'Twas pity Nature brought ye forth, But you are lovely leaves, where we Into the grave. The want in these graceful and delicate lyrics is thew and sinew. And yet they are what they pretend to be―airy petals of the cherry-blossom, hinting of fruit, bees fluttering and musical, giving token of honey. The Muse fares ill in civil contentions. As Herrick fled before the Roundheads, so was George Wither oppressed by the Cavaliers. The following noble praise of poetry was written in a prison; in a prison the poor poet passed many of his latter years, and it is still a question whether he actually died in confinement, or perished of want and misery after his release. But, alas! my muse is slow; Here I waste away the light, And those sweets the spring-tide yields; Where the shepherds chant their loves, And the lasses more excel Than the sweet-voiced Philomel; Though of all those pleasures past Nothing now remains at last, But remembrance, poor relief That more makes than mends my grief; She's my mind's companion still She doth tell me where to borrow By her help I also now Make this churlish place allow Some things, that may sweeten gladness In the very gall of sadness: The dull loneness, the black shade That these hanging vaults have made, She hath brought me by her might Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, Poetry, thou sweet'st content Whose dull thoughts can not conceive thee; Though thou be to them a scorn That for naught but earth are born; Than I am in love with thee! Though our wise ones call it madness, If I love not thy maddest fits And though some, too seeming holy, Thou dost teach me to contemn What makes knaves and fools of them! "The praises of poetry have been often sung in ancient and modern times; strange powers have been ascribed to it of influence over animate and inanimate auditors; its force over fascinated crowds has been acknowledged; but before Wither no one had celebrated its power at home; the wealth and the strength which this divine gift confers upon its possessor." This fine criticism, worthy of the poetry which it celebrates, is by Charles Lamb. XIII. FEMALE POETS. JOANNA BAILLIE*-CATHERINE FANSHAWE. BELOVED, admired, appreciated by the best spirits of her time, it is with no little triumph that I, who plead guilty to some of that esprit de corps, which may be translated into "pride of sex," write the name of our great female dramatist-of the first woman who won high and undisputed honors in the highest class of English poetry. The pleasure of rendering her a faint and imperfect justice is all the greater that I have the honor of claiming acquaintance with this most gifted person, and that she is, in her domestic relations, the very pattern of what a literary lady should be-quiet, unpretending, generous, kind, admirable in her writings, excellent in her life. And yet of Mrs. Joanna Baillie, the praised of Scott, and of all whose praise is best worth having for half a century, what can I say, but that many an age to come will echo back their applause! Her tragedies have a boldness and grasp of mind, a firmness of hand, and a resonance of cadence, that scarcely seem within the reach of a female writer; while the tenderness and sweetness of her heroines-the grace of the love-scenes-and the trembling outgushings of sensibility, as in Orra, for instance, in the fine tragedy on Fear-would seem exclusively feminine, if we did not know that a true dramatist-as Shakspeare or * Since writing this paper, this gifted authoress and admirable woman has passed from this world to the higher and happier state which was ever in her thoughts. A letter from her to a mutual friend, written a very few days before her death, expresses her satisfaction in having received the sacrament with her sister the Sunday previous. In this letter, for the first time during a long correspondence, she breaks off somewhat suddenly, complaining of bodily fatigue, although no one then thought her ill. Fletcher has the wonderful power of throwing himself, mind and body, into the character that he portrays. That Mrs. Joanna is a true dramatist, as well as a great poet, I, for one, can never doubt, although it has been the fashion to say that her plays do not act. It must be above fifty years ago that I, then a girl of thirteen, in company with my old and dear friend, Mr. Harness, the bosom friend of Thomas Hope, the friend and correspondent of Lord Byron (and, be it observed, of all his correspondents, the one who seems to have impressed the daring poet with the most sincere respect), then a boy considerably younger than myself, witnessed the representation of "De Montfort," by John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. Forty years after, we had the pleasure of talking over that representation with the authoress, in Lady Dacre's drawing-room, a place where poets "most do congregate," and we both agreed that the impression which the performance had made upon us had remained indelible. Now, the qualities in an acted play that fixed themselves upon the minds of children so young, must have been purely dramatic. Purely dramatic, too, are many of the finer traits that strike us in reading, as, when De Montfort, with his ear quickened by hatred, announces the approach of Rezenvelt, and Freberg exclaims: and "How quick an ear thou hast for distant sound! I hear him not-" many others scattered through the tragedies. I concede, however, very willingly, that Mrs. Joanna is a most charming lyrical poetess; as witness the beautiful Morning Song in the " Beacon," which breathes the very spirit of hope. Up! quit thy bower; late wears the hour; Long have the rooks cawed round thy tower; The wilding kid sports merrily: Up! lady fair, and braid thy hair, The rolling stream that soothed thy dream Is dancing in the sunny beam; And hours so sweet, so bright, so gay, Will waft good fortune on its way. G* |