Yet ponder well, how then shall break Or vainly strive God's wrath to flee? Must reap the harvest Time hath sown. The following extracts from his Sketches of Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century will give some idea of Dr. Moir as a tasteful and judicious critic: HEBREW POETRY. The most sublime poetry, by far, to which the world has ever listened, is that of the Hebrew. It is immeasurably beyond all Greek and all Roman inspiration; and yet its sole theme is the Great Jehovah, and the ways and wonders of His creation. All is simply grand, nakedly sublime; and man before his Maker, even in the act of adoration, is there made to put his lips in the dust. So have done the great bards of succeeding times: Milton, and Young, and Thomson, and Cowper, and Pollok. In approaching the shrine, they take off the sandals from their feet, well knowing that the spot whereon they stand is holy ground. But all not being great, alas! all do not so behave; and hence, in common hands, sacred poetry has become, not without reason, a subject of doubt and discussion; for in them error has dared to counsel infallibility, ignorance to fathom omniscience, and narrowminded prejudice to circumscribe the bounds of mercy,-the human irreverently to approach the Divine, and "fools to rush in where angels fear to tread." THE FINEST POETRY—WHAT. The finest poetry is that (whatever critical coteries may assert to the contrary, and it is exactly the same with painting and sculpture) which is most patent to the general understanding, and hence to the approval or disapproval of the common sense of mankind. We have only to try the productions of Shakspeare, of Milton, of Dryden, of Pope, of Gray and Collins, of Scott, Burns, Campbell, and Byron, indeed, of any truly great writer whatever in any language, by this standard, to be convinced that such must be the case. Verse that will not stand being read aloud before a jury of common-sense men is-and you may rely upon the test-wanting in some great essential quality. It is nere that the bulk of the poetry of Shelley-and not of him 1 Undoubtedly a most true criterion: how then would some of the poetry of Wordsworth or of Tennyson stand this test? only, but of most of those who have succeeded him in his track as poets-is, when weighed in the balance, found wanting. And why? Because these writers have left the highways of truth and nature, and, seeking the by-lanes, have there, mistaking the uncommon for the valuable, bowed down to the idols of affectation and false taste. MYSTICAL POETRY. Mysticism in law is quibbling; mysticism in religion is the jugglery of priesteraft; mysticism in medicine is quackery, and these often serve their crooked purposes well. But mysticism in poetry can have no attainable triumph. The sole purpose of poetry is to delight and instruct, and no one can be either pleased or profited by what is unintelligible. It would be as just to call stones and mortar, slates and timber, a mansion, or to call colors and canvas a picture, as to call mystical effervescences poetry. Poems are poetical materials artistically elaborated; and if so, the productions of this school, from Emerson to Browning, cannot be allowed to rank higher than rhapsodical effusions. It is necessary for a poet to think, to feel, and to fancy; but it is also necessary for him to assimilate and combine, processes which the pupils of this transcendental academy seem indeed to wish understood either that they totally overlook, or affect to undervalue as worthless. Results, products, conclusions,—not ratioeinations, are expected from the poet. "His heart leaps up when he beholds a rainbow in the sky;" but the laws of refraction producing this emotion he leaves to be dealt with as a fit subject for science. It is the province of the poet to describe the western sunset sky "dying like a dolphin" in its changeful hues, not the optical why and wherefore of twilight. In short, his business is with enunciations, not with syllogisms. The poet springs to conclusions not by the logic of science, but by intuition; and whosoever, as a poet, acts either the chemist, the naturalist, or the metaphysician, mistakes the object of his specific mission. Philosophy and poetry may, in most things, not be incompatible. but they are essentially distinct. Metaphysical analyses cannot be accepted as substitutes either for apostrophes to the beautiful. or for utterances of passion. I hold them to be as different from these as principles are from products, or as causes from effects. THOMAS MOORE, 1779–1852. THOMAS MOORE, the son of a respectable tradesman of Dublin, was born in that city on the 28th of May, 1779. After the usual preparatory course of study, he entered Trinity College, in his native city, where he graduated in November, 1799. He then went to England, and became a student in the Middle Temple; but, though ultimately called to the bar, he gave his time chiefly to literary pursuits. In 1800 he published his translation of the Odes of Anacreon, which were received with great favor, and elicited from the Hon. Henry Erskine the following complimentary impromptu:- "Ah! mourn not for Anacreon dead Ah! weep not for Anacreon fled- Soon after this he published his miscellaneous poems, under the title of The Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little,―a volume which was censured, and censured severely, for its licentiousness, and of which the author, many years afterwards, was heartily ashamed. In 1806 he visited our country, and published, shortly after his return to England, his remarks on American society and manners, in a volume entitled Epistles, Odes, and other Poems, which was reviewed1 with great and deserved severity in the Edinburgh Review, by Mr. Jeffrey.2 In 1812 appeared his celebrated Intercepted Letters, or The Two-Penny PostBag, by Thomas Brown the Younger. This was followed by the Fudge Family in Paris, and Fables for the Holy Alliance,-all satires upon the passing topics of the day, but though evincing great wit, and a rich, playful fancy, and for the time extremely popular-all destined to pass away and be soon forgotten. Not so his Irish Songs and Melodies,3 and his Hebrew Melodies: these display a depth of fervor, a richness of fancy, and a touching pathos, united to exquisite beauty and polish of versification, that will cause them to be read and admired as long as the English language endures. In 1817 appeared his most elaborate poem, Lalla Rookh, an Oriental romance, -the accuracy of which, as regards topographical, antiquarian, and characteristic details, has been vouched for by numerous competent authorities, and which unites the purest and softest tenderness with the loftiest dignity, while its poetry is brilliant and gorgeous,-rich to excess with imagery and ornament, and oppressive from its very sweetness and splendor. The genius of the poet moves with grace and freedom under his load of Eastern magnificence, and the reader is fascinated by his prolific fancy and the scenes of loveliness and splendor which are depicted with such vividness and truth. In 1823 appeared The Loves of the Angels, which contains many passages of great beauty, but, as a whole, is inferior to his former productions. The poem is founded on "the Eastern story of the angels Harut and Marut, and the Rabbinical fictions of the lives of Uzziel and Shamchazai," with which Moore shadowed out "the fall of the soul from its original purity,-the loss of light and happiness which it suffers in the pursuit of this world's perishable pleasures, and the punish 1 "The author may boast, if the boast can please him, of being the most licentious of modern versifiers, and the most poetical of those who, in our times, have devoted their talents to the propagation of immorality. We regard this book, indeed, as a public nuisance, and would willingly trample it down by one short movement of contempt and indignation, had we not reason to apprehend that it was abetted by patrons who are entitled to a more respectful remonstrance, and by admirers who may require a more extended exposition of their dangers.”—Edinburgh Review, viii. 456. A duel between himself and Jeffrey was the consequence; but it resulted in the combatants becoming excellent friends. Byron, in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, ridicules the meeting with no little wit. 3 His Irish Melodies formed, as they are likely to continue, the principal ground of his popularity as a man and as a poet. He applied himself to the work that in Ireland consecrates him with the fame of a patriot, and which in English letters will give him ar abiding name as a bard.”—London Athenæum. ments, both from conscience and Divine justice, with which impurity, pride, and presumptuous inquiry into the awful secrets of heaven are sure to be visited." In 1825 was published his Life of Sheridan, which, "with some omissions and perhaps a few mistakes, some little faults of style, and some precipitate opinions, we do not hesitate to characterize as the best historical notice yet published of the events of our own times. Without pretending to give-what this generation can scarcely yet need--a particular or connected detail of the transactions to which it refers, it exhibits the clearest and most intelligent account of all the great questions which were agitated during that momentous period,—the best estimate of the great events by which it was distinguished,—and not only the ablest exposition of the causes which led to them, and the principles they served either to establish or expose, but the most truly impartial. temperate, and dispassionate view of the merits of the individuals concerned in them,the actual value of their services and amount of their offendings, with the excuses which the times or circumstances should suggest for them,-that we ever recollect to have met with in the difficult and dangerous department of contemporary history." In 1830 appeared his Life of Byron, in two volumes, by which, it has been well said, "neither the reputation of the author was advanced, nor the character of Lord Byron vindicated." In addition to these works, he is the author of Corruption and Intolerance, a Poem; The Skeptic, a Philosophical Satire; Rhymes on the Road; The Epicurean, a Tule; and The Life of Captain Rock. He has also written a number of miscellaneous pieces, both in prose and verse, which have been inserted in various periodical journals, and a large number of beautiful songs, which have become permanently popular. No English poet of the present century has displayed a greater command of rich language and luxurious imagery than Thomas Moore; but, with the exception of his Sacred Melodies and a portion of Lalla Rookh, we shall find little elevated moral feeling, and but few wise and manly reflections. It has been well said that he has "worked little in the durable and permanent materials of poetry, but has spent his prime in enriching the stately structure with exquisite ornaments, foliage, flowers, and gems. He has preferred the myrtle to the olive or the oak. His longer poems want human interest. Tenderness and pathos he undoubtedly possesses; but they are fleeting and evanescent,-—not embodied in his verse in any tale of melancholy grandeur, or strain of affecting morality or sentiment." His most finished performances are to be found in Lalla Rookh; some portions of the Fire Worshippers have scarcely been surpassed; and the character of Mokanna, in the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, is a "sublime conception sublimely executed." The last three years of Moore's life had been a long disease, not attended with either bodily or mental suffering, but from a gradual softening of the brain and a reduction of the mind to a state of childishness. He died at Sloperton Cottage, near Devizes (Wiltshire), on the 26th of February, 1852.2 The happiest and truest characterization of Moore's genius that we have ever 1 Edinburgh Review, xiv. 2. 2 In 1841 Moore brought out an edition of his entire poetical works, in ten volumes. Of this the Literary Gazette says, "From among the earlier productions the most prurient have I been expunged: and upon others the author has laid the hand of excision and improve ment." After his death, his friend Lord John Russell published his Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence, in eight volumes. seen comes from himself, as in the following lines from Lalla Rookh, so exquiEitely descriptive of his own power. MOORE'S GENIUS SELF-PAINTED. For mine is the lay that lightly floats, And mine is the gentle song that bears 'Tis I that mingle in one sweet measure With the blissful tone that's still in the ear; PARADISE AND THE PERI One morn a Peri at the gate And as she listen'd to the Springs "How happy," exclaim'd this child of air, Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall: "Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere, And sweetly the founts of that valley fall; How the waters of Heaven outshine them all! "Go wing thy flight from star to star, 1"Numerous small islands emerge from the Lake of Cashmere. One is called Char-Chehaur, from the plane-trees upon it."-FORSTER. "The Altan Kol, or Golden River of Thibet,, which runs into the Lakes of Sing-su-hay, has abundance of gold in its sands, which employs the inhabitants all summer in gathering it."Description of Thibet, in Pinkerton. |