of men, that which Mr. Southey is now undergoing, is perhaps among the bitterest. In the grave of an only son, no one can say how many of the dearest hopes, the tenderest associations, the purest pleasures lie buried for ever. The feeling that was interwoven with all reviving images of our own careless boyhood, and glowing youth; with all recollections of our growing, and matured love; and of those most exquisitely happy years of human life, which immediately follow marriage; with all schemes. of advancement, and all hopes of earthly happiness, to become a tender and a shrinking place in our constitution,-the being to be torn from us, who occupied our most constant cares, who shared our most approved pleasures, for whose improvement love found a place, even in our most absolute relaxations, and whose presence did not interrupt the solitude of the loneliest ramble; for whose instruction we studied, for whose ease and quiet we watched, and toiled; whose hand was to reap the harvest of our most anxious labours, and who was to continue upon the earth the name, which, if we kept unsullied for our own, for his sake partly we strove to render illustrious; whose duty we looked to as a solace in the decline of life, and whose hands we prayed might close our eyes on leaving it-this is, indeed, a trial, which unaided humanity could not fitly bear. But if Mr. Southey is to be read in his writings, at this moment he is not an unsupported man; all human praise at such a time falls dead and flat upon the ear, and human consolation is but too feeble against such a sorrow; but he stands in need of neither, whose hope is placed where it should be, and whose faith is practical in the promises of a Christian Heaven. We return to our subject, from which it will be thought, we fear, that we have rambled too widely. The Pilgrimage is divided into two parts; the first under the titles of Flanders, Brussels, the Field of Battle, and the Scene of War, details the journey of the travellers, with the reflections excited by what they saw and heard; the second is a Vision, and under the less significant names of the Tower, the Evil Prophet, the Sacred Mountain, and the Hopes of Man, enters fully into the promises and delusions of the French Revolution, and the probable consequences to the world, and especially to England, of the overthrow of the gigantic power which had grown out of it. This concise analysis, we conceive, will explain and justify much of what we advanced in the commencement of this Article; it is evident, that much of the first part, if it did not transgress all bounds of correct taste, and good sense, must from the very nature of the subject appear to many minds languid and prosaic; and though a greater number will probably be interested by the dialogue VOL. VI. JULY, 1816. D dialogue and reasonings of the second, yet allegory, especially if of a scriptural complection, is an appalling sound for most ears, and we are prepared for many ingenious waggeries, by way of quotation from the Pilgrim's Progress. Indeed, however disposed to see the favourable side of all the works of true genius, we confess we see no beauty in such passages as follow. "Huge-timbered bridges o'er the passage lay, XIV. "Four horses aided by the favouring breeze Drew our gay vessel, slow, and sleek, and large: Directs the way- and steady went the barge." P. 24. We know the arguments that may be advanced, and the authorities that may be urged in favour of such minuteness in the detail, and such unscrupulous admission of all subjects into poetry. The precedents to which all bend, the Iliad and the Odyssey are, undoubtedly full of such passages, but they appear to us to have no weight, unless it can be proved that Homer writing at this day, and in such a state of civilization, would have still introduced them. For our own parts we certainly believe that he would have most studiously avoided them; when it was honour and precedence to have the first and largest slice, and the most unmeasured and unmixed tankard, there nright be reasons for minutely detailing a dinner which do not now exist. If Mr. Southey should say, that in the present instance nothing more was intended than a journal in verse, and that it was pro. posed here and there to excite a ludicrous image, the argument, indeed, is no longer applicable to the present case; but we should be compelled to say, that he had chosen a strange mode"To give a voice to joy, and in my lays Exalt a nation's hymn of gratitude, And blazon forth in song that day's renown." P. 20. We hate verbal particularity in criticism; but we must strenuously object to such additions to a compleat picture, as the underscored words present. What possible inducement, but that of a convenient rhyme, could there be for transforming the gay vessel of the secon, into the steady barge of the fourth line of this stanza. blame, blame, has sometimes thrown in slight touches of redeeming beauty, which are in his very best manner. What can be sweeter than the following incident, which closes an account of the bustle and noise of embarking in the Trekschuit? "All disregardant of the Babel sound, A swan kept oaring near, with upraised eye- Nothing can be happier than the relief afforded to a scene of noise and dirt, and discomfort, by the introduction of this silent, peaceful, and beautiful object-but if our readers employ themselves as often as we do, in the observation of small traits that disclose character, they cannot fail to be pleased in regarding it as one instance of that happy power, so peculiarly poetic, of seizing, and, as it were, appropriating in every combination of circumstances, the minutest accident of grace or beauty. Mr. Southey's descriptive powers, when he introduces the detail of natural scenery, have long been acknowledged; they implied of course, and were built upon his warm and just feeling of natural beauties. We were much struck with this in the passage which we will next present to our readers; commonplace and consentional admirers of nature would be ashamed to express any pleasure at scenes so artificial; as many of those through which his route lay; wildness, grandeur, and seclusion, contain all their heads of picturesque beauty-yet Mr. Southey fresh from the mountains and lakes of Cumberland, found charms in a Flemish landscape, and we can bear him testimony in the pleasure we experienced, when fresh from the wildest parts of the Alps, in the flat and fertile plains of Lombardy. 66 My lot hath lain in scenes sublime and rude, In boyhood was I wont, with rapture fraught "In Cintra, also, have I dwelt ere while That earthly Eden, and have seen at eve "And now am I a Cumbrian mountaineer; D 2 The The mountains have put on, the heavens are clear, Who sees them only in their summer hour, Sees but their beauties half, and knows not half their "Yet hath the Flemish scene a charm for me, A natural beauty springs from perfect art. P. 29. power. We had intended to notice and extract several passages in addition to those already given, from the First Part, but our limits admonish us to draw to a close. But we cannot forbear pointing out to our readers attention, the description of Brussels, and the wounded soldiers convalescent there, the lines on Hougoumont, and the very lively commemmoration of the Poet's own fellow-travellers. We pass on to the consideration of the Second Part of the Poem, or the Vision. This is supposed to be the result of all the author had seen in his journey, operating upon his mind in the hours of bodily sleep. There is something almost sublime in the manner in which it opens; the slow yet unimpeded rhythm, the solemu and unadorned language suit admirably with the ideas; and the general effect is the gloomy, helpless, and uncertain desolateness which we must all have been conscious of in our dreams. "I thought upon these things in solitude, And mused upon them in the silent night: "Methought that I was travelling o'er a plain, Only that soon the night would close upon my way. "Behind me was a dolorous dreary scene With huge and mouldering ruins widely spread, "Full "Full fain would I have known what lay before, That point with cloud and mist was covered o'er, Pursuing his journey through this desolate scene, the Poet hears his name pronounced, and is summoned to the top of a lofty tower. He obeys the summons; the tower whose foundations were on sand, and surrounded with rubbish, grows firmer and fairer as he ascends; and at the top he meets an aged man, who offers him all knowledge necessary for his journey. This personage is Earth Born Wisdom; he is very well drawn, and the answer to the first question of his anxious scholar, "From whence I came, and whither must I go," is admirably expressed. "Art thou then one who would his mind perplex O child of Earth, this now is all that toucheth thee. "He who performs the journey of to-day, Cares not if yesterday were shower or sun, P. 109. We have not time to pursue an excellent argument most poetically and spiritedly maintained; the author seems to have had fresh in his mind the beautiful scene between the Red Cross Knight and Despair, in the first book of the Fairy Queen, a scene which for richness of colouring, for maintenance of character, for suitableness in the tone of language and measure to the subject, has never, we will venture to say, been surpassed in any language*. Indeed if we were called upon to cite an in stance It is hardly worth observing in the writings of a man so gifted as Mr. Southey, but he appears to us in the present Poem to have somewhat trespassed upon the liberty, to a certain extent allowable, of borrowing expressions, and even whole lines from his predecessors. We utterly disclaim all intention of insinuating against him the charge of intentional concealment; but we wish |