FESTUS.

THIS poem should have received earlier notice, had we received it earlier. We knew not while we were reviewing Ernest, that there was another poem in the field, as daring in the religious, as the former in the political field of human speculation. Now, however, as the thing has been brought before us, we know our duty, and shall do it.

We feel ourselves not unentitled to speak of religious poetry in general, and of such a poem as this in particular. The plan of the work is the same as Göthe's Faust, and in fact attempts the solution of the same problem by similar means. Göthe's Faust, however, was a traditionary character; Festus is a creature of the poet's own naming. Not only, however, in this respect, but in all, the poet has set himself free from all restraints and limits. His imagination has encountered no difficulties that might be presented by formularies, or manners—but makes for itself, as occasion arises, creeds of her own, customs of her own, and, in her lawless flight, even makes a god and devil of her own. She proposes to herself the adoption of no "form of sound words;" but speaks, and trusts to the inspiration which speech is, for the truth which speech should utter. Thus avoiding all obstacles in the way of production, by what shall the power of the writer be tested-power which is usually manifested in the overcoming of difficulties? Whatever may have been the originality of Homer's mind, he dealt with Grecian manners, Grecian mythology, Grecian scenery, Grecian events, Grecian men and women. He had to put his new conceptions into these old forms, and only by these could he reach the common mind. The poet of Festus, transcending even Göthe in this particular, projects himself into the purely ideal, setting his will and his fancy free from all obstruction. In a word, he doth what he likes; no wonder, therefore, that what he does, is performed with facility. Let us, however, suggest another view of power-apart from obstacles-as power in itself, creative of the atmosphere in which it moves. The power that triumphs over difficulties breathes the air that is already made, and by which, not being its own, it is opposed. The mind, however, is its own place, and pure spirit respires in its own medium. The power manifested in this primary creation is of a higher, as well as prior nature. Whether human power can be such may be doubted-but is poetic power human? Is the author of "Festus" human? Yes. For he tells us, that, after all, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, the work before us was not produced without much anguish. If we are to believe him, he was, for the pain it cost him, a very Messiah among minstrels. Thus he records his agonies.

Read this, World! He who writes is dead to thee,
But still lives in these leaves. He spake inspired;
Night and day, thought came unhelped, undesired,
Like blood to his heart. The course of study he
Went through was of the soul-rack. The degree
He took was high: it was wise wretchedness.

* Festus, a Poem. London: William Pickering. 1839.

He suffered perfectly, and gained no less

A prize than, in his own torn heart, to see

A few bright seeds: he sowed them-hoped them truth.

We had not to learn that Parnassus was rather a Gethsemane than a Paradise. We write this, not profanely, but with a sacred feeling—with deep emotion, and solemn experience of the truth enounced. These travail-pains will be felt more and more by the rising class of poets. Old prescriptions are dead-creeds are worn out-the coming Catholic Christism is a different thing-very-from the fading Sectarian Christianity. Our religious systems have been made by man, but religion itself is of God, and, for ever new, will burst the old bottles at every fresh pouring out of the wine, whether of divine indignation or regenerating mercy. All the signs of the times speak of a new cycle begun; and the rising poetry testifies perhaps as strongly as any other to the same great fact. Marvels accordingly are dailyenacting before us; miracles of Providence, as the fitting heralds of the third dispensation of love.

Never were times so important as these. The minds of public writers should rise to their dignity. Criticism must become as transcendental as poetry has the popular writer must dare the holiest themes-the vain, the frivolous, and the unconsecrated are of no further avail. Being dead, let them be buried out of sight.

Well!-In the form and arrangement of its scenes, Festus is written on the model of Göthe's Faust. It opens with a scene in heaven, in which the Trinity and the angels are interlocutors, and Lucifer proposes the temptation of the hero. By the bye, what is the poet's idea of Lucifer ? We have some notion that the character is feebly drawn-that it is not so distinct and well understood by the poet, as was Göthe's Mephistopheles. But so far as we can make it out, we are afraid that he stands for a sort of negative god, a notion which forms one of the worst errors of pantheism, and which, by rendering the poem pantheistic, would reduce it in the scale of excellence. The poet is young, not more than twenty-three and if such should be the case, he will certainly grow out of this state of belief; but then he will have reason to repent some imperfections in his present work, which are of a radical character. This is pity.

Such, however, is the great defect of our modern poetry; that instead of a perfect poem, we are continually presented with works which mark the peculiar developements in certain states and stages of the mind of the individual poet. We care not at what age the Iliad or Lear were written - they are good, great, wonderful, whether written at seven, or seventy years of age. Certain psychological advantages arise from the modern modes; but h ese are for the scientific, rather than the poetic. The experimentalist is willing to grope in the fields of experience-but while he does so, is a sciolist, and no true philosopher. This wordy poetry needs recasting-it should be thrown into the furnace; and, being melted, should come forth purified, and be transmitted into proper moulds, worthy, because of their perfection, to stamp a form on the finest ore.

Would it not therefore be well for every poet, henceforth, to keep his pieces private, until he attains forty years of age; and then, out of his

old materials to construct, by selection and rejection, a poem complete in all its parts, and satisfactory in regard to its ultimate effect? A proposition this deserving of the profoundest consideration; let vanity say what it will, true ambition will vote in its favour. Rush not into print -public approbation is no test of excellence. Take counsel of thyself, O poet! There is no man, nor number of men, who can instruct thee: -therefore, abide thy time, resting meanwhile on thine own judgement; and, in the self-consciousness of power, needing no external corroboration, work in secret, until the perfect work may be brought forth confidently, and in a mature form-then may the sun's eye shine on it strongly, and not dim, but, by blending with, enhance its glory.

Festus is undoubtedly too long for the kind of poem. We find in it, as it advances, the most perplexing iteration. There is a part, too, where the poet begins to dogmatise, and brings forward a heavy theological system to explain, of course, the poem. He should have known better than this. Göthe refused so to compromise himself. Poetry should deal with symbols, not with doctrines. Every reader should be left to make his own-to deduce them from the types and general actions. The author of Festus has incurred a responsibility which he might have avoided. His own opinions will change on these points, and then he will wish that he had left character and incident to take care of themselves, and teach what they might to the docile. To instruct by words, after having instructed by types, is to do the same work twice over, or to add another work with perhaps a different meaning.

We gather from these dogmas, that the articles of religion which the author would promulge are as follows:

1. That the love of God is infinite as man's imperfection.

2. That God laughs at ill by man made, and allows it.

3. That man made not himself, and is not answerable for his heart, which he cannot hinder any more than it can hinder God.

4. What man does, good or ill, is pre-appointed by God, and for his glory. 5. That nothing is lost in nature; and no soul, though buried in the centre of all sin, is lost to God.

6. That evil is no positive estate or principle, but debtor wholly for its form and measure to defect, as defect is to good, which good is the sole positive principle in the world.

7. That the Son of God will redeem every spirit, man or devil. His life is ever suffering for love. In judging and redeeming worlds, is spent his everlasting being. The best and worst need one and the same salvation. 8. That each man is saved in the Son, who judges; for though "fraught with Godhood, he yet feels the frailties of the things he has made, and therefore can, like-feelingly, them judge."

9.

Festus. So, soul and song begin and end in heaven,
Your birth-place and your everlasting home.

The Holy Ghost.

Time there hath been when only God was all;
And it shall be again. The hour is named,
When seraph, cherub, angel, saint, man, fiend,
Made pure, and unbelievably uplift

Above their present state-drawn up to God,
Like dew into the air-shall be all Heaven;
And all souls be in God, and shall be God,
And nothing but God be.

Son of God.

Let all be God's!

God. World without end! and I am God alone;
The Aye, the Infinite, the Whole, the One!

I only was-nor matter else, nor mind,
The self-contained Perfection unconfined.
I only am-in might and mercy one;

I live in all things, and am closed in none.
I only shall be-when the worlds have done,
My boundless being will be but begun."

Now, here we have a very pretty beadroll of speculations, more or less skilfully threaded with larger or smaller intervals of intersection. These are the theories to be woven into verse. This kind of work Shelley had done long before it was attempted by the poet of Festus. There are great difficulties in this kind of poetry. Whatever satisfies the aspirations of the visionary will not equally serve the poet's purpose. The poetic art is necessarily objective in its character, and the merely subjective ideal is unfitted therefore for representation. It is, in fact, not representable. All Shelley's difficulties are accumulated five hundred fold in the poem of Festus.

Is Festus a man? He is the Last Man, and, like many men before him, lived a life of love and infidelity; yet by one heart-throb, one tear, is spoken of as having earned heaven. From all which we learn, to melt down the nine foresaid propositions into this one, that love without fidelity will earn heaven for a man. In other words, that a man from adolescence to senescence may betray one woman after another, yet, for the love he bore to each in turn, shall by such love be saved. Because, as Lucifer finally tells Festus, "To be in heaven is to love for ever"— whereto Festus gratefully replies, "I am glad!" whereupon the Son of God calls to him, "Here, come with me!" Festus demands, "But where are those I love?" and is answered by the same august personage, "Yon happy troop!" And then Festus exclaims, "Ah, blest ones, come to me! Loves of my heart, on earth, and soul, in heaven! Are ye all here, too, with me?" They respond unanimously," All!” and Festus then solemnly declares, "It is heaven!" And thus, not by resisting, but by merely yielding to Lucifer's temptation, Festus is saved, and would have been, whether he had been tempted or not.

To write of the taste displayed in the diction and imagery of a poem which thus has passed all conceptions of law, would be to adopt one course for the whole, and another for the parts. By its boundlessness, it is put out of the pale of criticism. It may be a wise madness, the spirit in which it has been conceived and executed, nevertheless it is madness. We are called on, therefore, simply to present some specimens of its style for the reader's instruction, previously to considering the subject in extenso.

God has said to Lucifer, in reply to his request for permission to tempt Festus:

Upon his soul

Thou hast no power. All souls are mine for ages;
And I do give thee leave to this, that he
May know my love is more than all his sin;

And prove unto himself that nought but God

Can be enough to the souls he maketh great.

Whereupon the Holy Ghost is made to observe :-
And I will hallow him to the end of heaven,
That though he dip his soul in sin like a wick
In wax, it shall be glory still to God.

And he shall shine in robes wet through with light,
In heaven at last. All things are done in heaven
Ere aimed at upon earth. The child is chosen !

The following is extraordinary writing for a young man of twenty.
This is to be a mortal and immortal!

To live within a circle: and to be

That dark point where the shades of all things around
Meet, mix, and deepen. All things unto me

Shew their dark sides; somewhere there must be light.
OI feel like a seed in the cold earth;

Quickening at heart, and pining for the air!
Passion is destiny. The heart is its own
Fate. It is well youth's gold rubs off so soon!
The heart gets dizzy with its drunken dance,
And the voluptuous vanities of life

Enchain, enchant, and cheat my soul no more.
My spirit is on edge. I can enjoy

Nought which has not the honied sting of sin;
That soothing fret, which makes the young untried,
Longing to be beforehand with their nature,
In dreams and loneness cry, they die to live;
That wanton whetting of the soul, which while

It gives a finer, keener edge for pleasure,

Wastes more and dulls the sooner. Rouse thee, heart;
Bow of my heart, thou art yet full of spring!

My quiver still hath many purposes;

Yet what is worth a thought of all things here?

How mean, how miserable every care!

How doubtful too the system of the mind!

And then the ceaseless, changeless, hopeless round
Of weariness, and heartlessness, and woe,
And vice, and vanity! Yet these make life;
The life at least I witness, if not feel.

No matter! We are immortal. How I wish
I could love men! for amid all life's quests
There seems but worthy one; to do men good.
It matters not how long we live, but how;
For as the parts of one manhood while here
We live in every age; we think, and feel,
And feed upon the coming and the gone,
As much as on the now time. Man is one:
And he hath one great heart. It is thus we feel
With a gigantic throb athwart the sea,

Each other's rights and wrongs; thus are we men.
Let us think less of men and more of God!

Sometimes the thought comes swiftening over us,
Like a small bird winging the still blue air;

And then again at other times it rises

Slow, like a cloud which scales the skies all breathless,
And just over head lets itself down on us.

Sometimes we feel the wish across the mind

Rush, like a rocket roaring up the sky,