The Sun.
London, England, 1836-11-30 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

The reminiscences of a gentle and meditative na-
ture, hurried reluctantly by the force of circumstances
into the every-day, heartless world of action, are thus
gracefully described :
" Pleasant it was,
With hopes and fears barred out, alone to sit,
And watch life's taper silently burn on ;
What sadness entered there, was all my own,
I made no others wretched."
The description of a storm, and of its power to still
for a moment, by its 'terrific, overwhelming grandeur,
that enchains and engrosses imagination, the upbraid-
jugs of a guilty conscience, has rarely been more ef-
fectively pourtrayed than in the following passage.
We object, however, to the epithet " huge," which
conveys no positive or appropriate meaning.
" Let the storm on, it breaks no calm in me,
Nor to my mind brings added turbulence.
Rather it stills tumultuous thoughts within,
To watch the uproar of these elements,
The rushing wind and the loud hissing rain, .
And lightning pale that scrawls with hurried hand
Huge hieroglyphics on the screen of night.
Peal on, ye thunders—and urge all your fires
Ye quick repeated lightnings—
For while your dreadful pageant is displayed,
The vulture conscience something will relax
The .ixture of his talons."

The word " -scrawl" applied to the action of the
Irked lightning, has all the vivid effect of painting.
4t i$ as startling, but as true, as one of the ghastly,
tagged flashes in Martin's Fall of Nineveh. The
thoughts suggested by a serene summer night are not
less beautiful

" At such an hour
Of calm restoeed, the good man looks to heaven.
Grateful, with sense of sweet security.
. His friendly saints are there, and-a benign
Parental nature from the peopled skies
Bends its protecting presence."
There is infinite grace and tenderness in the suh-
jeined reflections which arc put into the mouth of a
I°ung and impassioned female
"He is unhappy, girl. There's something binds
The thorns about his temples; Would I might—
!, in his stead, would wreathe them on my own,
Oh, he was ever gentle, wise and good,
His saddest temper sweet as others mirth,
His lalameless mirth like joyous peals that ring
From calm and sacred towers."
The same character, which is a pure offspring of the
aey, thus, gives vent to the promptings of her young
sPair. She is in love of course, and equally as a
utter of course, unhappy in her attachment :
" I fix my rest at one step from the grave—
-1 will live neighbourly with death; I'll watch
The white reflection feesra his marble home
Steal on my quiet cheek, and settle there :
And smiling note how, day by day, I grow
To the complexion of that statue pale, .
Which soon will lie upon my monument."
The advice of an old friend to Bianca, whose-gentle
fe°lttra t er, by the bye, is admirably ponrtrayed in these
._
characteristic lines
I would not hear her name,
I pray you speak it not—l hope that none
Will ever tell it me,—for I have known
the Some names to love, but never one to hate—
advice, we say, of a faithful old counsellor to this
orr
clw-stricken maiden, -is as poetic in expression as it
generous in sentiment :
" Gentle Bianca, let me counsel you,
Be not too limited in what you prize,
But build content on many,common joys ;
Be as a wave of multitudinous life,
That with the general movement rolls along
To shores where all must break. Discard this nice,
This separate structure of your happiness,
And live the one of many.'
te4ll aged Minstrel's reminiscences of his past youth
:name. one of the finest and most impassioned pas-
eta of the. drama. We give one brief extract, where-
he descriLes the boyhood of a careless, sanguine
" No method in his happiness has he,
Nor long-expectell4oy ; but one by one,
The little hours their several charges drop,
Of.weal or woe; he finds them at his feet."
v-he same Minstrel afterwards pourtrays his present
OR, when age has stolen on him, and robbed his
."4 of its sunshine :---
" Old age, that Winter drear which into spring
lireaks never ; age that exempts not any,
That lays injunctions on the warrior's arm,
And shakes the statesman in his council-chair—
,A,ee'robs the minstrel of his song • and he
Whose melody has been entreated oft
I BY beauty and by knighthood, now Must crave
Reluctant cars with snit importunate=
Farewell, thou world
,Of life and death made for a poet's dream
tseauty, and love and song, I leave ye all;
leave e'en this remembrance of past joys!
Their very tombs are pleasant; at each urn
71ie stationary
.fbrm unfading leans
,0f the past happiness. Oh Nature sweet,.
Thou young and giddy mother of us all,
i';!'y child am I, and need it is I weep,
'pis •en as a child to part with thee."
lik\age reflections of the guilty Guiclone on seeing the
phit (kly of his daughter Bianca, arc in the truest
Or Pathos
t're was I drawn by hope to see thee living,
A d I must greet thee dead, my daughter, dead !
l"4t long, dark eye-lash lifts not at my coming ;
g,°iat smile is not on me ; that hand which lies
..Inotionless, yet nothing
,1„;) burdensome,
give its gentle welcome, rises not.
latest loved, and in my wintry world,
7c?.blossom left, thee too the winds have swept.
470Terni, music is heard from an adjoining apartment.)
this is kind 1 It is a strain that wins
o",v gentle thought—therchaunt a requiem
Ajdrcthe young and fair, that mourns her. dead,
..Tegs her into heaven--
Pleasant faith, that can revive the lost,
eq shepherd in the human family,
Itie,l.ltteree awhile by death. l'were sweet to think,
On ;eeriling-happy child, that this thy smile
`y Ps so cold—this quiet on thy. brow—
of r's traces faint left printed on the clay,
Oft tIII,Y first vision in a world of bliss._
lI first welcome by the angelic throng,
Oh !ling approval of.the parting soul.
A,i' could I follow on, tho' here at fault,
und thee living yet in other clime,
hahare she too lives, my wife, and greets thee now,
W I"mother in the angel, on her child
143,eeNrig delicious tears !--
41 ;111"Pd heart grows light and from the well
etter .teelines has thebstone been rolled—
LealdieePing child, mute helper in my strife,. e
r to other worlds thro' love in this,
it,h),;7' a farewell look I Lo, I have stained
dad
r.e‘evek with tears such as thy innocence
d Over need to shed."
"
Ption of the dead Bianca, (the most •

~1

G UID ONE.
Saunders and Orley, London, 1836.
The principal poem in this work, which is printed
in the modest but uninviting form of a pamphlet, is
dramatic; that is to say, it contains a plot, one or two
incidents, and much skilful, and occasionally some iin-
Passioned dialogue ; in its essence however, it belongs
rather to the class of reflective or philosophical poems,
than to the drama, bearing in this respect, as also in
he halting character of its action, considerable resem-
blance to Phillip Van _ Artevelde. It is however no
servile imitation, but the production of a kindred ge-
nius. Mr. Smith, the author, has fancy and feeling
quite sufficient to enable him to set up for himself; as his
description of the first faint dawn of love in the breast
of a shy young girl will testify. We extract this pas-
for it is replete with truth and delicacy of senti-
ment, expressed in an eloquent, unaffected style :
" A woman's love, we know—not yet avowed
Solicited, or bruited to the world—
Is so oer'ru!ed by virgin purity,
And state serene of womanhood, 'tie found
A harmless visitant. A pleasing fear
It plays observed upon the verge of thought
Like silent lightning in a summer sky,
Whose lambent beauty does but hint the power
Which may some other time be perilous.
A passion which has lived but in the mind,
Remote from circumstance of life, is soon
Obliterate, or if recalled to view,
Shows like the wreck of fancy. He who roused
From broken slumbers of the night, walks forth
Under the moon, and after some time spent
In sweet and visionary muse, returns
To his oblivious couch ;—when next lie wakes,
He calls to mind his midnight walk, confused
And mingled with his dreams ; scarce to himself
That recollection of the past belongs.
Now, such remembrances of her love—no more—
May in an idle, retrospective hour
Visit Bianca."

carefully finished character in the play) has all the dis-
tinctness and precision of the finest sculpture :
" After long; search,
I found her sitting on her mother's tomb,
Now as the marble cold ;. her forehead leaned
Upon her arm, as one who pensive sate. •
Woe wearied and forlorn ; but on her lip
The straggled tresses la 7 ; Death, rudest wooer, •
Close kneeling at her side, withheld the band
That Should have put them back."
An impressive thought, which is also as original as
anything in modern literature, is strikingly developed
in these lines :

" The man who journies with a living crowd,
Who joins the social sin; the social prayer,
With them is tempted, sorrows, and repents ;
Stands in the sight of Heaven with the same crowd,
Where all have done, and all have sulfured, wrong,
And general guilt fur general pardon pleads.
But I, who stand apart from all my kind,
Confronted with my God, sustain alone,
My trial and my doom."
The true catholic spirit breathes in the following
fine sentiment, which has a moral sublimity about it
worthy of Milton or of Wordsworth:—
" Who studies virtue learns religion too ;
There is devotion in the moral will
That acts for the felicity of all,
And piety is goodness."
We have been more profuse in our extracts from
this dramatic poem than is our wont, because it has
-stolen unnoticed into the world; without, so far as we
know, a single blast from the penny trumpet of criti-
cism to bid it welcome. The author, however, need
not regret this general silence, for he has that within
him which will be sure to make its way. From the
occasional. cloudiness of his imagery, and the redun-
dancy of his-language, and more especially from the
evident difficulty he finds in individualising his cha-
racters, we suspect that he is a young, unpractised
writer, who has been too busy with his own feelings
and motives, to analyse those of the world about him ;
and if so, we predict that when observation and expe-
rience shall have disciplined his judgment, he will
achieve a reputation equal to that enjoyed by the author
of " Philip Van Artevelde." Even as it is, his " Gui-
doue " is incomparably superior to any dramatic poem
teat has been published within the last three years.

t is full of ideas ; bestrewed all over with the rice

lights of fancy ; copious and unaffected in its language ;
and musical in the flow of its verse. The imagery,
too, has nothing of an embroidered patch-work charac-
ter about it ; but rises naturally from the subject ; is
wrought into its very texture, with which it has an es •
sential connexion. Viewed, however, strictly as a

drama, " Guidonc "is not without many defects. Its
action is slow and languid ; its characters differ rather
in name than nature, all being of the contemplative
class ; and it is wholly deficient in condensed and mas-
culine vigotr. It touches the heart, but makes no
stirring appeal to the passions. But who, since Shaks-
, peare, has done this ? Sheridan Knowles has partially
succeeded ; but a really good tragedy is still a deside-
ratum, which the present age seems unable, or unwilling
to supply. Possibly Mr. Bulwer, who knows the
world, and in his character of lawyer Brandon, has
shown that he can sound the depths of the human heart,
may give us something good ; and we are the more
sanguine on this point, because the subject he has
selected for his forthcoming tragedy, is every way
suited to the purposes of the drama. The character
of the weak, impassioned, penitent Duchess de la
Valliere, who was wooed back from the solitude of
the cloister into the heartless world of fashion which
she had quitted in disgust, merely to gratify the self-
love of a capricious despot (Louis XIV.), who knew
not how to appreciate her worth, but permitted her to
die neglected and broken-hearted--this character, if

well wrought up, is calculated to produce as striking
an effect on the stage as in the closet. The period,
too, is one of stirring human interest, when France was
still unsettled by the recently finished wars of the
Fronde ; when Louis was just entering upon his am-
bitious career; and the sagacious, high-principled
Colbert—mean only in his behavour to the Duchess
de la Valliere—was struggling with the War Minister
Louvois for supremacy in the Cabinet. While thus
on the subject of tragedy, we may just say a few
passing words respecting Serjeant Talfourd's lon. It
has been said that this play is a sterling classical pro-
duction. Never was a greater mistake. To be sure,
lon himself, with his heroism and unity of purpose,
bears some slight resemblance to one of the charac-
ters of Sophocles, or rather of Euripides ; but as for
the language of the play, which has been so much in-
sisted on, it is throughout as unclassical as it is pos-
sible to be. It has beauties--exquisite beauties—of

its own ; but none of the Greek drama. For the se-
vere, majestic simplicity of the classic writers, it sub-
stitutes sparkling, rhetorical fancies, and passages
studded with metaphors, like a frosty night with stars.
Now, in the Greek dramatists, it is the thought and
sentiment only that are grand and imposing ; the lan-
guage is chaste and unornamented to a degree. But,
in truth, in the whole wide range of English litera-
ture, we know of but two strictly classical productions
—the " Laodamia" of Wordsworth, and the " Ode
written in 1746" by Collins. The former of these
choice rarities might almost be mistaken for a transla-

tion of Euripides ; and the latter (could we forget the
circumstances to which it has reference) for one of a
fragment of Alcmus or Simonides, preserved by
Stohceus.

But to return to the little work before us. Attached
to the drama is a poem entitled " Solitude," of which
it is impossible to think too highly. The morbid
struggles of an imaginative manhood spent in utter
seclusion ; its alternate joyousness and despondency ;
its fitful, active energies at war with its constitutional
listlessness ; its quick sense of pleasure strangled in
the birth by some vague, dreamy apprehension of the
future ; its faint-heartedness, which is ever a thorn
rankling in the side of its self-respect ; its horror of a
world 'of which it knows nothing, but with which it
would fain become acquainted—all these mental
phenomena, the almost invariable results of solitude,
arc pourtrayed with infinite skill, vigour, and meta-
physical subtlety.

• Sir Ralph Lopez, Bart., has contributed very liber-
ally to the rebuilding a new church at Beekleigh, adjoining
his estates in pevonshire.
It is currently reported, and we believe on good
foundation, that her Majesty is about to reside fer some
months in this neighbourhood (Southampton). Bad health
is assigned as a reason.—Hampshire Paper.
At the beginning of this month a quarrel took place
over a gaming table between a barrister and a merchant,
the result of which was that a meeting was arranged in the
Bois de Vincennes. The rain fell in torrents : the two
combatants, however, took off their coats and fired at each
other twice. A fortnight afterwards they both died from
inflammation on the chest.—Paris Paper. -
The Presbytery of Paisley are going to withdraw
their licence from the Rev. James Carlisle, of Dublin, on
account of his pamphlet against the Westminster Confes-
sion of Faith, and his opposition to subscription. This will
remove him from the Synod of Ulster.
On Friday last, in the parish of Dunlop, a woman
was delivered of a daughter, being her 25th child.---Scollish
Paper.

The remains of the balloon in which Blanchard
crossed from Dover to Calais many years ago, is still to be
seen suspended from the roof of the Post-office at Calais.—
Rae Nilson.

CHURCH RATES.--At the recent meeting for the
abolition of these imposts, held at Carlisle, a at :jority of
755 recorded their votes against the proposed rate.
The assumption of the title of Earl of Shelburne by
the second son of the Marquis of Lansdowne, inatoad of that
of the Earl, of Kerry, is said to have been caused by
the interesting state of Lady Kerry, who, it is rumoured, is
in a situation likely to g►ve birth to an heir to the noble
house of Lansdowne. _

A delightful hall and supper were given on Friday
last by Mrs. Hervey, on the corning of age of her eldest son,
at her splendid mansion, Tekwall Bury, near Piggleswade.
g
The company consisted of upwards of 200 of the first fami-
lies within 50 miles. The whole went elr with reat eplqt.