The Sun.
London, England, 1830-02-04 00:00:00

LITERATURr.

SATAN, A POEM.—LoNuort, 1830.

Mr. Montgomery, in the poem before us,
has evinced very creditable abilities. He has
shown us that he possesses fancy, feeling, and
an almost inexhaustible wealth of language.
But his subject is ill-chosen, and has no more
to do with Satan than the amiable author him-
self. With what consistency can the origin of
etil, the foster-father of crime, the bold anta-
gonist of the Godhead, be made to inveigh
against Carlile ? Surely if Satan had any thing
to say on the subject, it should be in praise, not
In disparagement of, this degraded infidel ?
Again, with what justice can the Devil—
nuless he be the Printer's one—be made
to rave against the public Press? If this
influential part of our literature be really as
unprincipled as Mr. Montgomery—and to few
"as the Press been more favourable than to
bin's—would persuade his readers that it is,
surely Satan should be the very last person to
cry out against it ! The worse it is, the better
for him, and the more likely to swell the sum
total of his subterranean population. But the
Satan of Mr. Montgomery is not the Satan of
either Scripture or of Milton. He is a well-
4isPosed, loquacious, single gentleman, much
smitten with the music of his own voice, and
still more with his high pulpit eloquence. If
We mistake not, too, he is fond of dancing,
though he affects to discountenance the ball-
room, anathematize the quadrille, and go into
hysterics at the sight of the waltz. Now this
18 incorrect, and unbecoming the dignity of
a moralizing Devil.
We have spoken, as in justice bound, against
Mr. Montgomery's conception of Satan, but have
little fault to find with his poetry. Our task here
15 of a pleasing description. It is one of
great, though not unalloyed commendation.—
wy versification—exuberant imagery—fre-
t 'Pent felicities of expression, occasionally of
thought fine apprehension of the sublime and
• beautiful in nature—correct moral and religious
feelinge—tilese are the chief attractions of the
Poem of Satan, and on these it may confidently
rest its claims to public favour. We subjoin
specimens of its descriptive powers :
" But lo! the day declines, and to his throne
The sun is wheeling. What a world of pomp
The heavens put on in homage to his power !
Romance hath never hung a richer sky,—
Or sea of sunshine, o'er whose aureate deep
Triumphal barks of beauteous foam career,
It though the clouds held festival, to hail
Their god of glory to his western home.
And now the earth is mirror'd on the skies !
While lakes and valleys, drown'd in dewy light,
And rich delusions, dazzlingly array'd,
P°"11, float, and die in all their phantom joy.
• At length the Sun is throned ; but from his face
A fluith of beauty o'er Creation flows,
That brightens into rapturous farewell !
Then faints to paleness ; for the day bath sunk
Beneath the waters, dash'd with ruby dyes,
And Twilight in her nun-like meekness comes;
The air is fragrant with the soul of flowers,
The breeze comes panting like a child at play,
While birds, day-worn, are couch's) in leafy bowers,
And, Calm as clouds, tie sunken billows sleep :
The dimness of a dream o'er Nature steals,
Yet hallows it; a busted enchantment reigns;
The mountains to a mum of mellowing shade
Are tumid, and stand like temples of the sight;
While field and forest, fading into gloom,
Depart, and rivers whisper sounds of fear.—
A dying pause, as if th' Almighty mov'd
In shadow o'er his works, hath solemnized
The world !"
• • • • • •
" E'en Nature in her elemental round
Of living wonders, a re-action spews,
In semblance to the moral law reveal'd
By human destinies. The poise of worlds
That makes infinity a beauteous thought ;
The ocean, panting as the tide-queen wills,
In ebb and flow of everlasting waves ;
And that communion of the earth and sky,
By heat exhaling water into clouds,
And clouds returning in the showery rain ;
All teach a balance of prevailing power.
But thou, Reviver of departed days,
By whom, a beacon light fur unborn time
The past might well have risen, host forgot
The law of retribution in thy love
Of fame, and adoration to the dead.
A war awakes !—what poetry is here
For History to picture into life !
The armies rally,--vast machines of naiad
Half demonized, with, one concenering heart
. To animate and harmonize the whole;
The clarions ring, the banners chafe he breeze
Earth trembles to the haughty-footed steeds, 2
_Anledncannons thunder, till the clouds are thrilled !
.mos your hero sprinkled with a shower
Of .00d,—how gloriously sublime he seems!—
, Yet kingdoms mourn, and trodden tnyriads lie
All dead, and stiffening in the rawsnless air."

RANDOM RECORDS. LONDON, 1830.
There is much to praise, but still more to
censure, in these two heterogeneous volumes.
They are livel
ous, but at they, smartly written, and miscellane-
same time twaddling, dogmatical,
and in one or two instances unjust. Why does Mr.
George Colman, the Younger (now considerably
upwards of sixty) sneer at such a man and such
11.11 . author as Dr. Johnson, merely because he
not speak complimentarily to him, the said
tar
seorn when a youngster of some four or five years
old ? Surely he should know that with bachelors,
the love of children is an acquired taste, like
that of eating olives ! Why does the author of
Broad Grins Poetical Vagaries," Sze.—
arks whose refined sense of delicacy and de-
rilm ru,.
are by no means their greatest rccom-
eadation—grow maudlin over the indecencies
of Terence, which indecencies Mr. Colman's own
father was the chief instrument of rendering
familiar and intelligible to an English public ?
Lhy too does our righteous over-much "
a censer drivel over the improvements of the age,
14-4. BYmptoms of its confirmed degeneracy ?
wi°reover, as we are in the interrogative vein,
Y does he infer the unprecedented prosperity
of
tile nation, from the circumstance—among
ether amusing non sequiturs—of the streets
thing lit with gas ? We would thank him to
" some light upon these subjects : at pre-
etthey are obscure and unintelligible.
Colman sets out on his " Records " with
a confession that he writes them to " cure his
ei?rns,"—an interesting acknowledgement which
readers will appreciate accordingly. He then
140ceeds to assure us that he was once drowned ;
411 d) with a particularity singularly delightful,
states that his involuntary baptism took place
not far from Westminster-bridge, in the silver
1,
ames, near the southern shore, immediately
Po§ite the premises of Dickey Roberts.'
41Elticking, notwithstanding that he could swim