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Thus kindly I scatter

Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden

Lie scentless and dead.

3.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie wither'd,
And fond ones are flown,

Oh! who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?"

This is one of the harmonized airs, and is arranged for four voices in an extremely charming manner.

Of The Minstrel Boy,' which follows, we must say that it is a spirited little poem: but our limits will not permit us to do more than refer to it.

The celebrated old air of "Moll Roone" is one of the best specimens which we have seen throughout the work: the air is plaintive, simple, and sweet; and the words are in Mr. We extract them:

Moore's happiest manner.

I.

• Farewell! — but, whenever you welcome the hour
That awakens the night-song of mirth in your bower,
Then think of the friend, who once welcom❜d it too,
And forgot his own griefs to be happy with you.
His griefs may return-not a hope may remain
Of the few that have brightened his path-way of pain-
But he ne'er will forget the short vision that threw
Its enchantment around him, while ling'ring with you!

2.

And still on that evening, when pleasure fills up
To the highest top sparkle each heart and each cup,
Where'er my path lies, be it gloomy or bright,
My soul, happy friends! shall be with you that night;
Shall join in your revels, your sports, and your wiles,
And return to me, beaming all o'er with your smiles! —
Too blest, if it tells me that, 'mid the gay cheer,
Some kind voice had murmur'd, "I wish he were here!"

3.

• Let Fate do her worst, there are relics of joy,

Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy,
And which come, in the night-time of sorrow and care,
To bring back the features that joy us'd to wear.

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Long,

Long, long be my heart with such memories fill'd!
Like the vase, in which roses have once been distill'd-
You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will;
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still!'
"Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem
Testa diù."

HOR.

In the advertisement to which we have already referred, we are informed that the sixth Number will appear in the course of this year, and that it will probably be the last of the series; the whole being intended to form three thin volumes.

ΤΗ

ART. XIV. A Selection of Scotish Melodies, with Symphonies and Accompaniments for the Piano Forte, by Henry R. Bishop, and Words by Horace Twiss, Esq. No. I. Folio. 15s. Power. HIS, as we learn from Mr. Twiss's preface, is only a fragment of a larger work which he had undertaken before the Irish Melodies made their appearance, and which was intended to comprize a selection of all our national music, English, Irish, Scotch, and Welsh. Mr. T. thus explains his intention:

• When the idea of this work was originally suggested to me, the Irish Melodies of Mr. Moore had not yet appeared. It was then my intention to publish a selection of all our national music, whether English, Welch, Scotish, or Irish; but when I found that the Irish airs had passed into the hands of a poet, whose genius ensured to them an immediate and perpetually increasing celebrity, I had no hesitation in altering my plan: and as a musical selection, professing to be general, would have been obviously imperfect when the Irish compositions should have been taken away, I resolved upon confining myself to the melodies of Scotland alone.

Every one must have remarked how much these sweet and simple airs have suffered from the demerit of the words associated with them. In this country, almost every musical publication must depend, for its popularity, upon female patronage; and, without any affectation of refinement, it may fairly be observed, that the generality of the Scotish ballads, even where there is no improper freedom of thought, are written in too rude and careless a style, and upon topics too stale and vulgar, for the chastened taste and feeling of well-educated women. The real lovers of the Scotish music would have done more for its popularity by one small selection, containing only the few songs of which the subjects are adapted to the general taste of good society, than by all their multifarious collections of ballads, about milk-pails and ewes, and the low amours of jilted swains and murmuring shepherdesses. I am aware, that to several delightful airs have been annexed some beautiful little poems, chiefly written by Burns, and by two or three contemporaries of our own; but these gems, in proportion to the load of dross, are very, very few: and the great majority of all the spirited and touching melodies to which Scotland has given birth, still remain coupled with words fatiguingly dull, maukish, and obsolete.

In the present publication, therefore, my principal object has been, to choose such topics as may be the most generally interesting to cultivated readers. If I shall appear to have attained so desirable an end, the public, I trust, will pardon the otherwise inexcusable offence, of heaping a new collection upon a pile already so unreasonably voluminous.'

It was certainly not unnecessary, in our apprehension, to explain the period at which these ballads were written; since the style of them, and the very turn of the thoughts and language, bear such a striking resemblance to Mr. Moore's compositions, that critics would, no doubt, have been found wicked enough to suppose that the case was different from what it really is, and that Mr.Twiss's poems were written, as they were certainly published, long after those of Mr. Moore. That, however, not being the fact, we shall content ourselves with noticing the similarity of style, which justifies us in offering to Mr. Twiss also much of the praise that we have bestowed on Mr. Moore; and the manner in which this Number is executed has made us much regret the information thus given at the conclusion of the preface:

That I have not the prospect of continuing a work, which, on several accounts, was extremely interesting to me, is matter of more regret to myself, than I can hope it will be to my readers. However, the profession of the bar appears to be so incompatible with periodical versification, that I am afraid this Number, as it is the first, will be also the last, of my projected selection. But it will flatter, as well as gratify me, if my attempt shall rouse the ambition of some poet, whose endowments may qualify him better for the task, and who may not be too proud nor too busy to twine his fairer wreaths around the neglected Harp of Scotland. Through a long and gloomy night, that Harp has slumbered in almost unbroken silence it is time for the light of a brighter genius to shine upon its chords, and, like the morning sun upon the statue of Memnon, awake them into harmony and life."

Mr. T.'s preface, which (to use a Trans-atlantic phrase) is lengthy, consists principally of a dissertation on inversion in poetical language. We fully agree with Mr. Twiss in the general principle of objection to forced inversion: but, in our judgment, it is only part of a principle of objection still more general to every thing that is forced and unnatural; and we cannot adopt his criterion that those inversions, which would be unallowable in impassioned and declamatory prose,' are to be condemned in poetry. If we mistake not, all writers on the subject of versification are agreed that inversion is one of the qualities which distinguish it from prose: poetical inversion, therefore, must necessarily be something different from the inversion of prose :-but there cannot, we imagine, be any diffi

culty

culty in distinguishing that which is natural and easy from that which is forced and perplexed; and, as no more certain criterion can be found, we do not see the possibility of farther narrowing the rule. The nearer, however, the language of poetry approaches to simplicity of style, and the less it involves the sense or requires an effort to apprehend it, the more excellent is the versification; and, if this observation be applicable to the art in all its forms, who will deny that it is most peculiarly just with reference to lyric composition? The necessity of pronouncing the words of a song in a tone and measure dictated by the air (a matter often of no small difficulty, when the composer is not to a certain degree a poet also,) is in itself a sufficient reason for requiring the greatest simplicity of style: but it is not the only reason; since the necessary brevity is another, not less strong. As Mr. Twiss has proceeded, in the work now before us, on the principle thus explained in his preface, it is fair to say that, although we have felt ourselves obliged in some measure to dissent from his doctrine, we do not perceive that it has led him into any material faults.It too often happens that those candidates for "the meed of song," who make simplicity their only aim, are betrayed into tameness and puerility of style: but we do not find any occasion for charging Mr. Twiss with either of these defects. It is time, however, to quit discussion, and to give our readers some account of the work.

We have, indeed, little more to say than that this selection is formed on a plan almost exactly similar to that of the Irish Melodies. The present Number contains twelve airs, the words of which treat generally of absent friends, or convey reflections on death, female influence, forsaken maids, love, joy, and sadness, with a little mixture of politics and popular topics; though, on this latter subject, it is much more sparing than the Irish Melodies. We select, as one of the best specimens, the song which Mr. T. has named A Poet's Tomb:'

I.

*

Tho' my visions of life are so soon to depart,

Yet sigh not, dear Helen! thus deeply for me:
The ling'ring pulsations that throb in my heart
Are only its fond apprehensions for thee.
Oh! sad are the perils that compass thy way,
For a season of sorrow and darkness is nigh:-
When the glow-worm appears at the close of the day,
Her lustre betrays her, and dooms her to die.

The first song, on the misfortunes of the Bourbon family, shews that Mr. T. little suspected their restitution to empire so shortly after its composition.

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• For

2.

For me, love! no sweet-wasting odours shall burn,
No marble invoke thee to deck it with flow'rs;
My ashes shall rest in a crystalline urn,

And that urn be abroad in the sun and the show'rs.
It shall lightly be swept by the cool-blowing gale,

When the gay-colour'd evening shines cheerfully through :
Around it the shadows of twilight shall sail,

And the mists of the morning embalm it in dew.

3.

Sweet girl! may thy relics be laid in that shrine !
For, though death, we are told, is unconscious of love,
Yet it soothes me to hope they may mingle with mine,
As our spirits will mingle for ever above.
And if, when the race of our being is run,

Any record remain of the loves that we bore,
Our story shall be, that in life we were one,

And in dying we met to be parted no more.'

The idea appears to have been borrowed from the well-known and beautiful elegy of Tibullus; and the second stanza reminds us of Burns. The Song of a Scotish Emigrant' was doubtless suggested by a beautiful passage in the third canto of Marmion. The last stanza of address from the wanderer, thro' Susquehana's wood-encumber'd brake,' possesses considerable merit :

• Even here, lovely Scotland! in want and in woe,
With a proud recollection I muse upon thee;
For thy spirit is pure as thy mantle of snow,
And firm as thy rocks that embosom the sea.

May the waters of Time, while their current shall pour,
Ever nourish thy laurels, and brighten their hue!
May Friendship and Feeling still hallow thy shore,
And the loves of thy children be tender and true!'

Human life has frequently been compared to a bubble; yet the following mode of putting the comparison has not occurred to us before, and is very pretty:

To night, not a tear must be suffer'd to roll,

But the drops that may fall from the brim of the bowl:
For though, like the bubbles that float in our wine,
We rise on the surface, and fade with a breath,
Yet the bubbles themselves have a moment to shine,

And they dance on the wave, ere they melt into death.' In these extracts, we presume, our readers will have recognized a striking resemblance to Mr. Moore; and though we do not here discover all his brilliancy and classical elegance, all the ease and smoothness with which he overcomes difficulties, or all the power by which he gives dignity to trifles, we find a

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