LXIX. And is this all that genius has to hope for? LXX. And has he no bequest to leave behind? Has he been writing all these years in vain? They'll see in piles - long epics three times twain- LXXI. Bards do'nt grow rich, that's an acknowledged truth ; The grovelling herd conspire to beat them back : LXXII. Luxuries are not made for poets' use, Perhaps 'tis best- —a bard should not be fat,"Twould dull his inspiration, and reduce Verse to the tamest after-dinner chat. Go on, thou child of genius! heed them not,- 3 4 160 SPIRITS' SONG. I. CROW'D the cock?—The cock hath crow'd; As his shrill awakening horn Fled the darkness with affright, Fled the vestals that glanc'd on the night; As his clarion proclaim'd the god of the day! That forsook their earthy bed, And startled the darkness dismal and drear, And, piercing the veil of night, Stood like columns of terrible light, Like meteors their eyes, and so pallid their hue, Like giants their stature increasing to view, Swath'd in the soil'd sheets of the charnel and tomb, As pacing the yawning church-yard thrill'd with dread, From the yells of the damn'd, and the groans of the dead?- II. Over a murderer's all-shunned grave, Blasted seems the moon in heaven, Acheron enwraps the night. But they hear the cock crow, and they start as they hear, Each ghost to his prison-house fleetly retires, To fast, and to purge off his guilt in the fires. A H. 161 REVIEWS. Queen Hynde, a Poem, in Six Books. By James Hogg, Author of the Queen's Wake, Poetic Mirror, Pilgrims of the Sun, &c. &c.—London, Longman. 1825. pp. 443. THIS wildly-beautiful and very original poem has remained almost unnoticed by the reviewers, though highly deserving the warmest welcome, and the most cordial support, of all true lovers of genuine song and a tale of the "olden time." The Westminster Review, indeed, has inserted a trumpery and unfeeling article respecting it, which, for its want of candour, and utter insensibility to the pure poetic merits of the piece, ought to put that periodical at once out of circulation, as a pseudocritical work from which it is vain to expect either truth or taste. It is in truth a hoggish article, but has the misfortune of not grunting so musically as the famous porker against whom it is ignorantly obstreperous, and who grunts you as sweet as any"-we would say " nightingale," but that himself forbids it. He will be nothing but a lark-" a lark, lost in the heavens' blue." "The nightingale may give delight And a lark he is too, for all his name, which, by some sly caprice of chance, was bestowed upon him as the opposite of his nature; perhaps by contrast, to heighten the charm of his genial sweetness, or to surprise us into admiration by the prompt appearance of his native bearing, so different from the character of his announcement. We know he is a lark, but fortune called him Hogg in jest. Well, "A rose By any other name would smell as sweet." But let us call the Westminster reviewer what we may, his article will remain a swinish one-a mere grunt. Let him VOL. III. PART I. M learn, however, to grunt more mellifluously before he attempt again to write upon our sweet songster of a lark, which we and all, in the mere tantilising freedom of familiar fondness, denominate Hogg, solely because that, from his "wild strain," "Pleasures flow in so thick and fast With words of unmeant bitterness." What are we to think of the perception of a critic, who refuses to praise the following, as one of the finest specimens of poetical composition he ever read? Yes, I'll be querulous or boon, Flow with the tide, change with the moon; Or what the cloud and radiant bow, Or what are waters, winds, and seas, The sea must flow, the cloud descend, Sail on the whirlwind or the storin, Say, may the meteor of the wild, Then, O forgive my wandering theme! 1 We have reason to reproach ourselves for having delayed our notice of this exquisite production, which, but from peculiar circumstances, would have appeared in the last number of our Journal. We had already devoted a considerable portion of a previous number to an examination of the merits of a minstrel of the mountain land, whose genius is somewhat too much restrained, perhaps, by the cold rules of art; and we waited impatiently for the reappearance of this untutored child of song, whose only monitor is nature, that our pages might be agreeably diversified with the representation of the various manners in which genius delights to manifest itself to an admiring world. The history of Scottish Song is rich in examples of uneducated genius; and the name of Burns is in itself a tower of strength. England too can boast of her untutored sons; and, had we leisure and space, an interesting comparison might be instituted between the different kinds and degrees of merit by which each is distinguished. But the present is no opportunity for the display of national vanity, and we would proceed to our task, like impartial critics, without national prejudice or affection; and least of all would we wish to alloy, with any adscititious admixture, the pleasure which may and ought to be derived by every reader of taste and feeling, from such fine poetry as our "lark in the heavens' blue" has uttered in the broad daylight of his genius-in the full development of his extraordinary powers, and the perfect awakening of his inexhaustible ability. |