The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-01 00:00:00

TAIT'S MAGAZINE.

There are some pleasant little poems, by a variety of
hands, in this month's Number of Tait, which act as an
agreeable setoff to the sterner features of this sturdy, un-
compromising periodical. The Corn-law Rhymer—honest
Ebenezer Elliott, the Sheffield blacksmith—who writes
with as much manly energy as he wields his hammer, con-
tributes a poem on the " Opening of the Rotherham Rail-
way," from which we select these stirring stanzas :
,‘ Eternal river I roaring still,
As roared thy foamy wave,
When first each wild rose-skirted rill
Heard moorland echoes rave--
Thou sees!, amid thy meadows green,
The goodliest sight that earth has seen
Since man made fire his slave.
For, 10. the Train 1 On—onward still
Loud shrieks the kindled wave,
And back fly hamlet, tree, and hill,
White steam and banners brave ;
And thoughts on vapoury wings are hurled,
To shake old thrones, to change a world,
And dig Abaddon's grave.
Eternal River ! roaring now,
As erst in earliest years,
Ere grief began with youthful brow
To live an age of tears ;
Thou hear'st, beneath thy forests high,
A voice of power that will not die,
While man hath hopes and fears.
He, conquering fire and time and space,
Bids East and West join hands ;
Brings over ocean, face to face,
Earth's ocean-severed strands ;
And on his iron road will bear
Words that shall wither in despair
The tyrants of all lands.

The line, in the above passage, which we have marked
in italics,
is very tersely and emphatically expressed.
Features of Country Society in the Vicinity of London"
is by William Howitt, and is an ingenious, if not wholly
successful, attempt to explain the cause of the exceeding
rudeness and ignorance that the writer has observed to prevail
among the labouring classesin the counties bordering on
the metropolis In a curious essay which he calls " A brief
appraisal of the Greek Literature in its foremost preten-
tions," and which he has been induced to write, he adds,
" by way of counsel to adults who are hesitating as to the
propriety of studying the Greek language with a view to
the literature ; and by way of consolation to those whom
circumstances have obliged to lay aside that plan," Mr. Dc
Quincey, after abusing the Grecian writers wholesale,
fastens on poor Homer, in particular, and scouts his poetic
pretentions in such terms as--were old Bentlevnow living—
would have drawn down on him that stern critic's heaviest
indignation. " The Homeric catalogue of ships," says
Mr. De
Quincey, " is exactly on a level with the
muster-roll of a regiment, the register of a tax-gatherer ;
the catalogue of an auctioneer." It is so ; and we
will go even further than this ; and say that it is not
half so amusing as many of George Robin's auction
advertisements ; but what then ? Is Homer to be given
up as a poet,because he shows himself, in his second book
of the " Iliad," to be but an indifferent index-maker? If
so, then must Job also be given up, for what is the work
which goes by his name, but one long catalogue of griev-
ances from the first chapter to the last ? To make out his
ease, Mr. De Quincey should have proved that Homer
did nothing but manufacture catalogues ; that he did not
describe the parting between Hector and Andromache ;
that he did not paint that incomparable moonlight scene,
which Pope has so elegantly falsified in his translation ;
that lie did not show us the indignant Neptune on his
march, shaking earth with the thunder of his tread ; that
he did not sketch that sweet pastoral picture of the cave in
the
" Odyssey ;" that he did not create Helen and Pe.
nelope, the chivalrous Diomed, the impetuous, Hotspur,
like. Hector ; the stern, implacable (save in one solitary
instance) Achilles, the wary, far-sighted Ulysses; the thick-
skulled Ajax, and above all, the Cied Apollo in wrath,
sitting " like night" (vux.-ri Eotv.:4-•)
on the summit of Olyni
Pus—that is to say, darkening the face of the earth by his
mere scowll BefOre Mr. De Quincey hazarded his bold
ahsertion that Homer was no poet, he should have con-
vinced us that he only wrote two-thirds of the second book
of the Iliad, and that he was the author of none of the
fine conceptions to which
we have just hastily alludzl. As,
,
for Pindar, thpugh he was not exactly the ass that our
clitiP would have us suppose he was, yet we are willing to
believe that he has been overrated ; !:ect cordially subscribe
to the statement, that he is the most difficult to under-
stand, of all the Grr,e'ic poets, and will not repay the labour
of attetr,pting to fathom his meaning.
Alluding to the
(11,1e4 clramai Ajr, De Quincey indirectly acquaints

us, that it is just equal, as a whole, to our own.
Now it happens to be no such thing ; but, on the contrary,
far superior as a whole. True, Greece can show no
dramatist equal—or even approaching—to Shakspeare ; but
on the other hand, England can show none that come
within many degrees of )Eschylus, Sophocles, or even
Euripides. As for the brawny, extravagant, semi-barbarians
of the Elizabethan age (we do not include in this censure
Ben Jonson, or Beaumont and Fletcher), they are not to be
named on the same day with this illustrious trio, though we
concede that they disp'ay infinite vigour,fancy, and are occa-
sionally—but just as if. by accident—true to the modesty of
nature in their portraiture of the passions. Mr. De Quincey
announces that it is his intention to continue his strictures
on the Greek writers. None are more competent to deal
with the subject than himself—for be is one of the first
scholars of the day—and none more able to render it ge-
nerally interesting, provided only he will lay aside prejudice,
and give it fair play. The " Annuals," is an impartial notice of
these showy little works ; and the " Literary Register" is
written with that skill and succinctness for which the re-
views in Tait have ever been celebrated.