impulsive, and less involved; and, from the alternations of light and shade, with a more aërial perspective, the world is in it rendered a fitter theatre alike for the painter's pencil and the poet's pen.' This was the very state of things existing at the commencement of the present century; and with it a new grand epoch of the world's history was to begin. A band of giant intellects, as in the days of Elizabeth, was again to illumine the foot-hardened and cloud-shadowed pathways of literature and science. Old feelings were to be set aside, old customs to be abrogated, old manners to pass into oblivion; and out of bloodshed and confusion, and revolutions civil and religious, a new order of things was to arise-gloomy, ghastly, deplorable, and hopeless, according to some, but according to the sun-bright hopes of more ardent spirits, freighted with -'a progeny of golden years, Permitted to descend, and bless mankind.' Far, as yet, have these Elysian dreams been from perfect fulfilment; yet have we every reason to plume ourselves, when we regard what has been done for literature by Scott, Wordsworth, Byron, Crabbe, Coleridge, Wilson, Campbell, Southey, and their compeers." The following is Delta's liberal and just review of the merits of Wordsworth: * * "With much "(continues Mr. Moir, commenting on Coleridge's opinion of Wordsworth, which we do not quote), "with much, nay, with almost all of this I am quite disposed to agree; but then it applies only to Wordsworth's better manner, and to his most successful compositions. His peculiar faults, which are left untouched by Coleridge, are quite as obvious as his peculiar beauties. Alike in his later as in his earlier poems, Wordsworth is not seldom verbose and exaggerated, to a degree that verges on bombast and Ancient Pistol, occasionally simple to a silliness that reminds of Shallow and Slender. No really great poet resembles Wordsworth in tedious prolixity, save Spencer. In their happier moods, they each flash upon us with the crimson light of setting suns, or with the 'innocent brightness of the new-born day'; but withal, and with reverence for their manifold excellencies be it spoken, they are not unfrequently garrulous, spin long yarns, and consequently must submit to be often read only in extract by the less enthusiastic. Yet, with all his exaggeration of tone, cumbrous machinery, over-minuteness of detail, occasionally trite baldness, and disregard of proportion in the relations of objects-his perverse blending of the little with the great, and his not seldom mistaking the simply silly for the severely simple-Wordsworth is a 'prevailing poet,' and must be ever regarded as a great one, for his high and manifold merits. Next to Scott, who stands alone, and above all, and equal at least to Byron, Wilson, and Coleridge, he was the most original minded man of his age. Approxi mating to the holy Scriptures themselves, his writings have a simplicity of thought, and a singleness of purpose, which we vainly look for elsewhere; and after perusing a fashionable, clever, trumpery work of the day, redolent of the scented vices and quibbling artifices of society, we turn to the pictures and moralisings of Wordsworth, like the 'captive long in city pent' to the green woods and the blue skies, to the waterfalls and to the mountains, to the scenes of primitive bliss and patriarchal simplicity. "From 1798 until 1818, when Professor Wilson flashed on it (Wordsworth's poetry) the light of his critical genius, it might be said to have remained a book sealed, to whose cipher there was no key. To him, therefore, the world in a great measure owes the sesame to the occult treasure, and Wordsworth the happiness of knowing, in his declining years, that he had not over-estimated his powers-that his name was enrolled amongst the immortals. The subject has since that time, been the one most prolific of discussion in our contemporary literary annals; and has been ably handled by Jeffrey, Gifford, Southey, Lockhart, Hazlitt, Savage Landor, Sterling, De Quincey, and fifty other able pens." We cannot but advert to the false criticism that claims for Scott (in the above extract) the character of "the most original minded man of his age." We indignantly deny it. That Scott was original, in the same sense that Spencer was original, we of course know well enough; but he was anything in the world but the "most original minded man of his age" (that is, of the nineteenth century, or the earlier portion of it). Non meus hic sermo. We are about to prove the direct reverse of the position laid down by Mr. Moir, and how?-by his own lips! No, not by induction from anything that may fall from him in the course of his evidence, but by his own direct testimony. Come, Mr. Moir, kiss the book, turn your face to the jury, and speak up: "Common to every human heart, there is a certain class of emotions, the expression of which 'turn as they leave the lips to song;' and hence the primitive form of poetry in the ballad. It is also to be remarked, that throughout all countries the themes of these ballads are the same 'Ladye love, and war, renown, and knightly worth.' So large a portion even of the poetry of Homer takes this shape, that it has been seized upon as a leading feature in the controversy regarding the unity of the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and many of these separate gems of narrative were by Dr. Maginn--who at the same time repudiated the heresy-disjoined from the context, and translated under the title of Homeric Ballads.' Mr. Macaulay thinks it highly probable that the traditionary legends of primitive Rome * * also existed in the same * popular form, and hence their re-appearance, under his plastic touch, in the Ancient Lays.' It has been the same from 'Zembla to the line;' for amongst others Davis, in his Researches,' mentions those of the Chinese; Percy, Ellis, and Ritson, the English; Hailes, Scott, Motherwell, and Robert Chambers, the Scottish. Το them Scotland in some measure owes its greatest poet, in so far at least as determining the bent of his genius was concerned; for it was while listening with rapt ear to the stirring or plaintive minstrelsies of the border districts, that the fire of song awakened in the young heart of Walter Scott; and his first great appearance was in presenting these traditionary stores in a collected form to the world, accompanied by imitations of their style and manner so accurate and striking, as at once to prove the close study he had given them, and the depth of that impression which the originals had made on his feelings and fancy At this shrine Scott kindled the torch of his genius. and set himself in earnest to work out scenes of interest and images of beauty and of power, from the warblings of scalds, and bards, and troubadours, and minnesingers-in short, from the vast mass of materials which were open to him in the hitherto almost unappropriated and rich vast quarry of the feudal system; and the first grand result came forth in the Lay of the last Minstrel." * Our politest thanks are surely due to Mr. Moir: has not his own clear pen relieved us from critical labour on the topic? And we shall call an additional witness, whose evidence in reference to this point would be found conclusive, even if Mr. Moir himself were not forthcoming. The critic, who so truthfully said of Shakespeare "that he was just like any other man, but that he was like all other men"-Hazlitt—thus speaks of Scott:-"He has no excellences of a lofty or recondite kind, which lie beyond the reach of an ordinary capacity to find out, but he has all the good qualities which all the world agree to understand. His style is clear, flowing, and transparent: his sentiments, of which his style is an easy and natural medium, are common to him with his readers. He has none of Mr. Wordsworth's idiosyncracy. The force of his mind is picturesque rather than moral. He gives more of the features of nature, than of the soul of passion. He is very inferior to Byron in intense passion, to Moore in delightful fancy, to Wordsworth in profound sentiment." Are we not justified in thinking that "intense passion, delightful fancy, and profound sentiment," are more essential to a poet, for whom it is pretended that he is "the most original minded man of his age," than "all the good * * qualities which all the world agree to understand, a style clear, flowing, and transparent, and sentiments common to him with his readers?" We shall hear Hazlitt further:-"The reader," says he, "rises up from the purusal" [of Scott's poetry] "with new images and associations, but he remains the same man that he was before. A great mind" (and, we presume, a "most original minded man") "is one that moulds the minds of others. Mr. Scott has put the Border Minstrelsy and scattered traditions of his country into easy animated verse. Mr. Wordsworth," thinks Hazlitt, "is the most original poet now living. He is the reverse of Walter Scott in his defects and excellencies. His poetry is not external but internal; it does not depend upon tradition, or story, or old song; he furnishes it from his own mind, and is his own subject." You were saying something, my Lord Jeffrey? Anent the Lady of the Lake, we believe? "We consider this," says Jeffrey, speaking of the poem, as an attempt to transfer the refinements of modern poetry to the matter and the manner of the ancient metrical romance. This is a romance, therefore, composed by a minstrel of the present day." * * The following is Delta's accurate portrait of Coleridge:— * * "We must now turn to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who, in almost every respect save genius, was the counterpart of Wordsworth. The latter steadfastly pursued his purposes, and, with a coolness of determination, formed his plans aud worked them out, scorning the obstacles before him; or dauntlesly grappling with them, persevering through good and bad report, until he overcame them. Not so his equal, and probably, at one time, superior in genius—Coleridge—who started in the race like a Flying Childers, and yet, infirm of purpose, drew up ere the race was half run. Take Coleridge at thirty, and no poet of any age or country had done what he had; while, at the same time, those who knew him best felt that these things were but as the 'morning giving promise of a glorious day.' All concur in declaring that his published writings at that period-original and wild and wonderful as they might seem-conveyed no adequate idea of his capabilities, of the periscopic knowledge and gigantic faculties of the man, The seeming daybreak turned out but an aurora borealis. Titanic in its dimensions, his statue was to prove only a Torso." A large section of Mr. Moir's Crystal Palace for the Exhibition of the industry of all poets, has been, of course, devoted to the shamrocks, the round towers, the Peris, and veils à la Prophete, the little pert-looking, cocknosed, unstockinged slippers (cobbled on the Oriental last), the fire-worshippers' flaming altars, and the little henna-tinged paws, in the manufacture of which the well known house of Boroimhe & Mokannah have proved so successful. And, eloquent as Mr. Moir is in his catalogue of these same articles of poetical commerce, yet candour, and the deplorable accident of having been born in "this unhappy country," compel us to express the opinion that the "chiel" from the "land o' cakes" has failed, if he ever have been "amang" us, in "takin' notes” anent, or correctly noting our national character, in its entirety. Our good friend Delta assures us he "cannot part with Mr. Moore, without giving a characteristic specimen of the Melodies," and quotes thereupon the "Young May Moon." Now the verses in question are certainly characteristic of Moore (and we don't mind if you get Feramorz to sing them), but not a bit characteristic of Irish Moore. "On Lough Neagh's banks as the fisherman strays, When the clear cold eve's declining, He sees the round towers of other days In the wave beneath him shining; Thus shall memory often, in dreams sublime, And, sighing, look back through the waves of time Can the reader credit it? Of this very melody (with which the Irish reader is of course familiar), of such rare, and recondite beauty, from which we have quoted the last stanza, Mr. Moir-himself a poet-expressly speaks with contempt. Well may we exclaim, "Can such things be, And overcome us, like a summer cloud, Without our special wonder!" As we find ourselves "racy of the soil," we shall see what Mr. Moir has to say on a subject which has already occupied the criticism of the "Dublin University Magazine," and of our other periodical literature. "Although the three portions of the United Kingdom have been |