their skill in the Latin tongue, with the knowlege of some of the best authors in that language which may so frequently be traced in their phraseology, intitles them to a place of notice whenever the progress of classical attainment in this island is the topic of consideration. We decline to enter, on this occasion, on the main subject of the Essay. The mode of education, in support of which the learned author stands forwards, is not in want of able or of strenuous defenders; yet they have no reason to decline the aid of such an auxiliary as they will find in Dr. Bruce. ART. VIII. Nuga Canora. of "Edmund Oliver," &c. 12mo. 9s. Boards. Arch. Poems by Charles Lloyd. Author ART. IX. Isabel, a Tale. By Charles Lloyd. 12mo. IT IOS. 6d. T has long been an interesting though perhaps rather an unsatisfactory inquiry of speculative criticism, whether the poetical character of a people be indebted in a greater degree for its formation and national peculiarities to physical or to moral causes. Without intending here to enter into an useless discussion of the subject, we may remark that, from the changes visible in modern poetry and confessedly arising out of political events, we feel inclined to allow the most scope to their agency. The opinions of what was termed the new philosophy, which prevailed in Europe during the last century, appear to have exercised as powerful an influence in turning the sources of poetic feeling into a new channel, as in producing those political alterations which, from recent instances in America, Spain, &c. seem scarcely yet to be completed. The same passion for freedom, which leads nations to shake off the trammels of antient and despotic authority, is extended to matters of taste and literature; and the same spirit which gave a death-blow to the doctrines of the divine mission of Popes, or of civil despots, destroyed the jargon of the schools, and broke through the infallible rules of Aristotle and Boileau. Like all newly acquired power, however, this intellectual emancipation was urged into the opposite extreme, and became dangerous by its excess. Then arose, in the revolutionary conflict, a desire to be free from all authority of antient rules; and thus was produced the various schools of poetry which we now possess, from the soaring German sentimentalism to the love of real nature conspicuous in Lord Byron; - from the extra extravagance and rant of our modern epics, to the little descriptive poetry of daisies, donkies, and waggoners; the dolls which the perverted imaginations of some, in a species of second childishness, are over-fond of dandling and embracing. Without attempting to describe the doctrines of many of the self-elected professors of these modern schools, both of poetry and romance, we may safely trace their origin to the philosophical and political opinions which took their rise in France and Germany, and were gradually translated into England; where they first incroached on, and afterward exploded, the more correct and mechanical system which Fielding and Richardson exhibited in novels, and which Dryden and Pope, with the assistance of the French school, had introduced into poetry. Hence the complete license of form and versification which modern authors have adopted in their works. Despising the advantages of care and correctness, so highly valued by their predecessors, they attempted to retrieve themselves by a happy boldness of thought, and variety of style and matter, which might powerfully interest the imagination and the heart, while they broke through the laws of composition and good taste. This licentious principle once admitted, we were speedily deluged with antient Mariners, Thalabas, and Joans of Arc, which produced other heroes of the same spirit and dimensions, both epic and dramatic; till, collecting themselves into a sort of poetic legion, they seemed to become possessed of an author in the north; and then, converting their poetical inspiration into prose, they poured forth those ebullitions of genius which have at once charmed us by their intensity of power and surprized us by their number. The novelty of this revolution in poetry and romance, so powerfully appealing to the imagination and the deepest feelings of our nature, appears to have shaken our faith in the superiority of other authors, whom we previously beheld with exclusive admiration and delight. Not only has it deprived the writers in the time of Queen Anne of a portion of their popularity, but those of the present day, who are moulded on similar principles, seem to have lost half the charm which they exerted over us. Before the strength of nature and the warmth of colouring which characterize the poetic and romantic pictures of Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott, the more correct and studied powers even of Campbell and Miss Edgeworth are by some people considered as comparatively tame and uninteresting. This, however, is a mistaken impression, arising out of a desire of comparing things which will not admit of comparison: for the nature and object object of the works of our most celebrated poets and novelists are directly at variance with one another. Instead of the particular delineations of character and manners, original invention, and unity of plot, which we observe in the writers of the last century, our most recent candidates for applause seem to have entirely relied on strong national representations, local description, and dramatic contrast, to interest their readers; while they draw their plot, characters, and even materials, from works of history. With these also are introduced the use of a strange supernatural agency; which, we hoped, had been for ever exploded, but which again constitutes the ground-work and the denouement of our poems and romances. Instances of this last and most popular system are found richly scattered throughout the productions of Byron and of Scott; while the elder, more legitimate, and more correct school of Pope and Richardson is still supported by the authority of Campbell and Miss Edgeworth, who have steered a successful and happy course between the classic tameness and quaint uniformity of the old school, and the mad innovations and German sentimentalism of the new. At the poetical head of the latter, Mr. Wordsworth has been generally admitted to take his place; Mr. Coleridge has occupied the metaphysical chair; and their pupils, both of the Lake and the London school, from being admirers became imitators of the singularity and paradox which were now considered as the true poetry of nature, and which soon branched forth into a thousand fresh absurdities. Hence it is almost uniformly deemed essential to the success of a young author, that he should in the first place fix on some wild, improbable, and revolting story, which he is to work up to the highest pitch of unnatural feeling and horror. His language may be as careless and unharmonious as he chuses; and he is to rely on violent transitions, broken sentences, and a certain arbitrary twisting and distorting of the passions to his purpose, in order to awaken powerful interest and approbation in the minds of his readers. In the essential character and tendency of our most recent productions, both of romance and poetry, we observe, with the exception of an illustrious few, strong indications of diseased imagination, false pathos and sublimity, and a morbid appetite to feed only on what is very simple or very horrible. This disease is but too conspicuous in the poetry of Messrs. Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Barry Cornwall; and in the novels and romances of Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Hogg, and their innumerable imitators and admirers. Though many of them be men of strong and highly highly cultivated powers, it is evident that they have often systematically misapplied and degraded them, by separately forming and pertinaciously adhering to new theories. Licenses, both in style and sentiment, have been adopted by them, which in some instances approach and in others surpass the wildness and extravagance of the Germans themselves in their dark and traditional fables; and in those terrible delineations of feeling, both human and supernatural, which, however consonant to the wilder and sterner genius of higher latitudes, will by no means bear to be naturalized in the more temperate climate of English taste and feeling. Thus, among the chief faults adhering to the literary character of our age, we perceive a licentious boldness of style and manner, that sets itself above all those poetic laws and proprieties which in the last age were almost religiously observed. The road to fame is now considered as comparatively easy; and the loungers and careless dilettanti may be seen on their way, promising themselves as much immortality as the most gifted. "Deteriores omnes sumus licentia" is an axiom which will hold good in literature as well as in political and moral points; and we would recommend it most seriously to our young aspirants after immortality, who think that they may snatch by audacity and extravagance the wreath which is due to labour and genius alone. Though many faults may be tolerated in the wonderful productions of Shakspeare, or in the uncommon efforts of Byron, and may be almost lost in surrounding beauty and greatness, they cannot but disgust us in the feebler attempts of Hunt and Cornwall, which have not sublime or striking passages to excuse and redeem them. If we regret the effect of artificial and theoretical systems on such authors as those whom we have last mentioned, how much more shall we not have occasion to deprecate their mischievous power over the strong and poetic minds of Coleridge, Lloyd, and Lambe: whose writings, however strongly impregnated with the seeds of genius and power, manifest evident signs of false taste, affected simplicity, and an uncommon license of style and versification. When they are occasionally happy enough to forget their peculiar system, and express themselves in the genuine language of truth and nature, the original strength of their minds shines forth; and we then perceive that they were before only distorting objects which they knew how to place clearly before the eye. -Among those who have best escaped the vitiated taste and singular mannerism of what is termed the Lake school, though considered as belonging to it, we may venture to mention Mr. Charles Lloyd, the author of " Edmund Oliver," and the trans translator of Alfieri, whom we have frequently mentioned in preceding Numbers of our work. From the third edition of his poems now before us, to which are added several new pieces, we shall be enabled to afford specimens that will in no small degree bear us out in our observation, that his poetry is far from being so strongly imbued with these peculiarities which we have often denounced in other more daring adventurers of the same school. Without touching on the poems published in the former editions, and which we have already noticed, we shall select such examples from the addenda as seem most calculated to convey a true feeling of the author's natural style and peculiar character, which are stamped with the originality of genius. A fair sample of his powers will be a poem intitled Stanzas, Let the Reader determine their Title,' which breathe all the sensibility and melancholy that are inseparable from real genius: 'Oh, that a being in this latter time Lived such as poets, in their witching lays, Stealing by, gently wedded to some spring, The Oread from mountain-top the sun-rise welcoming. • Oh, that a man might hope to pass his life, Where through lime, beech, and alder, the proud sun His leafy grot scarce visited; Is known not; to absolve where strife to impeach him none; His moral life, and that of nature, one ; Where fragrant thyme, and crisped heath-bells prank And piercing, while his ears heaven's music drink, To drink the pure crystalline well, to lave His strong limbs in some Naiad haunted stream, grave By kernell'd fruits with which the earth doth teem; In civilized contention, foamed and raged. Oh, that the wild bee, who, with busy wing, Hums, as she travels on from flower to flower: Oh, Oh, that the lark that now is carolling |