The death of Lord Nelson in the cockpit of the ship Victory; painted for John M'Arthur, Esq.

Victory bearing the body of Lord Nelson to the arms of Brittania; painted for ditto.

A small picture of the Resurrection of our Saviour; in the possession of Mr. West.

The drawing of Prince Bladud contemplating the Medicinal virtues of the Bath waters by observing their effect on Swine.

A view of Bath from the high ground eastward of Prior-Park House.

A view of the rocks at Bristol Wells.

A view in Prior Park, near Bath.

A view on the river Avon, at Bath.

These drawings are in the possession of Mr. West.

GENERAL VIEW OF LITERATURE.

(Continued from page 469.)

THE author of the lay of the Last Minstrel and Marmion may be considered as the minion of modern popularity; for the works of no living, and of few dead authors, have been so widely and so rapidly diffused. We are, we believe, correct in stating, that upwards of twenty-five thousand copies of the Lay have been printed in the space of six years, and seventeen thousand copies of Marmion since its first appearance in spring 1808. The effect of this extensive popularity has been almost ludicrous. Upon the annunciation of an expected poem, we are well assured that at least four musicians have prepared notes for unwritten songs; two artists have been retained to illustrate scenes which were yet to be born of the author; and as many satirists, having blessed God and the founder, have set them down to parody a work yet in embryo. These pleasing and painful marks of notoriety go in the main to prove the same issue; for even the master of a dung-barge knows enough of navigation to discover which vessel is likely to get soonest under weigh, and to obtain her assistance, if possible, to tow him out of harbour. We have been at some pains to discover the talisman upon which this popular enthusiasm depends, but we find it more easy to ex

press ourselves on the subject by negatives than by positive assertion. Mr. Scott's fame certainly does not rest on the art of his story, for of that he has hitherto given no example; on the contrary, the incidents, both in the Lay and Marmion, are of themselves slightly interesting, and loosely put together. Neither can we consider his characters, though drawn with a bold and determined pencil, as entitling him, on their account, to occupy the distinguished rank which he holds in the poetical calendar. They are, properly speaking, the portraits of genera rather than of individuals. William of Deloraine, Marmion, Clara, and Constance, are just such persons as might represent any one predatory free booter, ambitious noble, sentimental damsel, and reprobate nun, that ever dignified the pages of romance.

The features (perhaps with exception of Marmion's forgery) must be allowed to bear a striking general resemblance to the characters of these ranks in the middle ages; but there is a want of individuality. The knights and freebooters of Mr. Scott are, like Sir Fopling Flutter, knights of the shire, and represent each a whole class; and, although the poet may have been more anxious to give a general view of the period in which he laid his scene, than a picture of individual manners; and in this he has assuredly succeeded; we must still deny the praise of excellence to him who has halted in full career, and stopped short in finishing his picture, even at the most interesting point; and so thinking, we cannot give unqualified approbation to Mr. Scott's skill in drawing portraits. To moral sentiment he has made little pretence: the few specimens which occur in his poetry are true, but they are obvious; and their best recommendation is, that they have uniformly a virtuous or honourable tendency, and are expressed with the unaffected simplicity and lofty feeling of one who is in earnest in recommending the truth which he delivers. The descriptive passages claim more unequivocal praise; and in this department of poetry Mr. Scott frequently stands alone, and unrivalled. Instances are so numerous, that their quotation seems unnecessary: but still, even of those passages, which have been most highly praised, many do not boast the luxuriance conspicuous in the descriptions of Southey, or the elegance which is frequently displayed by the

bard of Hope. To what, then, are we to attribute a charm which has interested the old and the grave, as well as gay youth and frolic boyhood? It must we apprehend, be ascribed to that secret art which will be fund to pervade the popular writings of almost every country, despite of their sins against common sense or classical criticism; that, in short, of rendering interesting the story which they have to tell, not by its own proper merit, but by the mode of telling it. It is thus that De Foe has contrived to identify the feelings of every reader with those of Robinson Crusoe, to render his slightest wants and inconveniencies subjects of our anxious solicitude, and protract a tale, in itself the most unique and simple possible, with unabated interest, through so many pages of minute and trivial incident. In the same manner we lose the author in the admired passages of the Lay and Marmion, because he never seems to think of himself, but appears wholly engrossed with the desire of impressing on the auditor the outlines of a description which is vividly sketched in his own mind. In describing a battle, a siege, or a striking incident of any kind, he seldom brings forward objects unless by that general outline by which a spectator would be actually affected. He enters into no minute detail; it is the general effect, the hurry, the bustle of the scene, those concomitant sounds of tumult and sights of terror which stun the ear and dazzle the eye, which he details to his readers, and which have often the effect of converting them into spectators. In like manner, in scenes of repose, he seems more anxious to enjoy than to describe them; his ideas crowd upon him, but he dispatches each of them in a line, and leaves the imagination of his reader, if it be capable of excitation, to follow forth and fill up the outline which he has sketched. To an active fancy this is a pleasant task, for which it returns to the author as much gratitude at least as is his due. A slow comprehension, on the contrary, catches the general proposition, and is pleased to escape from that more minute detail, which, however pleasing to true admirers of poetry, seems only embarrassing tautology to those who, with inert imagination, and an indifference to the beauties of protracted description, feel nevertheless a natural interest in the incidents of the tale, and in the animation with

which they succeed to each other. Mr. Scott, we have remarked, seems to be fully sensible of his strength in thus embodying and presenting his scene to the imagination of his readers, and has studiously avoided sliding into distinct narration. Every incident is usually conveyed by the means of indirect description; and, so remarkably is this the case, that, even when a narrative is placed in the mouth of a personage in the poem, the scene is instantly shifted, and the incidents of that very tale held up in motion and action to the reader, something a-kin to the phenomena observed in dreams, where every thing is presented to the eye, and little or nothing to the ear; and where, if our fancy is crossed by the supposed report of another course of action, that secondary train of ideas is immediately substituted for the original vision, and we imagine ourselves spectators of it instead of being only auditors. It is indisputable, that the art of thus rivetting the attention of the audience forms one great source of this author's popularity.

We must not omit to mention Mr. Scott's learning, by which we mean his knowledge of the manners of the time in which his scenes are laid. The display of this knowledge has, perhaps, here and there, degenerated into antiquarian pedantry, but the possession of it was essential to the purpose of the author. Sapere est principium et fons. It is the true touch of manners which gives justice to a narrative poem, and discriminates it from those which are either founded upon the vague imagination of an author, or tamely copied from the model of some more original writer. The difference can be discovered by the least enlightened, just as an individual portrait can be distinguished from a fancy sketch even by those who are unacquainted with the original. With these remarks upon the truth and spirit of his poetry, we leave Mr. Scott, no unworthy member of the triumvirate with whom he has divided the public applause.

According to modern custom we should now consider the imitators, or, as the modish phrase is, the school of these respective poets; if that can be called a school where no pupil will heartily yield pre-eminence even to his pedagogue, and where each preceptor would willingly turn his scholars out of doors. Upon professed imitators we shall bestow very short

consideration, as the very circumstance of palpable imitation may be considered as decisive against an author's claim to be noticed in such a sketch as we are now drawing of national poetry.

The followers and imitators of Campbell would probably rejoice more in being termed of the school of Goldsmith or Johnson: yet when we read the Pleasures of Friendship, the Pleasures of Solitude, the Pleasures of Love, and so forth, or even when we see such titles in an advertisement, we are naturally led to think the subjects could only have been chosen from the popularity of the Pleasures of Hope, or of the Pleasures of Memory. The latter beautiful poem probably gave Mr. Campbell the original hint of his plan, though it expanded into a more copious and bolder field of composition than had been attempted by Mr. Rogers, and contains beauties of a kind so different, that the resemblance of title is almost the only circumstance which connects them. The Pleasures of Memory is a gem in which the exquisite polish makes up for the inferiority of the water. There is not a line in it which has not been earnestly and successfully refined to melody, nor is there a description left unfinished, or broken off harshly. The sentiments are easy and elegant, and of that natural and pleasing tendency which always insures a favourable reception, even when destitute of novelty. We have in Mr. Rogers's poetry none of Campbell's sublime bursts of moral eloquence, which exalt us above the ordinary feelings of our nature; but we are gently and placidly led into a current of sentiment most congenial to all the charities and domestic attachments of life. Yet those who have by heart the Deserted Village of Goldsmith, wili hardly allow Mr. Rogers's title to originality. Something he has gained over his model by an intimate acquaintance with the fine arts, and the capacity of appreciating their most capital productions. The delicacy and accuracy of discrimination inseparable from such attainments, diffuses, through his poetry, a certain shade of classical and chastened taste, which may serve, perhaps, more than any of the circumstances we have mentioned, to discriminate his productions from those of his contemporaries.