The Press.
London, England, 1853-12-03 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

following is Mr. Arnold's description of the
Greek poet's aim and practice
The terrible old m3thic story nu whieh the drama was
founded stood, heron, hr entered the theatre, traced in its
Litre outlines upon the apeetator's mind ; it stood in his
memory, AN a group of statuary, faintly *cep, at the end of
a lung and dark vista : then cause the poet. enabodling out-
lines, developing situations, not a worl wasted, not a semi•
meet capriciously thrown in: stroke nisei stroke, the
drama proceeded: the light deepened upon the group ;
more and more it revealed itself to the rivetted gaze of the
spectator : mud at last, when the final words were spoken,
it stood before him iu broad sunlight, a model of
immortal beauty. This was what a 4:reek trite de-
manded; this was what a Greek poet endeavoured to
effeet.

From this passage, which is itself an in-
stance of what it deseribes, the reader will see
that, whatever may be Mr. Arnold's merits as
it poet, as a prose writer he could rank high.
Holding these opinions, be has, in this collec-
tion of poems, endeavoured to rut them in
practice. " Sohrab and Rustum,' an episode,
the first piece in the volume, is so much an
instance of this subordination of parts to the
whole, and of their dependence one upon the
other, that it is impossible to tear one away
without detriment to it and the rest. There-
fore from that poem we shall not give an
extract. But " Cadmus and Ilarmonia" being
short we are enabled, by giving it entire, to do
justice to Mr. Arnold;—

c.thuus AND Minim:Lt.
Far, far, from here,
The Adriatic breaks in a warm bay
Among the greets Illyrian hills ; and there
The imnshine in the happy glens is fair,
Anil by the wa, and in the brakes.
The gneoi is cool, the sea-side air
Buoyant and fresh, the mountain flowers
More virginal and sweet than
And there, they say, two bright and aged Snakes,
Who once were Cellulite and Ham
Bask in the gione or on the warm seipshere,
In breathless quiet, alter all their ills.
her do they see their country, nor the place
Where the Sphinx lied among the frowning hills.
Kerr the unhappy palace of their race,
Nor Thebes, nor the lament's, any more.
There theme two live, far in the Illyrian brakes.
They had tilay'd long enough to see,
In Thebes, the billow of calamity
Over their own dear children rota,
Clinic upon came, pang upon pang,
For years, they sitting helpless in their home,
A grey Ida man and woman : yet of old
The finds had to their marriage come,
And at the banquet all the Muses sang.
Then,fore they dill not end their days
In sight of blood ; lent were rapt, far away,
To when, the west wind lays,
And murmur* of the Adriatic come
To those untroiblen mountain lawns : and there,
'Placed safely ur chang'd forms, the Pair
Wholly forget their lino sad life, and home,
Antl all that Thelon woe, and stray
For ever through the glens, placid and dumb.
One other extract, from " The Strayed Re-
veller," we cannot refrain from giving
They see the Ferry
On the broad, elsy•lsden
Lone Chormanian at ram : thereon,
With stain and strain,
Two homes, strongly swimming, tow
The fenN•beat, with woven rope*
to either bow
Firm.harness'd by the mane :—a Chief,
With she'd and Aitken spear,
Stands at the prow, and guides them: lint astern,
The cowering Merchants, in long robes,
Sit pale beside their wealth
Of eilkdiales and of balsam-drops,
Of gold and ivory.
Of turquoise-twill and amethyst,
Jasper and chalcedony,
And milk-bared onyx atones.
The loaded boat swings groaning
In the yellow eddies.
The Gods behold them.

The collection includes poems written in a
less classical spirit. but all equally polished.
Of the simpler compositions. " Parting" is the
most pleasing. One, " The Church of 'lron,"
reminds us of Longfellow. in this poem is
word which we conceive must be s misprint :
And the wind ',with,* in the, mountain vines.
A river may be said to wash, and the noise of
the wind rushing through pine-trees is like the
sound of a mountain torrent ; but this involves
a double metaphor, and, as Mr. Arnold's similes
and figurative expressions are generally simple,
we cannot believe this was what he intended.
With regard to the theory in the preface.
much may be said on I,oth sides," and yet it
would lie difficult to come to any practical con-
clusion. It may he conceded that, if a poet's
works were to be confined to a certain space,

SATITRDAY,

it would be better that he should lavish all the
resources of his art on them, and occupy a
lifetime in making them perfect. But would
poetry generally benefit by the adoption of
that theory ? By the application of it Mr
Arnold is compelled to exclude Shakapeare
and Goethe from the list of perfect poets.
But in " Faust," which would the reader prefer?
that the scenes relating to Margaret should be
pruned, clipped, and softened down, so that
they should become properly subordinate to
the whole, or that they should be left entire in
their tragic terror and tender beauty ? lie
would not part with one ; from that,

The flowerpots at my window
Were wet with my tears like dew,
When 1, in the early morning,
Oatbered these flowers for you;
to that in the church, where the rolling organ,
the monks dread hymn, with the whispers of
the busy fiend behind, have left her no peace
on earth, no hope beyond the grave. So again
in Shakspeare. Take Henry IV. ; clearly con-
sidered as a work of art, it is, according to Mr.
Arnold's themy, defective, for certainly we
are much more interested in the fate Of
Pidstajf than in the death of the King, and in
the result of Master Shallow's loan of 1,11011/.
than in the battle of Shrewsbury ; yet would
any reader forego one of these immortal scenes
for the sake of symmetry in the whole? No;
he forgets the disproportion of the whole
figure when gazing on the beauty of the
separate parts. 'Would poetry gain or lose,
then, by the adoption of the plan which Mr.
Arnold recommends, that we should imitate
and emulate " a model of immortal beauty"?
Unquestionably lose; for it would preclude all
but a very few -happily-constituted and highly-
litvoured minds from even entering tho bright
realm of poetry.
Shakspenre and Goethe *mad no doubt
have won their crowns under any system and
any conditions ; but Byron would not have
gained his honours ; perhaps neither would
Shelley ; whilst Scott, and a host of others
who yet give us pleasure, we should never
have even heard of. Again, we must have
rep, trtl to the circumstances of the age in'
which poems are produced. A Greek poet
could not expect to influence a very widely-
extended circle, unless he confined his work
within limits which would enable it to be
read aloud, recited, or acted before an audience
highly refined, critical, and impatient. To
listen to a thing once or twice in which there
are digressions from the main and onward
action is one thing ; to read it often, another.
The object of all poetry is to give pleasure ; and
we cannot but think that these considerations
had been carefully weighed by Goethe, whom
Mr. Arnold admits to be " the greatest critic
" of all times," when he deliberately allowed
" Faust," "judged as a whole, and judged
" strictly as a poetical work," to remain de-
fective. It is certain that to work to any
model would greatly fetter and cramp the
genius of a great original artist, while it would
equally assist the mere pretender, and give to his
sl airious productions the appearance of reality.
We have not many genuine poets—but even
their excrescences and redundancies we would
not willingly prune. Still let them " warble
their native woodnotes wild," and if, judged
by the rules of art, they pour out one tot) many,
we will pardon the error, nay, listen to it de-
lighted, for the sake of its own sweet sound.
But the elements of poetry are eternal: time
and place will not essentially alter them.
Whatsoever kindles human passion, whatso-
ever will cause the heart to swell, the check to
blaneh, the lip to quiver, the eye to glisten
with emotion, that is poetry. The sources of
this power Mr. Arnold possesses. Let him
have recourse to them, and exert it ; and,
whether he imitates and emulates a " model of
immortal beauty" or li.dlows the bent of his
own original genius, we doubt not, from the
specimen before us, he will create a work not
unworthy his great inherited name.

Victoria, late Australia Frli.r. By W. West-
giuth. Loudon : Simpkin and Marshall.
aiscoutt
ON no Australian colony did the disorganisa-
tion following (on) gold discoveries full more.
heavily than on Van Dionen'a Land. Victoria

DEettant ri, 1853.

was compensated in wealth for what she lost
in point of order and comfort. New South
Wales had diggings of her own ; and the
existence of these, coupled With the only
moderate success of those who worked them,
tended to discourage emigration anti keep
down the rising gold fever. iiut in Tasmania
not a solitary ILAget was discovered ; freo
labourers left the island by thousands ; and,
though eonviet labour was athirdetl by Govern-
ment at almost nominal prices, the conscien-
tious scruples of some and the political
predilections of others rendered many un-
willing to accept it. The anti-couviet league,
elsewhere in the ascendant, here declaimed
and threatened for a tune in vain, the social
position of the colony giving its opponents an
advantage by which they were in truth not
slow to profit. The controversy. furiously
ef.rried on on both sides, may he summed up
in few words. The pro-convict party urged
that without tho usual importation of felons
their harvests would have ',teen travestied and
their horses unattended, which was not far
from the actual fact. The league retorted
that the loss of free poptdattbol by inereasiug
the preponderance of the felonious element
augmented the danger to he apprehended
from its intrtalnetion, and furnished an addi-
tional reason for cutting on' the supply in an
argument also not without weight. liut 1110111-
time the gold discoveries were doing their
work in England ; for, by destroying the moral
effect of transportation on the criminal, they
compelled at change of punishment, and saved
Australasia front further pollution.
Victoria did not escape the results of
Varadientonian eonvictism. Of the " tieket-of-
leave men " and the " conditionally pardoned "
hundreds flocked over, with or without leave,
to mingle undetecte.d in the gold-hunting
crowd. It might be thought, that where the
rewards of honest labour were so high there
could he little inducement to steal, but not so
reasoned the ~aped felons. Many worked
fairly in the diggings ; but with the majority
the old instinct wits too powerful :

The tOWIIB, the highways, the gold-tiehls, I Weillll4. infesteil
by tittinber.4 of daring iiiaraiillors, to whose c.*hardrued
miudN human life and human suffering, to say nothing of
Inert. private property, were 11. tilt'
Nitterat'sm. Twn illustrative incidents may be here
alluded to.

good people of Melbonrne had well neettstometi
themselves to the increasing tales of lonshranging, as one
arrival alter another from the opposite, shore of 'Van Itie-
itteit's Land added its knot of desperadoes to the criminal
throng already ace lated. Hut hitherto this terrible
Nadal feature had swot' 104.1.110,1111111.11 to it.S own pripti• and
original locality, " the bosh." Gradually, however, the
stininltis Uf ninnennts assoeiates, and this incessant recnr-
retwe of bold examples in theae criminal adventures, had
given insuppressible andacity to bushrtinging.
The town wan thrown into the greatest eonsternat ion one
ntlernoon by the intelligence that a party of Intslirangent
Lad ernereti its very bountuies, and were " lnriling up " all
and sundry who curried their track. This occurred on a
Saturday between three and four o'clock, when the citizen/4
were either returning to their houses after lousiness, or
enjoying the mild atmosphere. Five men well armed had
taken possession of the highway leading from the capital
hc, the submit of St. Kilda. All who appeared were sum-
marily passed through the ordeal of " Stand and deliver!"
modern penalty of being Monied or shot for disobeiliehee.
After plondering their different prisoners, the gang trans-
ferred them to a place out of view from the road, when,
they were securely honed, and watched over by one of
their captors. For nearly an hair was 111114 extraordinary
game carried on, at the distance of little inure than a mile
from the busiest streets of Mcflootinie, teeming at the
moment with thousands of population. Every one Mobs.
eriminatcly, male and female, lady as well as gentleman,
shared the common fats.; and, when the daring villains at
length took to their horses and made off with their spoils,
they Is-ft no less titan twenty rietlnts behind them. who, as
essayed to nude, each other's cords, and listened to
the resounding hoofs of the retreating for, weighed with a
doubtful balanec the talvtintages 1 defects, the 1.:n.4 and
the evil that hail resulted to the colony from its too cek-
bmted gol4l-tiehla.

This evil threatened to beeome intolerable ;
and so high ran the storm of rtmlar passion,
that the alternatives, discontinuanee of trans-
portation, or aeverance from England, were
agitated in grave earnegt. Ax the sole possible
though eonfessedly imperfect remedy, 'Van
lqemen's lima was laid under a kind of
moral quarantine, it being enacted that any
one coming thence should, if called upon, be
required to ►prove himself not a convict, fling
reveraing fhe usual judirial rule which pro-
ceeds on a presumption of innocence. The
necessity, however, was extreme and the
weitattre orlivititi to haw worked wvll.