The Press.
London, England, 1855-01-27 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

the mind of candid critics, to an honourable
place among living poets. The origin of The
Grave " may be quoted here as a curious lite-
rary anecdote, and as illustrative of the eccen-
tric workings of a poetic mind :

The fact was, this popular little poem originated in a
circumstance, trivial enough in itself, but curious as con-
nected with the history of the verses in question. Mont-
gomery had a favourite English bullfinch, which he pur-
chased from a poor man at Norton, who had taught it to
whistle the Scotch air called " Jockey to the Fair," as well as
parts of some others. Its notes were exceedingly soft and
varied ; " not," he observed, " like those of certain wire-
throated birds, but rather like the sweet tones of a Bute ;
and when Bully sung, he seemed not so much to modu-
late with his bill, in the manner of song birds in general,
but, as it were, to produce the sounds from his belly in the
manner of a ventriloquist." This feathered favourite
died, after having been Montgomery's entertaining com-
panion for five years; and the two stanzas at the com-
mencement of the " Grave " were actually written for the
purpose of being buried with the bullfinch, and the copy of
them was laid aside, and out of sight, a considerable time.
Turning them up one day casually, " I thought," said he,
" they were too good to be buried; I therefore pursued the
train of thought which they elicited, and thus originated
the poem." Holland : " How did you dispose of the dead
bird ?" Montgomery : " I sealed him up in a paper coffin,
with a copy of the verses, and buried him in Cook Wood.
There was one verse in the original more particularly
lamenting the bullfinch, which of course did not appear iu
the ' Grave 'as published. Ido not now recollect it.'
On the publication of Montgomery's " Wan-
derer of Switzerland," the Edinburgh Review,
at this time on the look out for " great delin-
quents," determined to make an example of
Montgomery, and Jeffrey himself threw all the
gall of his nature into the ink with which he
penned the article intended to crush him.
The critique is audacious, but nothing more.
In some respects it is even a greater mistake
than the one levelled at Byron, as it shows a
yet more extraordinary incapacity of discern-
ing the promise of poetic genius. It
pained Montgomery deeply, but does not seem
to have injured the sale of his volume in the
slightest degree. The " half profits" brought
him altogether 8001., while the poem itself
gained him many friends. A paragraph of the
review is worth quoting as showing how
miserably the public may be imposed on in
literary matters by any ape who pretends to
superior taste and discernment :
Mr. Montgomery is one of the most musical and me•
lancholy fine gentlemen we have lately descried on the
laver slopes of Parnassus. He is very weakly, very
finical, and very affected. His affectations too are the
most usual and the most offensive of those that are com-
monly met with in the species to which he belongs. They
are affectations of extreme tenderness and delicacy, and of
great energy and enthusiasm. Whenever he does not
whine he must rant, &c.

No literary organ has ever made such mon-
strous mistakes on poetry as the Edinburgh
Review. The founders of it were no more capable
of judging poetry than a blind man is of distin-
guishing colours, or a donkey of appreciating
melody. But, with that strange perversity
which often attends a certain degree of intel-
lectual sharpness, they conceived that poetical
criticism was their mission, and that it was
their duty to judge and sentence every poet
who did not conform to the standard of Dryden
and Pope.
From this date there is little to relate in
the life of Montgomery. Two cantos of his
" World before the Flood " were written in
1810. But when the second volume of the
memoirs closes, in November, 1812, the poem
was yet on the anvil. " It has been three
" years in my hands," writes Montgomery
(Nov. 12, 1812), " during which time it has
" been written once completely, and then
" broken up and half written on a new plan,
" and a second time remodelled. Many vexa
" tions and interruptions I have suffered in
" the progress of it, and have sometimes.laid it
" aside for months in despondency. At pre
" sent I begin to think I may finish it on its
" present plan in the course of a few weeks,
" and then I shall immediately set about re-
" vising for the press."
His progress had been slow, but it had been
steady. He was at this time greatly respected
in Sheffield, and he had gained a name in the
world. It is only to be regretted that so
much of his time was occupied with pursuits
uncongenial to his nature. He was a true
poet, not only in intellect, but in the sensi-
bility of his constitution, and we believe would
have written more, and have risen higher, had
he, like Wordsworth, been placed in a position
to indulge his tastes without restraint. It

may be remarked, however, that ho always
held that external objects had no power over
the mind when it was engaged in the act of
composition. We believe that the sentiment
of the following paragraph is literally true
Mr. Everett one day remarked to Montgomery that Mat
lock would be a fine situation fur the permanent residence
of a poet, as the beauty and variety of the scenery, ac-
cording to the current opinion, would induce sublime
thoughts. He partly exploded the notion; observing that
he should have to lament for his own situation if it was so.
" From the room in which I sit to write," said Montgo-
mery, " and where some of may happiest pieces have been
produced—those, I mean, which are most popular—all the
prospect I have is a confined yard, where there are some
miserable old walls and the backs of houses, which present
to the eye neither beauty, variety, nor anything else calcu-
lated to inspire a single thought, except concerning the
rough surface of the bricks, the corners of which have
either been chipped off by violence, or fitted away by the
weather. No ; as a general rule, whatever of poetry is to
be derived from scenery, must be secured before we sit
down to compose ; the impressions must be made already
and the mind must be abstracted from surrounding objects.
It will not do to be expatiating abroad in observation when
we should be at home in ooncentration of thought,"

The memoirs of the poet Crabhe are conve-
niently comprised in one small volume, though,
on the whole, his life is rather more eventful
than that of James Montgomery. We regret
that these biographers did not follow so excel-
lent an example. One volume, instead of the
four (at least) which we imagine are intended,
would have been very welcome to the public;
but the really important matter is at present
smothered under a heap of mere verbal rub-
bish. In the " correspondence " are some
interesting letters from !Southey. We conclude
with some pasages front them, illustrative of
this indefatigable author's intellectual activity
and religious belief :
Keswick, May 6, 1811.
I have passed through many changes of belief, as is
likely to be the case with every man of ardent mind who is
not early gifted with humility. Gibbon shook niy belief in
Christianity when I was a school-boy of seventeen. When
1 went to college it was in the height of the French Hero-
lution—and I drank deeply of that cup. 1 had a friend
there whose name you have seen in my poems—Edmund
Seward, an admirable man in all things, whose only fault
was that he was too humble; fur humble, even to a fault,
he was. In his company my religious interests were
strengthened. But to those who have any religious feel-
ing, you need nut be told how chilling and withering the
lip-service of a university must be. Sick of the college,
chapel, and church, we tried the meeting-louse ; and there
we were disgusted too. Seward left college meaning to
take orders; I, who had the same destination, became a
deist after he left us, and turned my thoughts to the pro-
fession of physic. Ciodwin's book fell into my hands;
many of his doctrines appeared as monstrous to we then
as they do now; but I became enamoured of a philoso-
phical rnillenium. Coleridge came from Cambridge to
visit a friend at Oxford on his way to a journey in Wales.
That friend was my bosom oempaniou: Culeridge was
brought to my rooms—and that meeting hied the future
fortunes of us both.
Coleridge had at that time thought little of politics ; in
morals he was as loose as men at a university usually are :
but he was a Unitarian. My morals were of the sternest
stoicism : that same feeling which made me a poet kept
me pure—before I had used Werther and Rousseau for
Epictetus. Our meeting was mutually agreeable; I re-
formed his life, and he disposed me towards Chris
by showing me that none of the arguments that h
me to renounce it were applicable against the
scheme. He remained three or four weeks at
and we planned an Utopia of our own, to be fouuded Ia .
wilds of America upon the basis of common property—
each labouring fur all—a Pantisoeracy—a republic of Bea-
son and Virtue.
For this dream I gave up every other prospect. How
painfully and slowly I was awakened from it, this is not
the time to say ; for my purpose is but to show you where
I have been upon my pilgrim's progress, and how far I
have advanced upon the way. I became a Sucinian from
the reasonableness of the scheme ; and still more so be-
cause 1 wag shocked by the consequences of irreligion,
such as they were seen in my daily intercourse with
sceptics, unbelievers, and atheists. I reasoned on it till I
learnt and felt how vain it is to build up a religion wholly
upon historical proofs. I learnt that religion could never
be a living and quickening principle if we only assented to
it as a mere act of the understanding. Something more
was necessary—an operation of grace—a manifestation of
. .

the Spirit—in inward revelation--a recognition of re-
vealed truth. This drew me towards Quakerism, yet with
too clear a perception of the errors and follies of the
Quakers to be wholly in union with them. In what has
all this ended? you will ask. That lam still what in old
times was milled a seeker,--a sheep without a fold, but not
without a shepherd; clinging to all that Christ has dearly
taught, but shrinking from all attempts at defending, by
articles of faith, those points which the gospels have left
indefinite. lamof no visible church, but assuredly I feel
myself in the communion of saints.
Keswick, Jan. 2, MIS.
Yon wish me a sounder frame, both of body and mind,
than your own. My body, God be thanked 1 is as con-
venient a tenement as its occupier could desire. NS hen you
see me you will fancy me far advanced in consumption, so
little is there of it ; but there has never been more: and
though it is by no means unlikely (from family predlaposi•