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And made him friends of mountains: with the fully interspersed with his accustomed

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And the quick Spirit of the Universe

He held his dialogue; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;

To him the book of Night was opened wide,
And voices from the abyss reveal'd

A marvel and a secret-Be it so." P. 44.

crudities, but not without a considerable share of poetic merit. The Night Thoughts appear to be the objects of his imitation, but the copy falls very far short of the original. His Lord"Amen, say also we; for till these dia- ship's philosophy is at times of the sect logues are somewhat more intelligible of the "unintelligibles," at least to us than many of the verses in this volume, ordinary mortals, who have been bred we trust that our philosophy neither of up in the schools of common sense. We intellect nor of temper will be put to do earnestly hope that the noble Lord the test by any attempt to interpret will at last take his promised repose, them. The next poem is a Chorus in and write no more, till he can cease to The address to an unfinished Witch Drama, in which, as write about himself. it consists wholly of curses upon some his daughter, with which the Childe devoted victim, the reader will take Harold concludes, under all those cirfor granted that the noble Lord has cumstances with which the public are excelled.

too well acquainted, is written in bad 'We fear that the noble Lord will gain taste, and worse morality. The Engvery little credit by the volumes before lish nation is not so easily to be The first, is decidedly the best, and whined out of its just and honourable contains some very good lines, plenti- feelings.'

us.

ART. 2. Christabel,-Kubla Khan, a Vision,-The Pains of Sleep. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq. Evo. pp. 64. Murray. London. 1816.

WE

E have copied the following article sorry that we cannot offer it as a rarity. from the British Review, not so If'genius' were merely a divergency much on account of the importance of from the standard of common sense, Mr. the piece of which it professes to treat, Coleridge's claim to it would be incon(which is, indeed, too contemptible to testible,-for he has sunk as much below have arrested attention, had not some its level, as ever Milton soared above it. degree of credit been, heretofore, at- But, unfortunately, the difference betached to the name of Mr. Coleridge,) tween sublimity and bathos is 30 irreas for the justness of its general cri- concilable in nature, that mankind wil ticisms. It is time for the professed never consent to confound them in languardians of morals and arbiters of guage. taste, to interpose the authority with which they are invested, to shield the one, and to rescue the other, from the rude attacks of a wantonness of innovation, that has attempted the violation of poetry of the day. In that light it both. The Christabel' may be regard- must be acknowledged to be an amusing In fact, if the ed, in one point of view, as the ne plus strain of delicate irony. ultra of a school, of which, as it must reductio ad absurdum have any cogency, soon go out of fashion, the curious may the Christabel' is a pretty formidable vish to preserve a specimen. We are argument to dispel infatuation.

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It is possible, indeed, and we are willing to believe it, that Mr. Coleridge intends the Christabel' as a serious burlesque on the models of the

"That wild and singularly original modesty, nor be quite unforbearing in and beautiful poem," as Lord Byron its exactions. What we allow it the calls the production which stands first use of as an accessory, it must not conat the head of this article, in terms suf- vert into a principle, and what is grantficiently uncouth, but of a convenient ed to it as a part of its proper machinelength and authoritativeness for the book- ry, it must not impose upon us as the seller's purpose in his announcement main or only object of interest. But of the work, was read by us before Mr. Coleridge is one of those poets who, we saw the advertisement, and there- if we give him an inch will be sure to fore without that prejudice against it take an ell: if we consent to swallow which the above applauding sentence an elf or fairy, we are soon expected would certainly have produced in us. not to strain at a witch; and if we open That the poem of Christabel is wild our throats to this imposition upon our and singular cannot be denied, and if good nature, we must gulp down this be not eulogy sufficient, let it be broom-stick and all. .

allowed to be original; for there is a 'We really must make a stand someland of dreams with which poets hold where for the rights of common sense; an unrestricted commerce, and where and large as is the allowance which we they may load their imaginations with feel disposed to give to the privileges whatever strange products they find in and immunities of the poet, we must, the country; and if we are content at the hazard of being considered as with the raw material, there is no end profane, require him to be intelligible; to the varieties of chaotic originalities and as a necessary step towards his bewhich may be brought away from this coming so, to understand himself, and fantastic region. But it is the poet's be privy to the purposes of his own province, not to bring these anomalous mind: for if he is not in his own seexistences to our view in the state in cret, it is scarcely probable that he can which he has picked them up, but so become his own interpreter. shaped, applied, worked up, and com- 'It was in vain that, after reading the pounded, as almost to look like natives poem of Christabel, we resorted to the of our own minds, and easily to mix preface to consult the poet himself with the train of our own conceptions. about his meaning. He tells us only It is not every strange fantasy, or that which, however important, doubtrambling incoherency of the brain, less, in itself, throws very little light upproduced perhaps amidst the vapours on the mysteries of the poem, viz. that of indigestion, that is susceptible of poetic effect, nor can every night mare be turned into a muse; there must be something to connect these visionary forms with the realities of existence, to gain them a momentary credence by the latter date my poetic powers," says the aid of harmonizing occurrences, to the author, "have been till very lately mix them up with the interest of some in a state of suspended animation." great event, or to borrow for them a Now we cannot but suspect that there is colour of probability from the surround- a little anachronism in this statement, ing scene. It is only under the shelter and that in truth it was during this susof these proprieties and corresponden- pense of the author's poetical powers, cies that witchcraft has a fair and legiti- that this "wild and singularly original mate introduction into poetical compo- and beautiful poem" of Christabel was sition. A witch is no heroine, nor can conceived and partly executed. we read a tale of magic for its own sake. Poetry itself must show some

great part of the poem was written in the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset: the second part, after his return from Germany, in the year 1800, at Keswich, in Cumberland. "Since

-Nondum facies viventis in illa,
Jam morientis erat.

Nor can we perceive any symptoms of tation among our poets is a terrible recovery from this state of "suspended sameness or mannerism in each of those animation" in what has been lately who have been encouraged to write added as the completion of the poem; we shall watch, however, like one of the agents of the Humane Society, for the signs of returning life, and consider the rescue of such a muse as that of Mr. Coleridge from suffocation by submersion as some gain to the cause of true poetry.

In the preceding paragraph of the preface, Mr. Coleridge discovers no small anxiety to obviate the suspicion of having borrowed any part of this poem from any of our celebrated poets," and this accounts for his particularity with respect to the chronology of the performance, which, short as it is, appears at each stage of it to have occasioned so much mental exhaustion as to demand long restorative intermissions. We never suspected Mr. Coleridge of plagiarism, and think he betrays an unreasonable mistrust of the credit which the critics will give him for originality. Our own opinion most decidedly is that he is honestly entitled to all the eccentricities of this poem; and that in as serting his exclusive property in them, he has done great negative justice to the rest of the literary world. Lord Byron seems as anxious to remove from himself the imputation of having borrowed from the author of Christabel. With this question we shall not trouble ourselves: where two are afflicted with an epidemic, it is of little importance which caught it of the other, so long as we can escape the contagion.

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much; and the worst of it is, that each of these luminaries, while he moves in his own orbit in perpetual parallelism with himself, has a crowd of little moons attending him, that multiply the malignant influence, and propagate the deceptious glare. But the most insufferable of all the different forms which modern affectation in composition has assumed, is the cant and gibberish of the German school, which has filled all the provinces, as well of imagination as of science, with profound nonsense, unintelligible refinement, metaphysical morals, and mental distortion. Its perfection and its boast, is to be fairly franchised from all the rules and restraints of common sense and common nature; and if domestic events and social manners are the theme, all the natural affections, ties, charities, and emotions of the heart, are displaced by a monstrous progeny of vice and sentiment, an assemblage of ludicrous horrors, or a rabble of undisciplined feelings. We shall hail the day, as a day of happy auspices for the moral muse, when our present fanatic race of poets shall have exhausted all their "monstrous shapes and sorceries," and the abused understandings of our countrymen shall break these unhappy spells, forsake the society of demons, and be divorced from deformity. To us especially, whose duty condemns us to the horrible drudgery of reading whatever men of a certain reputation may choose to write, it will be a great refreshment, if it be only for the novelty of the scene, to find ourselves once more, if not at the fount of Helicon, or on the summit of Parnassus, yet at least in a region where fog and gloom are not perpetual, and poetry is so far mindful of its origin and ancient character as to proceed in the path of intelligibility, and to propose to itself some meaning and purpose, if not some moral end.

And now for this "wild and singu

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and beautiful poem," the old toothless bitch shall turn out for his entertainment; and he shall go with Christabel into the wood and attend her there until she meets with Lady Geraldine.

larly original and beautiful poem" of time have some curiosity to see a little Christabel. Could Lord Byron, the of this "wild and singularly original author of this pithy sentence, show us wherein consists its singular beauty? This is the only specimen we have yet seen of his lordship's critical powers; but from the experience we have had of bis lordship's taste in these matters, we do not think he could give a better account of the principles of his admiration, or dilate with better success on the meaning of his sententious eulogium, than the bookseller who has borrowed its magical influence in all his advertisements of this poem.

، We learn two things, and two things only, with certainty, from this "wild and singularly original and beautiful poem:" that Sir Leoline was " and that he "had a toothless mastiff rich," bitch;" and if any one should be so unpoetical as to ask in plain terms what these two circumstances have to do with the business, story, or catastrophe of the poem, we must frankly confess that, wise as we are, we cannot tell; nor do we know to whom to refer him for information, unless it be to Lord Byron. The last person he should apply to in this distressing difficulty is the writer himself, who, if he has written with the true inspiration of a poet of the present day, would laugh at the ignorance of those who should expect him to understand himself, and tell them that by the laws and usages of modern poetry it was for the reader and the old toothless bitch to make out the meaning as they could between them.

. From the moment we leave the picturesque old lady (for we cannot but suspect the bitch to be a witch in that form) all is impenetrable to us, except the exact information which the poet gives us, that" the night was chilly but not dark," and the strong suspicion we are led to entertain from its being "the month before the month of May," that it could not be, after all, any other than that month which a plain man would call April. As our readers may by this

And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock;
"'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock,
Tu-whit-
-Tu-whoo!

How drowsily it crew.

And hark, again! the crowing cock,

Hath a toothless mastiff bitch;
"Sir Leoline, the Baron rich,

From her kennel beneath the rock
She makes answer to the clock,

Some say

Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour ;
Ever and aye, moonshine or shower,
Sixteen short howls, not over loud;
The night is chilly, but not dark.
she sees my lady's shroud.
"Is the night chilly and dark?
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers, but not hides the sky.

And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray;
'Tis a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.
Whom her father loves so well,
"The lovely lady Christabel,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
Of her own betrothed knight;
She had dreams all yesternight
Dreams that made her moan and leap,
As on her bed she lay in sleep;
For the weal of her lover, that's far away.
And she in the midnight wood will pray

The moon is behind, and at the full;

The breezes they were still also;
"She stole along, she nothing spoke,
But moss and rarest misletoe:
And nought was green upon the oak,
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.

"The lady leaps up suddenly,
The lovely lady, Christabel!
But what it is, she cannot tell.-
It moan'd as near, as near can be,
On the other side it seems to be,
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.
"The night is chill; the forest bare;

Is

it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
To move away the ringlet curl
There is not wind enough to twirl
From the lovely lady's cheek--
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,
On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!
"Hush, beating heart of Christabe!!

She folded her arms beneath her cloak,

And stole to the other side of the oak.

What sees she there?

"There she sees a damsel bright,
Drest in a silken robe of white;
Her neck, her feet, her arms, were bare,
And the jewels disorder'd in her hair.
I guess, 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she-
Beautiful exceedingly !" (Christabel, p. 3–7.

spells were wrought both upon Christabel and Sir Leoline, producing strange external and internal transformations, is evident; but what is meant to be understood to have been actually done, to what purpose, how produced, or with what consequences to the parties, we know as little as Mr. Coleridge himself. We should not be much surprised if the Now this strange lady, who is, to object of the poet was to make fools of be sure, some preternatural personage, the public, having observed Lord Byron comes home with Christabel, and passes to have succeeded so well in this art; the night with her. What the result of and if it was really published on the this adventure was is so very darkly inti- first of " the month before the month of mated, that it would be hazardous to May," we cannot altogether disapprove frame a conjecture. That all was not of the pleasantry."

as it should be, that some mysterious

ART. 3. Bertram, or the Castle of St. Aldobrand; a Tragedy in Five Acts. By the Rev. R. C. Maturin. Fourth Edition. 8vo. pp. 80. Murray. London.

THE reverend Mr. Maturin, better lament it, if true, that since he has known to our readers under the name thrown off the disguise of a fictitious of Dennis Jasper Murphy, as the au- name, under which he had long successthor of the Wild Irish Boy, the Fatal fully cloaked himself, he has beende. Revenge, the Milesian Chief, &c. &c. graded from his preferments in the has gone as far in outraging taste, mo- church. desty, virtue, nature, and religion, as the most admired of his cotemporaries. All his productions bear strong marks of family likeness ;-all display talent, all teem with extravagance, all tend to immorality. The tragedy of Bertram is stamped with his characteristic linea ments, and is altogether worthy of his genius.

The British Reviewers, to whom we are indebted for the remarks on this Drama, have very justly availed themselves of so fair an opportunity to animadvert on the gross indecorum of making the solemnity of prayer a matter of mimicry. Appeals to heaven are allowable only on important occasions of real life, and should be the aspiraHow such horrible fantasies, as he is tions of sincerity; but when both the constantly, though unavailingly, exer- scene and the sentiment are feigned, cising, should ever have got possession they are shocking profanations. Were of a mind disciplined to the duties of it even possible for the spectators to his sacred function, we are utterly at a enter into the illusion, it should yet be loss to imagine. The indulgence of remembered that there is One, who them seems scarcely compatible with cannot be deceived, and will not be the devoutness requisite in him, whose mocked."

office it is to minister in holy things.' The following Review should be We have heard, indeed, and we cannot read in connexion with the preceding

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