commonly faithful and zealous in her attachments. Indeed, if we are not mistaken, it was sometimes her misfortune

to love and esteem more than she was either esteemed or

loved in return. Mr. Hayley, to whom she was enthusiastically and unreasonably devoted, evidently treated her with neglect and coldness, And Mr. George Hardinge, though a Welch Judge, and a professed admirer of her poetry, seems to have corresponded with her for the pleasure of teazing her; and while cross-examining her on poetical questions, was probably laughing in his sleeve at the female author, a character which men of wit affect to hold in supreme contempt. The following is a pretty fair specimen of the treatment which she received from this flippant son of Themis.

'My correspondence was, considering the scantiness of my leisure, distressingly extended when he sought me first; and, though I told him so, he continued to employ me perpetu lly in sending him copies after copies of all the verses with which, from time to time, he fa voured me; the cry was still, "I have mislaid the last transcript you sent me of my ode, or my sonnet,-pray indulge me with another ?" and, at last, after having repeatedly sent him copies of every individual effusion of his muse, he coolly desired me to get a little book and copy them all into that, as he had mislaid a number of the single transcripts; he made this modest request just as I had discovered that he had not chosen to take the trouble for me, of directing and forwarding three packets to Oxford, which had cost me all the leisure I could command during several weeks; and upon my resenting it, turned that resentment into every sort of ridicule. After such treatment, I can no longer write to Mr. Hardinge with pleasure.' Vol. II. p. 289.

In the correspondence of authors and their friends, we must expect to find, what indeed abounds in common conversation, a great deal of false judgement respecting the merits of living writers, either in comparison with their contemporaries or the dead. It is sufficient to check the most sanguine, and humble the most aspiring ambition, to recollect how many sincere and splendid praises have been lavished on 66 names inglorious, born to be forgot," by those who knew them best, and whom we might suppose to be the most qualified to appreciate their merits. The applause that a living poet receives from his admirers, even those of purest taste and highest intellect, is, after all, as uncertain a pledge of immortality, as his own prejudiced estimate of his talents and performances. He stands too near his own mind, to judge of its powers in competition with other minds; and his friends, (perhaps all his contemporaries,) stand too near him, to judge of his appearance to eyes so distant as those of posterity It is according to

upon

the light in which a poet shall present himself to those who can see him only as a poet, that he may hope for extended and established renown. Miss Seward, we doubt not, spoke the honest conviction of her mind, when she extolled Hayley above Dryden; and Hayley himself was probably equally in earnest, when he wrote to Miss Seward, I admire the Scottish Peasant, (Burns) but do not think him superior to your poetical carpenter:'-Wm. Newton, an ingenious versifier, as far below Burns, as Burns was below Shakespear! In fact, the main proof of poetry is its permanence. When it has been slowly and progressively successful, we may pronounce with greater confidence of its merits and ultimate triumph, than when we have only proved its influence upon ourselves, because we have then the experience, the accumulated experience of others, in confirmation of our own, that it will produce the same im pression on the human mind generally, as it has done us individually. When we consider how many, in a polished age, are moderately qualified to adorn and delight the sphere in which they move, but how few, in any age, are so pre-eminently gifted as to command admiration under every change of time and place, we shall not wonder that, generally speaking, the race of poets is as transient as the race of beauties. Sir Joshua Reynolds said that he had lived to paint three generations of the latter; Miss Seward lived to praise three generations of the former. The fascination of Hayley's poetry is as certainly fled the charms of our grand-mothers; of Darwin's it may perhaps be as well remembered as those of our maiden aunts; of Walter Scott's it yet lives, (and long may it live!) like those of our wives and sisters. Hence, as these letters are greatly enriched with critical remarks on the successive literary ephemera, they become more interesting as they approach our own time; when, instead of the "Epistles on Epic Poetry," the "Botanic Garden," the "Odes on the glorious Revolution," &c. &c. and their authors, we are entertained with panegyrics on "Glenfinlas," "Madoc," the "Ode to the departing year," and with ancecdotes and characters of the minstrels of this day.

as

To make our peace with the reader for this long digression, we will treat him with the following brief sketch of the most popular living poet. Who that admires genius in its works, does not wish to form some ideal image of the bodily presence in which it appears on the earth?

More immediately should I have noticed the kind contents of your letter, had it arrived at a less interesting juncture. At two that day,

Friday last, the poetically great Walter Scott came "like a sun-beam to my dwelling." I found him sturdily maintaining the necessity of limiting his inexpressibly welcome visit to the next day's noon. will not wonder that I could spare no minutes from hours so precious and so few.'

You

This proudest boast of the Caledonian muse is tall, and rather robust than slender; but lame in the same manner as Mr. Hayley, and in a greater measure. Neither the contour of his face, nor yet his features, are elegant; his complexion healthy, and somewhat fair, without bloom. We find the singularity of brown hair and eye-lashes, with flaxen eye-brows, and a countenance open, ingenuous, and benevolent. When seriously conversing, or earnestly attentive, though his eyes are rather of a lightish grey, deep thought is on their lids; he contracts his brow, and the rays of genius gleam aslant from the orbs beneath them. An upper-lip, too long, prevents his mouth from being decidedly handsome, but the sweetest emanations of temper and of heart play about it, when he talks cheerfully, or smiles; and, in company, he is much oftener gay than contemplative. His conversation, an overflowing fountain of brilliant wit, apposite allusion, and playful archness, while, on serious themes, it is nervous and eloquent. The accent decidedly Scotch, yet by no means broad. On the whole, no expectation is disappointed, which his poetry must excite in all who feel the powers and the graces of Aonian inspiration.

Not less astonishing than was Johnson's memory is that of Mr. Scott; like Johnson also, his recitation is too monotonous and violent to do justice, either to his own writings, or that of others.' VI. 837-339.

Miss Seward's own poems, published or in contemplation, of course furnish frequent themes of thanks and vindication, as well as of intelligence and discussion in these epistles. We were wearied with the repetition of the same thoughts, almost in the same words, whenever she has occasion to mention her sonnets, and her paraphrases of Horace. In the former, the principal merit she aimed at was "to float the pause" so delicately in every line, that the rhyme became the least emphatical syllable in the verse; and was either entirely lost, or, when felt, sounded like a jingle in blank verse. This legitimate construction of the sonnet is, in our opinion, the very cause of its dissonance and insipidity to ordinary readers. Few English ears can be disciplined to endure its prosaic pauses, to miss the rhymes where they are expected, and to meet them where they are not desired. There is not one popular sonnet in the whole compass of our language, though we have souneteers of every order of genius-from Spenser, Shakespear and Milton, down to X. Y. Z. in the Magazines. Miss Seward's idea of this species of verse is expressed in the following passage.

I, who was always enamoured of the legitimate Miltonic sonnet,

write one now and then, upon that model. It is the intermediate style of poetry, between rhyme and blank verse; and the undulating and varied pauses of the latter, give to the true sonnet an air of graceful freedom, beyond that of all other measures-though, from the restraint respecting the exact number of the lines, and the demand of four rhymes, twice used in the first eight verses, it is in reality the most difficult.'

As an example of the graceful freedom' of the "true sonnet,' we copy the following from Miss Seward's Poems, Scott's Edit. Vol. III. p. 166.

On the Air Balloon.

From Possibility's dun Chaos sprung,

High o'er its gloom the Aerostatic Power arose!

Exulting nations hail'd the hour, magnific boast of Science !

Loud they sung her victory o'er the element,

That hung, pressing to earth the beings, who now soar aërial heights.
But wisdom bids explore this vaunted skill;

If tides of air among, we know to steer our bark.

Here Science finds her buoyant hopes burst, like the bubble vain,
type of this art;

Guilty if still she blinds the sense of fear;

Persists thy flame to fan sky-vaulting Pride,

That to the awless winds throws, for an idle show, the life of man. It may be an amusing exercise to some of our younger readers, to measure these Ossianic sentences into lengths of ten syllables each; when we can assure them that they will find the rhymes duly falling in the predestined places, and the pause undulating from line to line with such melodious variations, as to form a perfect model of the "legitimate Sonnet."

As for the paraphrases of Horace, it is only necessary to say, that Miss Seward was unacquainted with Latin, and that she versified and amplified literal prose translations of the Odes, by her friends-and prided herself no little on her fancied success. A literal prose translation of the lyrics of Horace is a mere exhibition of dry bones, the breath, the life, the soul of which depart the moment the ideas are separated from their pristine expression in the poet's own language. To make expanded copies of such literal translations, and call them paraphrases of Horace, is just as absurd as it would be in an artist, to pick up skulls in a charnel house, and pretend to paint portraits from them of the living beings to whom they belonged, by supplying features and complexions from his own imagination.

Connected with her poetry, we may mention Miss Seward's affected contempt and real hatred of reviewers. We shall not pretend to vindicate the fraternity from any reprobation of their talents and worth which we find in these volumes. At page 295 of Vol. V. a critical secret is divulged, so little to the credit of one of our contemporaries, that we shall not transcribe it for the credit of the profession: those of our readers who are very curious to know it, must refer to the work; a good secret cannot be dear at three guineas.

Our author's own criticisms on the writings of others are generally liberal, just and independent; though they manifest little ingenuity, and occasionally betray a gaudy extravagance of taste. Some of her letters, it is true, are complimentary acknowledgements to writers for presented copies of their works; and in these the public will think she has been as much too lavish of her encomiums, as the writers themselves probably thought her too parsimonious,—especially since she sometimes mingled her praises with censures sufficiently frank to neutralize them. On this copious subject we cannot pretend to follow her. Overlooking all her strictures on Hayley, Mason, Johnson, and Darwin, we shall only observe that her estimate of the respective talents of Walter Scott, Southey, and a few other distingushed poets of the present day, is on the whole highly creditable to herself and to them. But we are are indeed surprised, that one who could so justly ascertain the merits of these writers, on their first appearance, should have been only indifferently moved by the "Pleasures of Hope," that loveliest offspring of the Muse of Campbell, when like the Halcyon, in a golden hour of splendour and tranquillity, she disclosed

"The happy miracle of her rare birth.” Miss Seward's injustice to Cowper is less extraordinary. His rhyming pieces she could not endure on account of their freedom and simplicity of versification; though she frequently bestows the highest applause on his blank verse, in which the very freedom and simplicity that made her hate his rhyme, had an inexpressible charm for her. This, however, may be tolerated: but we apprehend that her principal prejudice against Cowper's poetry, arose from her prejudice against his religion. Having, in a former article*, spoken with sufficient severity of this lady's insane hostility to the most amiable and benevolent of poets, we shall * Review of Miss Seward's Poetical Works. Ecl. Rev, Vol. VII. p. 19.