poets, then, can hardly claim to have unfettered English poetry as to rhythm; since there is scarce an imaginable metre, which may not be found exemplified with great harmony and beauty among the writings of their fathers. For whatever extension they may have given to the measures of the English muse, we are duly grateful. But the most important change, was that attempted by Southey, in the experiment of writing long poems in a kind of anarchical prose, knowing neither law nor rule, but measured off irregularly and ad libitum,' at once passing beyond the noble freedom of prose, and falling short of the musical charm of poetry. The attempt proved to be a failure, as might have been expected. The endeavor to engraft this species of prose-poetry on the rugged stock of our monosyllabic language, is about as hopeful an enterprise, as it would be to close the majestic flow of Latin and Greek hexameters in jingling rhythms, and Southey's Thalaba and Curse of Kehama, in spite of their fine language and splendid imagery, are read only by the curious. That, which the experience of the readers of poetry in all languages will prove, may be confidently as serted, that any poem, to be permanently popular, must not only express poetical thoughts, but be invested with harmonious rhythm. The greatest stickler for abstract excellence, will not love the figure without the robe. All men feel rhyme, or at least rhythm, to be agreeable, and to deny the fact, or dispute its consonance with reason, is folly. How futile, then, to expect that the heroic measure, and other measures, whether in rhyme or blank verse, of a regularly recurring consonance of sounds, or perceptible harmony of cadence, will ever go out of date, and be supplanted by those compositions, in which the ear can detect no metre, or, if any, only by a painful effort, and with an abstraction of the mind from the sense of the writer in the search after the rhythm, and the doubt whether he is reading poetry or prose! And this constitutes a real and most obvious objection to many English poems, of earlier and of later days. Is there any other excellence which you require, and which you miss in them? 'Yes! I miss the deep probing of the soul; the subtle investigation of the laws of our being; the dreamy reveries on the undefined and undefinable emotions of the spirit; the Orphic hints at the mysteries of our strange, psychological existence.' Ah, well! This, I believe, you will not find in them. The kind of poetry you wish may be obtained, I presume, by taking the beautiful, but aimless vagaries of the gifted Shelly, the poetic prose of Coleridge's Table Talk and Friend, and the prosaic poetry of the Excursion, and fusing them together in a kind of witches' caldron, when after many years of double, double, toil and trouble,' you may catch a half-glimpse of what they supposed they meant in their eloquent rantings. But I willingly grant that in our well-beloved friends, the old English classics, you can find nothing of this philosophical poetry, or poetic philosophy, which bears so strong an affinity to those reasonings which darken counsel by words without wisdom,' once spoken of by the puzzled Scotchman, who said, 'when a man dinna ken what he means himsel', and naebody else kens, they call it metaphysics.' They were neither Mystics nor Gnostics. They attempted not to popularize in rhyme the sublimated philosophy of Plato, nor reduced to poetry the pantheism of Spinoza. Their highest conceptions were only common sense etherealized. They had not been inoculated with neological divinity, or mesmerized with super-rational transcendentalism. What they believed, they comprehended; what they aimed at, they knew; what they felt, they wrote. They caught no ecstatic glimpses of that double-natured and shifting' tertium-quid,' invisible to vulgar eyes, which hangs somewhere between something and nothing. They attempted not to explain what by its nature is inexplicable, or hint wisely at mysteries, which they could only hint at. The visible appearances of the world without, and the sensible movements of the world within, were the themes of all their writings, objective or subjective. The emotions which gushed up ebullient and spontaneous from the well-spring of their hearts, they transfused into the hearts of others, and with this they were satisfied. And where among later productions (unless it be in those of the old-school style, such as The Pleasures of Hope, and Human Life,) are to be found the extended poems of a grand but definite and rational scope, whose outline encompasses a great and worthy field, and whose filling-up is wrought with minute and careful accuracy, like the Essay on Man; the Night Thoughts; the Seasons; the Traveller; the Deserted Village, and several of Cowper's Poems? I have looked in vain. The poems of Campbell, Rogers, and Crabbe, are to be thrown out of the account, because, as before hinted, their writings are essentially after the old models. Of the remaining poets of modern England, the only ones, who can advance their claims in rivalry with the authors of the fine old poems mentioned above, are Scott, Wordsworth, Byron, and some might say Southey and Shelley. As for Moore, Wilson, Keats, White, Hemans, etc., etc., in regard to any thing but fugitive poems, they are entirely out of the question. Most of my readers will join me in throwing out of the contest Southey and Shelley. As to Scott, his two principal poems, Marmion and The Lady of the Lake, are nothing more than novels, fertile in pleasing incident and natural description, and clothed in easy, spirited, and sometimes captivating verse. They bear the same relation to the loftier efforts of the Epic muse, which a genteel and graceful melodrame bears to a stern, high tragedy of old. Loth am I to depreciate even the poetry of the Scottish magician, though I much prefer his rich and pictured prose. But surely I may say that no man ever rose from his poems with an impression of majesty and power, such as he feels after reading the Night Thoughts, or the Seasons. In reference to Wordsworth and Byron, I have much to say hereafter. But here it may be remarked, that those older poems have a definite aim, a vigorous coloring, and a healthy tone. They did not guide their course by vague impulse, and leave their meaning to dubious conjecture, as is done in some aimless excursions of roving genius. Their Pegasus could fly; but they thought it necessary to bridle him, lest their ride should be like Phaeton's of old, ending in discomfiture and ruin. Coleridge might, perhaps, have been the greatest poet of the Nineteenth Century. The sublime Hymn at Sunrise in the Valley of Chamouni,' the wizard Christabel,' the awful Rime of the Auntient ... LITERARY RECORD. MESSRS. BURGESS, STRINGER AND COMPANY'S MEDICAL PUBLICATIONS are attracting wide and general attention among the profession throughout the Union. We have before us, price fifty cents, a handsome volume, well printed on a large clear type, the London copy of which sells for three dollars! It contains Dr. LOVER'S 'Practical Treatise on Organic Diseases of the Uterus,' a prize essay, of the first order of merit, to which the London Medical Society in 1843 awarded the annual gold medal. A most various and voluminous number of The Lancet' for April has also appeared. It is in parts profusely illustrated, and contains, among other papers of general interest, an article upon The Rise, Progress, and Mysteries of Mesmerism, in all Ages and Countries.' . . . Mr. J. S. REDFIELD, Clinton Hall, has issued a good edition of TULK's 'Elements of the Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrate Animals; designed especially for the use of students.' A good elementary work in our own language, that within a small compass and reasonable price should express the amount of our knowledge upon the Anatomy of the several classes of Vertebrate Animals, has long been a desideratum, which the volume before us will amply supply. Its style is excellent. The same publisher has issued a large and well-printed volume, entitled: "The Pictorial History of the American Revolution; with a Sketch of the Early History of the Country, the Constitution of the United States, and a Chronological Index. Illustrated with several hundred engravings. This volume should be in the hands of every true American... THE 'Governmental Instructor,' recently issued by Messrs. COLLINS, BROTHERS AND COMPANY, is a work intended and well calculated for the use of all such as have limited ideas of the general organization of the National and State Governments. Instead of placing before the young learner a large volume of confused matter, the author has had the good sense, and the ability, to suit his work to his reader's capacity.. OUR friend DEMPSTER, the sweet singer of Scotland,' has caused to be published, in a beautiful style, by OLIVER DITSON, of Boston, 'The May Queen; Cantata in three Parts: the poetry by ALFRED TENNYSON, and the music by W. R. DEMPSTER.' This is a very charming musical composition, which should be heard from the lips of the composer himself. It is one of the most touching and beautiful things we ever remember to have heard. Its great popularity has induced other vocalists to take it up; but reader, do you hear Mr. DEMPSTER sing it, if you would have justice done to it. . . . THE 'Valedictory Address' of Dr. GUNNING S. BEDFORD, A. M., M. D., delivered recently before the students and faculty of the medical department of the New-York University, deserves a more elaborate notice at our hands than we can at present extend to it; for the reason that through inadvertence it escaped our attention until the sheets of the present number were nearly all at press. We are constrained to say of it, however, albeit in brief compass, that the professional knowledge and enthusiasm which it exhibits, ample and honorable to the author as they are, are certainly not less so than the kind, humane, christian spirit with which its inculcations are informed. Like the Address of Dr. LEE, of Geneva, recently noticed in these pages, it deserves and will attract the heedful attention not alone of physicians but of 'lay' or general readers. . . . ALL that was wanted to make the Spirit of the Times' literary and sporting journal just what it should be, and nothing else,' has just been accomplished. Its ample pages are now impressed with new and beautiful types, upon paper firm, smooth and white. We cordially endorse the opinions of a contemporary, who says of it: The original papers of the 'Spirit' are characterized by valuable information and sparkling vivacity. It has sporting correspondents in all parts of the United States, and accurate reports of every event worthy of commemoration connected with the Turf, the Breeding Stable, and the wide area of Field Sports. It contains, in a condensed and readable form, all of value in the costly foreign sporting journals, of which full files are regularly received at the Times office. Its foreign and domestic theatrical intelligence is copious and exact. It also contains an excellent Agricultural department. The editorial remarks and criticisms upon matters which come within the scope of the journal, are intelligent and candid, and written in a spirit of the strictest impartiality. A remittance of five dollars entitles a subscriber to three steel engravings and the paper for a year. Verbum sat.' Our young contemporary has just entered upon his fifteenth volume. 'Good boy! good boy!... THERE is good fun in prospect, in a work soon to be published by CAREY AND HART, Philadelphia, entitled 'The Big Bear of Arkansas, and other Sketches, illustrative of Character and Incidents in the South and South-West.' It will contain twenty-one sketches, not unworthy of HOOD or DICKENS, and will be illustrated by twelve engravings, four or five admirable specimens of which we have seen. Secure the volume, reader, when you see it announced... AMONG the late publications of the BROTHERS HARPER is a very handsome edition of 'Alnwick Castle and other Poems,' by FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. This is one of those books concerning which, at this day, any thing beyond a mere announcement of its accessibility would be wholly adscititious. Every body has read, every body will read, HALLECK's poetry. His is the kind of poetry that finds buyers. ORIGINAL PAPERS. ART. I. THE POLYGON PAPERS. NUMBER FOURTEEN, IL STANZAS: TO A VERY SHORT LADY, III. THE DOOM OF MALAGA. BY MISS MARY GARDINER, IV. MY GRAND-FATHER'S PORT-FOLIO. NUMBER EIGHT, V. MY EARLY LOVE. BY ALFRED TENNYSON, Esq., ENGLAND, VII. LINES ON THE TWIN LIVE OAKS, AT BEVERLY, GEORGIA, 471 479 480 482 487 488 494 495 496 X. DUELLING, OR 'HONORABLE SATISFACTION.' BY JOHN H. RHEYN, 502 503 XII. A FRAGMENT OF FAMILY HISTORY: A TALE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, XIV. THE PILGRIMAGE OF LIFE. BY WILLIAM JAMES COLGAN, XV. ON THE RECEIVED LAWS OF PLANETARY MOTION, XVI. THE WIDOW'S HOME. BY MARY A. LAWSON, XVII. GUARD-HOUSE TALES. BY 'ROPER.' NUMBER ONE, 519 519 526 527 532 XIX. THE FOUNTAIN. BY REV. WILLIAM THOMPSON BACON, 533 LITERARY NOTICES: 1. ENGLISH POETRY AND POETS OF THE PRESENT DAY, 1. TENNYSON. 2. MISS BARRETT. 3. COVENTRY PATMORE. 4. R. H. HORNE. 5. Ro- 2. MRS. CHILD'S LETTERS FROM NEW-YORK: SECOND SERIES, EDITOR'S TABLE: . 1. AN ORIENTAL EPISTLE: THE KNICKERBOCKER TALISMAN, 2. A WORD TO PUBLISHERS: NEWSPAPORIAL, ETC,. 3. MADAME OTTO'S CONCERT, 4. AN OMITTED POEM OF THE LATE WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK, 6. GOSSIP WITH READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS, 1. OUR TWENTY-SIXTH VOLUME. 2. CRIME 28. SCOUNDREL-VIRTUE. 3. A DUEL 26. THE KNICKERBOCKER SKETCH-BOOK. NOTICE. THE Subscribers to the KNICKERBOCKER are hereby notified, that after the first of July next, the POSTAGE on this work will be reduced to six and a half cents per number: and the publisher now offers to send the work free of postage to all who will remit the amount of one year's subscription in advance before the 15th of June next. JOHN ALLEN, Publisher, 139 Nassau-street. New-York, May 1, 1845. |