The Press.
London, England, 1857-08-29 00:00:00

Now, it is impossible that the noise of bees in
a sycamore, that delightful garden music, can
bear Etny resemblance to a single voice. The
prevalent sensation excited by this sound is
that of a distant multitude—a faint low buzz
proceeding, from an innumerable swarm of
insects. Yet, on the other hand, if we turn
over the page, we shall find an inimitably
truthful and happy metaphor. Describing his
companions, he says of one

Among the rest,
Sat one with visage red wish sun and wind,
As the last hip upon the frosted
In the course of the conversation ono of the
party sings a song; in it occur the following
expressions :
Could I but win you for an hour from off that starry shore.
Meaning heaven. Now, how can a shore be
starry? This is one of those bastard meta•
pliers humorously exposed in No. 595 of the
Spectator. And then, a little lower down :
Round aetfish shores for ever moans the hurt and wounded
1143‘

This is a new conception of the sea,
which we do not at all admire. Hurt and
wounded by whom, or for what end? Bait,
however explained, the idea is fatal to the
dignity and grandeur of the ocean, as the
eternal and hoary conqueror of man's puny
devices.

We will take our leave of " Horton" with
the following fine quotation:—
I picture Art
As some great captive in a gloomy cell,
Who strives in vain to satisfy himself,
By carving every inch of wall and roof
With images of former state, and shapes
That haunt him with their beauty ; awl, unsought,
There starts beneath his chisel—saddening all,
Freezing the lovely groups of singing girls,
Bursting thromo every bunch of leaf and flower—
Strange images of grief.
- - -

The next in order is a piece entitled " Glas-
gow," and is a sort of comparison between the
beauties of town and country. On the whole,
it is a truthful and lofty composition, as the
following selections will prove :
Black Labour draw.; his weary waves,
Into their secret•moaning caves ;
But with the morning light,
That sea again will overflow
With a long weary sound of woe,
Again to faint in night.
Wave sin I in that sea of woes,
Which, night and morning, ebbs and flows.
• • • • •

O fair the lightly sprinkled waste,
O'er which a laughing sh•mer has raced!
0 fair the April shoots !
0 fair the woods on summer days,
While a blue hyscinthine haze
Is dreaming; round the roots!
In thee, 0 City ! I discern
Another beauty, sad and stern.
Draw thy fierce streams of blinding ore,
Smite on a thousand anvils, roar
Down to the harlour•bars ;
Smoulder in smoky sunsets, flare
On rainy nights, with street and square
Lie empty to the stars.
From terrace proud to alley base
I know thee as my mother's face.
When sunset bathes thee in his gold,
In wreaths of bronze thy sides are rolled,
Thy smoke is dusky fire ;
And, from the glory round thee poured,
A sunbeam like an aneel's sword
Shivers upon a spire.
Thus have I watched thee, Terror! Dream)
While the blue Night crept up the stream.
The wild Train plunges in the hills,
He shrieks across the midnight rills ;
Streams through the shifting glare,
The roe'. and flap of foundry fires,
That shake with light the sleeping shires;
And on the moorlands bare,
He sees afar a crown of light
Hang o'er thee in the hollow night.
Perhaps if tbtre is any exception to our asser-
tion that there is no one passage in the "City
Poems " containing all the attributes of the
highest poetry, it is to be found in these
stanzas. But the poem is disfigured in other
parts by the same kind of mistakes and
mannerisms that we have already pointed cut.
In the second stanza Mr. Smith says :
Neer dwelt I where great mornings shine.
Now, there is a school of criticism that would
demand why morni g is greater than evenina.
Lot to take Mr. Smith upon his own ground
e will presume that he means by the word
"great" the broad, genial, life-breathing bright-
atiee a Ane morning, and axe *elm of fiee•