The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-12 00:00:00

the writer of the Poems, now thus collected together
for the first time and issued from the press as a
posthumous work of very moderate pretensions,
breathed his last, to the great grief of those who
knew him best—ending his career so prematurely,
according to the estimation at least of his admiring
friends, that what proved by the event to be the goal
they had been regarding up to the moment of his
demise to be merely the starting point. Dying at
the very commencement of 1861, in the thirtieth
year of his age, Francis Charles Weedon, like
Kirke White and not a few others of lesser note,
was the victim of his own literary ambition—hi,
assieluous application to study sowing, in a consti-
tution naturally far from robust, the germs of that
deadliest disease for youth in this climate, con-
sumption. Utterly unknown to us previously in
any way, the name of this dead student here claims
our attention for the very first time, and aiso, of
course, for the very last, as the writer of
these few and brief Poems, poems for the
most part of a very unpretending character. i
Before turning over the two hundred and odd pages
containing them, we give an attentive hearing to
the anonymous friend who has contributed to
the book, by way of introduction, a gracefully writ-
ten and, as might be expected, under the circum-
stances, from what has here been already remarked
in regard to Francis Weedon, a most eulogistic
"Memoir of the Author." From this biographical
notice we learn that a critic as illustrious as Lord
Macaulay, wrote to this young poet, in a letter dated
from the Albany on the 19th of November, 1849,
" You can have no difficulty in finding a magazine
in which such verses as those you have sent
me will be inserted with joy and gratitude."
The verses thus emphatically commended by
Macaulay, make part of this posthumous collection
of Poems by Fraiicis Weedon. They appear here
at page 13 under the modest title of " A Sketch of
the Peleponnesian War." When written and sent
to the great critic for his opinion and advice, the
author of them, a total stranger to Macaulay, was
but a stripling of eighteen. And it was to this
obscure youth of eighteen that that generous and
rarely gifted critic, earnestly wrote the assurance
that verses like those could find no difficulty
in winning their way to publicity through the
medium of some periodical in which they would be
inserted with "joy and gratitude !" No won-
der the ambition of the youth should have been
kindled by those burning words of praise, no
wonder the highest hopes of his frienda and rela-
tives should have been awakentd eagerly in his
behalf. Now, however, that, as his genial biogra-
pher says of him here in menwrianz,—

" His path is blocked up by a narrow tomb"—
we have but to cone the pages he had already
written before his demise. It is worse than idle to
dream for cne instant of what he might have become
in later years if spared. What he had done before
he breathed his last, is all that we, on our part, have
in any way to do with. It lies before us in this
small volume of poems, poems mostly graceful and
contemplative of their kind, but a few of them
towards the close of the work, of a faintly, almost
feebly humorous, character. So very faintly or
feebly humorous are these last, that we cannot but
think the editor of the collection would have done
wisely to have left them out altogether. Besides
their being in themselves such very small jokes in-
deed, they appear here, we cannot but think, in
these posthumous pages, and after the mournful
memorial prefixed to them in the way of a graceful
deprecatory introduction, they appear here almost
as an anti-climax, certainly quite incongruously.
As a specimen of our author's quality, however,
we will give the concluding stanzas of his poem on
" A Spring Morning"—
Bursts the brooklet from its fountain, leaps the wild goat

on the mountain ;
In the plains, the palm and cedar lift their branches to tho

BIM ;
From the thicket comes a ringing ; all the woods break forth

in singing.;
Through a thousand secret channels little streams begin to
run.

Soft and low the wind is sweeping, o'er the waters silent
sleeping ;
Sweeping through the broad-leaved lilies, sweeping through
the tangled reeds ;
Then across the meadows speeding, in the distance dim
receding,
Sowing hill and dale with beauty from a myriad winged
seeds.

And the honey-bees are humming, for the fair-haired
Spring is coming,
Coming with the April showers, and the May's unclouded
skies ;
At the magic of her presence, every grove is filled with
pleasaunce,
And the warmth of Summer lightens in the promise of
her eyes.
There is something striking, too, in the following
(what though with a suspicion of bathos in the
closing words)—
LINES SUGGESTED BY READING, IN BULWER'S " LAST
DAYS OF POMPEII," " THE THREATENED EXPOSURE
OF OLINTHUS THE CHRISTIAN, PREVIOUS TO THE
ERUPTION."
They lead him forth, th' arena's shout is heard
Rising into the cllna and gentle air,
Which shrinks to be unholily thus stirred,
And hushes (as some pitying angel were
In sorrow murmuring a reproving word,)
That hoarse wild roar, which surely seemed to bear
A cry for vengeance—not so deemed by those
Above whom justice now her sword's bright radiance throws.
For lo 1 the eky with an increasing glare
Grows furnace-red, save where Vesuvius dark
Rears his fire-blasted brow—sullenly there
A boding cloud hangs silent. Dost thou mark
The heaviness, the stupor of despair?
Nature is dumb with awe. Yet still one lark
Poureth its free song I mercy's last appeal
Has ceased—no more those notes on the ear gently steal.
But, in their stead, one sound• destroying crash
Deafens the ear ; from the grim mount upsprings
The spirit of desolation; downward dash
The lava-torrents, coped within the rings
Of solid rock ; their snaky volumes clash
In fiery-crested waves, till each o'er-flings
Its ponderous load in headlong fury down,
Grappling it like an en Late
hurls it on the town.
Pretty themes like "Late Snowdrops," two or three
melodious serenades, and a charming little
Bee and a cowslip"—will
allegory, ,cA p"—will serve
to indicate more clearly than any number of words
by way of comment upon the manner of their treat-
ment, hew delicate is the form, how tender and
radiant are the hues of the poetic butterfly (Ikun)
that has here alit for a while upon the rack of
criticism—not certainly, by us, to be broken upon
it simply to bo admired so long as it rests there,
for such as it is.