greater efforts, such as "Roderick" and "Ma-, doc." The poetry is often poor, and the interest feebly sustained. His "inscriptions," however, are real gems; each contains a beautiful thought arrayed in choicest drapery, and gleaming with the light of true poetic genius. As we sailed along, now glancing at the stars above, and now at the stars below, we remembered the exquisite line, "Ye stars, which are the poetry of heaven," and asked a solution of it. Two reasons appeared to justify the sentiment. Of all objects the stars are the loveliest, and of all objects they are the most mysterious. Of all hues, from the ruby Mars to the sapphire Hesperus, they attract and fill the eye with beauty. Radiant with brightest and purest light, they are nevertheless invested with an impenetrable aliquid ignotum, which furnishes ample materials for the shapings of imagination. Beauty and mystery must always be poetry, and thus "the stars are the poetry of heaven." We had often looked enviously upon a light transparent cloud floating smoothly on the bosom of the moonlit air, and wished some power would aerialize us, that we might sail in that white-winged ship to explore the blue depths of the trackless ocean of universal ether. That night our wish seemed realized. Our little boat sailed like a fleecy cloud, specking the clearness of the sky. We looked upwards, and beheld the moon navigating her nightly course through the blue serene gemmed with starry islands. We looked downwards, and beheld another moon, sailing in another azure sea among other starry isles. Thus floating between two oceans, as in mid air, we steered along the radiant axis of the hollow sphere. Infinity opened around, and swallowed up the soul in its limitless amplitude. We now passed the island of St. Herbert, where the venerable priest and confessor mourned the absence of his bosom friend, St. Cuthbert, and prayed that Heaven might grant a simultaneous death: "While o'er the lake the cataract of Lowdore Pealed to his orisons." Nearing Lowdore Inn, we heard distinctly the roar of the waterfall mingling its wild voice with the softer music of the small cascades. We made for the strand, and, hoisting our boat, sat down on the variegated stones that had been kissed into polished beauty by the enamored lake. Disentangled from former fancies, the panorama presented its objects in novel and different aspects. With our eye on the moon, that still rolled in beauty through the firmament, though shaded at intervals by patches of heavy clouds, the following lines were suggested, and, aided by her lamp, we pencilled them in our note-book, which the reader will perhaps pardon us for inserting: The moon, that looks serenely from the sky, But the night was wearing, and, after a hasty glance at the cataract, which presented no very remarkable appearance, as the recent drought had considerably lessened its supplies, we began to ascend an almost perpendicular mountain that grimly frowned over the southern extremity of the lake. We were somewhat jaded before leaving the boat, but the invincible energy of will triumphed over the lassitude of nature. In a short time we were seated on a rocky projection, looking out, like a castaway from his raft, upon the billowy sea of Borrowdale. The day still lingered behind the mountains. It was a moment of awful loneliness. Surrounded by such gigantic masses of matter, 'the fragments of an earlier world," and far removed from kindred and acquaintance, we felt powerfully our ineffable insignificance, our helpless impotence. Death might here blow us from the tree of life like a leaf of the forest; and who would care to note our fall among the heaps of withered foliage with which the world is strewed! And yet we trust some eye would moisten as it missed us from the spray. None is so lonely as to be utterly alone. And He, without whose permission a sparrow cannot fall, will never withdraw his care from the humblest of his creatures. Sad, sweet thoughts like these were beginning to steal over the soul, when the sudden bleat of a stray member of the flock, which had approached unobserved, startled us like the voice of a spirit. Being much excited by the previous sights and sounds of the night, we were struck with a kind of panic, and sped away across the mountains, till the majestic orb of day, slowly ascending above the wavy horizon, arrested our flying footsteps. It was a glorious sight, and amply repaid us for all our toil. Strangely delighted with everything we had seen, and heard, and felt, we quietly picked our way down the steeps, sprang into our boat, and soon arrived again at Keswick, just as the worthy people were opening their window-shutters to the morning sun. As we have nearly exhausted our space, we must tell the remainder of our story in a few words. After getting a little refreshment, we started, staff in hand, for Carlisle. We took an unusual but romantic route. Skirting Skiddaw on the west, and the eastern shore of Bassenthwaite water, we crossed the Caldbeck Fells, and recruited by a com fortable snooze on Jacob's pillow, in a desolate part of the road, just as eight o'clock sounded from the cathedral, weary, footsore, but happy, we entered the ancient city of Carlisle, where we determined to remain a few days to recover from the fatigues of our pedestrian excursions. Between Bowness and Carlisle, we could not have travelled less than seventy miles, certainly no mean distance, when the nature of the route is taken into consideration. A word in fine; we have often been asked whether we would adjudge the palm to the English or the Scottish lakes? The question, though often put, is a very absurd one. We have uniformly replied, both are best. The two tableaux are distinguished by peculiar characteristics, calculated to afford gratification to the same mind in different moods, or to different individuals of dissimilar intellectual type. As both of these regions possess large tracts remarkable alike for sublimity and beauty, though in the one the former and in the other the latter predominates, a chastened taste for quiet loveliness, slightly interspersed with rugged sternness, will conduct us to Windermere and Ullswater; and a high relish for wildered grandeur, sparsely relieved by soft attractions, will suggest a visit to Lochlomond or Loch-awe; while a mind capable of revelling with equal delight among both, will enjoy the Lakes of England and the Lochs of Scotland in the same degreee of perfection. From the Edinburgh Review. THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST. The Eve of the Conquest, and other Poems. By HENRY TAYLOR. felt, when the piece lies within so small a compass, that the grace of proportion is recognized by an immediate consciousness, and not merely detected by patient and progressive survey. In the case, too, of pieces consisting of a few lines only, though they may not treat directly of a passage of human life, they, for the most part, will have been sug THE admirers of every poet whose enter- | prise, genius, and fortune have succeeded in producing that rare phenomenon, a long poem of sustained interest and sterling worth, are generally as ardent in their affection for his minor poems, as in their reverence for his more elaborate and more distinguished work. A volume of Milton will most probably open itself somewhere near the Allegro or the Ly-gested by something experienced or observed, cidas; and while Petrarca's "Africa" (his "magnum opus") reposes in oblivion, his sonnets, mere relaxations, so trivial that the good Canonico saw no reason for not writing them in the vulgar tongue, live in the hearts of thousands, or at least in the more cordial part of their fancy. It is not surprising that it should be so. A long poem, if conducted with a genius equal to the theme, has indeed its advantages, especially those of comprehending a larger sphere of interest, employing a greater number of the poetic faculties, and including more various elements in a richer harmony and ampler keeping. On the other hand, it is seldom conceived, as a whole, with the completeness which belongs to the design of a short poem; and that portion of it which did not enter into the original conception, is in danger of hanging about it with an awkwardness which betrays a prosaic origin. Again, no amount of executive skill can wholly atone for defects in the subject matter; and the subject of composition of any length is apt to reveal, at the last moment, some inherent defect, as provoking as the black spot which sometimes comes out in the marble, when the statue is all but finished. There are other advantages which belong exclusively to a short poem. It is rendered buoyant by a fuller infusion of that essential poetry which pervades, rather as the regulating mind than the vivifying soul, a body of larger dimensions. The particular beauty which results from symmetry is most deeply and thus touching nature at many points, will draw strength from frequent contact with its native soil; whereas a longer work, even though not abstract in its subject, joins thought on to thought and image to image, without remanding the poet to the common ground of reality; and being thus "carved out of the carver's brain," is apt, if not of first-rate excellence, to meet with a cold response from men whose associations are different from those of the poet. It may be added, that short poems bring us more near to the poet and to impart and elicit sympathy is among the chief functions of those who may be called the brother-confessors of mankind. For, however devoid of egotism he may be, he must unavoidably present more aspects of his own many-sided being, when expatiating on many themes, and in many moods, than when engrossed by a single task. Their brevity also makes them more minutely known, and more familiarly remembered. They are small enough to be embraced; and if we cannot repose beneath them as under a tree, we can bear them in our breast like flowers. Mr. Taylor's short poems are characterized by the same qualities which distinguished "Philip Van Artevelde" and "Edwin the Fair." That robust strength which belongs to truth, and that noble grace which flows from strength when combined with poetic beauty, are exhibited in them not less distinctly than in the larger works by which his reputation has been established. Their sub jects, as well as their limits, for the most | And wit love-kindled, showed in colors true part, exclude passion in its specific tragic form; but, on the other hand, they are wrought out with a more discriminating touch than his dramas. There is in them a majestic tenderness ennobled by severity; and, at the same time, a sweetness and mellowness which are often missed in the best youthful poetry; and which come not till age has seasoned the instrument, as well as perfected the musician's skill. While not less faithful to nature, they have more affinities with art than their predecessors. Retaining the same peculiar temperament, light, firm, and vigorous, (for true poetry has ever a cognizable temperament, as well as its special intellectual constitution,) their moral sympathies are both loftier and wider, and respire a softer clime. To this we should add, that their structure is uniformly based upon those ethical qualities, simplicity, distinct purpose, and faith in man's better nature, which are not less essential than any intellectual gifts to excellence in poety. The present volume, we regret to say, is but a small one. It includes, however, many different sorts of poetry; and the specimens of each are such finished compositions, that we think they must have been selected from a larger number. The longest is one of the narrative sort. There is also a singularly beautiful specimen of the elegiac; two poems, the "Lago Varese" and the "Lago Lugano," which, from their union of picturesque description with human interest, we should refer to that philosophical idyl, so characteristic an offspring of modern times; a dramatic scene or rather a philosophic disquisition, interwoven with a personal interest, and felicitously cast in the dramatic form; and an ode—for the " lines, written soon after the return of Sir Henry Pottinger from China, 1845," have far more pretension to the title than many poems to which it is conceded. We will begin with the second of those we have now mentioned-"Lines written in remembrance of the Hon. Edward Ernest Villiers." It is so short as to admit of being quoted as a whole: "A grace though melancholy, manly too, What genial joys with sufferings can consist. And even the stranger, though he saw not these, Accordant to a voice which charmed no less, Of wisdom, counsel, solace, that across How much by thy unerring insight clear The longest poem in the collection is that which has given the volume its name. "The Eve of the Conquest" is an impassioned narrative of those events in King Harold's life which connected themselves with the Norman invasion. So adapted to the purposes of song, both from its poetical and its historical interest, is the fall of the last of England's Saxon kings, that few literary accidents are more singular than that it should not have been before now worthily recorded in verse. With the present poem we have one fault to find; the scale on which it is written is not large enough to allow of this noble theme being treated in that ampler manner to which the narrative powers here exhibited are evidently adequate. The event described, paramount as it was in political importance, was but proportionate to the characters of the two men who at that great crisis stood opposed to each other, not only as the heads of hostile armies, but as the representatives of contrasted principles and contending races. The character of Harold was one of heroic material and heroic dimensions; and, with one exception, it was without stain. Of that fatal error, his engagement to William-imposed upon him, it lated-Harold, as here described, is deeply is true, iniquitously, but sacrilegiously viosensible although he is no penitent. Α great character, with one great flaw in it, appears to present us with the truest tragic effects; for without such a flaw, no place is reserved for poetic justice. A saintly character would be strong enough for tragic purposes; but its strength is that spiritual strength which disowns itself, and is "hidden" in a might greater than its own. This is doubtless one of the reasons why martyr-rative-doms have been so seldom chosen for the source of dramatic interest. Tragic strength must be based upon exclusive self-reliance. Now, exclusive self-reliance is the spirit that goes before a fall; and it is one of the functions of tragedy to illustrate, by the confutation of a fatal reverse, the insufficiency of such merely human strength, and the madness latent in such pride. The chief events of "The Eve of the Conquest" are of historical fame. Those of our readers who are least acquainted with history, will have learned them from the "Harold" of Sir E. Bulwer Lytton-which, as well as his "Last of the Barons," is truly an epic in prose ;it is needless, therefore, to recount them here. We are introduced to Harold in his tent the night before the battle. Inly disturbed, he seeks repose in vain; and at mid--He sate again, and with an eye still stern, night sends for his daughter, who is found "A woman-child she was: but womanhood It is thus that the king concludes his nar "Here we stand opposed; "Then uprose the King; His daughter's hands half startled from his knee Dropt loosely, but her eye caught fire from his. He snatched his truncheon, and the hollow earth Smote strongly, that it throbbed: he cried aloud"Twixt me and William, say that never doom, Save that which sunders sheep from goats, and parts "Twixt Heaven and Hell, can righteously pro nounce.' |