The Press.
London, England, 1853-09-24 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

blunder, and the trenchant humour with which
he exposed it, and it might have been predicted
that young Huller would, in the political race,
leave his youthful competitors behind.
It is not, indeed, without sorrowful feelings
that we think how the bright auguries of
their numerous friends have been falsified in
the cases of I'raed and Charles Huller. The
grim tyrant Death too soon cut short their
careers. The late Charles Huller was a poli-
tician to whose principles we were often op-
posed, but we esteemed and respected him as
a man, and of his memory we think with
almost atketionate regard. It gave us pain to
see the character of that accomplished gentle-
man offensively discussed in a recent pamphlet
iu two volumes. Nor can we pass the
mention of his name without expressing our
hopes, that a biography may yet rescue is
memory from the insults of the mediocre
essayist—not novelist—to whom we allude.
!'rued had a far greater range of intellectual
power than Charles Buller. His humour was
deeper, if less playful and reaq ; and, to use
the admirable saying of Sheridan on Tom
• Moore, "he could put his heart into his fancy,"
and produce pictures of uncommon brilliancy.
In politics he failed. He made a wrong start,
and never recovered his position in the race.
He had not the muscle required for a parlia-
mentary gladiator, and he had little zeal to
compensate his luck of sturdy power. Fame
he would have gained, if he had concentrated
his faculties on literature, and laboured with
the enthusiasm of an artist. Thoroughly to
appreciate him, one should have known hint
itt the " Cambridge Union."
Pried, as a young man, was one of the
freshest and brightest natures that ever ap-
'wowed in it. He had carried all the college
honour» with singular ease, as if he did but
sport with his faculties ; for he was no
mere grinder, skilled in cramming, and sedu-
lous over his desk. He enjoyed the passing
hour, and had much of the careless, gay tone
of a man of insouciance. As in the case of other
young men, there was some spice of affectation
to his levity, and yet by temperament he was
a sprightly being, averse to being chained
down to monotonous toil. His versatility im-
peded the concentration of his genius, and,
with all his brilliant powers. he scarcely knew
himself what pursuit he would ultimately
follow. He mixed polities with his poetry,
and meditated at once upon the Muses and
parliamentary reform ; he aspired to climb
Olympus, and aimed at being returned for
a rotten borough ; he contributed to the
belles knees, and enrolled himself at the bar.
We think that he had not passion enough for
politics. His affections were not bound up
with any special leaders of the age, and he
had not that inspiring energy which makes a
1111111 of action. He was too much of a seuti
mentalist for success in the fierce political
contests of our time. _ . .

His verse is now the only means left to a
st►anger for judging of P►nted ; and any one
with the least taste for poetry must be charnied
with the wild and st►angely beautiful " Red
Fisherman," certainly one of the most remark-
able poems of the last thirty years. Its quaint
originality, its a►n►besque fancy, and the rhyth-
tuieal luu•mony of its weird and at6ial strains
long linger in the memo►y. Published in one of
the annuals, it att►acted immediate notice to
the author; and his strange name, Winthrop
Mitekworth Pined, was often (lamented
upon. Those who were behind the scenes
knew him as an active contributor to Knight's
Quarterly Magazine, that char►uing miscellany,
in which the first pieces of Mr. Macaulay's
powers as an essayist are also to be seen.
That the various poems and contributions
to the be/lea letters of a man with so high a
name as P►nted have not been collected in
England has been a cause of surprise to many
persons. In the American copy before us
there is bad spelling 'lnd many ludicrous
blunders ; but we think it creditable to Amen
eau reade►s that two editions of Praed's poems
should have succeeded. We have heard that
the English copyright of a conside►able number
of these poems belongs to Mr. Alarie A. Watts,
and we believe that the poet's widow po►ssesses
at power over the rest. If Prated had been a
poor man there is little doubt but that his
works would long since have been published in

SATURDAY,

a collected form, for the benefit of his sur
vivors. Belonging, however, to au ancient
family in high position, he died in affluence.
We have been told by one of his nearest
kindred that Lady Young (the poet's sister)
had undertaken the task of collecting them ;
but up to the present time there has been no
attempt, save this by American hands, to raise
a literary memorial of the gifted and brilliant
Prated. We arc sorry that such should be the
case, and we hope that his friends will act
more kindly by his memory.
Apart from any feeling of sympathy for
Prated's memory, we should be glad for the
sake of literature that these poems were
properly edited. His style Was vivid, sparkling,
and peculiar to himself. His pensiveness and
humour were blended together in a most
original fashion. In the middle of a profoundly
pathetic passage a flash of quaint drollery
would give a strange effect; and in professedly
humorous pieces he would startle with his
tenderness and pathos. It was in this
bizarre sentimentalism and picturesque vivid-
ness that the essence of his poetical genius
resided, and if he had applied himself reso-
lutely to poetry he would have won great
fame. His utterance was at once facile and
finished : in the rhythm of his language there
is the linked cadence and happy harmony of
diction required to give melody to verse, and
to impart that sweetness which cannot flow
merely from thyme. Without the contemple•
tiveness and minute graces of Tennyson, he
has all the talent for diction and sense of
subtle harmony that we find in the Laureate.
Like Thomas Hood, also, hiked was an adept
in a quaint talent for panning pathos. But,
though Prated often reminds us of both
Tennyson and Hood, his taste in poetry was
essentially his own ; or, if we are to class him
with any particular school, it must be with
those early Italian poets who wrote of life and
the world in a style at once heroic and comic
(not to be confounded with mere mock heroic),
and who applied great literary powers to sub-
jects sportively conceived. NVe think that
Prated must have been familiar with many of
these poems, such as Pulei's " Morgante
Maggiore," and that chef irceurre in the mock-
romantic style—the " &calla Rapita" of
Tassoni. &lost° is the poet of all others who
would have delighted the writer of the " Red
Fisherman ; " and there are many passages in
Boiardo and Berni which Prated would have
keenly appreciated. Lord Byron was greatly
influenced by the school of poetry to
which we refer. In his "Beppo" we can see
various traces of his familiarity with the
" Rieciardetto " of Fontegueni, as, for in-
stance, in the passage where he says :

" She was nut old, nor young, nor at the years
" Which certain people calla certain age," dc., de.,

when the noble poet was evidently thinking of
the lines,

()timid° al giunge al una certa eta,
"Ch' to non vogito deal:rived qual &c. &c.,
in the " Rieciardetto." Mr. Hookham Frere, in
his " Whistlecraft " poems, was also a follower
of the early romantic Italian poets.
We feel that we are justified in ranking
Prated with that hehool. His brilliancy of
colour, vivacity of tone, and subtle quaintness
of unexpected humour, point to that elassifi-
eatilm.

Let us take a couple of passages from the
" Red Fisherman," in order to contrast the
variety of tint and rapidity of touch which
gave such pictorial effect to the colouring of
Pnu'd. In describing the "Red Fisherman"
guild the first casting of the lines, he says :
It might be Time, or it might be trouble,
Had bent that stout back nearly double—
Sunk in their deep and hollow sockets
'Chat blazing couple of Congreve rockets,
And shrunk and shrivelled that tawny skin,
Till it hardly covered the bones within.
The line the abbot saw him throw
Had been fashioned and formed long ages ago,
And the hands that worked his foreign vest
lAing ages ago had gone to their rest:
Yen would have sworn, as you looked on them,
Ile had fished in the flood with Ham and Stem!

There was turning of keys, and crtsking of locks,
As he took forth a bait from hib iron box.
Minnow or gentle, wurnt or Al—
it sremed not such to the abbot's ryt.;
Gaily it glittered with jewel and gem.
And its shape was thy share of a diadem.

SEPTEMBER 24, 1853.

was fastened a gleaming hook about,
By a chain within and a chain without;
The fisherman gavt it a kick and a spin,
And the water fizzed as it tumbled in

From the bowels of the earth
Strange and varied sounds had birth—
Now the battle's bursting peal,
Neigh of steed, and clang of steal;
Now an old mans hollow groan
Echoed from the dungeon stone;
Now the weak and wailing cry
Of a stripling's agony !

Odd by this was the midnight air ;
Hut the abbot's blood ran colder,
When he 141{W a gasping knight lie them,
With a gash beneath his dotted hair,
And a hmup upon his shoulder.
And the loyal churchman strove in vain
To mutter a Pater Nosier ;
For he who writhed in mortal pain
Was camped that night on Bosworth plain—
The cruel Duke of (40'ster !

On the second casting of the line the abbot
is horrified at seeing the come of his own
brother, the Mayor of Edmondsbury, fished
up. After the passage that we have just quoted,
mark the sweetness of sentiment, and light,
airy style, of the following passage :
There was a turning of keys, and creaking of locks,
As he took forth a bait from his iron box :
It was a bundle of beautiful things—
A peacock's tail, and a butterfly's wings,
A scarlet slipper, an auburn curl,
A mantle of silk, and a bracelet of purl,
And a packet of letters, from whose sweet fold

Such It stream of delicate adonis rolled,
That the abbot fell on his face, and fainted,
And dolmen his spirit was halfway stunted.
Sounds seemed dropping from the skies,
Stifled whispers, smothered sighs,
And the breath of vernal gales,
And the voice of nightingales :
lint the nightingales were mute,
Envious, when an unseen lute
Shaped the music of its chords
Into passion's thrilling words :
" Smile, lady, smile !--1 will not set
Upon my brow the coronet,
Till thou wilt gather noses white
To wear around its gems of light.
Smile, lady, smile !—I will not tow
Rivers and Hastitegs lwnd the knee,
Till those hiowiteheilig lips of tl
Will bid me rise in bliss from mine.
Smile, lady, smile ..--for who would win
A loveless throne through gilt and sin ?
Or who would reign o'er vale and hill,
If woman's heart we►e rebel still

One jerk, and there a lady lay,
A holy wonderons fair ;
But the rose of her lip had faded away.
And her cheek was as white and as cold as clay,
And torn was her raven hair.
" Alt, ah !" said the fisher in merry guise,
" Her gallant was lestked before ;"
And the abbot heaved 1441111 e piteous sighs,
For 0 't 1w had blessed those deep blue eyes,
The eyes M ist lvss Shore !

None but a poet of very high order could
have written the " Red Fishermim." But we
pass on to consider the other poems in this
volume. Along with a miscellany of Praed's
various 5111)111 pieces. taken from the " An-
nals " and the peri)ulicals, the American
editor has presented " The Troubadour "—a
poem in three cantos. running to about fifteen
hundred lines. It belongs to the species of
romantic poetry we have already described—
brilliant in colours, serious in incidents, but
interspersed with comic passages.
We have much tl►at we could say about

P►l►ed. but we will defer it, in the hope that
his works will come before us in nu English
edition. Too early lost for his fame, we hope
that his friends will garland his memory by
preserving these sweet flowers of poesy which
have made the name of Prtted interesting to
many of the truest lovers of lite►ature.

Louis XVII. His Life—llis 810. rings—ilia
Death; The Caplirity of the Royal Papally in
the Temple. Jly A. de Beauchesne. London:
Vizetelly and Co.
OF late years we have had several neeessions
to the voluminous literature of the French
Revolution. First in authenticity and origin-
ality was the emTespondence Of Miralrean and
the ('ount de la Marek ; less remarkable, but
scarcely less valuable as a contribution to real
history, were the " Memoirs of Mallet du
Pun ;" and along with these our feeliiel:s were
powerfully appealed to by Lantartine,lvith leis

THE PRESS.

doubtful facts and dazzling rhetoric. The
value of the two first works we have named

can scarcely be overestimated by those who
wish to ►caster the ld►ilosoplty of the Revolu
tion. Mallet d►► Pan proves that too early SS
177 n the classes which ought to have been

cautious and loyal were slaves to a giddy
sPirit of levity, and that the buttresses of the
wona►ehv were unde►mined. _ Min►beau's eor-

respondence shows clearly that the French
monarchy had no men of action equal to the
occasion. Estimating the morality of Mira-
beau at a very low value, we cannot, however,
be blind to the merit of the sagacious coun-
sels and the vigorous designs, that are to be
found in his plans for preserving the King
and Queen. 'nese documents of that extra-
ordinary man have undoubtedly raised his re-
putation for statesmanship, anti prove that he
had constructive powers in politics scarcely
inferior to his destructive eapacities. They
blend together, in a nervous, emphattie style,
the opposite merits of Burke 's generalising
manner, and that close attention to realities
characteristic of the "Wellington Despatches."
Nor has the publication of those secret
papers of Mirabeaut, anti the journals of Mallet
du Pau, been without important results.
They have taught the publicists and the
thinking classes of Europe that mere senti-
mental jeremiads over the horrors of the
French Revolution, like this dreary anti dis-
heartening work before us, are of no perlllll •
neut value, and serve no good purpose. Weep-
ing over unfortunate princes is not the best
mode of grappling with the wild designs
Of pillage-loving itroktairev. We do not see
what purpose can be served by this lachry-
mose work, written in the exploded style of as
martyrologist. We would as soon &Ilk of
recommending it for idensant reading as of
miming Kensal-green for the rendezvous to a
picnic and it is too funereal and agonising
to serve any useful end.
With the facts of two thirds of these indult-

Andy volumes our readers are already ti nti•
liar. The only novel purlieu is the record of
the tortures endured by the unfortunate young
Bourl►on Prince at tl►e Temple. His miseries,
his privations, and all the ►sluts• proeemsem Of
agony and starvation, of which he gradually
died, are all here minutely described. We will
take some oxtraets flout the least revolting
parts. The author perpetually indulges in
the "U Thi " style of apostrophe peculiar to
Freud' sentimentalists. His work abounds
with passages like the following, in which
facts are buried beneath heaps of rhetoric:—

When the co 'sway happened to 1%• a good sort of
mum, the keepers always obtained frmini him stone little
eeshiou io favorer of the pristine's; for instance, they would
tell him it With ellmtAbillatly fur 640111 to Wnik Uroll the plat•
form, or they would rasa a little time with► y g t'llta•t in
the aftenoson.
It wits in this manner that thomill, haying leal•ned that
the child had always lout no 13114.6,0 t tor !burets, 41111 11111
third /lay 111. his CWll4lll4' 111 M in 411111.1% •llst Itrmnlxire, 3nl
year ( Tuesday, 11th N.\ov.ulber, I 791), 11,4 advantage of
the oins4l nature of the nntlicipnl 1111 'hay Named Thew•
non, No. 1, Hoe Montor•gaeil 1, to Wing MG, his room four
little Isits of flowers, which i.e lout himself %elected, and
which were in full ls•auty. The sight of the flowers pro-
&teed a magical etf•ct /111 the countenanee of the clithl:
surpristml at a proof of all'ection au new to him, after having
experienced so minty priads of aversion, joy noiistetiell the
eyes, long dry from botc•les% grief, mill he wept : those
teal•% of happiness came from illy very soul, as the rain
falls from heaven!
Flowers! it was so long that ill• hail liven deprived of
them ! lie iii)vcrrol about them. loch' mail with delight;
he clasped them in his two bawls to inhale their perfume ;
he devoured thr•tu collectively with his eyes, then exa-
mined them separately, one niter the other, and, after hav-
ing forked tt long while, ended by uieking one! Ali! then
he turned rain tie, a 1.%1k opt. mu Old 111'11111111111 trlelan•
141111 y : he thought of his absent neither, tomml him heart was
pierced with sorrow'. Pll4ll' 1111111 ! there are 1111 !Ili we
flowers for her! and never %ill it be your ;mimic to lay
one on her gra.e !
l'he next t•xtraet is affecting, tunl has
genuine pathos. It reveals die pang% of me-
mory etulttretl by the princely slitrerer:—
When the weather was hall the keeper played at card%
or dominoes with the I tattphiii ; nod sal it WILt4 that, leer
flay. as he was Omitting the far from elegant donsittocts
which they used at their 101111 e, he reminded hint of the
pit sent which the young l'i ince hail fiirtnerly received at
the Tuileries, ft a peri4Nt when he sti3 m njtiyed a shadow
of his former title.. LoNn•, who wits at that time a cap-
tain in the National tinfoil• ball witnessed the pleasure• of
the lief,: son whl u, 111 the llst May, 17111. the military
pupils who conipotied that little regiment of the " Royal
s Welt timo child wax w) fetid m•eing matitetivrti,
cutue tti yresent their colvuti with R bet of

499

made by M. ',alloy, of a block of marble procured nab the
remain* of the Itamile. It was • masterpiece of art; the
box was made of a single piece ; mid the dominoes were
Cut, it WAS Said, out of the jambs which adorned lielattney's
chinowypieee. tin the reverse of each domino them trait
• golden letter, and sU the letters together formed the fol•
lowing inscription :—" Vire le Itni: Viva la Heine! et N.
le lisuphin

It is a feature amongst the sentimentalists
of our age to gloat over the suffetings of an;
gelie children ; and those readers whose sympa
tides mut be moved only by the sorrows of
"Little Tell" and "Iva" will find their
tastes amply entered to by Bestoehosue.
They will meet with a great variety of 1111104440101
like this last extract which we present to
them :
tin the thud (Wednesday, 10th June), at six
o'clock in the evening, either fusser, police commissary,
aeeompanied by citizens Arum& and fioddet, civic mute
missanes of the Temple section, presented himself at the
lower of the Temple, in tinier, enufonnably with a decree
issued by the Council of Ueneral Kafrty, to proeerd to the
offiriiii verification of the 41PC011/41s of the unfortunate little
Cart, and the interment of his remains.
They went up with the keepers to the Seeptid story air
the tower. A ray of sunshine gleamed through the win-
dow, and fell on the Mood-stained sheet winch covered the
remains of the deseendant of Louis now stretched
on a wooden bedstead, without any mattress. Thu sheet
being re •cd, the victim was ecru by the new column's*•
ries, hearing the traces left by the professional men ; the
scalpel of sciencehad mutilated that body, already dis-
figunsl by suffering, but it had respected the pale, cm&
visited fnee, on which an expressing on of indescribable calmness
and purity had attereeded to that of pain. His lips, so far
from being eontracted by death, wore the .ppesralwe
mildness Una serenity ; his eyes, not closed by mortal
hand. had closed of themselves; or, rather. our might haeo
said that, since the fetal couch had lawn deserted by MM.
an angel had breathed on that little head, which, youthful
mind delicate as it was, had yet home the ennui of thorn.
like the rest of his family.

A few days sinee, at the Dublin Exhibition, one
of the first pietures looked at by her Majesty and
the ,youthful Primes was Wapper's work ptir-
tiltyang the unfortunate young Bourbon lean-
ing against his prison walls, His fate, like
that of Ugolino, was a better subject for an
artist than a biographer. May the day never
come when the suffering,' of a British prince
will present a subject for inkspilling aenti•
mentalism !

History qf the Church of Christ to the neveJulio*
A.l). 11004. By this Rev. Charles Mackenzie, A.M.,
Prebendary of St. Penh', tke. London: J. and
W. Robins.
Tuts is an epitome of Church history, " for the use
of schools and private families." its style is mi.
mated and readable, but in the compass of a small
Mayo volume it is scarcely possible to do justice to
the subject. The author has a leaning towards what
are popularly called " high church views," but tin to
is a looseness in his phraseology which makes it
difficult to classify him with certainty. It is a grr at
defect in the hook that it concludes at WIS.

The Church of Scotland Magazine and Review. No.
h. ( Septetalmv.) Edinburgh : Moody.
typography of this periodical has improved,
while its literature still present* great inequality of
merit. 6"fractetrianism in Saitland" is the best
article in the present number, but the writ► es style is
to► diffuse and colloquial for a theological critic.
The paper on "The Irreligion and Vice of our Great
Cities" is only a feeble ►cho of what Chalmers has
already uttered with such power in his "Civic Eco-
nomy of Large Towns." We think it mink' be a
good feature in this magazine if Scotti►.h history
were made a topic for illustration.