correct taste: but when we have done so, we shall find that they are altogether different things, and that we have substituted the pleasures of composition for those of fancy. There is another way in which the class of subjects we allude to, interests us, and that is, by sympathy with the race that did actually believe in the legends of wonder and superstition. If the poet can thus carry us back in feeling, so that we identify ourselves for the moment with the circumstances of that remoter age, the interest excited will be powerful: but this a rare achieve

ment.

Another class of subjects which it has of late become popular to select for imitation, is that of Eastern tales. From the time of the Crusades, the East has supplied us with favourite materials, in story and in scenery, for the combinations of fiction. Its treasures were deemed almost exhausted, and the subjects of Oriental romance were seemingly abandoned to the inventors of spectacles and melo-dramas, till the new fashion was set of sentimental corsairs and interesting mussulmen. We think this a worse direction for taste to follow, than that of border romance and black letter legend, inasmuch as it leads the poet further away from Nature, and from those models which next to Nature it is safest to follow.

The prevailing faults of the poetry of the day, are diffuseness and mannerism. The former is conspicuous in the attenuation of what might serve very well as the subject of a ballad or a short poem, into three or six cantos of tedious description and prosaic dialogue. By mannerism, is not simply meant a marked manner, for by this artists of the most original genius may, with rare exceptions, be distinguished, but something obviously artificial in the mechanism of the composition, arising either from affectation or from an acquired facility in executing things after a certain manner, which sometimes leads the more original writer to be the mere copyist of himself. Mannerism implies a sameness of idea as well as of expression, and it cannot be denied that in this sense Walter Scott and Lord Byron are complete mannerists. What then must their imitators be?

The poems which we have placed together at the head of this Article, and which have suggested these remarks, have not much in common, except the degree of merit which we think attaches to them. After the foregoing remarks, it will not be considered as doubtful praise, if we place them both rather above the standard of mediocrity. It is not our design to draw any parallel between them, further than to remark, that in "Ilderim" the critic will find the least to disapprove, and in "The Naiad" the poet will recognise the most to interest. Ilderim is announced as forming part of a work, the plan

of which was first conceived, and partly executed in the ' countries which it attempts to describe, during the course of a journey, which was performed in the years 1810, 11.' Its merit, one would expect, should lie principally in the description of the scenery of the East; but the poem is not distinguished by many passages of this sort, nor by any peculiar vigour of pencil. It opens with the following stanzas.

The pale beam, stealing through the matted trees,
Kist Balbec's walls and stern Abdallagh's tower;
Cool through Abdallagh's garden stream'd the breeze,
Wak'ning each folded leaf and sleeping flower:
Bright was the scene, and calm the soothing hour:
Heav'n still its blessings shed on earth beneath,

In silent dews that gemm'd the verdant bower;
Earth pour'd her thanks in sweets from ev'ry wreath,
Freshness was in the air, and life in every breath.
There, in that garden, eastern art display'd
All that enchants beneath the burning sky;
All that belongs to coolness or to shade;
Hues that enliven, or relieve the eye
Dazzled with light: rich odours that supply
The native sweets that loaded zephyrs bear;
Sounds that refresh with cooling melody.
Yet, matchless Nature, in that scene so fair,

Thine were the choicest gifts, though art arrang'd them there.
The Ruler's palace on the North arose :

Long pointed arches, (for, to Arab lore

Its splendors imitative Europe owes,)

There, with high-gadding jasmine mantled o'er,
Shadow'd the halls, and stretch'd a skreen before;
Whilst, at the western end, an arch'd alcove

(With roof of fretted gold and varied floor)
Invited: thence the wandering eye might rove
O'er all the glittering scene-the buildings and the grove.
Fronting that arch a marble pavement spread
Its snowy surface, bordered on each side
With streams, that water'd an enamell'd bed:
A fountain in the midst; the spiral tide,
Aloft, each many-colour'd gem belied;
And, falling, waken'd music's liquid sound.

The rest was verdure, stretching far and wide;
Groves that o'er-arch'd, or scatter'd sweets around

Flowers that enrich'd the air, or deck'd the painted ground.
The branching walnut, prodigal of green,
The feather'd palm, the cypress dark and old,
Tower'd on high, with myrtle woods between;
Or bowers of citron, that at once unfold
Their flowers of silver and their fruit of gold;

Aloft its giant leaf banana spread,

Waving in air, like Mecca's flag unroll'd,
Or purple clusters woo'd from overhead,

Or yellow cassia bloom'd, and heav'nly incense shed,
'Sweet choice was there of shaded walk or bower;
And all amongst, in mazy error, ran

Clear sparkling rills, that freshen'd ev'ry flower.
Bright, magic scenes, unlike the haunts of man!"
The Moslem well might think he then began
Th' eternal round who enter'd that domain;

For all describ'd in Heav'n's celestial plan
Stood blooming within reach, and not in vain
He might appear to wish for all he hopes to gain.
Nor were there wanting, to complete the heav'n,
Fair houri forms; for through the leafy shade
Two peerless maids, like those to men forgiven,
Promis'd in Koran verse, together stray'd;
The one, all gladness, radiant, bright array'd,
Rivall'd the opening rose, the garden's queen;
Splendid of hue, and gorgeously display'd:
The other, lovely, but of pensive mien,

More like the lily show'd, of beauty more serene.' pp. 3-6. The poem is divided into four cantos. The tale is made up of the usual ingredients; a warrior-lover, a fair captive and her confidante, and the tyrant foe, love and murder and mystery, and the catastrophe. Of the execution the reader may fairly judge from the specimen we have given. Perhaps it arose from our not being very partial to the kind of subject, or from our being already sated with Syrian and Turkish tales, that we were not more interested in the perusal.

"The Naiad" is a poem of a far more romantic kind. It is founded, we are informed, on a beautiful Scotch ballad procured from a young girl of Galloway, who delighted in preserving the romantic songs of her country.' 'One of the ballads of Goethe, called "the Fisherman," is very similar in its incidents.' The Author however informs us, that little of the imagery of the old Scotch ballad is retained in the present poem, as the scene is altogether changed. The story is simply this: Lord Hubert had taken leave of the fair Angeline, at morn, promising to return before nightfall. In his return, the Naiad appears to him, seduced by whose beauty, the knight forgets his vows of fidelity so far as to follow her, notwithstanding the ominous entreaties of his page, advances to the stream, and for ever disappears.

The following description, with which the poem opens, although disfigured by some prettyisms, is appropriate and beautiful.

The gold sun went into the west,
And soft airs sang him to his rest;
And yellow leaves all loose and dry,
Play'd on the branches listlessly:
The sky wax'd palely blue; and high
A cloud seem'd touch'd upon the sky-
A spot of cloud,-blue, thin, and still,
And silence bask'd on vale and hill.
'Twas autumn-tide,-the eve was sweet,
As mortal eye hath e'er beholden;
The grass look'd warm with sunny heat,
Perchance some fairy's glowing feet

Had lightly touch'd,-and left it golden:
A flower or two were shining yet;
The star of the daisy had not yet set,-
It shone from the turf to greet the air,
Which tenderly came breathing there:
And in a brook which lov'd to fret
O'er yellow sand and pebble-blue,
The lily of the silvery hue

All freshly dwelt, with white leaves wet.
Away the sparkling water play'd,

Through bending grass, and blessed flower;
Light, and delight seem'd all its dower:
Away in merriment it stray'd,-

Singing, and bearing, hour after hour,
Pale, lovely splendour to the shade.
Ye would have given your hearts to win
A glimpse of that fair willow'd brook :
The water lay glistening in each leafy nook,
And the shadows fell green and thin.

As the wind pass'd by-the willow trees,

Which lov'd for aye on the wave to look,

Kiss'd the pale stream,-but disturb'd and shook,
They wept tears of light at the rude, rude breeze.
At night, when all the planets were sprinkling
Their little rays of light on high,

The busy brook with stars was twinkling,

And it seemed a streak of the living sky;

'Twas heavenly to walk in the autumn's wind's sigh, And list to that brook's lonely tinkling.

O pleasant is the water's voice,

And pleasant is the water's smile,

The one doth bid the heart rejoice,

The other lulls the eye the while. pp. 1-3.

We pass over Lord Hubert's quaint discourse with the 'page ' of his heart,' and his page's answering,' and the description of his bridle hand's shaking with pleasure, and the steed's mocking the wave on the brook, and more to the same effect. In sooth,' we 'wis' that such things, whether met with in

ancient reliques, or modern antiques, are wondrous silly. We must insert the portrait of the Naiad.

It rises from the bank of the brook,
And it comes along with an a gel look;
Its vest is like snow, and its had is as fair,
Its brow seems a mingling of sunbeam and air,
And its eyes so meek, which the glad tear laves,
Are like stars beheld soft'ned in summer waves;
The lily hath left a light on its feet,

And the smile on its lip is passingly sweet;
It moves serene, but it treads not the earth;-
Is it a lady of mortal birth?

Down o'er her shoulders her yellow hair flows,
And her neck through its tresses divinely glows;
Calm in her hand a mirror she brings,

And she sleeks her loose locks, and gazes, and sings.' p. 12. Her song is not particularly replete with meaning: but who does not know that in songs, the air and the voice are every thing? Little indeed are our modern sirens indebted for their power to charm, to the quality of the words which they breathe and trill so melodiously. Lord Hubert listens, and gazes upon the lovely lady, till his constancy begins to give way. His 'pretty page' intreats him not to trust the phantom, for the page, it seems, is much wiser than his master, and knows flesh and blood from a water-sprite, and says this pretty page,

Trust not the eyes of that lovely spirit,
Death doth their wooing light inherit;-
Trust not those locks of the burning gold,

They will twine round the heart 'till it's ruin'd and cold.'

6

The warning is in vain. Lord Hubert resolves, whatever betide him, to woo the fairy of the flood:' he alights from his steed to meet the Naiad.

The page is fled the steed is gone,
Lord Hubert lingers there alone;
Alone-save that light form that sleeks
Her tresses down her gleaming cheeks.
She woos him with her voice and look ;--
Beside her crawls th' enamour'd brook,
Touch'd with her eye's delicious ray,
And muttering a quiet delight on its way.

She put forth her hand, and the moonbeam fell
On a hue like its own,-and it slept there well;
She fix'd her fair eyes on Lord Hubert's face,
And look d him to stillness in that pale place.
He paus'd-he fear'd-till her voice sigh'd along,
In the beautiful, soul-fed breath of song:-
Then he started, and clasp'd her lily white hand,
Oh! as sweet as the violet leaf, and as bland.