The Sun.
London, England, 1834-10-01 00:00:00

FRASER'S MAGAZINE.

Several important events have occurred within the
quarter ; Don Pedro has taken to his death-bed, the
Blacks have began throughout our colonies to revolt,
and Mr. Fraser, bookseller, and proprietor of Regina,
has been called out by a Member of Parliament. With
a laudable desire to gratify curiosity, the excellent
bibliopolist is determined to " rescue this last event
from the oblivion to which all newspapers are des-
tined," by embalming it in his magazine. Certainly
the joke from beginning to end is much too good to
be lost—a Member of Parliament sends a challenge
to a bookseller, a nobleman being the bearer of the
cartel ; whereat the man of books, so far from feeling
honoured by the message, flatly refuses the invitation,
and ungratefully threatens to call in the police. The
noble ambassador persists, " What, ho I Master Bar-
nadine, come out and be hanged." But Master Bar-
nadine has no mind to any such thing ; he protests
that he is not at all entitled to the privilege
or honour of going out on a cold morning to be
shot at by an angry duellist. He prefers Regent-
street to Chalk Farm, and cares not who knows it.
In vain does the bearer of the cartel expostulate ; the
bibliopolist is " propositi tenax " and will not be
killed to please any nobleman in Christendom ;
but he will fight with the pen, if Mr. Duncombe
pleases, and lend his Magazine for the battle-ground
into the bargain. Thus the parties joined issue, and
the ambassador returned no wiser than he went,
while the challenged threw himself under the pro-
tection of Mr. Dyer, the sitting magistrate at Marl-
borough-street. With this ends the first act of the
farce. In act the second, the bibliopolist comes for-
ward in another character ; he lays down the laws of
the duello, and rates his would-be opponent soundly
for his ignorance. Next comes forward the actual
writer of the article, though still under a mask, pre-
ceded by a grand flourish of trumpets, protesting that
as a writer " he is not unknown, nor, as the immense
sale of his Tory pamphlets, extracted from this Maga-
zine, will prove, is his influence unfelt." This may
be true, for aught we know to the contrary, for the
Tory taste is not particularly nice in its appetite ; but
why, my good Sir, praise yourself so lustily ? Above
all, why, after having coarsely abused Mr. Duncornb,
now come forward with such language as this ?
" So far, indeed, from their being any wish or intention to

wound the feelings of Mr. Duncombe, the writer can unre-
servedly assert that no idea of the kind ever crossed his mind;
and that such a result, when it was seen to have been pro-
duced, was to him as unexpected as it was undesired."

Here we cry with Dominie, " pro.di-gious
writer does more than insinuate that an individual is a
profligate, a blackguard, a liar, a drunkard, and a
gambler, and then denies all intention of personality.
To make the matter still richer in absurdity, he goes
on to justify his attack—that attack which just before
he has denied—by stating—

" Our justification rests in this, that we were not writing
for, or addressing ourselves to, Bond-street or the Clubs, but
the Tabernacle and the Dissenters."

In other words, when you talk to a Dissenter, it is
necessary to use the coarsest language, for he will un-
derstand no other. So be it.

The article just noticed is the last in the Magazine,
but we could not in common politeness attend to other
matters before doing justice to an affair in which the
bibliopolist was himself concerned. This number is
both better and worse than the last—better as a whole,
because it is more equal, and worse, because it has no
one paper of very superior merit. The essay on the
writings of Coleridge evinces an earnest affection for

the poet, but, though eloquently written, we cannot
say that it enlightens us much on the merits or deme-
rits of that extraordinary man. With all his metaphy-
sical anatomizing of the poet's genius, the critic lite-
rally teaches nothing; nor has he even attempted to tell
us how it happens that with such high, acknowledged
powers, Coleridge made so feeble an impression on the

public. It is mere nonsense to tall; as he does of
" how difficult it is for the ordinary mind to rise to the
level of the extraordinary ;" to feel and comprehend the
genius of a poet it is not necessary to rise to his level,
or Shakspeare and Milton, instead of being the most
popular, would be the most neglected of poets. It
should seem that whatever subject genius handles,
whether it be of a past or a present time, whether it
be of earth or heaven, natural or supernatural, it yet
should be in harmony with the spirit of the age ; where

this secret chord is not touched, the. music, however
sweet it may be, soon dies away without an echo. It
is here we think—and we speak with due deference of
so mighty a genius—we think that Coleridge was de-
ficient ; a great poet, like a good King, should be a
man of the people, but Coleridge was essentially the
man of a few ; nor can we indulge in the hope that he
is ever likely to become more popular than he has been.
The paper headed " Poetry—the modern Poets,"
though many of its dogmas may not be readily
admitted, contains much sound and wholesome cri-
ticism. The following remarks are particularly de.
serving of attention
" Byron wrote better than others, because he felt more vio-
lently than others, and because his powerful imagination sup-
plied him with objects for his sensibility. It is this which is
true poetical imagination—not the ideal invention of impossi-
bilities. No ! and then Byron attempted to write by the means
of artifice ; but then he miserably failed.
" Cowper's charm also lay in being simple and natural ; but
then he wanted fire and poetical invention. He gave a fac-
simile of nature; he copied rather than imagined. His poems
raise the gentle affections and purify the heart; an admirable
merit, no doubt,' and which will always justly secure them
fame. But it will scarcely be pretended that he had any de-
gree of the genius of Byron.
" It is not in the power of him who is possessed by a spirit
to choose his language or his thoughts ; he must speak what
the spirit prompts, and then it is a noble spirit—he must speak
well.
" If there be a sort of reading more disgusting and more
idle than any other, it is factitious poetry ; and ?cannot re-
frain from saying that the greater part of modern poetry is
factitious ; it never breathes genuine impulses•; it is all affec-
tation, or an idle array of gaudy words : it is all dead matter,

and like flowers made of paper or silk, which have no odour.
Nothing is so easy as to produce compositions which have the
superficial look of poetry, but which want its soul. There is
a fashion of mysticality in modern writers of verses which is in
very bad taste, and brings this department of literature into
contempt ; it is mere trick—the mask of a black veil which
any one may put on. True poetry is not a delirium—it is the
energy of sound wisdom ; if it teaches us nothing, it is " the
voice of a cymbal."
Well, too, does the writer observe, that
" Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge, formed a new
school of poetry. They broke from all old trammels ; and, by
the force of undoubted and vigorous genius, opened many new•
beauties."

Aye, truly did they ; and yet these are the very
men against whom the leading review of the day di-
rected its keenest shafts, their polished and glittering
points clipped in venom, while it almost deified the
puny doings of Rogers. These last, forsooth, were
regular ; they were all according to rule ; all modelled
after Pope ; and therefore they were beautiful, an ab-
surdity which was echoed by Byron,—not for want of
knowing better.
" Chrestomathy, or, Analects and Apologues, from
various sources."—No one will read this paper twice,—
few, indeed, once. Amidst much that is false or trite,

and more that is perfectly unintelligible, it has some
few, some very few morsels that are worth remembering.
The most unpardonable blunder of the whole is the
writer's having twisted Jean Paul Richter's magnificent
prose into indifferent rhyme, and for no better reason
than because there was a " Dantesque vein pervading it."
What stuff is this! he might as well translate Macbeth
into iambics, because there is an /Eschylean vein pervad-
ing it, and the result could not be much worse. Had he
done his task better—and it is far from being amiss as
it is—still the terza rima would never have thoroughly
conveyed the peculiar magnificence of the " Vision."
There are some sorts of prose, and this is of them,
that will no more bear the chains and trammels of
verse, than verse will endure the being translated into
prose. Had our limits permitted it, we would, in jus-
tice to JEAN PAUL, have re-translated his splendid
dream into plain English, and have placed it side by
side with this attempt to crucify him in rhyme.
The criticism on the " Life and Correspondence of
Mrs. Hannah More" would have been much better
than it is had the subject been more worthy, or the
author more fanatic. As it is, every line betrays that
the writer is sinning against his own conviction.
He does not praise her from any false estimate of her
talents—how, indeed, should he, unless excessive bi-
gotry have blinded the eyes of his understanding ?
his praise originates in some less obvious cause, and
the consequence is, that the mere words of the text
are not always in particular harmony with its spirit.
The jumbling up, too, of Saurin's Sermons and
Schiller's Robbers, is a sufficient evidence of the
more than Irish confusion that was going on in the
brain of the critic.

" Signor Paganini and Ensign O'Donogbue, lark-
ing at Boulogne," is a very clever, impudent, droll
article, that every one will read with pleasure,
and no one will praise' when read. Were we
called upon to colour the writer's portrait from
imagination, we should paint him with a broad,
brazen forehead, eyes twinkling like those of
Mephistopheles, and a mouth where epicurism
sate grinning triumphantly, a sort of pendant
to Shakspeare's patience on a monument. If he have
the slightest spice of the brogue on his tongue, he
must be the most amusing companion imaginable, and,
be what he may, he has talent enough to set up a score
of magazines.

,4 The Songs of France" sound most pleasantly to
the ear. It is an article full of fun and malice, with a
singular and most miscellaneous assortment of topics
that had the least right possible to expect such a meet-
ing—Saul and Doctor Bowring, Regent-street and the
Boulevards, Goldsmith and Pindar—(notPeterPindar),
Blondell and Tyrtous, Tom Moore, and Joan of Am.
Of a truth this goodly company must marvel not a
little at being thus brought together, as much so as the
two poles might do if, on some fine summer morning,
they were to find themselves close neighbours, instead
of maintaining the opposite extremities of the globe.