The Sun.
London, England, 1839-06-01 00:00:00

MAGAZINE DAY.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE

The most attractive feature in this number is the
poetry, all of which is unusually good. Some of it is
dated from the Arkansas river, beyond the Mississippi,
at the trifling Ormribits distance of " two thousand miles
from New York !" The poems thus dated are entitled,
" Hymns to the Gods," and are the production of a
transatllntic bard who rejoices in the Chartist-like name
of " Pike ;" and states that a copy of Blackwood re-
gularly reaches his log-hut—for we take for granted
that, being a poet, he lives in a log-hut, (which is equi-
valent to cur attic), on the borders of a tremendous
forest, full of bears, rattle-snakes, and Red Indians,
who threaten him with a summary process of
of scalping twice a-week—Mr. Pike, we say, who
is thus pleasantly and poetically located, states that
a number of Maga reaches him with remarkable
punctuality seven weeks after its publication in Edin-
burgh ! Here is a proud compliment to Christopher
North, and his pet periodical Well may that " old
man eloquent " exclaim, " rpm regio in terris nostri non
plena laboris ?" We have read Mr. Pike's mythologi-
cal Canticles with much attention, and mean to pay him
a very high compliment when we state that they might
almost pass for free translations from the Hymns of
Callimachus. As a specimen of the free and easy play
of his rhythm, we quote an extract from his Address
to Venus :

Where'cr thou art, oh Venus I hear our song--
Kind goddess, hear 1 for unto thee belong
All pleasant offerings; bright doves coo to thee
The while they twine their necks with quiet glee
Among the morning leaves; thine are all sounds
Of pleasure on the earth; and where abounds
Most happiness, for thee we ever look ;
Among the leaves, in dimly lighted nook,
Most often hidest thou, where winds may wave
Thy sunny curls, and cool airs fondly lave
Thy beaming brow, and ruffle the white wings
Of thy tired doves ; and where his love-song sings,
With lightsome eyes, some little, strange, sweet bird,
With notes that never but by thee are heard—
Oh, in such scene, most bright, thou liest now,
And with half open eye
Drinkest in beauty—oh, most fair, that thou
Wouldst hear our cry I

Oh thou, through whom all things upon the earth
, Grow brighter : thou for whom even laughing mirth
Lengthens his note : thou whom the joyous bird
Singeth continuously, whose name is heard
In everp pleasant sound : at whose warm glance
All things look brighter : for whom wine doth dance
More merrily within the brimming vase,
To meet thy lip : thou at whose quiet pace
Joy leaps on faster, with a louder laugh,
And Sotrow tosses to the sea his staff,
And pushes back the hair from his dim eyes,
To look again upon forgotten skies ;
While Avarice forgets to count his gold,
Yea, unto thee his witlred hand cloth hold
Fill'd with that heart blood : thou. to whose high might
All things are made to bow,
Come thou to us, and turn thy looks of light
Upon us now
In manner, this is not much unlike some portion of
Keates's " Hymn to Pan," but it has more pith and
vigour, and, at least, equal luxuriance of epithet. We
would advise Mr. Pike, however, when he next ad-
dresses Venus, to make as few allusions to the Cyprian
Goddess of that name as possible, for she was no better
than she should be—in fact, we blush to say it, as lax
in her morals as a Strand street- walker. We have
it on the best authority—namely, that of the
poets, who, it is well known, entertain quite
an utilitarian horror of fiction—that the Cyprian Venus
was the half-proprietor of more illegitimate children
than even the Grand Seignior ; and the ruins of the
Foundling Hospital she built in Cyprus may still be
seen in that island, about a hundred yards from the
butcher's shop, as you turn down by the Post-office.
" The Vision of Caligula" is a poem from the pen of
Mr. Syrnmons. It is a stately, impassioned production.
We subjoin a couplet, the last line in which suggests a
bold and striking image to the mind :
" I looked along broad Ocean's hushed expanse,
Filled with the strength of midnight's countenance."
" Whig Decline and Degradation" is a rampant ultra-
Tory diatribe, abounding in misstatements. The very
first sentence involves a gross historical blunder. Thus,
speaking of the first French revolution, the writer states
expressly that " Necker doubled the representation of
the tiers eMt, with the cordial " concurrence of the
Crown." Now it happens that the Crown gave no such
cordial concurrence. On the contrary, the double re-
presentation was wrung from it, as though it had been its
life-blood—which it really was—and infinite were the
shifts and expedients to which Louis had recourse, be-
fore he could be prevailed on to agree to Necker's rash
proposition, which was the real cause of all the blood
that was afterwards shed. Again, in alluding to the Re-
form Bill, the writer tells us that "it was the forcible
usurpation of power by the middle classes." What
stuff is this"! The usurpation was quite the other way
that is to say, on the part of the boroughmongera ; and
the middle classes in insisting on Reform, only insisted
on the power which the Constitution gave them, but of
which they had for ages been unjustly deprived. " Dii
Minorum Gentium" is a graceful criticism on the writ-
ings of Carew and Herrick, two small poets who
twinkled in the days of the First James. The Re-
viewer, we think, scarcely does justice to Herrick, who
possessed both fancy and tenderness in no slight degree;
neither does he quote his most successful poems. He
should have given us the "Mad Maid's Song," which
was founded on the circumstance of a young lady
losing by death a lover to whom she was devotedly
attached, if only for the last stanza, which (we quote
from memory) runs as follows :
" He's kind and gentle; pray, take heed,
With bands of cowslips bind him,
And bring him here—but Ws decreed,
That .1 shall never find him."
The sudden return to sanity, as the recollection of the
Mad Maid's bereavement flashes across her brain,
shown in the lines we have quoted in Italics, has al-
ways struck us as most pathetic, and true to nature.
" My First Client," is a story told with admirable skill
and simplicity. One reads it as though it were quite
a homely matter of-fact, though there is no doubt it is
a pure fiction. The " Late Political Events," are
penned in a very dismal spirit. We can imagine the
author sitting down to write it, with a face at least a
yard long. The remaining articles prose and verse,
are of the usual calibre.