driven upon the shore. Many species

of small birds frequent watery places, for the purpose of collecting insects, which chiefly abound in such situations; and wagtails and tillocks are seen wading through brooks, and along the margin of the sea, for the same purpose. About the end of the month, the fall of the leaf is completed; and the trees are left with naked branches, a mournful spectacle to the

THE shortened days, cold and raw weather, with sometimes heavy rains, that soak the land and swell the brooks, so powerfully affect the mind, that this month has passed into a proverb for its gloom. The body becomes irrit-contemplative eye; yet, it is the most able, the mind, in consequence, fretful; and, forgetting that external things are sealed up from us, that we may apply our minds to those which are within; it is common for men to use stimulants to enable themselves to while away that time, which might be employed in securing immortal trea

sures.

Winter, which in the economy of mature may be regarded as beginning

proper condition, in which they can encounter the storms of winter; as by offering the least resistance to the wind, they are exposed to the least injury.

The flowers of the former months still linger, but none now come into bloom. This was the miz diu, or black month of our ancestors.

in this month, sometimes shews itself OUR METROPOLITAN SCHOOL of poets. at the commencement, if not by the

thermometer, at least by human feel- No. 1.-The Poetry of Mr. Leigh Hunt. ings: and the evaporation of a large quantity of moisture, with the wind at the north-east, is the cause of colds and pulmonary diseases, which are very apt to prevail at this season. Forced by cold, wet, and hunger, from their hiding places, rats and mice, that have been wandering about in the midst of plenty, through the summer, enter houses in great numbers; and, for some time, cats, gins, and poison, are required to keep them from doing mischief. Those creatures which become torpid in winter, begin to keep at home, except in those fine days, which even this gloomy month sometimes affords.

"I am monarch of all I survey."-CowPER. THERE is a peculiar propriety in thus introducing Mr. H. as number one, merely in reference to the singularity and egotism of his writings. He is, in truth, the centre of a system, and sheds his own light on all he looks upon. His men and women, his horses, his trees, his ships, trumpeters, summerhouses, hawks, thoughts, feelings, sentiments, and expressions, are all perfectly his own, perfectly original, for "their like were never seen" before in nature or in books. He sheds over every object which he touches the spirit of his own imagination, and in his hands nobility becomes common, grandeur low, feeling vulgar, and simplicity contemptible. He does not

Fishes, which visit us from warm climates, now leave our coasts; these are the garpike, skipper or saury, mackarel, &c.; but they are sometimes seen even to the middle of De-possess a Midas-like faculty, for every cember. Farmers begin to thrash out barley, that cattle may have the straw, the fields being, at this time, bare of grass; and, on the sea coast, they are watching every opportunity to collect the sea weeds for manure, as they are No. 33.-VOL. III.

thing he touches is converted into dross. There is not throughout the whole compass of his writings (and we challenge our readers to produce a single instance of it) one passage which bears the stamp of a great mind. 3 Q

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Poetry of Mr. Leigh Hunt.

972

Affectation and conceit are little vices | observation; if he is to dress the

-they are the errors of diminutive intellects they are passions, which are intended to supply, in a man's own eyes, that importance which the world will never yield him. The truly high and magnificent mind, is often conscious of the possession of powers, to which the sickly abilities of Mr. Leigh Hunt are as a wart to Ossa, and yet bears itself with an unoffending dignity, which doubles the world's respect; while the importunate egotism of a conceited mind sinks the possessor even beneath the world's contempt. All the splendour of Milton's great mind, shone forth in those words of his, in which he declared, that it had ever been his hope and conviction "that by labour and intense study, joined with the strong propensity of nature, he might leave something, so written, to after times, that they should not willingly let it die." Does a spirit like this animate the labours of Mr. Leigh Hunt?

miserable specimens of mortality which he sees around him, in a poetical garb, baptize them with some Italian name, endue them with the thoughts and feelings, which, in his opinion, are such as generally arise in the human mind, the world will hardly feel indebted to him for the labour he has expended.

One of our Poet's stoutest opinions, and in which he seems to entrench himself very resolutely, is, that we have no need of a better nature than we at present possess. “The image of a glorious human creature," is, in his idea, the most perfect image which can be imagined. He has no wish, no eye, for a purer, higher existence. He is earth-bound, and would not exchange his prison for an Eden. The cant of humanity runs throughout all his works. There is, moreover, in all this, something too much of "Epicurus' Sty," and, in reading such passages, we cannot help thinking of the spirit and words of Comus, which, we shall not pay so poor a compliment to our readers as to quote. Nobody can accuse H. of severity and austere principles in his writings, and we thus never find him "praising the lean and sallow abstinence." There is little of moral truth in any thing that he says, except indeed, that he inculcates the principle of happiness and enjoyment, and even there he mistakes the means of gaining them.

In all his Poetry, Mr. Leigh Hunt's chief aim is to level himself to what he calls the truth of nature. This he accomplishes, but it is unfortunately to his own nature, that he renders every thing conformable. Now, nature is the simplicity of naked truth, and true nature is perfect propriety. Poetry, like every thing else, has a nature of its own, not the nature of common life, or of common feelings, but something infinitely above both. But, dismissing the question of the The beings of a poetical world are not useful tendency of his Poems, it bethe same, either in flesh or spirit, with comes us to inquire a little more par"any mortal mixture of earth's mould." ticularly into his merits as an author. They are of a race above mankind, It is difficult, at first, to say on what sublimer in sentiments, purer in pur-models he has formed his style; but, pose, more powerful in action, and loftier in language: their passions, indeed, are lighted at that fire, which kindles the human affections, but then they burn with a brilliancy which is not of the earth. In virtue, in weakness, and in wickedness, the children of Poetry rise above the passions of mortality. To this more elevated nature, every other component part of Poetry should be rendered conformable. It is in the infancy of art only, that we observe those painful and minute imitations of nature, which render the works of the early painters almost ridiculous. If Mr. Leigh Hunt undertakes, merely to give us a faithful representation of that nature which comes immediately under his own

on further examination, we may discover that he has paid considerable attention to our older Poets, particularly Shakspeare, and amongst those of a later age, to Dryden. His style may fairly be said to be formed from an imitation of these two Poets, though he has, perhaps, added sufficient of his own, to entitle him to some originality. This imitation, by the bye, is the great characteristic of the Metropolitan School. They have ransacked the wardrobes of our elder Dramatists and Poets, and they now walk into public with a ruff round their necks, and a splendid cloak, like that Sir Walter Raleigh spread before Queen Elizabeth, dangling over a pair of Cossack trowsers, and Wellington

Poetry of Mr. Leigh Hunt.

though we certainly feel inclined to sympathize with Francesca, who dies prefer the former, for

975

Death and Character of Mr. Rowland Hassall.

disciples in it,) bas ventured to come pare that gentleman's productions with the Apollo Belvidere and the Venus de Medici. Can we read such things "without our special wonder !!!" Is the blameless beauty of antiquity's highest efforts, to be drawn into comparison with the nauseous overflowings of Mr. Leigh Hunt's perverted imaginations? In his whole composition, there is not one single spark of the chaste classical severity of Grecian song. He runs through Tooke's Pantheon, and babbles of gods and goddesses, and dresses up an ancient story in modern garments; but he has not the slightest idea of the spirit of antiquity.

976

conceit and a true poetic spirit are essentially distinct. Such a Poet may be the master of a new school, the idol of a coterie, or the fashion of a day, but he has no claim to a relationship with fame and with posterity.

DEATH

(To be concluded in our next.)

AND CHARACTER
ROWLAND HASSALL.

OF MR.

From the Sydney Gazette, 1820,

ON the night of Monday last, the 28th of August, died at his house at Parramatta, after a few days illness, Mr. Rowland Hassall, in the 52d year of his age. In the death of this gentleman, society has lost a most pious and benevolent member; and his large and young family, a tender husband, a kind father, and a good man. Mr. Hassall was one of the first Missionaries sent to the Society Islands; and when the gentlemen of that Mission

We will venture to say, Mr. L. Hunt never lost himself in the feelings which his subject excited; he is never overcome, even by enthusiasm; one idea is always at the top of all the rest; that it becomes him to write something Leigh Huntish and natural, but it must bear his own stamp first, and nature's after. He is determined to notice things which other people have neg-were compelled to fly from the Islands lected, to describe things which others to this Colony, he settled here. For have despised, and to use words which nearly twenty years' residence in this others have never heard of. If it were Colony, his life was a continual examnot for this perpetual straining, this ple of genuine religion and piety, exattempt to create a new nature extensive benevolence, and hospitality. pressly for the use of Mr. Leigh Hunt, He never lost sight of his original this firm resolve, not only to say new designation as a Missionary, and conthings, but to say them, moreover, in tinued to the latest period of his life a new way, his Poetry might be pleas-zealously to perform the duties of one, ing, for, after all, there is a sort off by preaching the Gospel in almost all quickness of perception about it, and parts of the Colony. His latter end an ease, and sometimes a power of was full of peace; and as he lived, so description, which display considerable he died, encouraged and supported by merit. By no chance, however, could the hopes and consolation of religion. he become a great Poet, for he is far To his afflicted widow, and large family from what Aristotle calls μeyaλavos; of children, and grand-children, the he is certainly not high-souled, and lustre and worth of his character must his Poetry partakes of the voluptuous- be a consolation and example, well ness and animal qualities of the Epi- calculated to support and encourage curean's, rather than the grandeur and them under the great loss they have sternness of the Stoic's philosophy. sustained in his death. His remains Thus he may, in some degree, succeed were interred at Parramatta, amidst in describing beautiful objects and the regret of his very numerous friends picturesque scenery with effect, as and acquaintances, on the evening of well as the lighter, finer, and more Wednesday the 30th ult. transient feelings of the human heart; but when he comes to deal with the intensity of the passions, to search the depths of the soul, and to express such feelings as fill the heart of Byron, he finds the strings of his weak and slender lyre miserably unstrung. Deep feeling disdains affectation. Mr. Leigh Hunt cannot serve two such masters

ANECDOTE OF MR. HERVEY.

FOR some years before the death of this great man, he visited very few of the principal persons in his neighbourhood. Being once asked, “Why he so seldom went to see the neighbouring