The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-01 00:00:00

and good, and beautiful ; the more so as we know the
author only through his writings ; individually he is a
total stranger to us ; as Connected with his poems he is
one of our familiar favourites. Our predisposition
in his favour, however, arises from something
beyond even the merit of his productions ; our interest
towards him is aroused from the circumstance of his
being the brother of one of our most agreeable
female lyrists. We shall reserve our opinion upon
his five-act tragedy to a later period, when the
drama enlarges upon us in a more complete foim :
but of his " Sonnets for the Times" we can speak in
decided terms of praise ; they are nerved with the true
verve of poetry. Those now lying before us form a per-
fect match to three preceding ones, " Moonlight on the
waters," the present being descriptive of " The plies-
phoresence of the ocean." Regarding the wonders of nature
with the sympathising eye of a lover of nature, the
writer infuses into his descriptions of those wonders a
reflex of their awe and loveliness. This is essentially
the case with these most charming sonnets, they have
upon them the bloom of truth, and within them the
animation of feeling. When, for example, their writer
says of the phosphoressence of the ocean—
" A mys'try of volition it appears,"
the picture conveyed in that single line is complete, be-
bause it is so sunestive. With its utterance the ima-
gination takes in the lambent and undulating aspect of
this phenomenon of the billows ; the mind at once has
before it a sea corrugated with a silver- brightness.
Here again is a noble piece of pictorial metre :
" But now, around,
On ev'ry side the thunder-drops let fall.
In globules all luceolent rebound,
As, quarrelling, the winds bring on a squall,
Which into foam the Water-gems cloth blow,
And calls Me dagger'd Lightaing to Me fray
Beneath Night's ebon pall their part to play."
It is pleasurable to encounter passages like these
*midst the scum of verso with which the public are
being incessantly drenched. It assures us that the
Mantle of poesy has descended to our own generation,
and that we are not absolutely lapsed into a sordid and
matter-of-fact disposition. It admonishes us, moreover,
to remember some that are among us, and to look with
hopeful eyes to the author of the " New Timon," but
especially and mainly to TIIE Young Poet of the Age,
whom that same author of the " N©w Timon" scorned
—Alfred Tennyson ! As likely to sustain the popular
taste for poetry we rejoice that an idea which received
our commendation last month, under the name of " A
May Garland," is confirmed this month, under that of
" A Summer Wreath for Summer-tide." It is a treat
'worth striving much to obtain, and betokens the
rhythmical taste of the collector. He reminds us of
Thomson's flocks, " thick nibbling through the clover'd
vale ;" of Shakspere's Ariel, revelling " under the
blossom that hangs on the bough ;" of Croly's " per-
fumed pink, that studs the earth with clustering ruby 1"
and of other choive cullings of variable beauty. " Nell
GWynne," the " White Cloud," and the " Bushranger,"
are continued with average ability, but their incessant
recurrence indnees us to wish them ended. A few
more miscellaneous papers make up, however, an exce
lent number.