The Press.
London, England, 1857-01-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

each that share of the mind's attention to
which each is entitled. That the pulpit does
not possess greater influence over society than
it has, is in great part owing to the impracti-
cable standard of conduct it sets up. It is
impossible that in this active industrial ago
men can be brought to despise the world, or to
renounce self. For good or for evil, earthly
things must largely occupy our thoughts, and
occasion us great anxiety; and it is vain to
listen to admonitions which the very nature
of our state makes it impossible for us to carry
into effect. The pulpit of our day might with
great advantage be more practical than it is,
and set forth a standard which men might
hope to attain in conduct, trusting to other
merits than their own to make amends for the
sin and selfishness which they are conscious
dwells within them, but which they feel that
the condition of their being prevents them
from wholly subduing. Dr. Taulees sermons
are full of exquisite spiritual feeling, and may
he studied to encourage the growth of spiri-
tual dispositions, though as a guide to prac-
tical conduct they can be of little service.
They are so far from showing how the claims
of God and the world can be reconciled—the
great want of our day—that they expressly
state that the latter must be abandoned, if the
former are to be realised. Such renunciation
is inconsistent with the whole constitution of
modern society, and with the instincts of
human nature. May not much of Our Lord's
teaching on the text, " Take no thought for
" to-morrow," be accounted for by the fact
that he addressed men who were to be directly
sustained by miracle, in the performance of a
work wholly superior to the ordinary concerns
of life?

The volume is carefully produced, and may,
we think, be consulted with advantage by all
classes of serious readers.

Under Green Leaves. By Charles Mackay.

London : Routledge.
WE have put some constraint upon ourselves
on previous occasions in order that we might
not be hasty in expressing marked disapproval
of a poet who had undoubtedly composed
some of the most popular songs of the day.
Popularity, however, which acts differently on
different natures, stimulati►►g some to higher
efforts, and lulling others into carelessness,
has had the worst effect of all on Mr. Mackay.
It has induced him to suppose that the ap-
plause which followed a few lucky songs was
sufficient to stamp him as a great poet, just
as if a man who got cheered for a smart after-
dinner speech should forthwith imagine him-
self a Burke or a Chatham—or a schoolboy
who distinguishes himself at a rat hunt
should aspire to the honour of hunting the
Quorndon hounds.
Were Mr. Mackay merely a verse-writer,
and nothing else, his feebleness would insure
impunity.

Who could take offence
Where pure description held the place of sense?
But he claims to be a political writer too, and,
indeed, grounds his pretensions to considera-
tion very much on the semi-political character
of all that he publishes. Of all kinds of radi-
cal, your pseudo-philanthropical radical is the
most offensive,—the man who affects to be•
lieve that all the upper classes are united in
one vast conspiracy to crush and trample on
the poor—who gives out that he is the poet of
the million—who will lighten their sufferings
by song, and call down vengeance on their
oppressors. In these days this kind of twad-
dle is so manifestly insincere—so clearly put
on for a purpose—so obviously the last device
of a man who resolves to be the poet of the
ignorant, because he never could be the poet
of any other class, that we are astonished Mr.
Mackay should find any respectable literary
organ to back up his pretensions. This hypo-
crisy of sentiment is visited on Mr. Mackay's
power of expression ; for anything more
pithless and bombastic than the political
pieces of the present volume it has rarely
been our lot to encounter. The piece entitled
•• Storm Approaching," in which Mr. Mackay
predicts destruction by fire and water simul-
taneously for the whole existing state of

41

things, is a notable instance. Here arc the
two last stanzas :

When a fierce and a searching spirit
Shall stalk o'er the startled earth,
And make great thrones the playthings
Of his madness nr his mirth ;
When ancient creeds and systems,

In the fury of his breath,
Shall whirl like the leaves of Autumn

When the north wind belloweth,
And drift away unheeded,
To the deep deep seas of death.

The first large raindrops patter,
The low wind moans met slugs.
Awake, ere the tempest gather,
Rulers and priests and kings,
Ere the thunder clouds are opened
That wall and flank the sky,
Ere tile whirlwind leaves its caverns,
And the shafts of vengeance fly—
Look up, ye drowsy people,
There's desolation nigh.
Mr. Mackay would confound the hissing of a
few ganders with the whistling of the forest
oak : but the whole noise and fury of this
production is evidently assumed and not real.
The sentiments are as strained and laboured
as the language, and differ as much from the
true prophetic vein as the long face of an
undertaker front the real grief of the widow
or the orphan.
What Mr. Mackay might do if he were to
rely on his own natural powers, and discard
politics, must yet remain undetermined. Ho
has written some good verses, and in the pre-
sent volume there is certainly one poem
which gives evidence of genius. " Lullings-
worth," a poem written in blank verse of six
syllables, is decidedly touching, unaffected,
and almost beautiful, and stands in marked con-
trast %shit the puny and lifeless compositions
with which it is surrounded. The large ma•
jority of these are as we have described them.
We have indeed no sympathy with what it is
now the fashion to call the spasmodic school,
though a less expressive word could not well
have been invented. But Mr. Mackay's pro-
test against them in a piece entitled " Mist,"
is ten thousand times worse, and his practical
testimony in the shape of purely descriptive
or objective writing tediously inane. " An-
gling," " The Eglantine," " The Briary
Wreath, " are examples of what we mean.

Flow, liver, flow, •
Where the violets grow,
Where the bank is steep
And the mosses sleep,
And the green trees nod to thy waves below :
Flow on and make sweet music ever,
Thou joyous and beloved river !
Now, really, when a writer of Mr. Mackay's
reputation tries to persuade the world that
such stuff as this is poetry, it is high time kr
every one who respects literature to aid iu ex-
ploding the imposture. Mr. Mackay has been
praised by journals of high repute. Surely
they will now reconsider their verdict. If a
writer, whatever may be his powers, chooses
to publish such infantine babbling as this, he
must take the consequences. If he will per-
sist in mistaking ease fur vigour, he must
be told the truth, however roughly. Some
healthy effort Nature usually requires in all
her performances, and mere incontinence is a
proof of weakness, and not of strength.
To his other faults Mr. Mackay now adds
those of plagiarism. Some of his poems are
as much like Tennyson as if they had been
written by Bon Gualtier. " The Trees "is one
such ; and a poem styled " Cavelles," another.
We defy any person to read these, and then
say that the likeness is an accidental coinci-
dence. Persons of ordinary common sense
have pretty well determined, without the aid
of critics, in what plagiarism consists. When
a great poet takes from a little one, it is merely
genius claiming its lawful privilege. When a
little poet takes from a great one, no such
allowance can be made. A rich man may
take a potatoc out of the cottager's dish, and
it is merely an act of courtesy. But if the
latter plunders his landlord's kitchen, we call
it by a very different name.

If Mr. Mackay is too old to wend, he would
do better to retire from the service at once,
than bring discredit on his profession by the
continued perpetration of these fraudulent
anilities.