Chapter VII: Part I (4)

"But Merton's thoughts were less confused:
'What, _I_ wrong ought so good?
Besides, the danger that is seen
Is easily withstood:'
Then loud, 'The sun is very warm'--
_And they walk'd into the wood_."

The wood consisting of a forest of as shady asterisks as the most fastidious lovers could desire.

"Months pass'd away, and every day
The lovers still were wont
To meet together, and their shame
At meeting had grown blunt;
_For they were of an age when sin
Is only seen in front_."

The father, however, who was also of an age to see sin _in front_, suspects that his daughter is with child, and taxes her with it. Maud confesses her shame; upon which, as we are led to conjecture, old Gerald dies broken-hearted--while the girl is safely delivered under a cloud of asterisks. She is deterred from disclosing her situation to Merton, the father of the child--and why? for this very natural reason, forsooth, that

"He, if that were done,
Could hardly fail to know
The ruin he had caused, he might
Be brought to share her woe,
Making it doubly sharp."

So, rather than occasion the slightest distress or inconvenience to her seducer, she magnanimously resolves to murder her baby; and accordingly the usual machinery of the poem is brought into play--the asterisks--which on former occasions answered the purpose of a forest and a cloud, being now converted into a very convenient pool, in which she quietly immerses the offspring of her illicit passion. And the deed being done, its appalling consequences on her conscience are thus powerfully and naturally depicted--

"_Lo! in her eyes stands the great surprise
That comes with the first crime_.

"She throws a glance of terror round--
There's not a creature nigh;
But behold the sun that looketh through
The frowning western sky,
Is lifting up one broad beam, _like
A lash of God's own eye_."

Were we not right in saying that there is nothing in the writings of any former poetaster to equal the silly and conceited jargon of the present versifier? Having favoured us with the emphatic lines in italics, to depict the physical concomitants of Maud's guilt, he again has recourse to asterisks, to veil the mental throes by which her mind is tortured into madness by remorse: and very wisely--for they lead us to suppose that the writer could have powerfully delineated these inner agitations, if he had chosen; but that he has abstained from doing so out of mercy to the feelings of his readers. We must, therefore, content ourselves with the following feebleness, with which the poem concludes:

"Maud, with her books, comes, day by day,
Fantastically clad,
To read them near the poor; and all
Who meet her, look so sad--
That even to herself it is
Quite plain that she is mad."

"Lilian" is the next tale in the volume. This poem is an echo, both in sentiment and in versification of Mr Tennyson's "Locksley Hall;" and a baser and more servile echo was never bleated forth from the throat of any of the imitative flock. There are many other indications in the volume which show that Mr Tennyson is the model which Mr Patmore has set up for his imitation; but "Lilian," more particularly, is a complete counterpart in coarsest fustian of the silken splendours of Mr Tennyson's poem. It is "Locksley Hall" stripped of all its beauty, and debased by a thousand vulgarities, both of sentiment and style. The burden of both poems consists of bitter denunciations poured forth by disappointed and deserted love; with this difference, that the passion which Mr Tennyson gives utterance to, Mr Patmore reverberates in rant. A small poet, indeed, could not have worked after a more unsafe model. For while he might hope to mimic the agitated passions of "Locksley Hall," in vain could he expect to be visited by the serene imagination which, in that poem, steeps their violence in an atmosphere of beauty. Even with regard to Mr Tennyson's poem, it is rather for the sake of its picturesque descriptions, than on account of its burning emotions, that we recur to it with pleasure. We rejoice to follow him to regions where

"Never comes the trader, never floats an European flag,
_Slides the bird o'er lustrous woodland_, droops the trailer from
the crag."

It is rather, we say, on account of such lines as these (no picture of tropical loveliness ever surpassed, in our opinion, the description printed in italics) that we admire "Locksley Hall," than on account of the troubled passions which it embodies; knowing as we do, that poetry has nobler offices to perform than to fulmine forth fierce and sarcastic invectives against the head of a jilt; and if, as Mr Tennyson says, "love is love for evermore," we would ask even him why he did not make the lover in "Locksley Hall" betray, even in spite of himself, a more pitiful tenderness for the devoted heroine of the tale? How different the strain of the manly Schiller under similar circumstances! _His_ bitterness cannot be restrained from breaking down at last in a flood of tenderness over the lost mistress of his affections.

"Oh! what scorn for thy desolate years
Shall I feel! God forbid it should be!
How bitter will then be the tears
Shed, Minna, oh Minna, for thee!"

But if it be true that "Locksley Hall" is somewhat deficient in the ethereal tenderness which would overcome a true heart, even when blighted in its best affections, it was not to be expected that its imitator should have been visited with deeper glimpses of the divine. The indignant passions of his unrequited lover are, indeed, passions of the most ignoble clay--not one touch of elevated feeling lifts him for a moment out of the mire. The whole train of circumstances which engender his emotions, prove the lover, in this case, to have been the silliest of mortal men, and his mistress, from the very beginning of his intercourse with her, to have been one of the most abandoned of her sex. "Lilian" is a burlesque on disappointed love, and a travestie of the passions which such a disappointment entails. We know not which are the more odious and revolting in their expression--the emotions of the jilted lover, or the incidents which call them into play.

The poem is designed to illustrate the bad effects produced on the female mind by the reading of French novels. We have nothing to say in their defence. But the incongruity lies here--that Lilian, who was seduced by means of these noxious publications, was evidently a lady of the frailest virtue from the very first; and her lover might have seen this with half an eye. Her materials were obviously of the most inflammable order; and it evidently did not require the application of such a spark as the seducer Winton, with his formidable artillery of imported literature, to set her tinder in a blaze--any other small contingency would have answered equally well. All that she wanted was an opportunity to fall; and that she would soon have found, under any circumstances whatsoever. The lover, however, sees nothing of all this, but relates the story of his unfortunate love-affair with as much simplicity as if he had been mourning the fall of the mother of mankind from paradise.

The lover relates his tale to his friend, the author. He begins by entreating him to

"Bear with me, in case
Tears come. _I feel them coming by the smarting in my face_."

And then he proceeds to introduce us to this Lilian, the immaculate mistress of his soul--

"She could see me coming to her with the vision of the hawk;
Always hasten'd on to meet me, _heavy passion in her walk;_
Low tones to me grew lower, sweetening so her honey talk,

"That it fill'd up all my hearing, drown'd the _voices of the birds_,
The _voices of the breezes_, and the _voices of the herds_--
For to me the lowest ever were the loudest of her words."

"Heavy passion in her walk!"--what a delicate and delectable young lady she must have been! Then, as to the fact so harmoniously expressed, of her accents drowning "the voices of the birds, the voices of the breezes, and the voices of the herds," we may remark, that the first and second never require to be drowned at all, being nearly inaudible at any rate, even during the most indifferent conversation--so that there was nothing very remarkable in their being extinguished by the plaintiveness of the lady's tones; while, with regard to the voices of the herds, if she succeeded in drowning these--the cattle being near at hand, and lowing lustily--she must indeed have roared to her lover "like any nightingale."

The description of her is thus continued--

"On her face, then and for ever, was the seriousness within.
Her sweetest smiles (and sweeter did a lover never win)
_Ere half-done grew so absent, that they made her fair cheek thin._

"On her face, then and for ever, thoughts unworded used to live;
So that when she whisper'd to me, 'Better joy earth cannot give'--
Her lips, though shut, continued, 'But earth's joy is fugitive.'

"For there a _nameless something_, though suppress'd, still spread
around;
The same was on her eyelids, if she look'd towards the ground;
When she spoke, you _knew directly_ that the same was in the sound;"

By and by, a young gentleman, of the name of Winton, comes to visit Lilian and her father:--

"A formerly-loved companion--he was fresh from sprightly France,
And with many volumes laden, essay, poem, and romance."

He, and his pursuits after leaving school, are thus elegantly described:--

"When free, all healthy study was put by, that he might rush
To his favourite books, French chiefly, that his blood might boil
and gush
Over scenes which set his visage glowing crimson--_not a blush_."

This gentleman and Lilian's lover strike up a strong friendship for one another, and the latter makes Winton his confidant. As yet no suspicions arise to break the blind sleep of the infatuated dreamer.

"Delights were still remaining--hate--shame--rage--_I can't tell what_,
Comes to me at their memory; none that, _more or less_, was not
The soul's _unconscious incest_, on creations self-begot."

He still continues to doat on Lilian.

"Oh friend, if you had seen her! heard her speaking, felt her grace,
When serious looks seem'd filling with the smiles which, in a space,
Broke, sweet as Sabbath sunshine, and lit up her _shady_ face.

"Try to conceive her image--does it make your brain reel round?
But all of this is over. Well, friend--various signs (I found
Too late on rumination) then and thenceforth did abound,

"Wherefrom--but that all lovers look too closely to see clear--
I might have gather'd matter fit for just and jealous fear.
From her face, _the nameless something_ now began to disappear.

"What I felt for her I often told her boldly to her face;
_Blushes used to blush at blushes flushing on in glowing chace!_
But latterly she listen'd, bending full of bashful grace.

"It was to hide those blushes, I thought then, _but I suspect
It was to hide their absence_."

How great this writer is on the subject of blushing we shall have another opportunity of showing.--(See Lady Mabel's shoulders, in the poem of Sir Hubert.) Meanwhile, the fair deceiver is now undergoing a course of French novels, under the tuition of young Winton. The consequence was,

"_Her voice grew louder_"--no great harm in that--

"Her voice grew louder--losing the much meaning it once bore,
_The passion in her carriage_, though it every day grew more,
Was now the same to all men--and that was not so before."

We suppose that there was now "heavy passion in her walk," whoever the man might be that approached her.

"And grosser signs, _far grosser_ I remember now; but these
I miss'd of course, and counted _with those light anomalies,
Too frequent to disturb us into searching for their keys_."

These misgivings, which might have ripened into suspicions, are suddenly swept away by a stroke of duplicity on the part of his mistress, inconceivable in any woman except one inclined naturally, and without any prompting, to practise the profoundest artifices of vice.

"Even the dreadful glimpses now began to fade away,
And disappear'd completely, when my Lilian asked one day,
If I knew what reason Winton had to make so long a stay

"In England--'For,' said Lilian, with untroubled countenance,
'Winton of course has told you of the love he left in France.'
I seized her hand, and kiss'd it--joy had left no utterance."

Winton, according to the account of the false Lilian, having _a love_ in France, could not, of course be supposed to be paying court to her. Thus the lover is thrown off the scent, and his doubts are entirely laid asleep. He is again in the seventh heavens of assured love, and continues thus:--

"Another calm so perfect I should think is only shed
On good men dying gently, who recall a life well led,
Till they cannot tell, _for sweetness_, if they be alive or dead.

"_I'll stop here._ You already have, I think, divined the rest.
There's a prophetic moisture in your eyes:--yet, tears being blest
And delicate nutrition, apt to cease, too much suppress'd,

"_I'll go on_; but less for your sake than my own:--my skin is hot,
And there's an arid pricking in my veins; their currents clot:
Tears sometimes soothe such fever, where the letting of blood will
not."

At length his eyes are opened, and the whole truth flashes upon him, on overhearing an acquaintance ask Winton whether his suit with Lilian has been successful. Upon this he writes out his opinion of the lady's behaviour, presents it to her, and watches her while she peruses it, occupying himself at intervals as follows:--

"I turn'd a volume, waiting her full leisure to reply,
The book was one which Winton had ask'd me to read, and I
Had stopp'd halfway for horror, _lest my soul should putrify_."

When Lilian has finished the perusal of the document, she endeavours at first to stand on the defensive,--

"She stood at bay, _depending on that crutch made like a stilt_,
The impudent vulgarity wherewith women outstare guilt."

But she finally succumbs under the influence of the following refined vituperation:--

"Don't speak! You would not have me unacquainted with what led
To this result? No! listen, and let _me_ relate what bred
Thy tears and cheapen'd chasteness--(_we may talk now as if wed._)

"This book here, that lay open when I came in unaware,
Is not the first--I thought so!--but the last of many a stair
Of easy fall. Such only could have led you to _his lair_.

"These drugs, at first, had scarcely strength to move your virgin
blood;
They slowly rose in action, till they wrought it to a flood,
Fit for their giver's purpose, who--_who turn'd it into mud!_"

The lover then leaves Lilian to her own meditations, and commences to rant and rave against her seducer in good set terms, of which the following is a specimen:--

"Pardon, Heaven! that I doubted whether there was any hell.
Oh! but now I do believe it! Firmly, firmly! I foretell
Of one that shall rank high there: he's a scoffer, and must dwell

"Where worms are--ever gnawing scoffers' hearts into belief;
Where weepings, gnashings, wailings, thirstings, groanings, ghastly
grief,
For ever and for ever pay the price of pleasures brief;

"Where Gallios, who while living knew but cared for none of these,
Now amazed with shame, would gladly, might it God (_Fate there_)
appease,
Watch and pray a million cycles for a single moment's ease."

After having thus breathed his passion, in a diatribe which beats in abomination any slang that was ever ranted out of a tub by a mountebank saint, he harps back upon the prodigious attractiveness of his mistress, in the following pathetic, though not very consistent terms--

"Ah but had you known my Lilian! (a sweet name?) Indeed, indeed,
I doted on my Lilian. None can praise her half her meed.
Perfect in soul; too gentle--others' need she made her need;

"_Quite passionless_, but ever bounteous-minded even to waste;
Much tenderness in talking; very urgent, yet no haste;
_And chastity--to laud it would have seem'd almost unchaste._

"Graced highly, too, with knowledge; versed in tongues; a queen of
dance;
An artist at her playing; a most touching utterance
In song; her lips' mild music could make sweet the _clack_ of France."

Amid such outpourings of feculent folly, it is scarcely worth our while to take notice of the minor offences against good taste that abound in these poems; yet we may remark, that the writer who here condescends to use such a word as _clack_, and who, on other occasions, does not scruple to talk of _a repeat_ and _a repay_, instead of "a repetition," and "a repayment," does not consider the word _watch-dog_ sufficiently elevated for his compositions. Whenever he alludes to this animal, he calls him a _guard-hound_--a word which we do not remember ever to have encountered either in conversation or in books, but which, for ought we know, may be drawn from those "pure wells of English undefiled," which irrigate with their fair waters the provincial districts of the modern Babylon.

The author of "Lillian" evidently piques himself on the fidelity with which he has adhered to nature in his treatment of that story. But there are two ways in which nature may be adhered to in verse; and it is only one of these ways which can be considered poetical. The writer may adhere to the truth of _human_ nature, while he elevates the emotions of the heart in strains which find a cordial echo in the sentiments of all mankind. Or, if his whole being is sicklied over with silliness and affectation, he may adhere to the truth of _his own_ nature, and while writing perfectly naturally _for him_, he may unfold his delineations of character in such a manner as shall strip every passion of its dignity, and every emotion of its grace. Now, it is only by reason of their adherence to the latter species of nature, that "Lillian" and the other compositions of Mr Patmore can be considered natural, and, viewed under this aspect, they certainly are natural exceedingly.

The story of "Sir Hubert" finishes the volume. This tale is versified from Boccacio's story of the Falcon, with which many of our readers may be acquainted; if not, they will find it in the fifth day, novel ninth, of the _Decameron_. We can only afford space for a short outline of its incidents, and shall substitute Mr Patmore's names for those of the personages who figure in Boccacio's story. This will save both ourselves and readers the trouble of threading the _minutiae_ of Mr Patmore's senseless and long-winded version of the tale. A few specimens will suffice to exhibit the manner in which he deals with it. Sir Hubert is a rich gentleman, who squanders almost all his substance in giving grand entertainments to the Lady Mabel, whom he makes love to without meeting with any return. Finding his suit unsuccessful, and his money being all spent, he retires to a small and distant farm, having nothing left but one poor hawk, upon which he depends for his means of subsistence. Meanwhile, the Lady Mabel marries, and has a son. After a time, (her husband being dead,) she comes to reside in a castle in the neighbourhood of Sir Hubert's cottage, where her son, who has often remarked the prowess and beauty of the above-mentioned hawk, falls sick, assuring his mother that nothing can save his life except the possession of the bird. The lady very reluctantly pays a visit to Sir Hubert, and tells him that she has a request to proffer, which she will make known to him after dinner. Though Sir Hubert is delighted to see her, the mention of dinner throws him into a state of great perplexity, as he has nothing in the house which they can make a meal of. Going out of doors, "he espies his hawk upon the perch, which he seizes, and finding it very fat, judges it might make a dish not unworthy of such a lady. Without further thought, then, he pulls his head off, and gives it to a girl to dress and roast carefully."

This being done, the lady and her admirer sit down to dinner, and make an excellent repast. When their meal is over, then comes the _eclaircissement_. The lady proffers her petition for the hawk; and discovers from Sir Hubert's answer, and to her own consternation, that she has eaten the very article she came in quest of, and which she had expected to carry home alive; as the only means of saving the life of her son. The young gentleman dies on finding that he cannot obtain what he wants; and Mabel marries Sir Hubert, and settles upon him all her possessions, as a reward for his magnanimity in sacrificing that which (next to herself) he held dearest in the whole world, rather than that she should go without a dinner.

Such is a short sketch of Boccacio's tale of the Falcon--a good enough story in its way; and more creditable than many that were circulated among the loose fish, male and female, that play their parts in the _Decameron_. This novel has been versified by Mr Patmore, and versified (as our specimens shall show) as he alone could have versified it. The following is his description of the much-longed-for, but sorely-ill-treated, hawk of Sir Hubert.

"It served him, too, of evenings:
On a sudden he would rise,
From book or simple music,
And awake his hawk's large eyes,
(_Almost as large as Mabel's_)
Teasing out its dumb replies,

"In sulky sidelong glances,
And reluctantly flapp'd wings,
Or looks of slow communion,
To the lightsome questionings
That broke the drowsy sameness,
And the sense, like fear, which springs

"At night, when we are conscious
Of our distance from the strife
Of cities; and the memory
Of the spirit of all things rife,
_Endues the chairs and tables
With a disagreeable life_."

A Scotch lyrist, who, we are told, sings his own songs to perfection, has also recorded the very singular fact of various articles of household furniture (not exactly tables) being occasionally endued "with a disagreeable life." One of his best ballads, in which he describes the bickerings which, even in the best-regulated families, will at times take place between man and wife, and in which various domestic missiles come into play, contains the following very excellent line--

"_The stools pass the best o' their time i' the air_"--

than which no sort of life appertaining to a stool can be more disagreeable, we should imagine--to the head which it is about to come in contact with. We doubt whether Mr Patmore's, or rather Sir Hubert's, chairs and tables ever acquired such a vigorous and unpleasant vitality as that. What may have happened to the "stools" after Mabel was married to Sir Hubert, we cannot take it upon us to say. At any rate, we prefer the Scotch poet's description, as somewhat the more pithy, and graphic, and intelligible of the two. The coincidence, however, is remarkable.

After Sir Hubert has retired to his farm, the state of his feelings is described in the following stanzas. We suspect that the metaphysical acumen of Boccacio himself would have been a good deal puzzled to unravel the meaning of some of them.

"He gather'd consolation,
As before, where best he might:
But though there was the difference
That he now could claim a right
To grieve as much as pleased him,
It was six years, since his sight

"Had fed on Mabel's features;
So that Hubert scarcely knew
What traits to give the vision
Which should fill his eyes with dew:--
For she must needs, by that time,
Have become another, who,

"In girlhood's triple glory,
(For a higher third outflows
Whenever Promise marries
With Completion,) troubled those
That saw, with trouble sweeter
Than the sweetest of repose.

"It, therefore, was the business
Of his thoughts to try to trace
The probable fulfilment
Of her former soul and face,--
From buds deducing blossoms.
For, although an easy space

"Led from the farm of Hubert
To where Mabel's castle stood,
Closed in, a league on all sides.
With wall'd parks and wealthy wood,
No chance glimpse could be look'd for,
So recluse her widowhood.

"Hence seasons past, and Hubert
Earn'd his bread, but leisure spent
In loved dissatisfaction,
Which he made his element
Of choice, as much as, till then,
He had sought it in content."

If the verses above would have baffled the sagacity of the father of Italian literature, what would he have thought of the following, in which the interview between Sir Hubert and Mabel is described, when the lady comes to negotiate with him about the hawk? She accosts him, "Sir Hubert!" and then there is presented to our imaginations such a picture of female loveliness, as (thank Heaven!) can only be done justice to in the language which is employed for the occasion.

"'Sir Hubert!'--and, that instant,
_Mabel saw the fresh light flush
Out of her rosy shoulders_,
And perceived her sweet blood _hush
About her_, till, all over,
_There shone forth a sumptuous blush_--

"'Sir Hubert, I have sought you,
Unattended, to request
A boon--the first I ever
Have entreated.' Then she press'd
_Her small hand's weight of whiteness
To her richly-sloping breast_."

At first we thought that it should have been Hubert, and not Mabel, who saw "the fresh light flush out of her rosy shoulders"--particularly if the blush extended, as no doubt it did, to the lady's back: but on further consideration we saw that we were wrong; for Sir Hubert could not have perceived "her sweet blood _hush_ about her"--this _hushing_ of the blood about one being, as all great blushers know, a fact discernible only by the person more immediately concerned in the blush. The propriety, therefore, of making Mabel perceive the blush, rather than Sir Hubert, is undeniable. The writer must either have left out the _hushing_ altogether, which would have been a great blemish in the picture, or he must have written as he has done. How profoundly versed in the physiology of blushing he must be! We are doubtful, however, whether the costume of the picture is altogether appropriate; for we question very much whether the Italian ladies of the thirteenth, or any other century, were in the habit of paying forenoon visits in low-necked gowns; and whether Mabel could have walked all the way from her castle to Sir Hubert's cottage, in an attire which revealed so many of her charms, without attracting the general attention of the neighbourhood. She had no time, be it observed, to divest herself of shawl or mantilla in order to show how _sumptuously_ she could blush--for her salutation is made to Sir Hubert, and its roseate consequences ensue the very first moment she sees him. But let that pass. We should have been very sorry if such a "splendiferous" phenomenon had been obscured by envious boa or pelisse, or lost to the proprieties of costume. The Lady then

"Said that she was wearied
With her walk--would stay to dine,
And name her wishes after."

Meanwhile the poet asks--

"How was it with Sir Hubert?
--Beggarly language! _I could burst_
For impotence of effort:
Those who made thee were accurst!
_Dumb men were gods were all dumb_.
But go on, and do thy worst!--

"His life-blood stopp'd to listen--
Her _delivering_ lips dealt sound--
Oh! _hungrily_ he listen'd,
But the meaning meant was drown'd;
For, to him, her voice and presence
Meaning held far more profound.

"He gave his soul to feasting,
And his sense, (which is the soul
More thoroughly incarnate,)
Backward standing, to control
His object, as a painter
Views a picture in the whole.

"She stood, her eyes cast downwards,
And, upon them, dropp'd halfway,
Lids, sweeter than the bosom
Of an unburst lily, lay,
With black abundant lashes,
To keep out the upper day.

"_A breath from out her shoulders
Made the air cool_, and the ground
Was greener in their shadow;
All her dark locks _loll'd_, unbound,
About them, heavily lifted
By the breeze that struggled round.

"As if from weight of beauty,
Gently bent--but oh, how draw
This _thousand-featured_ splendour--
_Thousand-featured without flaw!_--
At last, his vision reveling
On her ravishing mouth, _he saw_

"_It closed_; and then remember'd
That she spoke not.--'Stay to dine,
And name her wishes after'--
To these sounds he could assign
A sense, for still he heard them,
Echoing silvery and divine."

Sir Hubert having reveled on her ravishing mouth, and having, by a strong effort of intelligence, mastered the meaning of the very occult proposition which issued therefrom, namely, that the lady would "stay to dine, and name her wishes after;" and, moreover, having seen--"It closed"--he shortly afterwards saw it opened, for the purpose of eating his hawk, which, as the reader knows, he had felt himself under the necessity of killing for the fair widow's entertainment. We pass over the relation of the circumstances which, as the lady discovers, render her mission fruitless, and which are detailed in a strain of the most vapid silliness--and proceed to the interview which brings about the union of Mabel and Sir Hubert. The latter, some time after these occurrences, pays a visit to the castle.

"Half reclined
Along a couch leans Mabel,
Deeply musing in her mind
Something her bosom echoes.
O'er her face, like breaths of wind

"Upon a summer meadow,
Serious pleasures live; and eyes
_Large always, slowly largen,
As if some far-seen surprise
Approach'd,--then fully orb them,
At near sound of one that sighs_."

Her eyes having recovered their natural size, a good deal of conversation ensues, the result of which is given in the following stanza, which forms a fit conclusion for the story of such a passion--

"Her hands are woo'd with kisses,
They refuse not the caress,
Closer, closer, ever closer,
Vigorous lips for answer press!
_Feasting the hungry silence
Comes, sob-clad, a silver 'yes.'_"

There are several smaller poems interspersed throughout the volume. Mr Tennyson has his "Claribels," and "Isabels," and "Adelines," and "Eleanores"--ladies with whom he frequently plays strange, though, we admit, by no means ungraceful vagaries; and Mr Patmore, as in duty bound, and following the imitative bent of his genius, must also have his Geraldine to dally with. The two following stanzas of playful namby-pambyism, are a specimen of the manner in which this gentleman dandles his kid:--

"We are in the fields. Delight!
Look around! The bird's-eyes bright;
Pink-tipp'd daisies; sorrel red,
Drooping o'er the lark's green bed;
Oxlips; glazed buttercups,
Out of which the wild bee sups;
See! they dance about thy feet!
Play with, pluck them, little Sweet!
Some affinity divine
Thou hast with them, Geraldine.

"Now, sweet wanton, toss them high;
Race about, you know not why.
Now stand still, from sheer excess
Of exhaustless happiness.
I, meanwhile, on this old gate,
Sit sagely calm, and perhaps relate
Lore of fairies. Do you know
How they make the mushrooms grow?
Ah! what means that shout of thine?
_You can't tell me, Geraldine._"

Our extracts are now concluded; and in reviewing them in the mass, we can only exclaim--this, then, is the pass to which the poetry of England has come! This is the life into which the slime of the Keateses and Shelleys of former times has fecundated! The result was predicted about a quarter of a century ago in the pages of this Magazine; and many attempts were then made to suppress the nuisance at its fountainhead. Much good was accomplished: but our efforts at that time were only partially successful; for nothing is so tenacious of life as the spawn of frogs--nothing is so vivacious as corruption, until it has reached its last stage. The evidence before us shows that this stage has been now at length attained. Mr Coventry Patmore's volume has reached the ultimate _terminus_ of poetical degradation; and our conclusion, as well as our hope is, that the fry must become extinct in him. His poetry (thank Heaven!) cannot corrupt into any thing worse than itself.

FOOTNOTES:

{A} London: Moxon. 1844.

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.