The Sun.
London, England, 1851-08-02 00:00:00

THE SUN,

LITERATURE.
10 ANCIIE ! Poems. By Thomas Smibert.
James Hogg, Edinburgh.
Under this somewhat affected title Mr. Smibert
has presented to the world a very agreeable volume of
versification. Those readers who do not happen to be
as familiar as Horace Walpole with the anecdotes re-
lated of illustrious artists are informed, in the pre-
fatory remarks of the author, that the designation of
the volume is attributable to that exulting cry of
Correggio, Io cache son pittore—" I also am a
painter," when his early performances were eulogised
by Michel Angelo Buonarotti. Nevertheless, it is
altogether without self-sufficiency, but, on the con-
trary, with a certain air of agreeable diffidence, that
the writer of the book before us exclaims lo anche,
when he adventures upon the publication of his ma-
nuscripts. For some reasons the volume of Mr.
Smibert is a curiosity, deserving the peculiar atten-
tion of criticism, coming forth, as it does, with a
somewhat plaintive regret that it contains the effusions
of one whose literary energies have been almost
entirely exercised in supplying contributions fur the
periodicals. As such the work is welcome to us,
being an indication that the serial literature of the
day cannot altogether fritter away the powers of
any one who with real capacity has nevertheless be-
come involved in the toils of piecemeal composition.
In the selection of his subjects, our author has occa-
sionally evinced some discernment as to what might
present something like a powerful attraction to the
present generation. Thus at page 77 he eulogises
Sir Charles Napier in reference I,c, the bombardment
of St. Jean d'Acre ; at page 112 he celebrates the
military renown of Soult and Wellington; at page
70 he offers his tribute of panegyric to the histrionic
genius of Helen Faucit ; at page 34 he apostrophises
admiringly, and even affectionately, the memory of
Keats ; while at page 120 ha addresses an encomium
of a rather extravagant character to the present
Prime Minister of England. Together with these
popular themes Mr. Smibert mingles the sentiments
entertained by him in reference to others of a more
generalized description. Actuated, perhaps, by the
recollection that the nightingale has been sung of by
Keats, and the skylark by Shelley, he indulges him-
self with more than one lyrical appeal to the " Swal-
low," a bird for which he appears to entertain a par-
ticular predilection. Several of his sonnets, besides
possessing the rare merit of suggestiveness, are closed
with thoughts sententiously expressed and epigram-
matically beautiful; as where he observes of his own
sorrowful experience—
" The wrinkles of my days are on my heart—
It is the eye of thought that drops sad tears;"

or where again he says of the humble dead in a coun-
try churchyard—
" Their epitaph was but the lowly mound—
The long, green grass their sole biography."
Referring to the scientific achievements of modern
times, he has penned a clever and ingenious collection
of stanzas entitled " The Fiend, the Sage, and
Steam," in which inferentially he has specified the
marvels of one of the most wonderful contrivances of
the natural philosopher. Perhaps the happiest effort
in the entire volume, however, is that revealed in the
lines addressed to his " Young Yankee Nephew,"
which, among other noble passages, contains this ad-
mirably expressed recommendation :
" Be thou of those, in future years,
Who hold that peace all good excelleth;
And that contention springs from fears,
While calm with courage dwelleth."
Those verses which we have italicised might be taken
as a motto for our fantastic friends the upholders of
the Arbitration Movement. Occasionally the pages
under consideration are flawed by blemishes as un-
pardonable, as those for example of false rhyme :
ex. gr., at the very outset we have " spots" jangling
with "antidotes," and further on " front" with "elo-
quent." Sometimes again our ears are wounded by
violations of euphony as painful, as where day is de-
scribed as "grumbling from the eastern wolds."
What, moreover, shall be said of the verse rhyming
to this where it is remarked that " winter hath been
here with all its colds," rather unpleasantly suggestive
of catarrhs. Not unfrequently, likewise, we are
treated with such barbarous stanzas as the subjoined :
" Thou comest of a noble stock.
The strong-souled breed of Gothic Norsemen,
Who shook the earth with thunder shock,
And rode the seas like horsemen."
Among the most successful attempts in the volume
are the specimens of Scottish poetry, in which the
writer indulges pleasantly enough in the dialect of
his countrymen. Several of these minor perform-
ances are really excellent. We may especially par-
ticularise in proof of this " She Cares na' fur Me,"
" The Rustic Belle's Stratagem," in which the
author displays very agreeably his powers as a
humourist, and " The Scottish Widow's Lament," in
which the pathos is sweet and unaffected. As ample
testimony of our truthfulness in the latter assertion,
take that regretful reflection of the mourner—

" Aft on the hill at e'ens
I see hint, 'mang the ferns;
The laver o' my teens,
The faither o' my bairns."
or that other, yet more beautiful—
_

" I settle whiles to spin,
But wee, wee patterin' feet
Come rinnin' out and in,
And then I just maun greet;
I ken its fancy a',
And faster rows the tear,
That my a' divined awa'
In the fa' o' the year."
Numerous examples might in like manner be given
of the novelty at times infused into a phrase or a
metaphor, as where the swallow is spoken of as " the
winged cricket of the outer earth;" but these can sel-
dom, if ever, be appreciated apart from the context in
fragmentary quotations. At intervals, happily like
the angel's visits,"few and far between," .Mr. Smibert
gives us glowing assurance that he understands the
mysteries of pathos, or the art of sinking, as thoroughly
as ever did the renowned Martinus Scribblerus. It is
thus that we find him dropping down when he in-
tends to be most pathetic (p. 2) to such a very com-
mon-place and lachrymose exclamation as—what
does the reader think ?—"Ah, dear me I" Political
prejudices, matters yet more reprehensible, peep out
now and then somewhat disagreeably, as may be seen
in the preposterous little sonnet on "Napoleon at
'Waterloo." As more favourable specimens of our
author's ability as a sonneteer, however, we would
point approvingly to the two following—the first of
them possessing just now a mournful interest, from
the recent death of _

DELTA.
No fancied dweller by Castilian springs,
Nor airy haunter of the cloven hill,
Gave, Moir, unto thee the power and will
To touch the lyre, and from its unloth strings
To draw forth strains which glide, on viewless wings,
Into the heart's recesses—as a rill
Moveth bush-hidden to the deep, and still;
While moving, audibly and sweetly sings!
The spark that lights the flame of song in thee
Comes from no source existent but in dreams;

An eye that views all nature lovingly—
A heart from which kind feeling ever streams—

These are the prompters of thimiestrelsy,
And eloquent of these are all thy themes!

THE FIRST GREY HAIR.
There is an epoch in the life of man,
Compelling thought, if power he has to think.
It is not in the palsied hours which brink
Eternity, that he is forced to scan
His bypast ways. As one light tinge of gold
On grain foretells the reaping-time to be,
So doth the first grey hair which we may see
The coming doom to all of us unfold.
That sign announces that a novel thread
Hath been inwoven with the web of life;
And that yet more and more, while we have breath,
Shall streak the fabric. Then with doubtings dread,
And awful questionings, the mind grows rife.
" Who casts that shuttle?" Heart and soul cry," Death!"
Altogether, the book under review would have been
a little more satisfactory to ourselves if the writer had
not favoured us with any more of those melancholy
" album verses," which are the everlasting theme of
your petty poetasters. Not content with one speci-
men of these frivolities of versification (p. 81), Mr.
Smibert must needs favour us with (p. 140) another.
It would, likewise, have been just as well if the writer
had remembered, before inditing " Steed of the
Steam," that the same thing had already been done,
much better, by Tilbury Tramp; that the idea con-
tained in " The Sick Couch" has also been yet more
admirably expressed in Mrs. Browning's "Romania
of the Page ;" and before that even in the
famous ballad in the " Vicar of Wakefield."
After Byron, it seems likewise somewhat
rash for any one to pen such a verse as (p. 49),
" A change came o'er the tenor of my vision.". One
of the most charming pieces of versification the
volume is that of " The Twin Sisters," and withsimilar terms of commendation we may particularize
the " Ballad of Sir Richard Fanshawe," though the
heroism commemorated in it, is little more than
" sound and fury signifying nothing." When we
light upon such mawkish sentimentality is
53 en-
shrined in the song " I dare not say I love thee, we
are distressingly reminded of that drawing-room
o
twaddle set to music of late years for the voices of
young ladies, and for the delectation of our comical
friend Mr. Punch. Equally distasteful to us are
lines written upon "Tears" (p. 80), a theme in re-
gard to which we are by this time thoroughly blase;
more particularly when we find these same " tears"
designated "the ink with which deep feeling writes,
&c.," a conceit more extravagant than any ever in •
dulged in by Donne, Herbert, Withers, or Quarles.
" Coneolinel " does credit to Mr. Smibert's rhythmi-
cal ingenuity in bodying forth a mere hint in
Shakspere. About the most successful of his imita-
tions is that of " Aileen-a-Roon," adapted to
the music of " Robin Adair." After the ori-
ginal effusions comprised in his book, come
various translations from the French, most of them
from the works of Beranger or of Latnartine. We maymention among them in high terms of praise " The
Blind Mother," and the funny little "King Yvetot."