who leaves the estate,-not to her canting brother, but to his daughter by the second marriage, a lady one degree more cunning and assiduous than her father. Forthwith the honest attorney ci-dessus nommé, who was "particeps criminis" of the clandestine marriage, determines to turn bis knowledge of that transaction to account, by forcing the father of the rich legatee to give her and her estate to his own son. His power to effect this purpose is increased by an error in the wording of the will, which, giving the property to his friend's eldest daughter, of course, if her claim were made public, would assign it to the little Catholic perdue. The negotiation to keep this secret, very happily commenced, is abruptly broken off by the supposed heiress choosing for herself and running off with a third party. The attorney, thus foiled, embarks in a new speculation to produce the "true Simon Pure," and marry his son to her. Upon the point as he imagines of carrying this design into successful execution, he is again thwarted by the old Methodist father, who, seeing no other means of avoiding the snare, and touched moreover in his conscience, brings to light a forgotten entail which nullifies the will, and settles the property on Reginald, who, as in duty bound, marries his cousin, and the curtain falls. Such are the very flimsy materials out of which the author of Reginald Dalton has contrived to spin three very closely printed volumes, by dint of descriptions and details à la Walter Scott, (if W. Scott be the "great unknown")-descriptions and details, which, though of the most ordinary and trifling incidents and situations, are still, by force of writing, endowed with considerable interest to the reader. It is this circumstance, indeed, which alone renders the work worth five lines of criticism. It is this faculty of engaging an half-alive sort of attention, and pinning the mind down to details which tend to enfeeble the intellectual powers of the reader, which aim at affording amusement without rousing thought or interesting the nobler passions, and which familiarize the imagination with selfish and narrow notions and motives, that we would deprecate as debasing literature and degrading the national tone of feeling. Whatever openings the story affords for energy and dignity of character in the better personages of the tale, are utterly lost by the author. Reginald and his father are both more amiable than otherwise, but both are nearly ruined; the one by his thoughtless extravagance, and the other by want of paternal vigilance, or rather of common prudence. Both are weak,-and accident alone prevents them from being miserable. There is, indeed, an attempt at the portraiture of an old lady of sense and goodness, but nothing is made of the character, either in the story or as a character. The moral interest which might spring out of the religious peculiarities of the personages, is left wholly aside, and no use whatever is made of the circumstance. The most interesting and amusing part of the book is occupied with a very vivid description of a night brawl in Oxford, which, though a mere parody of the prentices' row in the Fortunes of Nigel, is executed with considerable force. M. THE RELEASE OF TASSO. THERE came a Bard to Rome: he brought a lyre, Or greet a conqueror with its war-notes high; He brought a spirit, whose ethereal birth On the blue waters, as in joy they sweep, His numbers had been sung: and in the halls, While the high soul they burst from, pined in chains. Warm tears, fast-glittering in that sun, whose light Oh! if it be that wizard sign and spell But he was free at last!-the glorious land The winds came o'er his cheek; the soft winds, blending And the blue festal Heavens above him bending, Far in the slumber of its chords enshrined, Was the deep forest lonely unto him With all its whispering leaves?-Each dell and glade -There is no solitude on earth so deep As that where man decrees that man should weep! But oh! the life in Nature's green domains, The breathing sense of joy! where flowers are springing And the grey rocks!-and all the arch'd woods ringing, And the glad voice, the laughing voice of streams, And reed-notes from the mountains, and the beams And they were his once more, the Bard, whose dreams That he had borne the chain?-Oh! who shall dare So deep a root hath hope!-But woe for this, And feeding a slow fire on all its powers, On the deep's foam, amidst its hollow roar Or if we live, if that, too dearly bought Aught, watch'd with such unquiet tenderness. Such unto him, the Bard, the worn and wild, And he became a wanderer-in whose breast Wild fear, which, e'en when every sense doth sleep, Its gloomy vigil of intense unrest O'er treasures, burdening life, and buried deep In cavern-tomb, and sought, through shades and stealth, But woe for those who trample o'er a mind- For blindness wraps that world!-our touch may turn Or put out some bright spark, whose ray should burn Or break some subtle chain, which none discern, Who then to power and glory shall restore Who unto mystic harmony once more Attune those viewless chords ?-There is but One! -Yet oft his paths have midnight for their shade- F. H. LIVING FRENCH POETS. NO. 11. De Lamartine. THE higher order of poetry in France was considered as almost extinct for some time before the fall of Napoleon. The impulse which the Revolution gave to genius is sufficiently attested by its prose productions, its specimens of eloquence, and the progress of painting. But that species of boisterous excitement which inspires the orator and the artist with subjects fitting to such times, and strengthens the faculties in their immediate display, seems the very reverse of that which is most favourable to the poet. His art is pre-eminently one that demands repose. His talent lives on recollections, and grows in retrospect. The images which flit before him escape as soon as observed. They are impalpable, though powerful, and can rarely be described when first conceived. Their presence is as unreal as the shadows of a dream, but the impressions they make sink as deeply in his mind; and it is in leisure and retirement that he embodies forth the notions, the vividness of which is not injured by time. The interval between inspiration and composition is therefore much greater than is commonly supposed; and we think that extempore productions are in most cases but the utterance of ideas long before received. It must be obvious that we do not refuse belief in those improvisatore effusions which are frequent and sometimes good. We do not deny the hurried production of verses possessing considerable merit, nor undervalue the various pièces de circonstance for stage or closet; but we speak of the higher order of poetry; and glance at, rather than examine, one great cause of its decline in France. Another obviously presents itself, in the slavery that succeeded to the fury of the Revolution. The storms of that event, which rocked the cradle of Despotism, were chilling to the bright but delicate flower of poetry. It opens gladly to the breath of Freedom, but is shrunk and withered by the noxious blast of Tyranny. Every one of the productions under the reign of the Emperor was forced and unseemly. They had, perhaps, the florid bloom of poetry, but it was unhealthy; and what they gained in colouring they lost in perfume. It is, therefore, but little astonishing that from the days of Delille and Parny until the Restoration, no poet of any eminence appeared in France. But no sooner did that event take place, and political convulsions subside into something like the calm of comparative freedom, than literature resumed its influence; and however political sentiments might vary, there seemed a common accord in relation to poetry. The general feeling was, that it had arisen from its long sleep; that it had returned, as it were, from its term of exile; and that, however little other emigrants had profited by their banishment, it at least had gained new vigour from repose, and came back regenerated and revived. The inspirations of the Muse were deeply and generally felt, and she scattered her favours neither like a niggard nor a partisan. Amongst men of every political opinion she found votaries; and she denied her smiles to no party in the state. Royalists, Republicans, and Constitutionalists produced alike their poets, of various degrees of merit and in different walks of the art; but none took his station on a prouder eminence than Alphonse de Lamartine. A volume of poetry, the leading qualities of which were religion |