The Press.
London, England, 1858-07-31 00:00:00

MINOR POEMS.

REVIEWERS are so often charged with being
useless or mischievous to literature and to the
public that they may well feel a peculiar satis-
faction in occasionally doing a stroke of work of
which no one can question the utility. When
they pass sentence upon the laborious works of
eminent authors, it certainly becomes them to be
cautious, and to see that they do not assume a
higher position than they have any right to
claim. In these cases, if a reviewer is not on his
guard, he may certainly do harm instead of good
to literature and the public taste. But unknown
authors, at any rate, if they have merit, find
their best friends in the reviewer. They lose no
reputation by his unfavourable judgment, for
they have none to lose; while, on the other hand,
the approbation of the public press insures their
success. Not less useful is the reviewer in these
cases to the public; for the works of unknown
authors have to show cause why they should be
read, and it is in the reviewer's court that this
question is decided. Reviewers are the guar-
dians of the time of the reading public. They
are placed at the gates to exclude summarily all
frivolous and importunate authors. In short, the
proper defence of the art against the clamorous
upbraiding of " the irritable race" is this,—
when the Board of Reviewers give judgment
upon the degree of an author's merit, their sen-
tence may often deserve to be reversed, but when
it is confined to the question whether or no he
has merit, it is seldom wrong.
Peculiarly necessary is it that there should be
a commission of this sort to examine and report
upon the works of new poets. No one but a re-
viewer can read bad poetry, and as of the new
poetry which issues from the press a very large
proportion is bad, if there were no reviewers the
public would be reduced to the necessity of neg-
lecting good and had alike. The bad poet must
not be encouraged on any account, and the
poet is not absolutely necessary to our werarel.
Poled duci rrena sine ilk For this service of
ejecting bad poets with all despatch and of re-
scuing good ones from neglect—still more of en-
couraging those who are not good but promise to
become so—the reviewer deserves, it must be al-
lowed on all hands, the thanks of the community.
In the discharge of this office it is our painful
duty to pronounce sentence of oblivion against
"Palestine Revisited, and Other Poems," by J.
Mitchell, M.A. (Webster). We hope the author
may have more talent for prose. He intorms us
in his preface that he wishes to press upon the
public in these poems certain truths which he
considers to be " greatly lost sight of." If so, he
should cast about for some better way of "press-
ing" them. Truth had much better be at the
bottom of a well than at the bottom of these
verses. We solemnly declare that we have read

them, and that we have not discovered the
truths. As Count de Grammont said, they the
be there incognito. But enough; let us etidea.
your to forget the painful subject, and for the
poems, let them

at once be blest
In Shadwell's bosom with eternal rest.

"Chiming Trifles, by an Oxonian" (Rent), is
less ambitious, and, if not of any great intrinsic
merit, deserves to escape condemnation. It is
dedicated to the friends of the author's under•
graduate days, and if it revives his image in their
minds we doubt not that one great purpose of its
publication will be answered. We should
imagine that they will remember their college
friend with pleasure, for we judge him from his
verses to be genial, merry, and kindhearted, liis
gay pieces are not very witty, but the mirth
springs up naturally ; his grave pieces are rather
dull, but they are quite unaffected. Any one
who may wish to recall his days of undergraduate.
ship, his half-forgotten horror of proctors and
deans, his contempt for freshmen, and for men
who read too much, cannot do better than turn
over these pages. Old Shylock transformed into
a miserable hunted undergraduate turning des.
perately upon his pursuers is amusing :
Well then, it now appears, on want my cash.
Go to then : you send for me, and you say
" Young man, we would have monies ": you say so;
You that did proctorize me in the High—

Shall I bend low, and in a Freshman's key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness,
Say this—
" Fair sir, you pulled me up on Wednesday last :
You wigged me such a day; another time
You gated me; and for these courtesies
I pay you thus much monies."
We next come to " Sonnets, by the Rev John
Eagles" (Blackwoods). Mr. Eagles wrote for
many years in Blackwood's Magazine. The best
of his contributions in prose were collected into a
single volume and published about a year ago.
The same author now comes before us as
a sonneteer. The editor of this volume has
quoted in the preface Mr. Eagle's opinions
upon the sonnet. The passage appears to show
that its author had given special attention
to this style of composition, and that he piqued
himself upon understanding the trick of it. lle
enlarges upon the unity and completeness which
ought to characterize the sonnet ; he judges
that if it be possible to add a line or a word,
the sonnet is no sonnet. This is all very true,
but we think that there is another truth
which Mr. Eagles has not sufficiently con-
sidered. Bacon says that the aphorism is
the most effectual test of the philosopher.
An ordinary philosopher may write an essay or a
treatise ; to produce a single memorable sentence
is less easy. So in Greece Nestor's eloquence
might flow like honey, and the words of Ulysses
fall like snowflakes, but no words were wasted in
the oracles of the gods. In poetry the same rule
obtains. Brevity is the last and most difficult
achievement. It is very well to say that the son-
net should contain but a single thought, but can
Mr. Eagles supply thoughts of weight sufficient
singly to support a whole poem ? The half-
digested conceits that might present themselves to
a mind which certainly neither nature nor educa-
tion had furnished with clear or large conceptions
—the thin and unsubstantial fancies out of which a
second-rate article in Blackwood might be made,,
dressed in elaborate Miltonic periods instead of
their appropriate slip-shod prose, however care-
fully fourteen lines, neither more nor less, may
be meted out to each—do not after all constitute
good sonnets. Let the work be as good as po,-
sable, the poverty of the stuff cannot be concealed.
Let them be ingenious, neat ; let them, in short,
have a thousand- merits, nevertheless they have
one incurable defect—they are trivial. Thist
tout ce qu'il veut, mail malheureusement it n'a rten
a dire.

Sonnets have been at a discount since the
death of Wordsworth, who produced several
masterpieces in this kind, though in the multitude
which he composed it must be confessed that the
good ones form a minority. Of late years the
best which have been written, in our opinion, are
the eight which Mr. Matthew Arnold published
we believe, in 1849. This writer, in all whose
thoughts there is a certain solidity and
ua ul
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style a certain natural dignity, naturalis q
auctorstas, writes sonnets which, without any
mark of imitation, have many points of suiu-