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MOORE.

POETRY seems as capricious in her alliances as opinion. She is as frequently wedded to gladness as to gloom. When we recall the fortunes and character of her votaries, it seems impossible that an element so peculiar should co-exist with such opposite tendencies of mind and traits of feeling. Like the mysterious combinations of light, which yields a verdant gloom to the cypress, and a rosy hue to the cloud, with one lucent effluence producing innumerable tints, the spirit of poetry assimilates with every variety of human sentiment, from the deepest shadows of misanthropy to the freshest bloom of delight. She elevated the stern will of Dante into grandeur, and softened the passion of Laura's lover into grace. In some buoyant child of the south, she appears like a playful nymph, crowned with roses; and breathes over a northern harp like an autumn wind sighing through a forest of pines. She brooded with melancholy wildness over the soul of Byron, and scattered only flowers in the path of Metastasio. Alternately she wears the complacent smile of an Epicurean and the cold frown of a stoic. Now she seems a blessing, and now a bane; inspires one with heroism, and enervates another with delight; sometimes reminds us of the ocean, waywardly heaving a hapless barque, and again wears the semblance of a peaceful stream, in whose clear waters the orbs of heaven seem to slumber. Thus poetry follows the universal law of con

trast, and is true to the phases of life. She not only reflects the different orders of character, but the changeful moods of each individual; appeals to every class of sympathies, and adapts herself to every peculiarity of experience. She has an echo for our glee, and an accompaniment for our sadness; she can exalt the reverie of the philosopher, and glorify the lover's dreams; kneel with the devout, and swell the mirth of the banquet; attune the solemn harmony of a Milton, and the melodious sweetness of a Moore.

With the prevailing thoughtfulness that belongs to British poetry, it is striking to contrast the brilliancy of Moore. He seems to bring the vivacious and kindly genius of his country, with an honest and cheerful pride, into the more stately ranks of the English minstrels. His sparkling conceits and sentimental luxury have a southern flavour. They breathe of pleasure. Even when pathetic their influence is the same, for grief is robbed of its poignancy and soothed into peace. The severity of thought, the strain of high excitement, the tumult of passion, are alike avoided. We are not carried to the misty heights of contemplation, nor along the formal paths of detail; but are left to saunter through balmy meadows or repose in delicious groves. If sometimes a painful idea is evolved, a musical rhyme or bright image at once harmonizes the picture. We are seldom permitted to realise the poem, so constantly is maintained the idea of the song. An impression such as the voluntary numbers of the troubadour convey, like the overflowing of a lightsome yet imaginative spirit, continually pervades us. No wrestling with the great mysteries of being, no studied attempts to reach the height of some " great argument," characterize the song of Moore, but a melodious dalliance with memory and hope, a gay or pensive flight above the toilsome and the actual into the free domain of romance.

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With all these attractions, the poetry of Moore is in no small degree artificial. The highest, as well as the most touching song, is undoubtedly that warmly from the poet's life and emotions. out doubt, the case with many of the effusions of the bard of Erin; on the other hand, we frequently meet in his pages with gems brought from afar, beauties that obviously have been garnered, rather than naturally suggested. Lalla Rookh, for instance, is the result of the author's gleanings amid the traditions and natural history of the East. His treasures are used, indeed, with consummate skill, and no process but the meditative workings of a glowing mind could have blended them into pictures of such radiant beauty. Still, it is well to feel the distinction which obtains between the poetry of the artist and the poetry of the man. It argues no ordinary facility and creativeness, for a minstrel to deliberately plan a work, as an architect does a temple; and then, having collected the materials of the fabric, proceed to rear a harmonious and delightful structure. But there is a process in the art more divine than this. It is that of the bard who obeys, like a prophet, the call of inspiration, utters chiefly what his own heart pleads to express, and throws into his poem the sincere teachings of his inmost life. In such poetry there is a spell of no transient power. It comes home to our highest experience. It is eminently suggestive. Like the echo of the mountains, it is full of lofty intimations. To this species of poetry Moore has but slightly contributed. His general tone is comparatively superficial. Fancy is his great characteristic. This is the quality which gives such a sparkling grace to his verse. Like the corruscations of frost-work and the phosphorescence of the sea, his fanciful charms play around and fascinate us; they give a zest to the passing hour, and kindle bright illusions in the monotonous cir

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cuit of existence; but they seldom beam with the serene and enduring light of the stars. Moore is too much the creature of social and fashionable life to attain the highest range of Parnassus. He is necessarily, to some degree, conventional. His associations rarely transcend the present and prevailing in thought. In the Vale of Cashmere he does not forget the "mirror," and amid the light of other days," his memory is busy with the banquet hall." Moore especially deserves the title of accomplished. He is no rough ploughman, with nothing but the hills and firmament, a rustic charmer or a crushed daisy, to awaken his muse; he is no discontented peer, seeking in foreign adventure freedom from social shackles; but a cordial gentleman, ever ready with his pleasant repartee and his graceful song. He appears to equal advantage at the literary dinner and in. the fashionable drawing-room; as a guide through the delicious labyrinths. of oriental romance, and a companion at the festive board; as a poet, a friend, and a man of the world. He is one of those men who seem born to ornament as well as to delight; to give a new grace to pleasure and an imaginative glow to social life. There is room for constant discrimination in estimating Moore. He has -written a mass of verses which are of temporary interest, and of so little merit that we cannot choose but wonder that he should annex them to his more finished productions. "Lalla Rookh" and the "Loves of the Angels" are the best of his long compositions, and of these the beautiful episode of "Paradise and the Peri" bears the most brilliant traces of his genius. His fame, however, will doubtless rest eventually on the "Melodies." It is to be regretted that so many evidences of hasty and casual impressions, at once immature and injudicious, should appear among the gems of such a minstrel. His notices of this country, for instance, founded on the most mea

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gre observation, are scarcely worthy of a liberal mind; and had the poet conscientiously examined the causes of the revolutionary failure of the Neapolitans, he would not have had the heart to write of a people so much more sinned against than sinning," so cruel an anathema as, “Ay, down to the dust with them, slaves as they are. The metaphors of this poet admirably illustrate his power of fancy, indicated in the felicitous comparison of natural facts to moral qualities. In one of his dinner speeches, complimenting his hearers on their superiority to party malevolence, he says their "noble natures, in the worst of times, would come out of the conflict of public opinion, like pebbles out of the ocean, more smooth and more polished by the very agitation in which they had been revolving." And on the same occasion, speaking of Byron's disposition" to wander only among the ruins of the heart," he says that "like the chestnut tree that grows best in volcanic soils, he luxuriates most where the conflagration of passion has left its mark." Joyful moments in the midst of misery he compares to

"those verdant spots that bloom

Around the crater's burning lips,

Sweetening the very edge of doom."

Among numerous similar examples are the following:

"In every glance there broke, without control,
The flashes of a bright but troubled soul,

Where sensibility still wildly played,

Like lightning round the ruins it had made."

"Oh, colder than the wind that freezes
Founts, that but now in sunshine played,

Is that congealing pang which seizes
The trusting bosom when betrayed."

"to see

Those virtuous eyes forever turned on me
And in their light re-chastened silently,

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