The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-29 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The Isles of .L,ch, Awe, and other Poems of my
Youth. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Lon-
don : Painter. 1853.
A graceful little volume of from 300 to 400 page
of verse, embellished with some sixteen charming
woodcut illustrations—poetry and pictures from
the same youthful hand, that of one Philip Gilbert
Hamerton. Thank Heaven, Mr. Hamerton is, at
any rate, not ono of your incomprehensibles. He
writes melodiously, and, what is not a jot less de-
lightful, his writings are within the grasp of an or-
dinarily intelligent understanding. He, at least,
is not another of your dreaming mystics in the ars
poetica, another of your mooning metaphysicians
in pindarics-run-mad, another of those bewildering
rhapsodists dear to the heart of Mr. George Gil-
fillan, disciples hailed with such ecstatic peeaus of
rapture by the organs of your Baillieists of the
pur sang your true, genuine, blue-blooded Brown-
ingites. Mr. Hamerton, if he speaks to us from a
lesser elevation than a pythonic tripod, neither
foams at the mouth nor roars forth the ranting
sublimities of metrical nonsense and rhyming rho-
domontade. He thinks, and feels, and, besides
this, has somehow or other the nack of telling us
with a certain terse lucidity of language what it is
ho thinks and feels, what are the precise
shape and colour of his fancies, what the
tendency and source of his sensibilities.
In other words—he is sane—a declaration that
cannot very confidently be pronounced upon every
young poetic adventurer nowadays, one at any
rate we should not dare to articulate indiscrimi-
nately as applied to the author of every maiden
effort of versification in these later times, without
having first of all instituted a very searching criti-
cal commission de lunatico inquirendo. Judging
from his predecessors in the path to Parnassus, it
would really,seem that Pegasus, honest steed, has
recently got a spice of the devil in his nature, hav-
ing a trick of serving almost every experimentalist
who ventures to bestride that Destrier of the Demi-
gods of Son;, somewhat after the same fashion as
the flying horse in the " Arabian Nights' Enter-
tainments." Insomuch that there aro now stray-
ing about the fields of contemporary literature at
this notable juncture, more, we fear a great many
more, than merely iree one-eyed Calendars—the
victims of their temerity in aspiring to soar to the
Clouds from their palace of Brass ! Mr. Hamerton,
happily for himself and for us his readers, has fared
better in his literary adventures, being at this pre-
sent, if we may judge of him so far from his book,
uomore afflicted with the prevailing one-eye'd-ness,
than with the horrid obliquity of judgment and
taste consequent upon a sort of moral strabismus.
His literary principles are intimated clearly enough
through the four eminently suggestive and signifi-
cant mottoes emblazoned on the fair escutcheon of
the fly-leaf almost immediately following the title-
page. Emerson leads :the way with his reverent
and notable dictum—" Tradition supplies a better
fable than any invention can." Goethe follows
with his kindred thought—" Let no one say that
reality lacks poetical interest." Freud comes next
with his epigrammatic and oracular utterance—

" Men make Ideals—God makes Facts."

Finally, there is the anonymous pronuuciarnento,
which we may presume to be Mr. Hamerton's
own, to wit, that "Lasting poetry is always co-
herent, and easily understood." The converse of
which might not, of course, be quite so confidently
predicated. Fur example, although the little book
before us is for the most part, . happily for us its
readers, sufficiently coherent and readily enough
understood, we should scarcely venture to
encourage its writer in the belief of its being
in any obvious way calculated to prove a
permanent addition to our popular poetic litera-
ture. It is observable of this same volume
as characteristic of its author both as to his sanguine
temperament and his graceful accomplishments
that his verses have found in himself their own
genial illustrator. Sixteen embellishments attest
the deftness of the writer's pencil, while as many
as eighty separate poems indicate the glibness of his
pen and the fluency of his ideas, if they do not in
any remarkable manner demonstrate the depth of
his sensibilities or the amplitude of his imagination.
" I hope," says Mr. Hamerton, p, xiv., " I hope to
illustrate this work thoroughly with etchings of a
larger size than the present form of the volume
would admit. It contains at least a hundred avail-
able subjects ; but to do any justice to them will
be a work of time, and require long preparatory
study. If I carry out the plan, the etchings will be
issued separately from the verse and in parts."
Obviously from all which Mr. Hamerton is im-
pressed with a high notion of the intrinsic value of
his " Poems." Otherwise he would never dream
of " long preparatory study" with a view to their
ultimate embellishment upon a scale commensurate
with his own elevated estimate of their importance.
We would earnestly recommend him, on mature
reflection, to abandon any such day-dreams, fur the
cherishing of some other purpose better calculated
to evidence his capacity both as an artist and as a
versifier. We say this in no disparagement what-
ever of the engravings distributed through this his
maiden performance—sketches for the most part as
graceful in their way as the poems they are designed
to illustrate are coherent and comprehensible. We
only question whether a project such as the one hero
foreshadowed—of larger etchings to be issued from
the press in a serial form, the result of "long prepa-
ratory study," and extending possibly to the number
of a "hundred"—might not after all be somewhat
disproportioned to the value of the original letter-
press. Several of the pieces introduced in that
division of the book which might be classed under
the head of the miscellaneous, are rather, it seems
to us, unluckily suggestive of certain famous frag-
ments of verse not very easily forgotten—hinting
at ever " odious" comparisons—as with the lines
on "My Old Dog's Grave," reminding one of the
exavelled paths of Newstead ; or the " Lancashire
Bell-ringers," calling back to memory the weird
" tinkle, tinkle, tinkle" of the " Bells" of Poe ; or
the " Helmeted Skull" reminiscent of the " Ske-
leton in Armour" of Professor Longfellow. Not
so that glimpse of a " London Studio" which
Clive Newcoma might have recognised as better
than the old crib at Gandish's—or that celebration of
"My Own Violin," which might have harmonised
with the love of his old familiar by the father of
Viola, that wonderful " wizard of the bow" in
" Zanoni." It is in this little tribute to his violin
that our writer happily speaks of the powdered
resin on its breast as the "fallen rain of melody."
Commending Mr. Hamerton's laudable love for
simplicity, we nevertheless cannot but regret some-
times its rather distressful degeneracy into twaddle,
as when, in the opening of " Skating before the
'Wind," ho writes—
" 'Look down—the ice streams under us ;
This is a frightful speed 1'
My friend looked down, but not for long,
And said, ' It is, indeed.' "

Twaddle, we repeat—nothing better. Such,
however, by no means, are ingenious verses, like
those epigrammatically addressed

"TO A SARCASTIC NEARTY.
"Your breast is heaped like mountain snows ;
Your cheek is like a blushing rose ;
Your eyes are black as ripened sloes--
Like diamonds do they glitter.
I do not flatter like a fool :
The diamond is a cutting tool ;
The rose is thorny ; snow is cool;
And sloes are very bitter."
A conceit in the vein almost we had said of
Herrick, or of Suckling. Better than all the rest
of the volume together, are some two or
three of the "Poems' on War." Not that we
would class among the number, either in subject
or in merit, the stanzas to the fair lady, who, with
all her graceful womanly excellence, seems very
mawkishly apostrophised here, as "Holy Florence
Nightingale 1" The war - poems we especially
allude to, as deserving to our mind of peculiar
praise, and no small.share pf admiration, are those
relating to " Marshal St. Arnaud" and " G?ne,.
ra,l
Scarlett." Nobly is it sung of the ht?r,ow
Arnaud, as he appeared (dying) upon his 'twar-
horse at the battle of the Alma
:
"And Death himself respected him,
Though he would have him soon ;
And on his right hand and his left
There stood a brave dragoon,
And held the Marshal on his horse,
To hear the merry tune—
The merry music of the .9"!",3!
The shouting on the hetglg,
The dull metallic clash ofh steel,
When band to hand t ey fight,
And the last volleys that pursue
The vanquished in their flight,
He died a noble death—he proved
What be bad suffered long ;
He died a nobler death than those
Who go to battle strong,
And fall without pang, and have
Bright epitaphs in song.
And where the living in the camp,
The dead upon the field,
Slept soundly—in the Marshal's tent
His last despatch he sealed,
Telling his army's fortitude_
His own he kept concealed.
Brave Marshal ! to the shores of France
A mournful vessel bears
The soldier taking rest at last,
And free from all his cares—
And freshly green is the laurel wreath
The dead man calmly wears."
Scarcely less beautiful is the tribute to Brigadier
Scarlett, in honour of the glorious Heavy Cavalry
charge at Balaklava, saving the one flaw about
the Russians : " They turn, well thrashed," 4-sc.
Here is one very admirable stanza :

"They say it is a fiendish joy,
Not human feelings Oat they feel,

Who ride 'like devils dressed in red,'
With heads of grass and stings of steel.
1 know not what you felt yourself,
&Leath that plume of flowing white,
I only know that you displayed
The courage of an English knight."
With words like these yet lingering in our me-
mory we-close this little volume—poetical and,
pictorial—from the hand of Philip Gilbert Hamer-
ton ; prepardd to meet him rather as a friend than
as a stranger, whenever he may adventure once
again upon the flowery paths of the fairy land of
literature.

Les Huguenots et la Ligue au Diocese de Boulogne.
Esquisse Historique. Par F. Lefebvre. Bou-
logne-sur-Mer, 1855.
Very recently an entirely new vein of historical
research has been opened—one that gives promise
to the world of the recovery of no small amount of
the hitherto buffed treasures of literature. Allu-
sion is made, of course, to the concentration upon any
one given locality of the heretofore scattered lights
at once of written and of traditionary intelligence.
An enterprise of this particular kind has always
appeared to us to bear that peculiar relation to a
place which, in regard to an individual man, is
assumed by a biography. In lieu of the hero and
his career, we have, however, here presented to
us the scene and its associations. And the narra-
tive thus submitted to examination comes to us in
consequence invested with all those manifold and
alluring charms, which may have been previously
regarded as constituting the distinguishing fascina-
tion and especial prerogative of the records of the
biographer. That such, howbeit, need in no way
be regarded as the exclusive possession of the me-
morialist of suffering or struggling humanity may
be appreciated readily enough upon one moment's
reflection, bearing in mind, as every meditative
observer cannot fail to do, how accurately it may
be said of certain localities that they aro invested
no less remarkably than certain personages with
the wondrous and bewitching glamour of very me-
morable vicissitudes. In this lies the secret
attraction of Victor Hugo's noble ars,hceologi-
cal romance of " Notre Dame de Paris
as also might be declared in a lesser degree of Har-
rison Ainsworth's melo-dramatic chronicle of " The
Tower of London." Here, too, is discoverable the
source of the interest felt by intelligent readers in
the recently published description of " Corfe
Castle," as also yet more recently in Leigh Hunt's
garrulous gossip about the "Old Court Suburb" of
Kensington. M. Lefebvre ventures upon loftier
regions, however, in his half-topographical, half-
historical treatise in reference to le League and
the Huguenots--though the ground penetrated by
his antiquarian mattock is, so to speak, of the same
geological formation as that already particularised.
Our author writes, nevertheless, of the time selected
by him for investigation neither as a poet nor as a
romancer, rather be it said as a historian and a
hagiographer. His " Sketch" he himself has for-
mally designated historical upon its very title-page
—while its religious character is sufficiently well
indicated by the nature of the theme itself, that of
the struggle long ago in the dim past between the
League and the Huguenots, those episodes of the
struggle at least which are known to have trans-
pired within the limits of the Diocese of Boulogne.
Although the researches made by the learned
writer during the progress of his very curious
investigations upon the subject of the Diocese
of Boulogne (in as far, at least, as the records
of that Diocese are illustrated by the me-
mory of the great contest between the League
and the Huguenots) have manifestly been both very
extensive and very voluminous, he has nevertheless
contrived to compress his historical sketch of the
contending religionists within the compass of ten
chapters, chapters supported on either hand by a
" Preface" and an " Appendix," in more than ono
respect eminently characteristic. That famous
aphorism of Bossuet, which declared that whenever
the authority of religion was set aside everything
resolved itself into revolt and ideas of sedition,
may be taken as the motto of M. Lefebvre, and as
such may be considered clearly enough expressive
of the bias of his convictions and the general ten-
dency of his arguments. It shoald not be over-
looked, however, that the author prepares his
reader for an examination of this same argument
by the explicit avowal that he has entered upon the
epoch of which his narration treats without preju-
dice or predilection—with the solo intention, in-
deed, of conducting his inquiries with the strictest
regard to their impartiality. The preliminary
outline given by him iu the preamble to his initial
chapter may bo accepted as a not ungraceful ex-
ample of this prevailing and scrupulous impartiality,
the outline that is of the memorable movementwhich
dated back to somewhere about the year 1517,
to that notable pontificate of Leo X., during which
a moral earthquake may be said to have moved to
its very centre the whole body of Christendom.
Upwards of three centuries may be described, there•
fore, as comprised within the limits of these ten
terse, and lucid, anti eminently comprehensive
chapters in relation to the Diocese of Boulogne and
to the contest between the League and Huguenots.
The principal epochs of the narrative may be dis-
tinguished with sufficient distinctness through suc-
cessive events of no less marked importance than
the earlier extensions of Calvinism, and the
origi-
nal establishment of the Boulogne Bishoprick, and
the first organisation of the renowned League and
that ultimate revocation of the edict of Nantes, by
which the struggle, here portrayed, may be de-
scribed as having been signally terminated. From
the date, however, of the Revocation of the Edict
of Nantes, the narrative of M. Lefebvre is brought
down in an ancient record of personages and inci-
dents associated in some sort with the Diocese of
Boulogne to the September of 1854, when the
illegal hawking of unauthorised polemics in the
camps at Honvault and Ambleteuse may be de-
scribed as having been brought by the Imperial
mandate of Napoleon 111. within the grasp of
possible repression. Altogether, the little work
under notice evinces much laudable erudition and
acceptable scholarship on the part of its learned
author, together with what is worthier than erudi-
tion and nobler than scholarship, a sedate and even
severe allegiance to truth, and a deep religious
earnestness.