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1623.]

REVIEW.-Moore's Loves of the Angels.

And mine, oh misery! mine the flame,
From which this desolation came→
And I the fiend, whose foul caress
Had blasted all that loveliness!"

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The loves of the third angel are more auspicious. He is represented as one of those angels who fell from loving much to loving wrong." We cannot resist the temptation of extracting the following soft and beautiful little piece. It is the song of Nama, calling Zaraph, the angel, to their accustomed supplication.

"Come pray with me, my seraph love,

My angel-lord, come pray with me;
In vain to night my lip hath strove
To send one holy prayer above-
The knee may bend, the lip may move,
But pray I cannot, without thee!
"I've fed the altar in my bower

With droppings from the incense tree;
I've shelter'd it from wind and shower,
But dim it burns the livelong hour,
As if, like me, it had no power

Of life or lustre without thee!
A boat at midnight sent alone

To drift upon the moonless sea,
A lute, whose leading chord is gone,
A wounded bird, that hath but oue
Imperfect wing to soar upon,

Are like what I am, without thee!" "Then ne'er, my spirit love, divide,

In life or death, thyself from me;
But when again, in sunny pride,
Thou walk'st through Eden, let me glide,
A prostrate shadow, by thy side-

Oh happier thus than without thee!" The connection between Love, Devotion and Music, is thus gracefully alluded to:

"Oh Love, Religion, Music-all

That's left of Eden upon earth-
The only blessings, since the fall
Of our weak souls, that still recall

A trace of their high, glorious birthHow kindred are the dreams you bring! How Love, though unto earth so prone, Delights to take Religion's wing,

When time or grief hath stain'd his own! How near to Love's beguiling brink, Too oft, entranc'd Religion lies! While Music, Music is the link

They both still hold by to the skies, The language of their native sphere, Which they had else forgotten here."

We have revelled so long in the delightful and flowery fields of Moore's exuberant Muse, that our readers will begin to suspect we have altogether forgot the Pegasean soarings of our noble Bard. Indeed we must ingenuously confess that, after meandering through the verdant lawns and fra

43

grant meads of the former, we feel less ardour in travelling over the towering mountains and precipitous crags of the latter.

Lord Byron's Poem of "Heaven and Earth" is the opening piece of the second Number of the Liberal, published on the 1st of Jan.; and from its mitigated immorality, when compared with former productions, we have no doubt, but the public censure has produced a desirable effect. This "Mystery," as it is denominated, like " Cain," assumes the form of a drama. It is a love-story, into which the author has introduced all the horrors of the Deluge. The time selected is immediately preceding that awful event, and the Poem ends with the Deluge itself, in which the author powerfully pourtrays the destruction of all but the Ark, which floats on the vast and interminable extent of the watery waste. The chief interest arises from the loves of the angels Sumiaza and Azaziel, for two of the lovely descendants of Cain. One of the most appalling pictures of the Deluge is conveyed in the exultations of the Evil Spirits who issue from the caverns of Caucasus, and are on the eve of winging their flight from the earth doomed to destruction. These are the scenes in which the horror-dealing imagination of Lord Byron revels with the most powerful effect; where he and "grins horribly the ghastly smile." depicts the excess of human misery, The reader will observe, by the following extract, the usual style of the poem. The bold irregularity of the metre sets criticism at defiance.

"Spirit. Rejoice!

The abhorred race

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REVIEW. Lord Byron's Heaven and Earth.

After long looking o'er the ocean wide

For the expected ebb which cometh not:
All shall be void,
Destroyed!

Another element shall be the lord
Of life, and the abhorr'd

Children of dust be quenched; and of each
hue

Of earth nought left but the unbroken blue;
And of the variegated mountain

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But thought it joy

To see him to my bosom clinging so.
Why was he born?

What hath he done

My unweaned son

To move Jehovah's wrath or scorn?
What is there in this milk of mine, that
Death
[stroy
Should stir all heaven and earth up to de-
My boy,

And roll the waters o'er his placid breath?
Save him, thou seed of Seth!

We have not attempted to detail the plot of the noble Bard, or illustrate it by many extracts; because we consider the piece, as a dramatic composition, a complete failure; and we certainly predict that if his Lordship continues to produce tragedies and mysteries, in such rapid succession, similar to those recently issued, he will write down his reputation much more rapidly than he acquired it. Perhaps this giant in Poesy considers his name so firmly established, that whatever flows from his pen should be received as poetic law if so, it is the duty of legitimate criticism to expose those licentious aberrations to which his Lordship, probably through negligence alone, is fre

[Jan.

quently liable. We have neither space nor inclination to enter into a cynical examination of the poem ; or we could extract innumerable passages that would not bear the test of criticism. We shall, however, close our review with the following short extracts, desultorily taken from the first scene, which is a conversation betwixt Anah and Aholibamah, the two heroines of the piece. The examples of cacophony, nonsense, &c. are given in italics. The reader will perceive that the cæsura, which is the soul of metrical harmony, is totally disregarded.

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* None but his Lordship could explain the metre of this verse. It should be an iambic pentameter. Let us turn pedants, and try to scan it,

I am glad he is nōt. I cānnöt oùtlīve hīm.

The terminating words form an adonic, perhaps in imitation of his friend Southey's Hex

ameters!

+ The God of Seth, as Cain, would have come better under the head of NONSENSE. We should observe that these lines are not from the same scene as the preceding ones. former

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1823.1

REVIEW.-D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature.

former volumes were noticed in our. vols. LXIII. p. 521; LXXXVII. i. 425; and the three now first published will probably be thought more entertaining. Mr. D'Israeli thus states the differ ence of character between the present volumes and the preceding Series:

"The form of essay-writing, were it now moulded even by the hand of the Raphael of Essayists, would fail in the attraction of novelty; Morality would now in vain repeat its counsels in a fugitive page, and Manners now offer but little variety, to supply one. The progress of the human mind has been marked by the enlargement of our knowledge; and essay-writing seems to have closed with the century which it charmed and enlightened.

"I have often thought that an occasional recurrence to speculations on human affairs, as they appear in private and in public history, and to other curious inquiries in literature and philosophy, would form some substitute for this mode of writing. These Researches, therefore, offer authentic knowledge for evanescent topics; they attempt to demonstrate some general principle, by induction from a variety of particulars-to develope those imperfect truths which float obscurely in the mind-and to suggest subjects, which, by their singularity, are new to inquiry, and which may lead to new trains of ideas. Such Researches will often form supplements to our previous knowledge.

"In accustoming ourselves to discoveries of this nature, every research seems to yield the agreeable feeling of inventionit is a pleasure peculiar to itself-something

which we ourselves have found out-and which, whenever it imparts novelty or interest to another, communicates to him the delight of the first discoverer."

Such is the idea on which the materials in this "new Series of Curiosities" has been collected and arranged; and it is so golden a casket of literary gems, that those who read either for amusement or instruction, would not be disappointed were they to open fortuitously in any page of these Sortes D'Israeliana.

Happily possessed of an ample fortune, and unfettered by any profession, Mr. D'Israeli has been enabled to devote the learned leisure of several years to the pursuits of literature; and his hours have been usefully and honourably employed. Many an antient manuscript has been pored over, and many a black-letter tract; and from such sources he has judiciously condensed numerous striking historical facts and biographical rarities, which would otherwise have remained in oblivion.

45

See our volumes LXIII. i. p. 1120;
LXXXII. i. p. 555. ii. p. 54. LXXXIV. i.
p.358.; LXXXVI. i. p. 438.
"The

con.

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Among the early articles Loves of Lady Arabella," will be read with great interest, as will the character of Sir Edw. Coke, contrasted with that of his great rival Lord BaOther more prominent articles are, "The Secret History of Sir Walter Rawleigh;' 66 an authentic Narrative of his last Hours ;" and the "Secret History of the Death of Queen Elizabeth." In the last of these articles the document (from a MS. Volume formerly in the possession of Petyt, and seemingly in his hand-writing) is curious; but it is not quite so novel as the Author appears to think, having been printed in 1788, from a more complete copy, in the "Progresses of Queen Elizabeth," where the narratives of Sir Robert Carey and Mr. Strype are given; as also a romantic tale of Parsons the Jesuit.

In the article on " Literary Residences," Mr. D'Israeli is completely at home, and at his ease—exempli gratiâ.

"Men of genius have usually been condemned to compose their finest works, which are usually their earliest, under the roof of a garret; and few literary characters have lived, like Pliny and Voltaire, in a villa or chateau of their own. It has not therefore often happened, that a man of genius could raise local emotions by his own intellectual suggestions. Ariosto, who built a palace in his verse, lodged himself in a small house, and found that stanzas and stones were not put together at the same rate old Montaigne has left a description of his library; over the entrance of my house where I view my court-yards and garden, and at once survey all the operations of my family.'

"A literary friend, whom a hint of mine had induced to visit the old tower in the

garden of Buffon, where that Sage retired every morning to compose, passed so long a time in that lonely apartment, as to have raised some solicitude among the honest. folks of Montbar, who having seen the Englishman' enter, but not return, during a heavy thunder-storm which had occurred in the interval, informed the good mayor, who came in due form, to notify the ambiguous state of the stranger. My friend is, as is well known, a genius of that cast, who could pass two hours in the TOWER OF BUFFON without being aware that he had been all that time occupied by suggestions of ideas and reveries, which such a locality may excite in some minds. He was also busied by his hand; for he has favoured me with two

drawings

46.

REVIEW.-D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature.

drawings of the interior and the exterior of this old tower in the garden: the nakedness within can only be compared to the solitude without. Such was the studying, room of Buffon, where his eye, resting on no object, never interrupted the unity of his meditations on Nature.

"Pope, who had far more enthusiasm in

his poetical disposition than is generally understood, was extremely susceptible of those literary associations with localities: one of the volumes of his Homer was began [begun] and finished in an old tower over the chapel at Stanton Harcourt; and he has perpetuated the event, if not consecrated the place, by scratching with a diamond on a pane of stained glass this inscription;

In the year 1718,
Alexander Pope
Finished HERE

The fifth volume of Homer. It was the same feeling which induced him one day, when taking his usual walk with Harte in the Haymarket, to desire Harte to enter a little shop, where going up three pair of stairs into a small room, Pope said, In this garret Addison wrote his Cam

eye;

garret-it

and cer

paign! Nothing less than a strong feeling
impelled the poet to ascend this
was a consecrated spot to his
tainly a curious instance of the power of
genius contrasted with its miserable locality!
Addison, whose mind had fought through
a campaign' in a garret, could he have
called about him the Pleasures of Imagina-
tion,' had probably planned a house of lite-
rary repose, where all parts would have been
in harmony with his mind.

"Such residences of men of genius have been enjoyed by some; and the vivid descriptions which they have left us convey something of the delightfulness which charmed their studious repose."

The article on Autographs is original. It evinces much research, and is very entertaining.

That on Caligraphy is also amusing. It is written with great sprightliness; and many a doughty "Knight of the Plume volante" is severely ridiculed. In one instance, however, the satire is improperly directed. In delineating the character of Mr. Tomkins, the Author has departed from that urba nity for which he has been remarkable both in his life and writings. The manners of Mr. Tomkins were modest and gentlemanly.

He lived in familiar intercourse with most of the Royal Academicians of his day; was a frequent and welcome guest at their

See a view of the Tower in vol. LXXXIX. i. 393.

[Jan.' private tables, as well as at Somerset House; perhaps not on their grand Anniversary, when we believe only 18 persons are invited, and they always select from the nobility, or persons of the very first distinction. Mr. T. also possessed many choice specimens of the abilities of our great Painters, which had been mostly presented to him by the respective Artists. He was beloved by an extensive circle of friends, amongst whom we shall particularize Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose Portrait of Mr. Tomkins is one of his most finished paintings, and the last by that celebrated Mastert. Mr. Tomkins as an artist stood foremost in his own profession, and his name will be handed down to posterity with the Heroes and Statesmen whose excellence his ship has contributed to illustrate and penmancommemorate. Mr. Tomkins could also wield the grey-goose quill for the purpose of moral instruction; and, animated, he would manfully defend were it possible for his shade to be rehimself, and have thundered in the ears of any antagonist, "I too am an

Author!"

The character of Mr. Oldys, the literary Antiquary, enriched by the recollections of that pleasant Veteran lor, is a very capital article; and in Literary Anecdote, Mr. John Tayferring to the Second Edition of the might be still further improved by re"British Topography," (vol. 1. pp. 31. 567.) where the Topographical Collections of Mr. Oldys are duly apprement is paid by Mr. Gough to Mr. ciated, and a well-deserved compliSteevens. At that period the two lastof familiar intimacy, which unfortumentioned gentlemen were on terms nately was soon after dissolved.

ticles which we wish to see expunged In the Third Volume are two arfrom a new edition, or at least materially altered. We are surprised indeed that the reminiscence of friendly intercourse in the days of the Author's youth (when Clio and Euterpe in 1787 amused the Readers of the St. James's Chronicle, more especially Dr. S. and a small circle of friends at Enfield) did not restrain the pen of the Writer. The worthy Collector of the "Curiosities" will understand and pardon this allusion.

+ See our vol. LXXXVI. ii. pp. 280. 292.

1823.]

REVIEW. D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature.

In one of the anecdotes the vile malignity of Puck the Commentator, whose character Mr. D'Israeli has in a former page very forcibly delineated, was sufficient to cause at least hesitation in belief of the exaggerated story. Neither Puck nor the Great Coat were in the Abbey; and the only persons present were, the Dean of Westminster with two of the Prebendaries, Sir Joseph Ayloffe, the Honourable Daines Barrington, and Mr. Gough. For what passed there Sir Joseph Ayloffe's Account of it in the Archæologia (vol. III. p. 376,) is the best authority; and that Hon. Baronet expressly asserts," that previous to the removal of the top-stone of King Edward's monument, the Dean of Westminster, who was present from the opening to the shutting it up, had taken every possible precaution that no damage might be done either to the Royal body, or its sarcophagus. The like vigilance was observed by him during the time the coffin continued open : so that the corpse did not receive the least violation or injury; neither was it despoiled of any of its vestments, regalia, or ornaments. On the contrary, all things were suffered to remain in the same condition, situation, and place, wherein they were found. After the spectators had taken a sufficient view, the top of the coffin, and the coveringstone of the tomb, were restored to their proper places, and fastened down by a strong cement of terrice, before the Dean retired from the Chapel.'

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The other silly story of Hardicanute's stone was avowedly a wicked contrivance of George Steevens, to entrap poor Schnebbelie, the famous draftsman *, who made a drawing of the stone, which was sent for elucidation to the venerable Dr. Pegge, who certainly was taken in by it; and it produced from that worthy Divine a very learned Essay, which was sent to the Society of Antiquaries; but the impudent trick was discovered in time to prevent the communication appearing in print.

As a genuine anecdote for the next edition of the "Quarrels of Authors," we will state the secret history of that which led to these ungentlemanly and unwarrantable attacks. Mr. S. (it is well known) possessed a most valu

* The history of this wanton trick, with a fac-simile of Schnebbelie's drawing, may be seen in our vol. LX. p. 217.

47

able collection of the Works of Hogarth, entirely formed by himself in an uncommonly short space of time. In this, as in every pursuit on which he set his heart, he spared neither trouble nor expense. He frequently bought two or more copies of the rarest prints; and, selecting the best impres sion, sold the duplicates to other Collectors, and sometimes even gained by the transaction. Whilst thus engaged, hearing that Mr. Gough had a few of the very early prints of the matchless Graphic Satirist, he somewhat too abruptly wrote to request that he might possess them either by purchase or exchange. This Mr. G. (who in fact cared very little about those particular prints, and would have given them as a present upon a different sort of application,) very strongly resented, and gave a peremptory refusal. And thus arose the implacable vengeance of Mr. Steevens. Contrary to his usual custom, the ingenious fabricator publicly exulted at the success of his contrivance; asserting that it was in revenge for some attack which Mr. G. had made on the tittle-tattle stories of his friend the Rev. William Cole, of Milton.

In vol. 111. p. 38, Mr. D'Israeli enumerates, amongst the defunct literary evening newspapers, one which is still in high vigour, being equal in circulation to any of the daily morning papers (the Times excepted); and which still keeps a high literary reputation;our readers will readily perceive we allude to the "St. James's Chronicle and General Evening Post."

Exempt by his situation in life from the "Calamities of Authors," Mr. D'Israeli, (with the exception of a few slight scratches by Mr. Bowles in his controversy with Lord Byron, and a little skirmish with Mr. Hawkins, in the pages of Sylvanus Urban,) has happily escaped their “ Quarrels t."

On the whole, we are much pleased with this new" Series of Curiosities;" which in quality are at least equal, if not superior, to the former Series; but we regret that they are inferior in quantity. We should gladly have seen more of them; but, alas! the lines are at such a distance from each other, as to give the appearance of being cold, and are in the ratio of only 24 to 29.

+ See vol. LXXXIV. i. 261. 551; and ii. 12. 4. Peveril

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