The Colonists to Contribute to their own Defence. 113

for rewarding political services, and buying off troublesome opposition. They are now the homes of virtuous and happy but once depressed and suffering multitudes, who fled to them as a refuge from distress, and found in the fertile regions beyond the seas a comfort and an independence they had sought in vain amidst the crowd and competition of their native land. They still present boundless fields for the employment of our redundant population. Nor can there be a doubt that the world at large has greatly benefited by the activity of British emigration. The colonists carried the arts, sciences, language, and religion of the old world to lands previously occupied only by a few miserable savages; the empire of civilisation has been immeasurably enlarged; England has been enriched by a vast variety of new products, and by a commerce which overwhelms the imagination by its immensity; and her numerous settlements have served to stimulate the inventive powers of genius, and to call forth some of the highest qualities of human nature, while they have abundantly rewarded, and will long continue to reward, the patient industry of man.

VOL. XXXIII. NO. LXV.

H

ART. V.-1. Poems and Essays. By the late WILLIAM CALDWELL ROSCOE. Edited, with a Prefatory Memoir, by his Brother-in-law, RICHARD HOLT HUTTON. Two vols. 1860. 2. Io in Egypt, and other Poems. By RICHARD GARNETT. 1859.

1860.

3. Lucile. By OWEN MEREDITH. 4. Blanche Lisle, and other Poems. By CECIL HOME. 1860. 5. Poems. By THOMAS ASHE. 1859.

DURING the last year or two a considerable number of volumes of poetry have appeared, some of which have perhaps as good a claim to our notice as some in the above list; and nearly all of them indicate a decided improvement of tone and intention as compared with the class which was most abundantly issued some seven years ago. There is much less straining after effect,-the effect strained after being as worthless as the power to produce it was usually inefficient. The fundamental poetical rule, "Look in thy heart, and write," has been much more commonly adhered to; and the consequence is, that a good deal of the most recent poetry, if it does not exhibit any extraordinary ability, is at least not a nuisance; if it does not give its authors a right to abiding stations in the halls of fame, it at least, as a rule, does no discredit to their intelligence and feelings as men and

women.

in

We have already noticed and given emphatic praise to the late Mr W. C. Roscoe's powers as a dramatist, though we, common with the rest of the world, were ignorant, at the time we reviewed the tragedy of "Violenzia," of the name of the author. Had this work-by much the most important piece in the two volumes just published by Mr Hutton-not been noticed by us before, we should have endeavoured to devote a separate article to this collection, which, with Mr Hutton's charmingly written biography of his brother-in-law at the beginning, constitutes one of the most graceful and readable of the season's contributions to literature. In all that Mr Roscoe has written there is a sound knowledge of, and hearty sympathy with humanity, which is oftener pretended to than really possessed by poets whom the world has pronounced much greater. Of all poetic qualities, the most essential, yet, strange to say, the most rare, are these. They are the very foundation of poetry, without which, whatever proud and painted superstructure is raised, and for the present applauded, no work can abide the patient test of time. On this truth we have over and over again insisted in this Review, and in the light of it we have

ventured at times to give opinions upon the value of poetic works which were strongly at variance with the popular faith of the moment, but which even a very few years have already, in some instances, done much to establish. Judging what Mr Roscoe has written by this truth, we do not hesitate to declare our impression, that if he has not won an abiding place among English poets, it is entirely because he did not see fit to give himself with the necessary abandon to the cultivation of his fully sufficient powers. The peculiar circumstances and moral conditions of the time render the production of thoroughly good poetry so extremely difficult; they demand so commanding and tender an intellect to see through the prosaic fallacies of society, and its flippant cynicisms, without despising it; a philosophy at once so subtle and so real,-so courageously, nay more, unconcernedly opposed to fashionable dogmas; so clear a vision of truths which men have ceased to see clearly, or have never learned so to see, and withal so patient a devotion to the completeness of verbal expression, in a time which endeavours to make up for its substantial deficiencies by demanding an unprecedented beauty of surface, that a man, who feels the power, must, in settling with himself and his conscience whether he has the right to make himself a poet, consider whether he is justified in abandoning all other kinds of success. Mr Roscoe appears to have weighed the matter thoughtfully, and answered it conscientiously in the negative; and there is something very touching in the sonnet printed at the end of "Violenzia," in which he conveys this conclusion:

The bubble of the silver-springing waves,
Castalian music, and that flattering sound,

Low rustling of the loved Apollian leaves,

With which my youthful hair was to be crown'd,
Grow dimmer in my ears, while Beauty grieves
Over her votary, less frequent found,

And, not untouch'd by storms, my life-boat heaves
Through the splash'd ocean-waters, outward bound.

And as the leaning mariner, his hand

Clasp'd on his oar, strives trembling to reclaim
Some loved, lost echo from the fleeting strand,

So lean I back to the poetic land;

And in my heart a sound, a voice, a name,

Hangs, as above the lamp hangs the expiring flame.

Referring our readers to our recent article on the "Modern Dramatists" for fuller proof of our assertion of Mr Roscoe's high natural powers, we must content ourselves in this place with a passage or two from the minor poems, now for the first time published by Mr Hutton. We have plenty of poets who can

paint clouds, and hills, and waters, but how few who can write so well of a woman as this:

Or as this:

On many an English lady's face

Fair Fortune grants these eyes to gaze;
Not fair alone in form and hue,

But gracious, guileless, tender, true.
I do not say you shall not find
A fairer face or loftier mind;

But none where Love's deep fervour lies
More deep in secret-keeping eyes;

None where fair Truth from more sincere
Unstained windows gazes clear,

Or consecrated duty made

Eyes more abash'd, yet less afraid;
Where pain so quietly hath hid
Beneath an unrevealing lid;

Or quick-accepted comfort smiled,
With all the freshness of a child.
None whence shyer, sweeter laughter
Shot, the soft voice following after.

:

When I ask'd her, "Wilt thou kiss me?"
Nought she said, but hung her cheek so,
As if she were thinking, thinking
Whether she might do't or no.

Then her fair, kind face upturning,
One sweet touch I there did win;
As if she were thinking, thinking
Such small graces are no sin.

She therein lost no composure,
Nor ashamed did she seem;

Truly chaste may grant such favour,
And therein lose no esteem.

In a graver style, the following poem, called "Opportunity,' is fine, though not complete; indeed, none of these smaller poems appear to have been more than the easily thrown off expressions of the thoughts and feelings of the moment. In "Violenzia" alone does Mr Roscoe seem really to have put forth anything like his true power.

O opportunity, thou gull of the world!

That, being present, winnest but disdain,

So small thou seem'st; but once behind us whirl'd,
A grim phantasma, shadowest all the plain.

Garnett's Io in Egypt.

Thou Parthian, that shoot'st thine arrows back,
Meeting our front with terror-feigning doles ;
But often, turning on the flying track,

With memory-winged shafts dost wound our souls.
Thou air, which breathing we do scarce perceive,
And think it little to enjoy the light;
But when the unvalued sun hath taken leave,
Darkly thou showest in the expanse of night.

Thou all men's torment, no man's comforter,
Lost opportunity! that shut'st the door
On all unwork'd intentions, and dost stir

Their fretting ghosts to plague our heart's deep core.

Thou sword of sharp Remorse, and sting of Time!
Passionate empoisoner of mortal tears!
Thou blaster of fresh Hope's recurring prime!
Crutch of despair, and sustenance of fears!

But oh, to those that have the wit to use thee,
Thou glorious angel, clasp'd with golden wings;
Whereon he climbing that did rightly choose thee,
Sees wondrous sights of unexpected things.

Thou instrument of never-dying fame,

To those that snatch thy often proffer'd hilt;
To those that on the door can read thy name,
Thou residence of glory ready built.

Used opportunity! thou torch of act,

And planted ladder to a high desire;

Thou one thing needful, making nothing lack'd;
Thou spark unto a laid, unlighted fire.

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Richard Garnett, the author of "Io in Egypt, and other Poems," is a young man who has only to do his own powers justice, in order to make himself a name among modern poets. It is not often that a first volume contains so much not only of promise, but of performance, as that before us. Mr Garnett, in this volume, tries his hand at two kinds of poetry,-one descriptive, and the other lyric. In the first, he seems to us to have written vividly, but not originally; in the last, when we say that he has written well, we say that he has shown originality; for there never was a good lyric produced which had not some unprecedented musical movement; and unprecedented musical movement is perhaps the most absolute of all tests of originality in poetry. We like the poem which stands first, and gives its name to the volume, as little as anything in it. The prominent place given to this piece seems to show, that Mr Garnett has not yet acquired that very necessary element of a considerable