The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-01 00:00:00

TAIT'S MAGAZINE.

Mrs. Gore—one of the most popular and prolific
novelists of the day—here carries on her story of
" Abednego, the Money-lender," with unabated vigour,
exhibiting as much freshness and vivacity of dialogue
as if she had not already written some twenty or
thirty fictions. The scene of her present narrative is
laid for the most part in fashionable life, whose follies
and errors she touches off with a light, sarcastic pen.
Her sketch of the Maitland family bids fair to rival
even the scandal-loving coterie in her best tale,
the " Dowager." A Lecture on the " Poets who
succeeded Milton, and preceded Cowper and Burns,"
is by Ebenezer Elliott. Some of his criticisms are just,
and all are ingenious ; but there are not a few of them
against which we must enter our protest. Otway,
for instance, is rated much too high, and Dryden
as undeservingly depreciated. Did Mr. Elliott ever
read the latter's fine tale, " Theodore and Honoria ?"
We almost doubt, for otherwise he could never have said
of him that he " was a rhyming polemic, but not a
poet." Then, too, we are told that " Dryden. had no
heart!" If so, then some one else must have written
that exquisite epistle to Congreve, to which his sig-
nature is attached, for it abounds in deep. and unaf-
fected touches of pathos. In discussing Pope's
claims, our Lecturer betrays singular inconsistency.
In one place he says, " Pope was conversing with his
heart (such as it was) when he wrote his Eloise to
Abelard,'—a master-piece which, because his heart
wrote it, will never be excelled ;" and in another
page he adds, " unfortunately I cannot feel its pathos,
and therefore cannot make it felt by your We re-
gret to see Mr. Elliott sanctioning the old adage,
that "all poets are mad, more or less." Never
was there a greater fallacy. Our true poets have been
almost uniformly remarkable for the strength, sound-
ness, and healthy character of their' intellect. Was
Shakspeare mad, or Milton, or Young, or Thompson,
or Pope—or, in more modern times, Crabbe, Words-
worth, Moore, Scott, or Hogg ? In the cases of all
these eminent men, the judgment moved pari passu
with the imagination, the one tending to correct and
bring within the limits of propriety the wanderings
and exuberances of the other. Poor Collins, to be sure,
was cracked, and so was Cowper ; but they were not
poets in consequence of their malady, but in spite of
it. The " Furze-cutter "is a striking Irish narrative
of the troublesome times of 1798, by Mr. Banim,
so well known for his admirable delineations of life
and manners in the sister country. " Miss Burney's
Diary and Letters" contains some delightful extracts
from the second volume of this work, which—so far
as we can judge from the specimens here presented
to us—is infinitely superior in interest to the first
volume. In the "Postscript Political" Tait enters his
most decided protest against the income tax, observing,
" the country is already ringing from side to side
with indignation ; and no man can paint the gross
injustice and the injurious and torturing operation of
such a tax black enough." The " Poets of the Day"
is a sprightly quiz, in the broad reckless manner of
O'Doherty. We extract from it a "Pot-house Pas-
toral," which is a passable parody on one of Virgil's
Eclogues :