Hints to Travellers in Italy. By Richard Colt Hoare, Bart. Foolscap 8vo. 4s. Account of a Voyage to Spitzbergen; containing a full Description of that Country, the Zoology of the North, the Shetland Isles, and the Whale Fishery. By John Laing, Surgeon. 8vo. 5s. LONDON: Printed by C. Roworth, Bell-yard, Temple-bar. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. JULY, 1815. ART. I. The Lord of the Isles. A Poem. By Walter Scott, Esq. 4to. pp. 440. Edinburgh: Constable and Co. London: Longman and Co. 1815. IF poets were to take precedency of each other according to the number of their admirers, we are inclined to think that the author before us, and one or two of his contemporaries, might fairly enter into competition with some of the greatest names which the annals of our literature can boast. The writings of Homer, and Virgil, and Milton, have not perhaps so many genuine admirers as is commonly supposed; because the merit which they possess is of a quality so far above the standard to which the taste of the general reader is adapted, that it can be duly appreciated, we imagine, only by minds of some considerable cultivation. Magni est viri, says Quintilian, speaking of Homer, virtutes ejus non æmulatione (quod fieri non potest) sed intellectu sequi. The works of our modern bards, however, are obviously calculated for a much larger description of readers; the characters and sentiments which they contain, the species of interest which they inspire, are, for the most part, level to all capacities; while their faults and deficiencies are such that none but persons of refined and practised taste are in any sensible degree affected by them. Whether this be a sort of merit which indicates great and uncommon talents, may perhaps admit a doubt; but at all events it is a very useful one to the public at large. The productions of Mr Scott, possibly, bear no more proportion to the Iliad or the Paradise Lost, than the excellent tales of Miss Edgeworth to the Histories of Tacitus or Clarendon; but this is a separate question. Such men as Homer and Milton are of rare occurrence; in the mean time we are in the enjoyment of a description of poetry, which is adapted to the genius of a greater number of writers, and is capable of affording amusement to a greater variety of readers than any which antiquity possessed.rohe But although it is clear, that some conveniences have resulted from thus lowering the qualification formerly required even from the readers of good poetry; it has also been attended with some disadvantages. Authors will not, any more than other men, bestow VOL. XIII. NO. XXV1. T upon upon their wares a greater degree of polish and perfection, than their customers generally require; and since all that the purchasers of poetry seem now to insist upon is an interesting story, spirited narrative, and good and picturesque descriptions of visible objects, it cannot be expected that poets should feel very anxious to furnish them with any thing besides. There is certainly no great amusement to be extracted from the nine years labour of revising the language and composition of a long poem; and as no commensurate increase of fame, or at least of popularity, would probably ensue from it, a poet who, like the author before us, seems to write merely with a view to please himself and his contemporaries, has no adequate inducement for devoting himself to so irksome an occupation. But if it be, in this point of view, possible for a poet to bestow upon his writings a superfluous degree of care and correction, it may also be possible, we should suppose, to bestow too little. Whether this be the case in the poem before us, is a point upon which Mr Scott can possibly form a much more competent judgment than ourselves; we can only say, that without possessing greater beauties than its predecessors, it has certain violations of propriety both in the language and in the composition of the story, of which the former efforts of his muse afford neither so many nor such striking examples. We have ever shewn ourselves much more disposed to praise the many excellencies of Mr Scott's poetry than to censure its faults. We have not now any quarrel with Mr Scott on account of the measure which he has chosen; still less on account of his subjects; we believe that they are both of them not only pleasing in themselves, but well adapted to each other and to the bent of his peculiar genius. On the contrary, it is because we admire his genius and are partial to the subjects which he delights in, that we so much regret he should leave room for any difference of opinion respecting them, merely from not bestowing upon his publications that common degree of labour and meditation, which, we cannot help saying, it is scarcely decorous to withhold. ; It seems idle to offer any general remarks upon this subject; let the essence of poetry be defined as it may, still it is plain that whatever tends to give grace and delicacy to the pleasure which it imparts, cannot be without importance. Those qualities which result from taste and judgment constitute perhaps rather the ornaments than the elements of poetry specifically considered they are, however, such as in different proportions necessarily enter into the composition of every poem, and unless they be to a certain degree attended to, it is impossible to prevent other feelings than those of pleasure from predominating in the mind. We are far from meaning to say that such is the case in the composition composition before us; in this, as in all Mr Scott's productions, pleasure is unquestionably the prevailing feeling which is excited; yet we cannot but think that this feeling is more frequently counteracted by others of an opposite description in the poem which we are now considering, than even the licence of popular taste can reasonably be expected to sanction. We do not found this opinion upon a consideration of the faults which we may have observed in this or that passage, or even in any single department of the poem ; but we speak from the general impression which a perusal of it has left upon our minds. It would not of course be possible to convey this to the minds of our readers by any extracts; and as the faults to which we allude differ from those which we have had occasion to point out in Mr Scott's former productions, not in kind but in degree, particular examples, in the present instance, must be altogether unnecessary; and as to any general remarks which we may have to offer, they will probably be better understood, when we shall have put our readers in possession of the story npon which the poem is founded. After some introductory lines rather pleasing than appropri ate, the poem is opened by a party of minstrels assembled from mainland and from isle,' in the castle of Artornish, for the purpose of celebrating the bridal-day of the chief to whom it belongs, and who is the hero of the tale, with the sister of a neighbouring chieftain. "Wake, Maid of Lorn!" 'twas thus they sung, And yet more proud the descant rung, Will pause, the harp's wild chime to hear But while our harps wild music make, Edith of Lorn, awake, awake!" * Edith of Lorn, however, was less pleased, it would seem, with this reveillée, than might have been expected; and although the minstrels changed the note and tried a softer spell,' yet she persisted in not making her appearance. But not the minstrels' art only was tried in vain upon the bride; she was as insensible to the Graces as to the Muses; and although Cathleen of Ulne braided her hair,' and 'young Eva drew on her light foot the silken shoe,' and Bertha wound round her white ankles strings of pearl,' and 'Einion of experience old' arranged the folds of her crimson mantle, yet nothing could elicit from her the smallest symptom of pleasure or approbation. At length Morag, her foster-mother, provoked at such strange behaviour, took her aside to a turret which overlooked the Sound of Mull, and pointing to the spacious scene, asks whether amid the ample round' she supposes that one clouded brow was to be found except her own? Morag then expatiates upon the greatness of Lord Ronald's domains,-till Edith, with some resentment, desires her to forbear from urging such unworthy considerations, which can never be supposed to compensate for the want of Lord Ronald's affection. She had been betrothed to him from her infancy-and the fame of his virtues and exploits had often made her bosom throb, even before her personal acquaintance with his great qualities had commenced. 'Since then, what thought had Edith's heart, To bid some lighter love farewell; Again they meet to part no more?' Fortunately for Morag's argument, the fleet of Ronald is at this moment seen unmooring from Aros bay, and she avails herself of the circumstance to encourage Edith with more worthy thoughts of Ronald; Edith answers only with a sigh, and points out, as a type of her lover's course, a lonely bark which she had observed from break of day wearing and tacking, as if the only object of those on board had been to keep from Artornish. In the mean time the fleet of Lord Ronald, decked with silk and gold and manned with island chivalry, is seen to sweep by without noticing the little bark. The poet leaves Lord Ronald for the skiff, which, after beating against the wind all day, is at length so damaged as to be incapable of keeping the sea. The person whom it contained was no other than Robert Bruce, who, with his sister Isabel and Edward his foster-brother, was now upon his way from Ireland to join some of his adherents, who, it seems, had taken up arms against the tyranny of the English, and were only waiting for him to put himself at their head, in order to commence an open rebellion. As Bruce had formerly slain Comyn the kinsman of Lorn, Edith's brother, |