The Sun.
London, England, 1851-07-08 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

EUS TACE. An Elegy. Saunders and Orley.
Affection, whether in joy or sorrow, has, time out
of mind, proved the real Muse of Poetry. Through-
out the whole range of letters, we can call no effu-
sions more exquisitely beautiful than those which are
traceable to this most gentle and bewitching of all the
emotions of humanity. Everywhere their charm has
been illustrated, in the most popular and the most re-
condite, the most exoteric and the most esoteric of the
various departments of literature, now embrac-
ing all the race of man as in the lovely
verses of Gray, now concentrated on one be-
loved being as in the no less lovely verses of
Cowper —here called forth by the picture of a de-
parted mother, there by the mouldering hillocks of a
village churchyard. Spenser, perhaps, never sang
more sweetly than when under the homely soubriquet
of " Colin Clout," he celebrated his delight at the
return of Shakepere. Nearer to ourselves, both in
regard to time acid in reference to a thousand home-
burn associations, Charles Lamb vindicated for himself,
in one brief but delicious outpouring of sentiment,
his right to the name of poet, as well as to the already
acquired title of essayist; his " Old Familiar Faces,"
abounding with the sweetness which is ever inse-
parable from the thoughts of early loves and youth-
ful aspirations. Beyond all themes, however, for the
evoking of the truest tones of poetry from the heart
of the sufferer is that of a life long and tenderly
cherished but sadly and prematurely terminated. It
was this which long since elicited those ravishing
lamentations poured forth by Milton over the ashes
of " Lycidas." It was this, again, which very re-
cently caused another death to be recorded with no
less magical eloquence of woe in the
latest and possibly the most admirable of all
the performances of Alfred Tennyson. Even fictitious
regrets of the nature indicated have been the means
of evoking to music the genius of our great masters
of song—as may be recognised very easily by refe-
rence to the celebrated " Roundelay" in the Ella of.
Thomas Chatterton. 'Welcome, therefore, to us--
always welcome—are those verses which have been
drawn out of the fountains of grief, those poetical
expressions of sadness—and yet ever also of resigna-
tion—which evidence perchance more than tears the
depth of a love sanctified by dissolution. Whether
lines of the kind here intimated have reference
to friend or relation, whether they are the
utterance of ignorance or of erudition, they are in-
variably elevated into worth by being the spontaneous
breathings of a nature chastened by calamity and
sublimed by submission. Hence to ourselves they are
always moulded in the form of the true, and suf-
fused with the light of the beautiful. As such we
regard this unpretentious but touching elegy of
" Rustace :" a poem veritably and intensely elegiac
in its character—solemn, plaintive, gentle—with the
poet's trembling finger ever pointed onwards to futu-
rity, but his tearful gaze turned ever hack in a dim but
idolized retrospection. The subject of this humble but
elevating effusion of tenderness, as the volume itself
informs us, is the memory of Captain Eustace Alex-
ander Tennyson D'Eyncourt, of the 46th Regiment,
who died in the 25th year of his age, on the 9th of
March, 1842, in the British island of Barbadoes.
The author of the lamentation, moreover, as
may be readily gleaned from the text, and from
the prefatory initial C. D'E. is the father of
the departed soldier, of whom might we speak with
his friends as Ardern spoke of the Black Prince.
—Flos militias mundi —to them at least,
to those who knew him in all his worth
and foreshadowed greatness, a greatness none the less
probable, from its never having been afforded the
opportunity of realization.
" ME POSUIT ,
CAROLUS DE EYNCOURT, '
FILIUM, FLORE 213TATIS ABREPTITM,
. '
ELTSTACEUUM DILECTISSIMUM
DEFLENS.
REVOCET VOX MEA DULCES AMORIS
MONEAT QUOQUE—QUAM FUCACES
QUANTULA SIT VITA!"
Such is the touching and exquisite inscription
on a deep-sounding clock-bell which hourly
tolls from one of the towers of Bayous
Manor, thew home of the deceased, in Lincolnshire.
The mere thought of that inscription on the bell--
that voice not in a wilderness, but in the heart of a
beautiful landscape in England—wbere
4 6 in woods and groves, on wold and plain,
He dreamt of life and love,—and dreamt in vain!"
is matter for subdued but earnest admiration. That
thought has, since the casting of that memento„
of affection, been expanded into the present " Elegy
by the sorrowing though resigned father of Eustace.
After the three simple but impassioned cantos
of the poem, comes an invocation to the
shade of the departed, in which the writer'
seeks to shadow forth, however feebly, to
his own conception the awe and meekness with which,
after much lamentation, he has bowed his spirit to the
decrees of Omnipotence, awaiting, doubtfully it mil
be, but still hopefully for the period which is to witoes6
his reunion with the dead—a sentiment kindred to the
which Byron inscribed on the tomb of his infant,
daughter—transcribing it from the sacred pages es
The Book—" I shall go to her, but she shall not re
turn to me!" Many charming ideas, and lovely et'
pressions are scattered through these pages, in tribute
of paternal affection ; as where it is said—
" Swiftly the blast each fragrant bloom bereaves;
Where smiled the blossoms, lie the withered leaves!'
Speaking of Eustace, the father exclaims at one

part—
" The Fame and Glory were, alas! denied: ,
How to deserve he had learnt,—and died!" , •
adding, however, soon afterwards—
" Most happy, those who live to taste the joy
Of youthful hope—and ere it withers—die !"
Both of these thoughts are to us very beautiful, the
first being merely regretful, but the last charmingly
consolatory. As a yet better example of the powers
of the writer of the elegiac strain here celebrated, we
give, however, the following masterly passage, iti
which the whole passion of the lamentation appeal;
to us to be concentrated:—
" In a far isle was drawn thy lastest breath:
No anxious brother watched thy bed of death;
Though comrades all thy feverish wants supplied,
The loved and loving stood not by thy side.
Thy failing hand, no gentle sister pressed,
Thy head reposed not on a mother's breast;
Thy dying accents found no father's ear,
No weeping household gathered round thy bier.
Yet,—when the death-drum rolled a deep farewell,--•
And the swift volley boomed the soldier's knell,—
Though not one kindred tear bedewed thy grave,
Thy spirit claimed a kindred with the brave!
Heaved many a breast which war in vain had steeled.
Around thee drooped the stoics of the field,—
And veterans taught all forms of death to see
With ey..s unmoistened,—weer cloud for thee!"
The incident of the gold drinking cup—the chalice
emblematic of a love which required no emblem do'
ring life—is one of the most admirably depicted ill
the volume, commencing as it does with the farewell
revel in the manorial hall, and closing with its trans'
mission back to Lincolnshire from the death chamber
in Barbadoes
" Dulled by the damps that in that chamber fell,
The golden herald came its tale to tell"
the tale of the death of Eustace ! Other ex.
ampler might be here afforded of the scholarly
grace and paternal tenderness with which the
whole of these elegiac verses have been
composed, but enough has already been said to
assure the discerning that the poem is eloquent with
the eloquence of a father's heart—a heart overflowing
with the tenderest recollections. Such the book bss
appeared to us, and as such we believe it may be long
cherished in remembrance.

THE NEW ACT FOR THE PREVENTION OF OFFENCO
—Yesterday the new Act for the better prevention of offences,
which received the Royal Assent on Thursday, was printed.
There ere i 6 clauses in the Act, making some important
alterations in the criminal law of the United Kingdom, with
the exception of Scotland, and they have immediate i pers.'
tion. . Among the provisions is one declaring that if stol
person shall be found by night (the same as in cases of bur-
glary) armed, &c.,
with intent to break into any house roil
commit a felony, or having in his possession, without lawfulecuse,anoyr beingimplemefonutns
found by
or having
withving in
to commit any felony, the offender is to be deemed guilty
misdemeanour,and liable to an imprisonment, with or withous
hard labour, for a period not exceeding three years. With
respect to " chloroform," it is enacted that if any person shall
unlawfully apply or administer, or attempt to administer, 0
any person chloroform, laudanum, or other stupifying of
isntfai
enc
disguised,
overpowering 'drug, with intent to assist in committing $
felony, every such offender to be guilty of felony, and liable
to transportation for life, or imprisonment, with or without
hard labour, to three years. The measure was prepared bi
Lord Campbell.