Mrs. Browning speaks, in her preface to Poems before Congress, of the necessity which poets are under of justifying themselves "for ever so little jarring of the national sentiment, imputable to their rhymes." That national sentiment, which prefers to meet with assonance where it is to be expected, has often enough been jarred by her rhymes. In the same preface, Mrs. Browning expresses a supposition that her verses may appear to English readers too pungently rendered to admit of a patriotic respect to the English sense of things." They are rendered too pungent, not merely by unpatriotic fury, but by bad taste. They are a perfect shriek. When we were reviewing Owen Meredith, we felt inclined to quote Waller to the effect that 66 "Poets we prize, when in their work we find Some great employment of a worthy mind." We now feel more inclined to refer to a certain text about meddling with things too high. We regret to find in this volune the old, wild, reckless propensity to use the most sacred names and associa tions in a totally irreverent connection. Mrs. Browning surely can not expect to influence the English people by frantic allto nothing rhapsodies. The volume contains some of the very worst specimens of her worst mood. In one of her raptures on "the gloomy sporting man," Napoleon III., which we wonder whether he has read, she says: "Is this a man like the rest, And caught to the place that was best? With the people's heart in his breast? Lest truth should cumber the road; Till the world is strangled with tape; To fit the hole of a toad; And fil ch the dogman's meat To give to the people of God?" However, we will say no more about this close in the celebrated "Curse," but that strange bok, and its almost disgraceful did lyrical power. The whole (chapters it contains ne passage at least of splenvi. and vii. of Napoleon III. and Italy) is too long for quotation; we give the end of it: "Now, shall we Our Italy lives And if it were Of drum and tr Should we feel strain, Where heroes le Sure to eme And if it were n Of France and P say, indeed? not for the beat and bray amp of martial men, the underground heave and ft their dust as a seed rge one day? Should we h Thrill through ru Throb along the fi Whisper an oath k They left in pictur That Italy is not d Ay, if it were not f Those tears of a su Should we see From the place wh thrown, Italy, Italy? loosed ot for the rhythmic march or the tears in our eyes, ere the wicked are over at length From the tyrant's thrall, Pale and calm in her strength? Pale as the silver cross of Savoy, passion, and sweetness of this little lyric are inexpressible. It is one of the most perfect gems in our language. Several When the hand that bears the flag is brave, other pieces in the book show great lyri And not a breath is stirring, save What is blown Over the war-trump's lip of brass, The poems of the author of John Halifax are not by any means so good as her prose. They may be taken as a favorable specimen of the many volumes which in these days are written by persons of sensibility and thoughtfulness, who have certainly no vocation to be poets. Such persons very frequently produce pleasing verses; but to feel thoughtfully or even deeply is not enough to warrant them in coming before the public in the character of poets. There is an amateur appearance in this lady's volume; her pieces are generally of a languidly mournful nature, containing the usual things which every body now seems to think it necessary to say about life and death, and grief and angels, and statues and flowers. In the midst of all this we are startled by a lyric so beautiful and passionate, that it might have been written by Burns himself. It is entitled, Too Late. "Could ye come back to me, Douglas, Douglas, In the old likeness that I knew, "Never a scornful word should grieve ye, I'd smile on ye sweet as the angels do: Sweet as your smile on me shone ever, Douglas, Douglas, tender and true. "Oh! to call back the days that are not! My eyes were blinded, your words were few; Do you know the truth now up in heaven, Douglas, Douglas, tender and true? "I never was worthy of you, Douglas; Not half worthy the like of you; Now all men beside seem to me like shad cal power, such as "Lettuce," "Lost in the Mist," and "The Voice Calling." A volume of lyrics from this lady might probably be of great value. The writings of Mr. Coventry Patmore offer in many respects a pleasing contrast to the other works now under review. They have a culture to which Owen Mercdith can lay no claim, a quiet dignity to which Mrs. Browning is a stranger, and an artistic completeness unattempted by the author of John Halifax. Mr. Patmore is what may be called a good poet, if the term be admissible, in contradis tinction from a great one. His work is never hasty, and, even when tedious, can not be called diffuse. He does not rush into print with a first draft; nor produce a volume of inferior pieces, relieved here and there by something on which art has been really expended. On the contrary, every line published by him has been carefully weighed, and the whole work bears the equalizing touch of a careful workman. He has thus, more especially in his last poem, produced what has more of the character of a perfect whole than any other living poet except Tennyson and perhaps Browning. Of course there are some passages finer than others, but the change is not from bad to good, from diffuse to intense; but from good to better, from a less interesting to a more interesting part. It is impossible, in a word, to assign any thing but the highest praise to Mr. Patmore's execution. His command of language is very great; his meaning being always fully and deliberately expressed, without effort or violence and this is one of the highest merits in a work the nature of which is to enter into the subtlest moods of the deepest of human passions. One of the peculiarities of his style is the power of using long words beautifully. But the great character which separates his work from that of every other genuine poet that we know, is the universal diffusion of the deepest quietude. It is difficult to express the effect of this. It is not the quiet of dullness or coldness; on the contrary, we can only describe it as the quiet of a soul full of the deepest emotions, but without any vivacity or animal spirits; of a man who can be touched to the core by joy or sorrow, but to whom lyrical utterance is wholly denied, and who can but trace his emotions in a measured, monotonous chaunt. It is curious to observe how this element pervades his descriptions even of exciting natural phenomena, where the soul of Scott or of Burns would have danced for joy. For example, what can be more admirably faithful, yet more exceedingly quiet, than this description of a thunder storm? "And now a cloud, bright, huge, and calm, The sunshine quenched, from one dark form This is very beautiful and perfect as description; but has not a touch of that wildly formative imagination of which Scott was a conspicuous master, and of which Wordsworth has many traces. The impulsively imaginative man could not have staid to limn the storm so quietly; he would have partially distorted it, run into it, so to speak, bathed in it, shrieked in it, battled in it, beholding its bulks as gigantic specters, its fury as the combat of gods. On the other hand, when this quietness is really appropriate, and may be conceived to be the sudden reining-in of an impetuous imagination, it is sometimes very fine. "There fell along with the slender means of doing so, and the idle mightiness of the heavens, is one of the most perfect effects in modern poetry. This quietness is at the root of Mr. Patmore's extraordinary analytical power, through which he is enabled to lay an arresting hand upon the most transient phases of the passion which he delineates. This is a valuable gift, though not a specially poetical one. Indeed, the analytic is in some sort the converse of the dramatic faculty. It enables Mr. Patmore to make his hero a type of "delicate love," but takes away all his individuality. He is simply an exceedingly good man, who has proper feelings on all occasions. Now a great poet would shrink from the unflinching exhibition of the feelings which Mr. Patmore gives us. His verse is so calm, and his manner so self-possessed, that neither he nor his readers are conscious that he is taking a great liberty with them. We confess to a feeling of half-offense at seeing emotions and facts of poor human nature, common to every man, not pathetically hinted at, in the this unfalteringly calm march, and detectmanner of great poets; but pursued in ed in these unfalteringly chosen words. There is no sense of mystery, no distance, no acknowledgment of a reserve between man and man which can never be over passed, and a silence which can never be lawfully broken. Then we really are constantly annoyed and ashamed at the revelations of domestic life. Love should be the poet's theme, not marriage. The parts on love are by far the best; but there is in every part the same enormous defect. A great poet could never have written so about love. It is the most unpathetic book we ever read. Although, then, we give every credit to Mr. Patmore for conscientious execution, artistic attainment, and rectitude of purpose, we regard his popularity as a A man from the shrouds, that roared to quench sign of vitiated taste on the part of the Even the billows' blast and drench. None else was by but me to mark Here there is such a hurry of action, that the last quiet line, in itself immensely fine, is in that truth of situation in which the great lines of true poets are always placed. The contrast between the urgent need of promptness to save life, public. We said at the outset, that the English muse was become domestic, and had lost all idea of greatness. Mr. Patmore has domesticated her to the utmost, indeed, made her a housewife; and we regret that the nation seems to admire her so much in this capacity. Is there nothing in the countrymen of Milton, Bacon, and Keats, to demand and respect grandeur of purpose and fulfillment, those mighty workings of imagination through out heaven and earth, that deep and pa- | M. Dozon's prose translation. The questhetic insight into human life and suffer- tion is, how far Owen Meredith is justifiing, those mighty hues "of earthquake and eclipse," which were once comprehended in the name and work of a poet? or are they content to be addressed in strains like this? "Dear mother, I just write to say In the woods, where while I tried to keep At least, the beautiful French boot, And that he prized me more than life.”—P. 233. able, how far excusable. He acknowledges his obligations to M. Dozon, but not so directly as their extent calls for; and, although he seems to imply, he does not distinctly affirm, that he gained his information and took down his ballads from the mouths of Servian bards. Had he distinctly affirmed this, he could not have escaped the charge which the Saturday Reviewer brings. He might have had his "Dozon" on the Carpathian mountains, as he had his "Murray ;" and the profession that his materials were gathered on the spot may refer to no more than the inspiring influences of the scenes where the ballads were once enacted. But that, if it be so, he might have said so more plainly, can not be denied. As to the extent of obligation, the question is less grave. The poetry of Owen Meredith is his own, and his version may be as legiti mately derived from the prose of M. Dozon, as the plays of Shakspeare from Since the above was written, the small the tales of Boccaccio. If he is ignorant volume by Owen Meredith, entitled, Serb- of Servian, so was Pope of Greek. It is ski Pesme, or National Songs of Servia, with regard to the Introduction and has been put into our hands, together Notes that the charge of plagiarism presswith the Saturday Review of March es. Here it seems undeniable that Owen twenty-third. An article in the latter Meredith has borrowed largely both in contains severe strictures affecting the in-matter and words. He, however, probagenuousness of Owen Meredith. The bly considered that these were the least writer, evidently a man well acquainted important part of the work, and that a with the subject, accuses the poet of en- poet might be allowed to enter into the tire ignorance of the language from which labors of other men. And as be has he professes to translate, and convicts him made an acknowledgment of his debt to of a series of puerile blunders whenever M. Dozon, we think the grave allegations he attempts to quote Servian. He fur- of the Saturday Review sink into comthermore proves, by parallel extracts, that paratively trivial dimensions. Owen Meredith is indebted for most of the information contained in his own lengthy introduction to a French writer, M. Dozon, who has made a prose version of the Servian ballads in his own language. In effect, Owen Meredith has "cribbed" wholesale, transferring to his own pages not only the information, but the words, of what may be called his French original. All the pieces, also, of which he offers a metrical version, exist already in With regard to the merit of the work, little can be said. It is only a fresh proof of the unrest of mind which is leading this once hopeful man to shower his verses by thousands over the world. Some of the lines are pretty and graceful; but they are much less a translation of a ballad literature than Pope is of Homer. They are the most luscious, self-conscious, intemperate style of the degraded modern school. |