ART. VI. Napoleon, and other Poems. By Bernard Barton. 8vo. pp. 256. 12s. Boards. Boys. 1822.

CHANGE

HANGE is the characteristic of all earthly things, and not less of the productions of the mind than of those of external nature. Hence it is not surprising that this mutability has, in a striking degree, affected our national poetry. When we trace its progress from Dryden to Pope, and from Pope through a long train of disciples to Goldsmith and those who immediately followed him, we cannot but acknowlege that, although the manner and form be the same, the strength and spirit had in a great degree evaporated; and that it had become necessary to resort to some expedient, similar to that to which we have recourse when our highly flavoured fruits are exhausted, and to engraft our poetry on a wild and native stock.

This stock would appear to have been found in our early writers; whose simple and rude productions seem to have been deemed capable, by the application of modern improvement, of uniting the elegance and refinement of art with the vigour of nature. That this attempt has been in a great measure successful, we are not disposed to deny; and if we have not excelled our great predecessors, we have at least given to the productions of the present day the charm of variety and novelty.

In this great alteration, the author of the volume before us has not been merely a follower. If we mistake not, some of his earliest pieces (as we have formerly had occasion to observe) were principally founded on the model of the more correct school in vogue during the last century, in which he approved himself no inferior proficient. In a succeeding production, we have seen that he not only exemplified but avowed the change which had taken place in his ideas respecting poetical composition; and in the present, we apprehend, he has carried those ideas to the full extent to which they can be applied, for any useful purpose. In fact, the new system is not more exempt from deterioration than the old so that, as the accidental improvements which have been introduced shall degenerate and decline, the native rudeness of the primitive stock will begin to obtain the ascendancy; and we may, perhaps, once more lose the flavour of the engrafted fruit in the crude juices of the native tree.

Of the foregoing remarks, we think that the present work of Mr. Barton affords a sufficient elucidation. That we have a good opinion of his talents is apparent, from our considering him as the person from whose writings we have chosen to

establish

establish our own propositions. He has all the excellences and defects of the modern school; and, if neither be so prominent as in several other writers, they will not render him less suitable as one whose works may serve to illustrate our remarks.

The volume commences with the poem intitled Napoleon; which, while it displays the powers of the author for poetic description and moral reflection, is by no means suited, and indeed scarcely attempts, to characterize the extraordinary individual from whom it derives its name. It is, in fact, an exhortation against war, as being repugnant to the precepts of Christianity, and injurious to the best interests of mankind; and, had its pretensions been confined to this subject, it might have been perused with greater interest than in its present form, which renders the avowed subject a mere episode, and the episode the principal subject. To the justice of Mr. Barton's remarks, and the force of his remonstrances, we fully assent: we trust, therefore, that they may tend to promote that increasing spirit of benevolence and philanthropy which is manifestly extending itself over the face of the earth; and which, we are romantic enough to believe, will, like good seed scattered in fertile places, in due season produce its fruits- some ten-fold—some fifty-fold—some a hundred-fold. Yet it must be acknowleged that such a series of reflections is no more required in a poem on Napoleon, than if it treated on any other notorious destroyer of his own species that ever existed; and this we are the more induced to regret, because we think an opportunity was afforded to the author of strengthening his excellent precepts by many practical and irresistible proofs, which the circumstances, the character, and the fate of Napoleon would amply have supplied. Surely, if the inexpediency, folly, and absurdity of war were ever exemplified in one individual more than another, it was in this man. What a reflection! that he to whom slaughter and destruction were as a play-thing, who led millions on to battle, who overturned the greatest sovereigns of Europe, and dispensed crowns and countries at his will, has died in exile, disregarded and neglected, on a barren rock! If victory could ever have accomplished its object, could ever have conferred stability, power, and lasting glory,it must have been on this individual; yet one single day obliterated all his triumphs, and rendered "null and void" all that he had obtained by the effusion of such torrents of blood, and the desolation of so many countries. What, then, is the result? That nothing which is accomplished by violence can, in the nature of human things, be permanent; and that reason

and

and justice are the only foundations on which the densities of the human race can be lastingly established. All the sovereigns, from whom this mighty sovereign took and to whom he restored their crowns, rose up against him at the first opportunity which presented itself; and, on one most important occasion, the allied armies which had accompanied him in his conquests not only deserted him in his defeat, but united with his enemies to bring down on him more effectual destruction. Such are the results of war, even when conducted with the most consummate ability; —such the effect of treaties founded on force; --such the "Babel-towers" which human folly has erected, and cemented with the blood of the human race!

It would, however, be unjust to the author to represent him as having been wholly inattentive to these important considertions; and all that we mean to state is that he has not drawn, from the facts before him, those more striking and important deductions of which the subject appears to have been susceptible. He seems to approach the nearest to this end in the following stanzas; and, if not the best in the poem, they are certainly the most applicable to the theme on which it professedly

His former talents, enterprise, and power?
The time has been, nor distant, when the thrall
Of his portentous name made monarchs cower,
And tremble in the proudest palace-tower:
Fate seem'd his fiat, fortune as his guide;
And empire, held by suff'rance, was the dower
Which, when he took unto himself a bride,
He spared an elder throne, with cool, contemptuous pride.
'What is he now? Ten years ago his death

Had spread through Europe with a voice of thunder;
Fame's trump had blazon'd with her loudest breath
The tale; and many a captive, groaning under
The conqueror's yoke, had snapt his chains asunder.
Stupid indifference now supplies the place,

In many minds, of that mute vacant wonder

They then had known, what time they paus'd a space,
Before they deem'd him dead, with solemn doubtful face.
'He dies upon a surf-surrounded rock!

Far from each court, and every courtly ring
Far from the fields where once, in battle's shock,
Death stalk'd around him, a familiar thing:
His "eagle" long before had furl'd his wing;
His "star of honour" set to rise no more!
Nor could a hope remain that time might bring
Glory to either spell, as heretofore;
Therefore to him the life of life itself was o'er.

And

And we, who of his death the tidings hear,
Receive them as a tale of times gone by,
Which wakes nor joy, nor grief, nor hope, nor fear :
And if in nobler hearts a passing sigh
For such a lot reflection may supply,
Few follow up that feeling to its source:
The multitude, with undiscerning eye,

See all around pursue its usual course,

And care not for his death, nor thoughts it should enforce. 'But if such life, succeeded by such end,

Be void of interest like a thrice-told tale;

If it have nought to "bless mankind, or mend,”
Ponder'd aright, and weigh'd in truth's just scale;
Sermons are useless! homilies must fail!

And man be uninstructed still, because

He WILL NOT LEARN! May wiser thoughts prevail ;
And may our better feelings, as we pause

To contemplate his course, teach wisdom's holier laws.
Nor could there be a fitter time than this

For genuine friends of peace to vindicate

The truer policy, superior bliss,

Of milder precepts; now when warfare's weight
Has left on each exhausted, weary state,

Its natural burden debt; and deeper woes

Than statists can repair or calculate;

While he, whose greatness from false glory rose, Illustrates, by his lot, the boons which war bestows. 'What can it give of glory, power, and fame,

And these are toys that make the heart-strings stir
Of those who wish to win a hero's name,

Which on Napoleon it did not confer?

It made him for a time the arbiter

Of thrones and dynasties; and Fortune smil'd,
As she may
do on some who follow her

Believing her existence, thus beguil'd,

Till in the end they know 'twas but a phantom wild.'

This poem is followed by an Address to the Sun;' written, for the most part, with great spirit, and in a train of thought that does honor to the author: which will sufficiently appear from the commencement:

• Monarch of day! once rev'rently ador'd
By virtuous Pagans, if no longer thou
With orisons art worshipp'd, as the lord
Of the delightful lyre, or dreadful bow
If thy embodied essence be not now,

As it once was, regarded as divine;
Nor blood of victims at thine altar flow,

Nor clouds of incense hover round thy shrine,

Yet fitly may'st thou claim the homage of the Nine.

• Nor

Nor can I deem it strange, that in past ages

Men should have knelt and worshipp'd thee; that kings, And laurell'd bards, robed priests, and hoary sages,

Should, far above all sublunary things,

Have turn'd to thee, whose radiant glory flings
Its splendour over all. Ere Gospel-light
Had dawn'd, and given to thought sublimer wings,
I cannot marvel, in that mental night,

That nations should obey, and nature own thy right.
For man was then, as now he is, compell'd
By conscious frailties manifold, to seek
Something to worship. In the heart, unquell'd
By innate evil, thoughts there are which speak
One language in Barbarian, Goth, or Greek;
A language by the heart well understood,
Proclaiming man is helpless, frail, and weak,
And urging him to bow to stone, or wood,

Till what his hands had form'd his heart rever'd as good. 'Do I commend idolatry? O no!

I merely would assert the human heart

Must worship: that its hopes und fears will go
Out of itself, and restlessly depart

In search of somewhat which its own fond art,
Tradition, custom, or sublimer creed

Of Revelation brings, to assuage the smart

With which its inwards wounds too often bleed,
When nature's boasted strength is found a broken reed.
Can it be wondrous, then, before the name

Of the ETERNAL GOD was known, as now,
That orisons were pour'd, and votaries came
To offer at thine altars, and to bow

Before an object beautiful as thou?

No, it was natural, in those darker days,
For such to wreathe around thy phantom-brow

A fitting chaplet of thine arrowy rays,

Shaping thee forth a form to accept their prayer or praise.

Even I, majestic Orb! who worship not

The splendour of thy presence, who control

My present feelings, as thy future lot

Is painted to the vision of my soul,

When final darkness, like an awful scroll,

Shall quench thy fires; even I, if I could kneel
To aught but Him who fram'd this wondrous whole,
Could worship thee; so deeply do I feel

Emotions, words alone are powerless to reveal.'

Still, it must not be concealed that this poem, as well as the former, contains numerous passages of singular inequality; betraying proofs of that retrogradation of style to which we have before adverted, and of which we think the

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