Still, hitherto, if Rogers failed, it was in his own school. But "Jacqueline!"-there his failings are in another. It was, perhaps, impossible for his great contemporaries to have influenced the rest of the world of letters and left uninfluenced a spirit so susceptible to all that is grand in art and lovely in genius as that of Rogers. He, half Mæcenas, half Horace-the patron of gems, and sculpture, and paintings -the poet of "Italy," could not, even with a taste already formed, a judgment already matured, have felt, without being also somewhat imbued with, the new and more stirring Intelligence that had breathed its soul into English poetry. Jacqueline" commences thus: ""Twas Autumn-through Provence had ceased * When Jacqueline came forth alone, All this is very good-but it is less Rogers than Byron-again : [ "At such an hour, in such a night, So calm, so clear, so heavenly bright, Who would have seen," &c. Are we quite sure these are not in one of Byron's eastern tales? But let us look at more simple lines-do we find in them the simplicity of 1792?—the simplicity of the "Pleasures of Memory." "No more the orphan runs to take, From her lov'd hand, the barley-cake, &c. She comes not, nor will come again; Not now, his little lesson done, With Frederic blowing bubbles in the sun, Nor spinning by the fountain-side, Some story of the days of old, Barbe bleue-or Chaperon rouge, half told To him who would not be denied," &c. Is this Rogers, or is it Wordsworth 2 In fact, throughout the whole poem, we would defy any one to trace the peculiar genius of the author. Beautiful it is, undoubtedly, but it is a mixture of the beauties of other poets "Enamelling with pied flowers, their thoughts of gold." This change of vein is yet more visible in "Human Life," a poem, which being written in the same metre as the "Pleasures of Memory," and somewhat allied to it in subject, furnishes us with a fairer and a fuller opportunity of noticing that alteration in school and style, which a quarter of a century had effected. We open the page, and chance upon a picture of LOVERS Sir Philip Sidney. Then do they wander till the day is gone, Now IN THE GLIMMERING DYING LIGHT SHE GROWS This passage, on the whole very exquisite, and thoroughly poetical, the reader will at once perceive contains the peculiar faults and the peculiar beauties of the exact day, not in which the genius of Rogers might be considered to take its legitimate bias, viz. when, at about the age of thirty, he published the "Pleasures of Memory;" but in which the poem of " Human Life" was given to the world. The affected running in of the lines, so wholly, so widely different from the regular Goldsmith-like pauses in the "Pleasures of Memory;" the increased richness of expression, the closer individuality of portraiture; in a word, the versification and the turn of thought are precisely those which in 1792 Rogers would have scrupulously avoided. The words in italic we consider characteristic of the faults in expression of the new school in which he had entered himself,* and the words in capitals to be equally characteristic of its beauties. This passage is not a solitary one, there are many such. Lines like the following would never have been admitted into the "Pleasures of Memory," and we think might have been very wisely excluded from "Human Life." "Such grief was ours-it seems but yesterday, When in thy prime, wishing so much to stay, Here simplicity is aimed at, and flatness obtained. 66 Serving the state again-not as before! * "Flings off the coat, so long his pride and pleasure, His tiny spade in his own garden plies," &c. The thing digging-and the thing compared to a miser—is a child! -the comparison presents no image whatever-a child digging is no more like a miser digging than it is like a ploughman, and the simile seems not only introduced for the sake of the rhyme, but for the sake of a very indifferent rhyme. On the other hand, the poem abounds in beauties of a loftier strain and thoughts of a far deeper mood than we find in the "Pleasures of Memory." T "Infinite streames continually do well, Out of this fountaine sweet and fayre to see." + Far above singing."-Philasters But this does not alter our position; it is the especial taste of the present age to recur to the old Poets, and to recur, above all, to the oddities and affectations of the old Poets. + Spenser. Thus, the picture of the Mother and Child is unequalled for truth and sweetness. "As ever, ever, to her lap he flies, When rosy sleep comes on with sweet surprise." What more affecting than the allusion to Jane Grey? Musing with Plato, though the horn was blown, And all in green array were chasing down the sun." Again, the lines on Youth. "Then is the age of admiration-then Gods walk the earth, or beings more than men; &c. And the allusions which follow to Lord Surrey and to Byron, are of a very high merit. So there is a startling beauty in these two lines; "When by a good man's grave I muse alone, Methinks an angel sits upon the stone." Lastly, we incline to think the plan and conception of “ Human Life," to be the witness of a very noble order of inventive faculty; but in the execution, we blame the ambition that sought, and we question the judgment that selected the peculiarities of a new school as an admixture with the graces of the old. A mán should be very young to change a method of writing in which he has been successful A happy mannerism either comes early, or must be brooded over long. But enough of this. Turn we to the last and greatest of our author's poems, " Italy." An edition has lately been published of this work that has brought it, almost as a new poem, again before the world-an edition that so highly honours the arts which have adorned it, that we look upon it with a national pride, as a sort of epoch in the history of letters. "Italy" is before us; as we turn over its pages, the verse and the engraving make the divine land visible. The forms, the vases, the palace, the ruin, the lake, the beings of history, the creatures of legend, yea, the very sky, the very moon of Italy-all-we see them all : "Venice The glorious city in the sea, The sea is in the broad-the narrow-streets, Clings to the marble of her palaces." St. Mark's Palace. "Not a stone In the broad pavement-but to him who has The great character of this poem, as it is in the "Pleasures of Memory," is simplicity; but here simplicity assumes a nobler shape., Although to a certain degree there is an alteration in the tone of the last from that of the first published poem, an alteration seemingly more marked from the difference between blank verse and rhyme; and although there is something of the new Persian odours breathing from the myrtle wreaths of a muse whom "displicent nexæ philyra coronæ," yet, unlike what we felt inclined to blame in " Jacqueline" and the "Human Life" we see nothing that reminds us of individual traits in another; nothing that reminds us of Byron, though he strung his harp to the same theme; nothing that recalls any contemporaneous writer, unless it be occasionally Wordsworth, in Wordsworth's purer, if not loftier vein: we see no harsh, constrained abruptness emulating vigour; no childish minauderies that would fain pass themselves off for simplicity. Along the shores and palaces of old glides one calm and serene tide of verse, wooing to its waters every legend, and every dream, that can hallow and immortalize. This poem differs widely from the poems of the day, in that it is wholly void of all that is meretricious. Though Nature itself could not be less naked of ornament, yet Nature itself could not be more free from all ornament that is tinsel or inappropriate. A contemplative and wise man, skilled in all the arts and nursing all the beautiful traditions of the past; having seen enough of the world to moralize justly; having so far advanced in the circle of life as to have supplied emotion with meditation; telling you in sweet and serene strains all that he sees, hears, and feels in journeying through a country which Nature and History combine to consecrate: this is the character of Rogers's "Italy," and the reader will see at once how widely it differs in complexion from the solemn "Harold," or the impassioned "Corinne." This poem is perfect as a whole; it is as a whole that it must be judged; its tone, its depth, its hoard of thought and description, make its main excellence, and these are merits that no short extracts can adequately convey. Of all things perhaps the hardest in the world for a poet to effect, is to gossip poetically. We are those who think it is in this that Wordsworth rarely succeeds, and Cowper as rarely fails. graceful and difficult art, Rogers has made his own to a degree almost unequalled in the language. "Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori: Hic nemus, hic ipso tecum consumerer ævo." We open the page (p. 135 of that superb edition we have referred to)-how beautiful the vignette! It is remarked, we perceive, by a correspondent, in another part of this number, viz. in the Conversations with an Ambitious Student, that the Author of "The Pleasures of the Imagination" was a professional man--the scholar of a city, not the fields. So, with the Author of "The Pleasures of Memory"- -a banker, a wit, a man of high social reputation-we find it is from the stony heart of the great world that the living waters of a pure and transparent poetry have been stricken. Few men of letters have been more personally known in their day, or more generally courted; a vein of agreeable conversation, sometimes amene, and more often caustic-a polished mannera sense quickly alive to all that passes around, and, above all, perhaps, a taste in the arts, a knowledge of painting and of sculpture-very rare in this country-have contributed to make the Author of "Italy' scarce less distinguished in society than in letters-a society, it is true, that while it calls itself the best, is the most empty in all things, but pretension-made up of all the triflers in knowledge and all the coxcombs in politics-all the lords among wits, and all the wits among lords of the sycophant, termed humorist, among the low-born-of the Mævius turned Mæcenas among the high-with a good-natured quack at the bottom of the table, and a Canidia, who apes the Aspasia, at the top! This is not the circle in which, for our part, and with our zeal for the true dignity of letters, we are willing to find a great poet the common resident. Such scenes he should visit, but not dwell in ; seen occasionally, they sharpen the observation; constantly haunted, they emasculate the genius. J "Le ton du monde n'est plus souvent qu'un persiflage ridicule. Quelque éloge qu'on donne à ce jargon, si, pour apprécier le mérite de la plu part de ces bons mots si admirés dans la bonne compagnie, on les traduisoit dans une autre langue, la traduction dissiperoit le prestige, et la plupart de ces bons mot se trouveroient vuides de sens.' In a word "Quand le bon ton paroit, le bon sens se retire!" We have made these remarks openly, for we think that to such society Moore has owed much that adulterates, and Rogers much that has weakened his native genius. To them it is now too late for conviction; to us it is never too late (for when will their works die?) for regret. In composition, it is said that Mr. Rogers writes with labour, and polishes with great care. In character, those who know him best have declared him to be generous, kindly, and humane; to be free from envy, and alive to benevolence-willing to sympathise now with the distress of his brethren, and now (harder task!) with their prosperity. These short remarks upon the writings of an accomplished and true poet contain our honest opinion; they are recorded by one who once did him a boyish injustice, who is now eager to repair it—not by a blind, pan-eulogium, but a candid, though brief criticism. Long may the poet, whose youth and age have equally delighted us, continue to foster those studies which so gracefully embellish the decline of life; may he and ourselves, even in these noisy and active times, yet find leisure, the one to furnish, and the other to acknowledge, new obligations. Among the shades and recesses of the excited world, there is always one spot that is sacred-that spot over which Poetry presides and gathers a devoted and faithful court. Thither, from time to time, the sternest of us, not unmindful of young thoughts and early visions, will silently steal away, when B.E. "Eftsoons we hear a most delicious sound "Save in this Paradise be heard elsewhere : The Faery Queene. |