The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-21 00:00:00

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BORSEN HALLE, JAN. 14.—HALF-PAST TWO, P. 31.-"".
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1.11 ERAI URE.

_ -.4.----
4 CCLESI2I ANGLICANA. A POEM. Br

TEE REV. C. OVERTON. LONDON, 1834.
The author of this very unaccountable pro-
duction observes in his preface, that the Lord
has " promised his own people" that they " shall
"aye a song," and expatiates on this promise
with such significant parade of egotism, that
we can come to no other conclusion than that
celesia Anglicana is the song alluded to.
The Bishop of Chester is clearly of the same
°Pinion, for he assures Mr. Overton that he is
the " Muse of Sacred Song, as David was,"—
What a wag his Lordship must be !—whereupon
the reverend gentleman hastens to insinuate a
parallel between himself and the son of Jesse;
Insisting with marked emphasis on the fact, that
I)avid composed his poems " either when the
bran was in imminent danger, or actually
rc'eght very low ;"and that he has composed
lrs u
et a period when the church is in precisely
the same predicament. The parallel is certainly
Ingenious, but we fear it will no more hold good,
than Fluellyn's between Macedon and Mon-
mouth ; and that, despite the Bishop of Ches-
'els authority, Mr. Overton will turn out to be
anything but a David. Our apprehensions are
e°nfirmed, by the recollection that David wrote
common sense ; that he touched the heart, and
convinced the understanding—two qualifications
of Which, after an attentive sifting of evidence,
wme, cannot, on our conscience, undertake to find
r' Overton guilty. Indeed, anything like the
decent sobriety of taste and judgment he holds
u the most scornful abhorrence. We may add,
that(r his acquaintance with grammar is equally
tant. Glimmerings of meaning, it is true,
occur now and then in his pages ; nor are proofs
wanting that he has occasionally flirted with
Syntax, and been honoured with her coy smile
aPProbation ; but these are very faint—so
faint indeed, as scarcely to show through the
hazy twilight of nonsense in which his poem is
eve_r.y where thickly enveloped.
is to
his droll
p on im
production, whose avowed object
presentut glories perishable record the past and
Which it of York Cathedral, but from
is perpetually wandering, opens with
some general reflections on the state of England
previous to the introduction of Christianity, in
Which, while alluding to the Druid groves of
oak and the pagan rites performed beneath their
shades, the author takes the opportunity of
transforming an acorn into a barge in a way
Only to be equalled by the pantomimic ingenuity
of Mr. Farley. "An acorn shed," quoth he—.

----" A glorious barge may launch,
To bear the tidings of the righteous branch,"
tor
an explanation of which couplet he refers
118 generally to Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah.
After launching his barge" freighted with this
IllYsterious " branch," Mr. Overton diverges
with startling abruptness to a description of the
City of York, where, it seems, he was born, bap-
tized, and reared to man's estate ; and then as
abruptly quits his c, native Ebor," in order to let
fl a few satiric arrows at Satan—a devout task,
In which the parson shows to more advantage
than the poet. The Devil despatched, our author
next turns his attention to the Deity,
"'Who every worm and every angel made,"
a grotesque juxtaposition of vermicular and
angelic creatures, which the Bishop of Chester
trust have had in his eye when he pronounced
Mr. Overton to be a poetic resurrection of the
son of Jesse. Having closed his hymn to the
betty, our author goes on to discuss the doc-
trine of original sin, which he is disposed to
think we suck in with our mother's milk, ere
imitation's powers begin ;" for, if not, why,"
he asks, in a triumphant veils of logic—
" Why are thus soon in infant minds descried,
The first fruits plentiful of pique and pride ?"
and winds up this prolix branch of his subject
1)Y an edifying discovery that "death came by
Sin." The second part of his poem opens with
4 description of Pope Gregory's raptures when
he first saw some young English slaves at Rome,
vhose
" Flaxen tresses waving to the wind,
Tell of the inborn freedom of the mind,"
from whence we deduce the fact, that there is a
Close connection between flaxen hair and mental
freedom, and that all lads so illustrated are sure
to be of an independent way of thinking. But
hot only had these slaves remarkably good heads
of hair, but

" The snowy whiteness of their cheeks so fair,
Beamed like the wanderer's from some purer air,
On which man's toilsome doom had never passed,
Nor flaming Sirius heat solstitial cast."
We say nothing of the geological absurdity of
this passage, which would imply that England
had a much " purer air" before " man's toilsome
doom" had compelled him to drain its swamps,
cut down its forests, and root out rank vegetation
from its Wail,
s ; but what does Mr. Overton
mean --- by his
last line ? As he has written
it, it is a most bolo perplexing specimen of amphi-
•
g)--a favourite figure with him, by the bye
.--implying, either that the flaming
Sirius"
s! " heat solstitial," or that the 4, heat sol-
stitial "cast " the flaming Sirius." But we must
k,ossrk" to his account of the early restoration of
the -I,eathedral, after it had been destroyed by
"anes• Thomas, it appears, first rebuilt it:-_
To
rest of the Normans, Thomas, it was thine,
and Roar-e again the desolated shrine."
ers added the choir—
Nwceas Rogers' task to raise the vaulted choir,
We 2. burstingfrom the vital fire."
eXceed•Must Confess that this last line puzzles us
Ph .1110 Y, leaving us in doubt which is the
of ce.nix, Rogers or the Choir. The spectator
ple:d showman's Battle of Waterloo, when
which in a similar state of perplexity, as to
Was 1„ was the Duke of Wellington, and which
by th"aPoleon, was relieved from his dilemma
arid we
e man's reply of cc which you please, Sir,"
same would advise Mr. Overton to make the
,R„f
%at, "e, accommodating answer to all who
ask L.
at is
th him the meaning of the above line.
derstande"lY way he can reconcile it to the un-
to Neb of all his readers. From Rogers
and ae,o4,hadnezzar, the transition is natural,
this monsh'i,ugly we are indulged with a sketch of
suddeniy,r's graminivorous propensities, when,
meat; the' before efwe we can well recover our astonish-
Ills Grace ett.ne shifts toCatholic emancipation and
we regret "t e Duke of Wellington, of whom,
° uy, our author entertains a very


indifferent opinion. It is soothing, however, to
reflect that Mr. O'Connell comes in for an
equal share of his vituperation, as any one may
see who has courage enough to sound the
depths of this almost unfathomable passage
And turn to Erin, restless as the surge,
That laves the crags upon her rocky verge:
Say, is she bless'd ? and do her troubles cease?
Came on thy wings, Emancipation, peace ?
What peace? what rest? while Babel's whoredoms still,
With rites unblest her sea-green borders fill !
Repose, farewell! when factious Brawlers vile,
Supremely lord it o'er the spell-bound isle :
While wretched compromise, her wounds to heal,
Led by the mania of reforming zeal,
Brings God-denying error to unite
Her killing plague, to Neologian night!
Bids each with blazon'd blasphemy combine,
Blest Truth to poison, at her source divine!
And leave the hapless island to deplore
Heaven's glorious lamp, receding from her shore!
The " Neologian Night" is a fine touch of
the mysterious, and naturally enough reminds
the author of a dream he had some few months
since, when he was taking a pleasant stroll

" to catch the cooling gale,
Where babbling Balder cleaves his namesake dale."

He dreamed, it seems, that the Utopian age had
commenced, and that the national debt had

"shared by general vote,
The fate of Jonah—sunk to save the boat."

Now, if we remember rightly, Jonah was not
sunk, but swallowed ; and he must be a prodi-
gious whale indeed who would undertake to
swallow our eight hundred millions of debt !
But let that pass.—No sooner was the debt got
rid of, than science and philosophy came each
forth from their hiding places, and walked pub-
licly hand in hand through the kingdom ; but,
before they had walked to any distance, the
Goddess of Agitation suddenly reared her tre-
mendous form aloft, when, behold ! all the
people fell prostrate before her, which so shocked
the author, that he woke with his hair standing
on end, right glad to find he had been only
dreaming. He concludes his vision by a thanks-
giving and copious recapitulation of his own
devout and moral excellencies ; which oddly
enough, some will say profanely, he puts into
the mouth of the Deity :

But, gracious Lord, to me, devoid of dread,
Repeat what once to Ephesus was said,
Say, what thou tallest, days of mourning near,
On every witness, every Church to hear :
" I know thy works, and how thou canst not bear
" The sons of evil, but with zealous care,
" By truth's bright test, Pretenders vain hast tried,
" And found them Satan's synagogue that lied.
" I know thy patience, which reproach has borne,
" By toil unwearied, and unmov'd by scorn :
" The faithful victor in the painful strife,
" Shall feed in Eden from the tree of life."

We now approach the close of the poem, no
small portion of which is made up of a catalogue
(reminding us, by its minuteness, of a washer-
woman's inventory), of the monuments in York
Cathedral. " Widow Byng's" tomb particularly
strikes the author's fancy, nor does he fail to
derive equal satisfaction from that of Jenkins :

" Jenkins I thy tomb the aching heart relieves."

Having poured forth divers wholesome medi-
tations on these cathedral monuments, for which
we regret we have no space, Mr. Overton straight-
way bethinks him of its " majestic anthems,"
which he likens to
"Golden fruit in silver pictures placed,"
a startling simile, which we do not remember to
have ever met with before. He then proceeds
to trumpet the exceeding virtues of the Bishops
—has he an eye to a benefice ?—and bursts out
into paroxysms of admiration of one of our
divines, blessed with the singularly euphonious
name of " Diptych," who, he tells us, now
" shines" among the most brilliant constellations
of the " milky zone"—an odd place to send a
Bishop to !—after which, having sufficiently be-
lauded the Episcopal Bench, past, present, and
to come, Mr. Overton turns with characteristic
modesty to himself, and looking back on his
own early days, says that he first learned to think,
when
" Youth's bright morning, and the orient ray,
Had brushed infantile tears and toys away."

Conceive the " orient ray" producing an effect
like this ! We have heard of an old woman
brushing the " cob-webs from the sky," but for a
sun-beam to brush a lad's toys out of his hand
is an achievement, if possible, still more mira-
culous. To resume. As the author waxed in
stature he waxed also in wisdom, for we have it
on his own authority that

" - love paternal beaming in his eyes,
His sire, his son had prompted to be wise,"
an assertion which we beg leave to doubt,
inasmuch as the present volume is an unques-
tionable proof that however much the author's
father may have desired to make his son Charles
a Solomon, he utterly failed in his affectionate
efforts. But Mr. Overton is by no means of
this opinion, for lie asks shortly afterwards,
" Where have I wandered ? Through what regions wide
Has travelled Thought, to time and place untried,"
and then closes Isis poem by a description of the
Day of .Judgment, which, from the sulphur-and.
brimstone style of its eloquence, looks uncom-
mon like a plagiarism from the incantation scene
in the second act of Der Frieschutz.

We conclude by a few general observations
on this grotesque performance. Looking to its
unblushing solecisms—its independence of all
taste—its pedantic tone—its worse than inquisi-
torial intolerance—its affected sublimity—its
frequent and extraordinary plunges into the
bathos—it may safely be pronounced the greatest
literary phenomenon of the age. Its very rhymes
jingle like a cracked jew's-harp, and its meta-
phors—not one of which but is dislocated in
every joint—are pilfered from the Christmas
bell-man. Talk of thought ! Not the
spectre of an idea is to be found in it.
Yet the author, because he struts upon stilts,
thinks himself a giant. In continuous interest
he is deplorably deficient. He rambles here,
there, and every where ; and it is only by the
clouds of dust that he kicks up as he struts
along, that we are enabled to track his course.
But possibly,
as .cgentle Dullness ever loves
a joke," he may intend his Ecclesia Angli-
cana as a grave quiz upon modern poetry. If
this be true, then, indeed, his production as-
sumes quite a different character ; and so far
from being steadily and stupidly serious, is in
reality, a very admirable specimen of irony.
Acting on this supposition, which we suspect
will turn out to be the right one, we have
thought it our duty to address to him a congra-
tulatory Ode, which will be found in another
column of The Sun. It is not fit that a bril-
liant wag, like Mr. Overton, should be allowed
to hide his candle under a bushel.