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later, to restore the accidental perversion of the will. Nor is there any evidence of moral integrity less, equivocal, or more engaging, than the immediate relinquishment of the most favourite and determined resolutions made in anger, on the first reflective and conscious sense of the excess to which they are proceeding. The subject of all morality is the will; wherever the will exercises the most entire and absolute self-coercion, there the morality is the most perfect. The difficulty of exercising that self-coercion, must always be in exact proportion to the violence of the previous action of the will in an opposite direction. In the case of Achilles; where its previous action had, through the most violent excitement of the passions, been intense; the promptness of his coercion of that intensity, at the sense of religious duty which he eventually displayed, proved that the morality of his nature was entitled to the encomium which Homer places in the mouth of Jupiter.'

This just and (as we think) unanswerable description of the mind of Achilles will for ever preclude the false and dangerous pretences of some incorrect modern writers, that they have the example of Homer for a vicious hero, who is the slave of his passions, and has little but the attribute of courage to recommend him to esteem. Let them remember that Achilles has here been shewn to have a strong sense of religion interwoven throughout his character, and acting effectually on it: In like manner, the exposure of the futile arguments in favour of the wildness and irregularity of Homer's genius, with which the whole work silently abounds, is calculated to laugh to scorn the arrogant assumption of exclusive talent for a licentious imagination.-We are sincerely desirous of seeing this accomplished author again before the public.

ART. III. The Garden of Florence; and other Poems. By John Hamilton. Crown 8vo. pp. 175. 7s. Boards. Warren. 1821.

As s we advance in the 19th century, we certainly are not more disposed to view with an eye of favour the poetry of our contemporaries: but, whether there be any use in attempting to stem the torrent of indulgence in criticism, which has contributed so largely to sweep away every barrier of common-sense in versification, we cannot as positively decide. We are aware that the unreflecting reader will be ready to doubt the indulgence to which we allude: but it is a fact that may be ascertained by reference to any of our periodical works. While severity enough prevails in politics, and perhaps too much in religion, in literature a most dangerous laxness of principle is manifested; and, provided that a ray of genius, or very early youth, or an unfortunate want of education,

or

or distress, or good intention, or piety above every other claim, can be pleaded in favour of the writer, it matters not how bounded may be the reach of his powers, how scanty his stores of knowlege, how faulty and even corrupt his taste. A list of English poems, even of the higher class alone, and of corresponding critiques, for the last twenty years, would prove this assertion, without an additional word of argument in corroboration of the fact. We therefore doubt the practical advantage of such unassisted endeavours, to cleanse the Augæan stable of barbarism and affectation; which, from different quarters, but meeting in one common centre of worthless because brief popularity, heap up the mass of our literary corruptions. The only remaining hope for the revival of sound sense, classical taste, and comprehensive genius, among us, rests on this consolatory truth, that the successive schools of error

"Come like shadows, so depart!";

that the ruffian of to-day is expelled by the bandit of to-morrow; and that the sickly sorrows of Serena are enlivened, as well as followed, by the wanton buffoonery of her younger sister, the muse of poetic farce, Momosa,- (if our readers please) who is every day becoming a greater favourite with unthinking folly.

The writer before us, who has chosen to call himself Mr. Hamilton, but whose name we understand to be Hamilton Reynolds, is quite as respectable as his neighbours; and not, in our judgment, possessed of any superiority over the multitude of his contemporaries,

"The tuneful motes that throng Apollo's beam."

We have, however, too often told our readers the grounds on which we form our opinions, to make it necessary now to point out the gross aberrations from the once-established standard of taste, which characterize the present work in common with all its rivals. We shall therefore merely subjoin a passage or two; some of the better description, some of the worse: but the difference is too slight to warrant any prolonged remarks in the way of either analysis or illustration; and we shall leave Mr. Hamilton with our readers, after a few short introductory observations.

In the Garden of Florence,' two lovers successively eat a piece of sage; they die, instantly; and a large serpent is found at the bottom of the inauspicious shrub. In the Romance of Youth,' we have the 33d edition of Beattie's Minstrel filtered through the Wilfrid of Walter Scott; and in 'the Ladye of Provence,' the Ladye eats the heart of her

15

lover,

lover, offered to her acceptance as a dainty dish by her jealous husband. Some extracts, illustrative of these several characters and catastrophes, are subjoined.

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'Garden of Florence.

Could they not love so ever

Ah, no such thing as time before them lay!
They loved
and were together

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ever stray?

and alone,

they wan

The morn, with all its riches, was their own!
They laugh'd-and linger'd, they sat down

der'd,.

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Now spake and now in gazing silence ponder'd! -
A bed of sage was near them as they walk'd,
(Fit plant to match with that of which they talk'd!)
Pasquino, stooping, pluck'd a leaf, and play'd
With a saying of Old Crones - for dames have said
The sage-leaf whitens teeth-he laughing bit
The idle leaf, loosing his playful wit,

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"Sweet girl, I taste this leaf, to be
More wise anon, than thus to worship thee!
Than thus to kiss thy pensive forehead, where,
Like beauty's tent falleth thy parted hair :-
Doth it not blanch me, love ?".

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Trembled in cold and fearful damp - A bland,

A dim expression of undying love

Went o'er his shiver'd cheek, and then he strove
To kiss Simonida, and as he gave

That deathful kiss that kiss cold as the grave!
He curl'd with shuddering throe and withering clutch,
Like that frail plant which shrinketh at a touch!
One shriek no more and lost Simonida

Feels at her feet a corpse

for there it whitening lay!'

The fate of Simonida occurs next, with a sadly pleasing similarity to that of Pasquino!

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Their walks their conference and their love before
Went placidly, and gathering there a leaf,

Told, in a voice broken by tender grief,

How he had mock'd her fondness with the saying

Of crones and dames prophetic; — and delaying
A moment as in memory, she applied

The sage-leaf to her teeth, champ'd it, and sigh'd
Over his treasured words of tenderness,
Repeating word for word in her distress,-

And pausing but his name most passionately to bless!

The

The impatient people anger'd at the tale
Simonida told, "What! shall this leaf prevail
A leaf her only refuge! a poor leaf,

The source of all this death-work and wild grief!
The adder hath a poison fang, but here,
Here is the human adder-ah! - a tear!
In pity for thy young deceit, weep — sigh,
Sigh o'er thy serpent-heart's fidelity!
Let her have eager death! - Let her be turn'd
Out to the ban-dogs! or be slowly burn'd
Here in the Garden of Florence by the side
Of him who by her bitter hand hath died !"

So raved the anger'd Florentines,- till they
Were awed and silenced by Simonida,

Whose voice, now dallying with her lover's name
In a low childish fondness paused and came !

It weaken'd and it weaken'd-and it stopp'd-
Her fluttering lips were voiceless and down dropp'd
Her nerveless hands against her tremulous side-
She shriek'd—and, falling on Pasquino, died.'

We now come to the Romantic Youth;

and, if we live

a few years longer, we do not despair of seeing some wellgrown lad shewn about the country under this attractive denomination.

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a lingerer where

• Or he had been a creature of the air, -
A haunter of the cowslips, and the caves
Of blue and breath-sweet flowers,
That fairy spirit linger'd; in the waves,
If she were in them, making golden slaves
Of beauty-tinged fish, or from the herd

Of lilies taking the whitest one that laves

Its snow-leaves, for a car; and when grass stirr❜d,

Hunting and yoking well the spotted lady-bird.'

This is pretty well: but we have something to make a still more dreamy impression on our readers. They surely must admire such aerial efforts of Lilliputian imagination.

The leaves just rustled on the trees around,

... And a benighted bee might murmur o'er the ground!' (P.91.) Charming!

We must insert the denouement of the Ladye of Provence.

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How pleaseth it your taste ?"" Truly, my lord,
Never the better loved I any dish!"

He answer'd, "Trust me, madam, I believe
You love that dead, which gave you love in life."
She sank to silence gazed upon the relics

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With steady, pained eyes, grew deathly pale:
And with a quiet voice at length did say,

“I pray you, sir, what meat is this you have given?
Upon what dish have I been feeding now?"

In bitter voice then Virgillisi said,

"I will resolve thee, thou disloyal lady,

I will resolve thee quickly to thy shame;

'Tis Gardastagno's heart thou hast devour'd!
These hands did gather it I knew 'twould pleasure

Thy most depraved fancy and false taste!
His heart's torn casket lieth in the wood,
The heart itself thy body hath inurn'd!”

• Poor Idreana! what a dismal fate!'

Dismal indeed! Had we not once heard of something about Atreus and Thyestes, we should never have dreamed of such a business.

Mr. Hamilton, or Mr. Reynolds, if he must try again, should make the trial of improving, still farther, some such passages as that with which we conclude.

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Pasquino one autumnal day sat near
The loved Simonida, and with deep fear
Trusted his tremulous passion to her ear: -
She, unaffected, gentle, pallid — shrunk,
Her heart with its first draught of rapture drunk,
Scarce daring to give credence to the words
That melted round her like the songs of birds!
She droop'd an instant- gazed-perceived the truth
Bloom'd all at once through her confiding youth
And all in tears confest her wishes blest
And hid her face in blushes on his breast!
He press'd her to his heart her tresses fell
Like shadows o'er his hands — and such the spell
Of this full tenderness - he dared not move,
Lest his breast lose her cheek.

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lest passion prove

A dream and he should break the enchantment of his love!

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This reminds us of parts of Mr. Hunt's "Story of Rimini;” as indeed does much of the volume, both in its defects and its comparative merits.

REV. AUG. 1822.

Bb

ART.

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