The Press.
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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 is
likely to occupy in relation to the army the.
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

MAf 12,- 1855._

the enthusiasm of the men. Their plain die•
tion and direct appeals constitute the chief
merit of these pieces:—

Thirteenth, o'er your serried squadrons,
Olden days of tame renew;

Albuera, and Busaco,
Nive, Toulouse, and Waterloo.
Oft you've met the foe and conquered,
And you'll beat him o'er again.
Trumpets, bugles, drums are sounding,
Thrilling earth with martial strain.
Chorus—Thirteenth, dc.
The principal objection, a fatal one, is the fre-
quent recurrence to Waterloo. We suppose
Waterloo is indispensable to the record of re-
gimental fame. It is clear, however, from this
circumstance, that Mr. Taillefer's songs must
remain a dead letter as long as the alliance
continues. His military ardour places his
poetry in an awkward dilemma; but his
patriotism must console him.
An Officer contributes The Battle of Alma
and its Incidents (5), with a short preface
describing the ground, miscellaneous notes,
and a list of the killed and wounded—the
whole of which he dedicates to the Emperor
of the French. The measure of the poem is
more noticeable than its matter, consisting of
lines of seven syllables, occasionally varied by
five. As the octosyllabic verse is distin-
guished by its fluency, so this measure is
naturally characterised by airiness and
flippancy. Applied to a battle it closely re-
sembles the heroics of Mr. Higginbotham, in
the "Rejected Addresses" !

On they rush—a lurid gleam
Scintillates from mound and tower,
Lights with death the living stream,
Shrouds an iron shower,
Harrowed, torn, the ground upheaves
As where ploughs have passed,
Thousands fall, like autumn leaves,
Scared by wintry blast;--
Yet unmoved, with steady nerve,
Lo ! the modern Spartan's dress,
decimated—do not swerve,
But still onward press,
As deployed—their lines advance—
" Go it England"—forward France !

The context is not always obvious, and the
technical treatment of military movements
will occasionally perplex the reader who hap-
pens to be a civilian. Iu this passage we are
not quite sure whether it is the lurid gleam or
the living stream that shrouds the iron shower,
or whether it is the uniform of the Spartans
or the Spartans themselves we are to under-
stand as having been decimated.

The same subject is put into a ballad by
another writer (6), who anticipates that the
critics will immediately institute injurious
comparisons with Campbell and Tyrta'us. He
may dismiss his apprehensions. The critics
will discover the spring-head of his inspira-
tion in the recondite pages of " Chevy Chace."
It will be seen from the following sample that
the family likeness is strong, although the
race has degenerated :
On, Ninety-fifth! with cheering cry,
Right well your spurs are won ;
Through your rent colours, carried high,
Gleams Glory's noontide sun :
On, Eightyeighth ! your former deeds
Shall well with this compare ;
On, English Guards ! on, Scots ! for bleeds
The noble Chewton there;
On, Twenty-third! your banner'il fame
Must still find room for Alma's name.
The lineage of this ballad is still more
apparent in another stanza, where we find
Lord Raglan doffing his hat while ordering
the cavalry to charge, and " Duke Cambridge "
clearing the broken ground like a sportsman
following the hounds :

Like pictur'd hero on his steed,
Lord Raglan calmly sat.
And bidding England's warriors speed,
Doffd low his snow plum'd hat;
Forth spurr'd Duke Cambridge forward then,
And clear'd the broken ground,
Like sportsman in old England when
The gallant pack hath found;
When scarlet coat, and cheering horn,
Proclaim a glorious hunting morn.
This is exactly in the manner of the
" hunting of Cheviot ;" and the author goes
into this business of slaughter, by which the
living heart of England is now rent with an-
guish, as if it were a legend of the Douglas
and Percy. It is not for the purpose of indi-

(5) The Battle of Alma, and its Incidents. By an Office..
London: Hatchard.
(6) Rana 1 the Battle of the Alma. London : Edingham
Wilson.