Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

entering into the employment of Messrs. Worrall and Co. (notwithstanding his reluctance to engage in such an occupation) he discharged the duties of his station in the most honourable manner. During this period, he became acquainted with the late Mr. Fox of Bristol, a gentleman of considerable learning, especially in oriental studies. From the society of this scholar, Roberts derived much benefit: he was stimulated to increase his acquaintance with the Latin language: he declared, about this time, his intention of mastering the Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic; and he had already made some progress in the acquisition of the Persian.-Nevertheless, by far the most estimable qualities of this young author's character were the uniform diligence of his attention to an irksome business, the sincerity and warmth of his attachment to his friends, and the dutiful affection which he so strongly evinced for all the inmates of his native home. One instance (which is enough to establish the justice of this last topic of commendation,) may be recorded,' says his editor, of the disinterestedness and affection of his conduct. He had been invited to join a friend who was then on an excursion to Oxford; and had obtained a week's leave of absence for that purpose. Oxford was perhaps the place that above all others he would have preferred visiting, and he had written to his friend to fix the day of his meeting him but this letter was followed by another, in which he lamented that an unforeseen occurrence had prevented his journey. A disappointment so unexpected drew from his friend a request for an explanation. Roberts replied," To you I may confide my reason. The sum I had set aside for the expences of my journey is wanted at home." This estimable young man died of a consumption, in December 1806, in the twenty-first year of his age. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Michael, Bristol; where a modest and well-deserved inscription is engraved on the tomb which has been erected to his memory.

Having discharged our pleasing duty of commendation, and recorded the promising merits of the deceased poet, we must, however reluctantly, bestow that portion of censure on his editor, which he too manifestly requires. On the subject of publication, Roberts had expressed himself very diffidently; and indeed he seemed especially anxious to destroy the earlier and more imperfect monuments of his genius. In executing the will of his friend, therefore, his editor should have been very cautious not to admit any pieces into the collection, which (according to his own testimony-see the Advertisement, page 31.) the author, had he lived, would have revised or omitted.' This, at least, the editor states as probable; and he adds, the

hand

hand of friendship may surely be excused, if it has unwarily twined a few weeds with the blossoms which compose this funeral wreath.'-We know not what to say to this: — it deprecates censure, but it deserves it; and when we are enabled to judge, from many passages in the poetical and prose compositions of the author, that his knowlege and his taste were increasing with his years, we cannot think that any of his feeble efforts should have been inserted in a volume which has not made its appearance till six years after his death; that is, at a period when every opportunity for exercising the coolest judgment must have been afforded to his editor. We think, however, that we have discovered sufficient cause for this reprehensible indiscretion, in the bad taste of that gentleman, or lady; the composition of whose preface augurs ill indeed for the judicious performance of his or her editorial undertakings. In a life that extended' (says this personage, in the second paragraph of the preface,) only to the brief period of twenty years, and which in its course was neither disturbed by the aberrations, nor distinguished by the excentricities that too often obscure the lustre of genius, little scope is afforded to the biographical narrator.'-Again-The hurry of employment-the monotony of the ledger and the cold calculation of interest, are in general proved by the young enthusiast to be "the leaven that leaveneth the whole lump." page 10. Some common-place sentiments are introduced in the preface from a sort of exordium which Roberts prefixed to his will; in which his poems are intitled, a few sparks struck from the flint of sorrow.' This should have been omitted. So should the following passages from the poems;-passages on which we animadvert, solely with the view of deterring future editors of posthumous volumes from entering on their task with such an insufficient degree of carefulness; and actuated by any thing but an intention of depreciating the abilities of a very promising youth, or of checking the circulation of his interesting literary remains. judicious friend of the deceased, however, we say, would have suffered the subjoined specimens of immature taste to appear in print?

If feeling ever nursed with dews,

The rose of passion in thy soul' p. I.

What

Some classical adviser should have been consulted, that such á line as

Where wild Oeta's rugged brow'

might not have disgraced the verses which bear the name of Eschylus' as their title. (p. 3.) In page 4. we read the fol lowing furious bombast :

• While

While bands of spectres sweeping through the gloom, Glare round thy couch, and frowning stamp thy doom!' Whether with the fiat of fate, or the foot of the phantoms, the said doom is stamped, we are left to conjecture.

When Fancy with a sun-beam drew

Serena's from in Hayley's mind'-page 6.

we confess that our temper submitted to a triumph over it, in spite of the sweetness of that of the heroine; and when in page 7. (in an Ode to Sensibility,) we read the following address to Sterne,

[ocr errors][merged small]

-", and we smiled.

we thought of "the Fille de Chambre's -We must, however, here do the author the justice to say that one of the strongest instances of his growing judgment was manifested on this very subject; for in his letters, page 187. he thus writes, indignantly and properly enough, on the hackneyed theme of sensibility; Bowles has more readers than Milton; and the sickly whine which fashion has learnt from Sterne and his school, supplies the place of solid and weighty excellence. I love the force of pathos, and I acknowlege its merit; but I like not a languid feeling: let benevolence be courted instead of sentiment; and all that is great, noble, and generous, be the stamina of poetry.'

In page 9. we do not like woe stabbing a breast;' and 'Catallus' in page 12. should have been corrected in a list of errata that might have been numerous, but which does not exist; or indeed the translation, itself of Catullus might have been omitted, without any prejudice to the volume. The very measure condemns it. The elegiac lamentation of the Roman, "Multas per gntes, et multa per æquora vectus," &c. &c. is poorly represented by

'O'er many a wild, o'er many a wave.'

The tyrtean song,' page 244. with a little t, and a wrong accent to 'tyrtean,' and Idalia's favoured isle, p.13., are sad specimens of confusion, or rather of imperfect information. Idalium was a town, and promontory, in the island of Cyprus, near to which stood a grove sacred to Venus. The Isle of Idalia' is contiguous, we suppose, to Atalantis,

+4

or

[ocr errors]

or lies off the coast of Utopia. Norbengian's plains,' page 17. (or, as we read in the notes, the desert of Noubengian,) we are told is a province of Persia.' Messrs. Adams, Pinkerton, and Co. are inexcusable for omitting this province. To gild a stigma,' page 19., is absurd.- Guilt's emphrenzied throbs, ibid. is inflated and ungrammatical. To heaven again return I'd never,' page 29., is vulgar; and the lines to the Screech Owl,' page 55., should have been omitted: they are an aukward attempt at humour. We waive any farther censures on the poems: but of the letters we have to observe that they contain several objectionable passages, which their editor ought to have suppressed. The frequent allusion to a defence of the doctrine and character of Mohammed, which the author had attempted in argument with one of his correspondents, (although he earnestly deprecates any idea of comparing Mohammedanism with Christianity,) was injudiciously inserted, as the defence itself does not appear.-Indeed, we find various allusions to subjects, names, and places, which are perfectly unintelligible to any reader out of the small circle of the author's acquaintance. -We cannot admire the taste of any admirer of Fuseli's paintings, sublime as the genius of that school must be allowed to be: to whose founder we may perhaps apply the noblest eulogy that ever was bestowed on a poet, whatever may be thought of the painter who deserves it either by the extravagance or the rapidity of his compositions :

"Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time tõil'd after him in vain.'

We must again reprobate the young author's deficiency in judgment, for eternally recurring to the cant-phraseology of the buds and blossoms of Parnassus,' &c.; and we do not perceive the full beauty of the metaphor or figure in page 210., where Pitt is represented as placing his foot upon the heart of his country, insensible to her agony, while his eye was fixed upon the star of Glory'!!! To luxuriate in the echo of an Anacreontic strain,' page 218., is equally beyond our narrow comprehension : ‹ A stamina of principle,' page 201., surprized us, after the proper use of the Latin term in another passage; and the deep feeling of the subjoined rhapsody lies below the reach of our penetration: I never experience poetic vigour during summer. the red moon of Autumn, when she looks dim from her cloud of storms, that awakens in my soul the visions of poetic fancy. "This is affectation!" according to our humble conception; and although the author enters the lists with Johnson, and endeavours to shew that genius has its periodical ebbings and flowings, we venture to take part against Mr. Roberts, and to declare our

It is

opinion

opinion that the " mens sana in corpore sano" is all that is wanting for exertion at any season of the year.-The quotation from Crashaw, p. 214. is (we think) most ludicrously passed over without ridicule : nay, it is recommended to the notice of a friend!

[blocks in formation]

Mr. Roberts, indeed, seems altogether too fond of our old writers, good, bad, and indifferent: but this is a subject to which we shall have better opportunities of recurring.

With the above exceptions, we have met with much to approve in these letters. The writer was evidently advancing daily in knowlege; and his warmth of heart and rectitude of disposition are manifest in every page. An admirable letter to his sister occurs, which was written in a blank leaf of Hannah More's "Strictures on Female Education:" but we rather chuse to select a favourable specimen from his poems. The last stanza of the quotation betrays a close imitation of Collins : — but, on the whole, the verses do credit to the taste and feeling of the

writer:

[ocr errors]

Elegy written at Clifton.

The moon-beam glimmers on the hill,
Slow rising o'er it's gloomy breast;
And all the shadowy scene is still,-
All but the sufferer, sinks to rest,
Oh! let not mirth disturb the hour,
That's sacred to the silent tear;
But let some wand'ring minstrel pour,
The strain that sorrow loves to hear.
For now tho' thoughtless Joy may sleep,
I hear the lonely mourner's tread;
And many a mother wakes to weep,
Her only hope and comfort fled!

For here full many a child of Love,
In pride of Beauty's bloom has died;
And here the spirits of the grove,

O'er many a kindred form have sigh'd.
Emma, these wild-wood rocks among,
Caught the low summons of the tomb ;
She saw it's angel glide along,

And heard him whisper-" Emma, come!"
"Here would she roam at close of day,
To view the sun's departing light;
And as she watch'd the sinking ray,
Would bless the visionary sight.
F

REV. JAN. 1811.

• Yet

« PreviousContinue »