The Press.
London, England, 1856-05-17 00:00:00

MAY 17, 1856.

and Itlassinissa to take the command of the
army. Sophonisba nobly urges her lord to
sacrifice all considerations to the claims of his
and the act terminates with his
country
departure for the camp.
In the second act, the senate, to save Car-
thage, have resolved to enter into a conspiracy
with Asdruball to destroy Massinissa, and to
win back the aid of Syphax by bestowing
Sophonisba upon him. One h' nest senator
alone, Gelossa, refuses his assent to the plot.
Sophonisba is removed to the palace of Syphax
to await his return, and Syphax, confident of
the issue, leaves the camp to meet her. Mean-
while Gelossa reveals the treason to 11Iassi-
oissa, who, taking advantage of the absence of
Syphax, cuts his way through his troops, and
joins Scipio.
The third act passes principally in the
palace of Syphax, who endeavours to force
Sophonisba to his wishes. She effects her
escape down a subterranean passage which
leads into a forest ; but is betrayed by her
tire•woman, and followed by Syphax. By this
time the palace is invested by Scipio and
Massinissa.
In the fourth act Syphax overtakes
Sophonisba on the verge of the forest and is
at last so moved by her resolution, that he
pledges himself to employ no more violence,
but to await her own inclinations. Upon this
promise she returns to the palace, and Syphax
invokes a witch who dwells in the forest, the
"dreadful Erictho," to aid him by her charms.
Erictho grants his wishes; and presently, after
some incantations, she assumes the shape of
Sophonisba, and, entering veiled, proceeds to
the couch. Syphax, believing his happiness
complete, hastens under the canopy, and the
act closes.

The fifth act discloses to Syphax the
treachery of the witch, intended to convey the
moral that he who would force love must meet
condign punishment. Massinissa and Scipio
may come upon the scene. Syphax is over-
come in single combat by Massinissa, who
spares his life in consideration of Sophonisba
being safe and unstained. The play might
with propriety end here ; but the tragic:
catastrophe remains yet to be accomplished.
Scipio demands Sophonisba as a prisoner to
grace his triumph ; rather, however, than bo
exposed to such ignominy, she takes poison,
and Massinissa causes her dead body to be
laid before the Roman victor.

Here we have a story of incessant move-
ment. The incidents are numerous, but never
involved in themselves, or extraneous to the
main current of the interest ; and the ter-
mination of each act is so adroitly managed as
always to bring us to a moment of suspense and
expectation. We are the more anxious to
point out these structural principles as being
derived from Shakespeare, and pervading,
more or less, the whole of the contemporary
drama, because they have been generally over-
looked by editors and commentators, whose
attention has been absorbed in other direc-
tions. Of their importance it is needless to
speak. The old dramatists thoroughly under
stood the art of securing the sympathies of
their audiences ; and while they poured into
their dialogue the richest resources of poetry,
they trusted mainly for success to the vehicle
of action They knew that the highest in-
spirations of genius would fail if the living
interest of the scene were suffered to subside ;
and the greatest marvel of their works is that
they combined both.

Memoirs of the Life and Writings of James
Montgomery. Vols. 111., IV., V., and VI.
London: Longmans.
WHEN we noticed the two first volumes of this
Work (PREss, Jan. 27, 1855) we expressed our
opinion that the authors had formed an exag-
gerated opinion of the importance of their
subject. Few persons ever led a less eventful
life than James Montgomery. After he had
settled in Sheffield, his fortunes became fixed.
The profits of his newspaper and printing
business, added to the sums he received for
Ins writings, gave him an income which, though
mode ate, was more than sufficient for his
simple wants. He had no strong passions to
vex, nor crotchets to mislead, him. The pru-
dellt poet saved money, and iu 4140 gar V9*

THE

RE

S.

tired from business, and for the rest of his
life resided in a pretty house on the Mount at
Sheffield. Of a modest disposition, he mixed
little in the world. His genius was neither
vivid nor varied. Its whole force was ex-
hausted in his poems. He uttered few sayings
worth remembering, and wrote few letters
worth preserving. The four volumes before
us yield only the very tamest materials for
biography. Montgomery's letters are com-
monly diffuse about nothing. Their want of
matter is not relieved by elegance of expres-
sion. They might have been esteemed by
the persons to whom they were addressed,
but to the stranger they appear little better
than twaddle.

We are sorry to speak harshly of a work
which has evidently been prepared with great
care. To Messrs. Holland and Everett, Mont-
gomery must have appeared a Tritan. Mr.
Everett relates that so great was his anxiety to
see the poet, that he actually went into the
shop at Sheffield, and bought a volume of his
poems for five shillings, with the hope that he
might catch a glimpse of the renowned author.
He succeeded, and considered himself amply
repaid for his money. But then, as we are
told, the poet " pleasantly replied" to Mr.
Everett, when he heard this anecdote, " You
" got something for your money." In the nar-
rative it is duly set forth :

The spring of the present year is associated in the mind
of one of tho biographers with very pleasing recollections,
as having been the period when he first obtained, what the
works of Montgomery had long led him ardently to wish
for, a sight of their author, &c.

The biographers should have recollected that
had Montgomery occupied as great a space
in the world's eye as he did in theirs, the
public would yet only value his memoirs for
what they contained. The scraps of his con-
versation retailed here are far below the
powers of mind which he certainly must have
possessed. He seems to have been much in-
clined to " improve " trifling circumstances as
they occurred. A cloud of soot falls down his
chimney, and it becomes a iLarning to him„
'how little a human being is‘n his own hands
"at any time." The most trifling incidents
are constantly magnified in these volumes.
Once when Montgomery was speaking at a
missionary meeting, the gaslights went out,
and there is a long account of the terribleness
of the situation, and of the narrow escape of
the poet, through a candle being brought near
his face by a man who was employed to place
lights in the chandelier. On another occasion
he slept in a strange house, and was thrown
into consternation by a kitten escaping from
a cupboard " Montgomery" says Mr.
" told these stories in a strain of vivid-
ness and sensibility which is but feebly re-
" presented in the foregoing details." The
volumes are full of the like nonsense. Even
with a pen in his hand, Montgomery was not
always wise. Some of the rhymes given
here might with advantage to the poet's re-
putation have been omitted, as this epitaph
for example :

She lived, with death before her eye,
As one who did not fear to die ;
She died, as one exchanging breath
For immortality in death :
Her &ail is here,—her spirit there,—
Eternity ! 0 !ell me where !
Who would imagine that these lines proceeded
from the author of that lyric of surpassing
beauty, " The Grave"? He was in general rather
distinguished for pleasing images and medi-
tative verse, than for imar,mative fire, but that
piece, from its theme and its force, rises to the
true sublime. Montgomery must have had
moments of genuine inspiration ; he could
never have written what he has written other-
wise. But probably his constant use of his
pen, as matter of business, tended to wear
down his faculties, and to prevent, except on
ram occasions, that concentration of thought
and style essential to masterly composition.
His prose was weak, very wordy, and entirely
wanting in point and colour.
The facts concerning Montgomery in these
volumes may be told in few lines. In 1813
he published his principal poem, " The World
before the Flood "—a composition on which
he had laboured with extraordinary care. The
biographers tell us that the " work not only
" satisfied the large expectations of the au
" Olaf§ friends, but elevated his name." We

47

do not, however, find any of those details of
success which we are always glad to meet
with —as the copies sold, and the profit re-
ceived by the author. One of the finest
images in the poem, it is noted, subsequently
reappeared in the verse of Byron. Mont-
gomery wrote :
All else that breathed below the circling sky
Were linked to earth by some endearing tie ;
He only, like the ocean weed uptoru,
And loose among the world of waters borne,
Was cast companionless from wave to wave
On life's rongk sea, and there was none to save.
Byron, in the third canto of " Childe Harold,"
adopted (perhaps unconsciously) the image in
describing his waudei ings

For I am as a weed,
Flung from the rock on ocean's foam to sail
Where'er the surga may sweep, the tempest's breath
prevail.
The few particulars given as to the progress of
" The World before the Flood" are valuable
as real biography. It is said :
During the composition of this poem Montgomery was
fond of solitary walking, like Lune going " out to medi-
tate in the field at the eventide ;" and there is reason to
believe that the beautiful scenery around Sheffield often
suggested the outlines of those antediluvian pictures
which the warmth of his imagination has heightened into
something like paradisiacal beauty.
The ideas of most persons flow easily when
taking exercise in the open air. Those moods
of the mind are the happiest which are quite
unforced.
In the same year, 1813, he made his first
appearance as a platform orator, and after-
wards spoke frequently at missionary meet-
ings. For some years subsequently we find
no entries of greater importance than that he
conscientiously declined to admit lottery ad-
vertisements into the Iris, and that his news-
paper, under a new foreman, assumed an
improved appearance. " Mr. Ray induced his
" principal to obtain a new fount of type," &c.
In 1819 appeared his missionary poem of
" Greenland," and in 1822 he took an active
part in the formation of " a literary and philo-
sophical society in Sheffield." His speech is
given here entire, and some thousand copies
of it, we are told, were distributed. In 1825
he sold his newspaper, the Iris, which seems
to have been too " slow " for the taste of the
times, and withdrew from all part in its
management. His conduct in the sale was,
much to his credit, marked by sensitive
honesty. The money agreed on for the cony-
right (4001.) he left in the purchaser's hands,
never intending to call for it should the specu-
lation prove unsuccessful
In 1828 he published his " Pelican Island,"
which met with only partial favour. A passage
in the preface is worth noting, as indicative of
the workings of the author's mind :
Poetic spirits seem to have seasons of intellectual
revelation, when themes long meditated, and apparently
meditated in vain, are suddenly presented in such a light
that thenceforward they have nothing to do hut by long
and patient labour to develop the inspired conception of s
few rnomehta.
From this date Montgomery seems to have
found employment, moderately remunerative,
for his pen ; and, having some capital, he be-
came chairman of the first gas company at
Sheffield, which seems to have returned a large
dividend, fifteen per cent., to the great discon-
tent of the town. His life flowed tranquilly
on, and in 1835 he was agreeably surprised to
receive a pension of 1501. from the hands of
Sir Robert Peel. His circumstances were
now easy, and his fame was established. The
sixth volume carries the memoir down to the
close of 1846. We suppose there will be two
more tomes, though it is difficult to imagine
with what they can be filled.
Before concluding, let us give a specimen of
the kind of matter the biographers continually
intrude on us :
On passing a shop•window, the poet suddenly stopped.
Montgomery : That is beautifuldooking tobacco : I want a
little ; but it is an article on which I presume you can
exercise no judgment ?—Holland : No, sir; and posterity
will, no doubt, be a little svrprised, should I ever take it
by the button and say, " Mr. Montgomery was a smoker 1 "
Montgomery replied sensibly enough—" Pos
" terity will care nothing about the matter.-
What posterity will say has been a sad snar"
to the biographers It has tempted them to
set down all the local doings and stnall•talk of
a manufacturing town, and to make two very
drill geutlomeo, by 131411:10 Holland and tiV041614

I
C
1,
t
S
a
ii
Si
S
tl
ci
ti
n
c,
II
b
S
C:
RI
1
it
II
e.
II
d
ti
sI
FI
tl
tl
tl
0:
s
ii
tl
.1

• 4, ,pgr