are introduced appealing to the surgeons. The broken dialogues, and the mixture of literal fact and idealised senti ment, have au effect the reverse of pathetic. Incidents of this nature had been better left to tell their own story in the simple, touching letters of the soldiers. The authors of these sonnets belong to a lofty school, which has a language of its own ; and it is when they deal in large and magnificent conceptions we have them at their best—and we must honestly add, at their worst. One example will suffice. It is a sonnet to the militia, the terms of which will astonish the rustic population : VOLUNTEERS.' Take us, 0 England ! in thine hour of need. We hold our lives out in our eager hands! Take us, 0 England! gather us in bands! We come to rot in winds or wildly bleed, We come in crowds from glen or milky mead, From Homes, fir•saddened on the sunset wold, From Fortune's pathways, littered thick with gold. From tarry towns that on the ocean feed, From lowing fields, from blythe cock•crowing farms. From proud brides nestling in our loving arms, At thy command we dare the chilly grave, And dying, we have one wild thought above The pang. This guerdon, England, we would crave — Take us into the heaven of thy love. The rapid reader, who, like the writer himself, is not much of a critic, will feel that there is a heart palpitating under these lines. The exulting energy will pass with him for (3) Sonnet* on the War. By Alexander Smith, and by the Author of " . tlaldor" sad 4 ! The lioalw" 140449 n; Pope. SATURDAY, strength, as bravado sometimes passes for courage, and the circumstantial details will realise to his fancy a war-gathering like that of the clans in the Highlands. But upon a little closer inspection it will appear that all this crushing and crowding of volunteers is no better than a mere verbal pageant after all. If the poet had stopped at the second line he would have completed his idea in a compact form. Not content, however, with presenting the concrete image, he runs on with particu lars that fritter down the reality till it vanishes altogether. Details that are entered into for the purpose of aggregation heighten the power of a statement ; but when they are brought in to break it up into its separate parts they inevitably weaken the general effect. Had the writer commenced with his particulars, and concluded with the two lines in which they are summed up, the process would have at least conducted us to a natural and impres sive result. We might be reconciled, notwith standing, to his defective art, if his details were true. Unfortunately they have no more truth in them than the pastorals that used to issue out of the rural attics of Grub-street. And truthfulness is the secret of success in this sort of writing, which is intended to bring actual scenes distinctly before us. The de scriptions all throughout this sonnet are meretricious, and, in the most part, have no meaning at all. Militiamen don't come to rot in winds and to bleed wildly. They hope to do neither the one nor the other. What is meant by fir-saddened homes? We know that lowing herds are to be found in sundry parts of the country, but this is the first time we have heard of lowing fields ; and as to the cock-crowing farms it appears to us that it would be quite as good a description to call them dog barking farms. The image of the proud brides nestling is not very happily selected ; and we are at a loss to comprehend why the desire to be taken into heaven should be considered a wild thought. Now, this fallacious style of expression— which we dwell upon for the benefit of a large class of poetasters that have latterly sprung up—comes of th 9 vice of epithets chosen for their pomp and strangeness without reference to fitness or good taste. Mr. Alexander Smith and the author of " Balder" are masters of this style. They indulge freely in such phrases as "tumbled and dishevelled grief," " sun-sluggard isles," " immedicable sword," and " uncaverned beast," which last remark able epithet, apart from its grammatical laxity, is a culpable perversion of language ; but it is evident that the writer did not intend to de scribe a beast without a cavern, but a beast hunted out of a cavern ; and that he should, therefore, have written " decaverned beast " As to the matter of English, the choice is equal. In strong contrast with this superlunary view of the militiamen, we have a collection of dashing lyrics for the cavalry, by Nugent Taillefer (4), excellently adapted to be sung in the camp and the mess-room The plan is simple and to the purpose. There is a song for every regiment of dragoon guards, dragoons, lancers, and hussars, and a separate one for the royal horse artillery, the whole closing with an' appropriate lyric for the yeomanry cavalry. Mr. Taillefer is of opinion that " the imaginative man makes the best " dragoon," and he concludes that, as each regiment has memories which every trooper should be proud of, a song embodying the former glories of a corps would act as an in centive to future victories. There is some force in the argument, but everything depends upon the execution of the design. We cer tainly cannot anticipate that Mr. Taillefer i s likely to occupy in relation to the army th e . same post of honour and influence Dibdm filled in reference to the navy ; but his inten tions are praiseworthy, and his songs possess at least the merit of earnestness. Take, as a sample, the opening stanza of the song of the 13th Dragoons. If we surround it by the exciting circumstances under which at the present moment it would probably be sung— over a watch-fire, or during a pause from the labours of the night in the trenches—we can easily fancy that the enumeration of the regi ment's titles to glory would act as a spell upon (4) The Britt4l6 Cavalry Songs. 117 Nurut Pulleys. Lai' &it; 13414 1 141 ~-