Chapter V: Part 5

Dim grow the visions that o'erreach his brain,
And shadowy forms seem floating in his eye;
Tears fall around him, as the soul's bright rain,
Poured from the heart for one too young to die.
Stars are now hovering o'er the brink of day,
And sun-light lingers on each tower and hill;
But prayer hath passed from silent lips away,
The heart hath shed its sorrow--and is still!

_New-York, August, 1843._ EDMOND BREWSTER GREEN.

LITERARY NOTICES.

DONNA FLORIDA: A TALE. By the Author of 'Atlantis,' 'Southern Passages and Pictures,' etc. Charleston: BURGESS AND JAMES.

'THE poem,' says the author of this miniature pamphlet-volume, 'of which the four first cantos (he means the _first four_, no doubt) are here submitted to the reader, was chiefly the work of the writer's youth.' He does not claim, however, that this fact forms any sufficient excuse for giving it to the public at this late day; but offers rather the natural tenacity 'with which the mind treasures up, and seeks to preserve, the performances which revive its early associations.' We have run through these cantos with some attention. The story does not strike us as possessing either great originality or interest. The verse itself is after the model of 'Don Juan,' then recently published, and rife in the literary world; but like the thousand-and-one imitations which we have encountered of that most facile and felicitous composition, its 'laborious ease' cannot be concealed. With BYRON, the play of fancy and of words was equally unconstrained, in this species of versification; but all his imitators have evidently been stretched upon Procrustean beds; and with all the seeming _abandon_ of their manner, and the smirk of their 'varnished faces,' it has yet been but too evident that their situation was any thing but comfortable. In 'Donna Florida' however there is a good degree of cleverness. There are many thoughts interspersed throughout its cantos which the reader will encounter with surprise and remember with pleasure. Nevertheless we are compelled to say, that where the stanzas are most original, they are the least to our liking. We enter our protest against the writer's frequent habit of saying a plain thing in an involved, roundabout way, as well as against numerous words and similes which he employs. 'You can call a hat,' says Mr. YELLOWPLUSH, a 'glossy four-and-nine' or a 'swart sombréro;' but in the long run praps it's as well to call it _a hat_. It _is_ a hat; and where's the use o' mystifying?' Would it not, for example, be 'as well' also, and quite as natural, to write 'half of the rest,' as 'the subdivision of the remaining moïety?' Or in saying that old jokes were laughed at, to express it in less magniloquent phrase than

'Old jokes _found revivified expansion_?'

Where does Mr. SIMMS find authority for such a word as '_voicing_?'--'the voicings of a bird?' In any dictionary of the English language? Guess not! As little do we admire the simile which makes a lady's eye the 'polar light in love's astrology,' or which represents it as

----'peering beneath her forehead like a star,
Bestowing a sweet glory on the sky.'

All these are 'affectations, look you;' and are in our judgment even worse sins against taste (to say nothing of truth) than the occasional instances of an opposite tendency which might be pointed out; such as 'the beast enjoying his _grunt and stye_;' or the coy damsel, of whom the writer says:

'One moment grows she most abruptly willing,
The next, she _slaps the chaps that think of billing_!'

We should not have felt ourselves justified in passing unnoticed the defects which we have indicated; the more that the following stanzas evince the ability of the writer, when he gives to natural thoughts their natural expression, to avoid these and kindred errors:

'GLANCING my vision o'er the world's affairs,
Surveying this and that, of strange and common,
Its double singles and divided pairs,
Its human brutes and brutes that might be human,
All vexing life with sad and fruitless cares,
Yet all made agents of that creature, woman;
I've come to this conclusion: that 't were better
If we poor bachelors had never met her.

'Better we had not seen and could not fancy
So sad and strange conception; could not want
Her presence, nor beneath her necromancy
Feel the torn bosom and vex'd pulses pant,
With dreams and hopes that not a step advance ye
To health or happiness, but rather daunt,
At each impassion'd move, the weary spirit,
That sees the joy receding as we near it.

'Better in single blessedness had Adam,
Stout father-farmer, in his garden trod;
Unvexed by daily strife with maid or madam,
And free to eat his fruit and meet his God:
I'm sure his fate had not been half so sad--am
Certain he had not then been thrust abroad
With breeches made of fig-leaves, quickly rended,
More quickly than his wife could get them mended.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

'Have you not seen her in the public way,
Snare-setting? In the ball-room marked her eyes,
Pursuing, like a very snake's, her prey?
And vainly would he dodge them, and be wise!
In flight alone is safety. Do you stray
Beside her, when the moon is in the skies?
Or by the brooklet, or along the sea,
Or in the garden, parlor, buttery?'

'Do you stray beside her in the--_buttery_!' Does not this word 'buttery' seem _impressed_ for the sake of oddity and the rhyme? To our apprehension and ear it is objectionable, alike in truth and in sound; scarcely less so, indeed, than the close of the annexed lines, which require no comment. DON PONCE, a Spanish knight,

'Had passed his days in _stupor most sublime_,
His nights in deep allegiance to his pillow;
Untroubled by the crown, the church-bell's chime,
Sleep, garlic, wine, and oil, a _constant fill o'_!'

In prose as well as in verse Mr. SIMMS, by common consent of his critics, fails in the humorous. It is not his rôle. How much more creditable, even than the foregoing, are the subjoined stanzas, illustrating the fact that it is mental and not physical suffering which constitutes the pain of death; the 'parting from those who loved and love us:'

'THIS is the mental death--the agony
Beyond all pain of limb, all fever smart,
All racking of the joints: this is to die;
Sad burial of the hope that lit the heart;
Love mourning, doomed affections lingering by,
Muttering the words of death: 'We part, we part!'
Ah! what the trial, where the pangs, the fears,
To equal this sad source of thousand tears?

'And when the lamp of life upon a verge
Unseated as a vision, sinks at last;
And when the spirit launches on the surge
Of that dark, drear, unfathomable vast
We call eternity, its latest dirge
Bemoans not pangs, still pressing, not o'erpast,
But that all natural things, forms, stars, and skies,
And the more loved than all, are fading from its eyes.

'Thus still beloved, though all relentless fair,
I part from thee and perish. Never more
Shall I win sweetness from the desolate air,
Or find a fragrant freshness in the shore;
The sea that images my deep despair
Hath still a kindred language in its roar,
And in the clouds that gather on our lee
A mournful likeness to my soul I see.

'The sense of life grows dim; the glories pass,
Like those of melting rainbows from my sight;
Dark aspects rise as in the wizard's glass,
Reflect my inner soul, and tell of night;
Glooms gather on my vision, in a mass,
And all my thoughts, beheld in their dread light,
Rise like unbidden spectres; rise to rave
Above the heart, which soon may be their grave.'

The purpose of the author to preserve this youthful effort of his muse from oblivion, by giving it in a printed form to the public, will not, we may believe, be subserved; for although portions of it are undeniably clever, yet as a whole it lacks the elements of life; a fact, indeed, of which the writer himself seems sufficiently aware, if we interpret aright the long introduction with which he has deemed it necessary to preface a short poem. The little volume, which is very neatly executed, is dedicated to one who is himself well qualified to appreciate, and on occasion to produce, good poetry--JAMES LAWSON, Esq., of this city.

* * * * *

CHANGE FOR THE AMERICAN NOTES: in Letters from London to New-York. By an American Lady. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

'WHO jeers the Tartar, must beware of his dirk!' is a lesson which this well-tempered book will teach certain of our neighbors on the other side of the great water; for it contains stabs at national abuses and local follies, which 'pierce to the hilt;' and we are not sorry that at this moment, throughout the Union, this exposition of them as well as of the time-honored game of '_tit-for-tat_,' has been as widely perused as the work which prompted it--the 'American Notes' of Mr. DICKENS. This fact, we need not add, will prevent us from entering upon a detailed review of a work already so current, at the low price of one shilling. We shall only ask such of our readers as are at all sensitive in relation to the slurs upon our country and its institutions which may from time to time reach us from abroad, to bear in mind the ignorance in which they have their origin. 'One ought to have,' says our countrywoman, 'a temper as imperturbable as FRANKLIN's, to hear patiently the absurd remarks made in England upon the United States. Here are hundreds of thousands, with ample means and leisure, whose reading is confined to certain portions of certain newspapers; yet one of this class will deliver his judgment upon America in a manner which shows his belief that what he says is decisive. There is, there should be, no appeal. He has spoken. Englishmen have a vague notion about America, and Indians, and General WASHINGTON, and there being neither king nor lords, and the storming of Quebec, and the burning of the Caroline, and the loss of the President! But as to the vast resources of our country; the nature of her laws and institutions; of her cities rising amid primeval forests; of the capabilities of her rivers and bays; of the love of freedom in her children, which love, men say, is the parent of all the best virtues that can adorn a state; of these things they know nothing. Talk to one of these persons about the cotton grown in the Southern States, and he will immediately speak of Manchester, where he has a cousin, a manufacturer, worth a hundred thousand pounds; mention one of those matchless prairies in the Far West (a noble sight, though Boz _was_ disappointed,) and my gentleman, as soon as he is made to understand what a prairie is, turns the conversation to Salisbury Plain, or the moors of Scotland! These gentry generally are, or have been, connected with commercial pursuits, and plume themselves upon being, not reading, but _practical_ men. I admit they are impartial in their ignorance, knowing as little of the past history of their own country as of the present state of ours,' * * * 'The English view America in such a _petty_ spirit! They judge of it in the spirit that prompts their judgment in their own small matters; their clubs, or parishes, or corporations. They cannot conceive a nation without a titled and privileged aristocracy. What is not subserviency they consider anarchy; and then a country without a regular standing army! How can justice be administered by wigless judges? What but barbarism can exist, where poor men object to wear liveries! Then comes a summing up of American enormities: they sit in a manner the English do not; consequently the American way must be wrong. Vast distance, different customs and institutions, have caused a diversity of language, therefore the American language must be low; the Americans grow and use tobacco, and the necessary consequences are attributed to them as a national dishonor! How comes it that the French and other travellers do not dwell upon these things, but pass them over as matters of little moment? Is it jealousy, or ignorance, or littleness, on the part of the British?' It is all three; but America will be looked upon with far different eyes by and by; and in the meantime she is living down the slurs, slanders, and satires of her traducers, (which this little volume will teach us still more to disregard) every day. We have but one fault to find with the 'Change for the American Notes.' There is too much _foreign coin_ in it. One who can write so well as our author, does not need to force French and Italian into English sentences, to show that she _can_ do it, nor to eke out her pages with scraps of verse. Think of a hundred and fifteen little bits of poetry, from a single line upward, in a prose volume of eighty-eight pages!' 'T is 'too much poetry for a shilling!'

* * * * *

HARP OF THE VALE: A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY PAYNE KENYON KILBOURNE. Hartford: CASE, TIFFANY AND BURNHAM.

THIS little volume comes to us recommended by the same neatness of mechanical execution which was displayed in the last edition of the poetical remains of the lamented BRAINARD, published in the same city. We are glad to see in it indications that the native State of that fine genius can still inspire poetic aspirations, and produce poetic minds. The young author of these fugitive pages deserves consideration; in a degree for what he has done, more for what his gifts promise. There are many passages and several entire poems of very considerable merit in the volume. 'The Skeptic,' with which it commences, being of the greatest length and importance, is perhaps also the best. None of the thoughts, however, can claim to be very original; yet they are evidently natural to the writer, and are set forth in flowing and well-measured verse. The opening lines are vigorous, and afford a good indication of the merit of the piece:

'NO GOD!' O impious sophist! then are we
Cast pilotless upon an unknown sea;
Gazing all wildly on the void profound,
Unknowing whence we came or whither bound:
The forms around us are not what they seem,
Men are but shadows, life is but a dream;
And the bright worlds that run their glorious race
Mere bubbles floating in the realms of space;
Self-poised they roll, and self-illumed they shine,
Rise without cause, and sink without design!
Launched on the flood, we trim our fated bark,
Beneath a sky low, desolate, and dark;
No north-star hangs with fixed and steady ray,
To light the lonely voyager on his way;
Homeless and friendless on the billowy tides,
Tossed by the hurricanes which no one guides,
Now fired with Hope, now grappling with Despair,
He sees afar some beacon's transient glare;
Pursues it till it fades, then turns in gloom
To meet his last irrevocable doom.
What though the solace of his lot may be
The meteor-dream of Immortality?
That spark expired with the expiring breath--
No morn shall break the iron sleep of DEATH!'

'The Maniac Maid' has some effective stanzas. One especially is picturesque and beautiful. The poor girl is represented as lingering around the sea-shore, watching for her lost sailor-lover:

'AT eve, when nought is heard
But the roar of the dashing wave,
And the voice of the lone sea-bird
That sings from her coral cave,
She wanders forth all lonely
The rocks and sedge among,
And to the cold sea only
Pours forth her plaintive song.'

'The Seminoles' is a very creditable production. Some fine lines also touching our native country and that ancient race, are found in 'Thoughts of Home:'

'STERN region, I love thee! Thy woodlands and waters
Are linked with old legends of battle and love:
There the wild warriors fought, and the forest's dark daughters
Told their vows and adored the Great Spirit above.

'Frail wrecks of mortality! where are they now?
Their glory departed long ages ago;
And woman's smooth cheek and the warrior's stern brow
Lie unmarked from the dust of the quiver and bow.

'Ay, I love thee, proud land! Thou hast eyes that are brighter,
Made radiant with smiles, by no sorrows o'ercast;
Thou hast forms that are fairer and hearts that are lighter,
Than Romance e'er saw in her dreams of the past.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

'Bright home of my dreams! may I greet thee again!
In city and country I've mingled with men,
But they part and they meet with as little emotion
As the icebergs that float on the desolate ocean.'

The last couplet here is very original and striking. 'Dying Well,' 'The Lost that Come not Back,' and others which arrested our attention, will be read with pleasure; especially 'Beauty and Fame,' which we regret we have not space to present entire. It will be seen, however, by what we have quoted, that Mr. KILBOURNE has a good share of poetic feeling and capability of expression. He has not lived in the world in vain; but with an eye, and an ear, and most of all, a heart. Yet several things are wanting, before our young bard can become an effective poet, which doubtless he must needs desire to be. He has more sensibility than taste; the consequence of which is, that the best passages in his best pieces are marred by the proximity of such as are weak and infelicitous. Then again there is a want throughout the volume of condensation and energy. Mr. KILBOURNE must gird himself to greater terseness and strength; he must chisel and refine with a severer taste and more assiduity, before he can reach the place where doubtless bright anticipations have at times placed him. We beg him, in all due kindness, to remember, that it is easier to jump in thought to such a conclusion than actually to attain it. We conclude with the expression of our hope and trust that his day-dreams in this regard, in common with those of other gifted and rising spirits among us, may not have been altogether idle.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

JEFFREY AND GIFFORD _versus_ SHAKSPEARE AND MILTON.--An acute and comprehensive mind, an intelligence superior to prejudice, and an undeviating conscientious spirit of rectitude, are among the necessary endowments of true criticism. But how rare has been this combination, even in the examples of those who have been admitted to be the most distinguished critics of their time! Let the whole history of literature furnish the answer; while we direct the reader to an amusing commentary upon this general theme, which we find in the last number of FRAZER'S Magazine, under the title of 'JEFFREY and GIFFORD _versus_ SHAKSPEARE and MILTON.' 'We have often amused ourselves,' says the writer, 'by imagining how SHAKSPEARE and MILTON would have fared at the hands of these illustrious reviewers had the paramount pair of immortals and the two clever party writers been contemporaries. Let us follow out this curious speculation. To make our suppositions quite plain, we will imagine that the Edinburgh Review existed at the time of SHAKSPEARE; that the disgust which is expressed for the tribunes, or the opposition, and the ministerial contempt of the people, shown forth in 'Coriolanus,' were disagreeable to the Whig party of that day; that SHAKSPEARE'S high Tory principles; the admiration which he appears to have felt for kings and princes, and the favor in which he may be fairly supposed to have stood at court; were unpalatable to the Liberals of the day. In such case we may be pretty sure he would have been given over for critical dissection to Mr. JEFFREY, who would probably have chosen the 'Tempest' as the subject of his subacid jocularity. Let us now suppose that the Quarterly Review was established at the Restoration; that MILTON'S 'Paradise Lost' had just been published by any bookseller but the MURRAY of those days; that MILTON had been placed, a short time previous (as in fact he was) in the custody of the sergeant-at-arms; that his pamphlets for the liberty of the press, and against the prelates, had enraged the opponents of liberal principles and lovers of high-church politics; and it is easy to conclude that these persons would have infallibly consigned him to the secular arm of Mr. GIFFORD. Both of the worthy gentlemen we have named would, no doubt, have performed their functions to the entire satisfaction of their respective parties; Mr. JEFFREY with the lightness and liveliness which distinguish all he writes; Mr. GIFFORD with his usual strength and acuteness, mingled with his customary allusions to the personal history of the author whom he is reviewing. But the malice prepense--the intention to murder--would be equally apparent in both cases, though each would have his peculiar method of destroying.' The former editor of the Quarterly would be, like 'Tristan l'Hermite,' flinging his coarse and scurrilous jests upon the unfortunate person about whose neck he was fastening the rope, while his northern rival would rather resemble those eastern mutes who despatch you, with every appearance of respect for your person, with a silken cord.

With this preamble, Mr. JEFFREY is introduced to the reader, in a critique upon 'The Tempest, by WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE: 4to. London: 1612.' After the dissertation upon 'matters and things in general' with which it is customary to open the labored papers of quarterly journals, the reviewer reaches at length the work which he is to criticise, and upon which he pounces 'in manner following, to wit:'

'THE present play forms a sort of connecting link between the
ancient mysteries and the modern drama, and, disregarding
equally with these venerable monstrosities all rules of
probability and taste, merely changes the abstractions into
persons as shadowy, and their miracles into marvels altogether
as amazing and edifying. In other respects, we are rather
inclined to think that Mr. SHAKSPEARE has outdone the native
absurdity of the originals.

'The play opens with a conversation among some sailors in a ship
sinking at sea, which is quite in the taste of these refined
persons; others come in _wet_, which is at least as new on the
stage as a ship foundering; then a confused noise is heard
within:

'We split! we split! farewell my wife and children!
Brother, farewell! we split! we split! we split!'

'The author has here most happily expressed confusion, by not
indicating to whom these separate speeches are to be given.

'The next scene is on an enchanted island, where a young lady
called Miranda is entreating her father, Prospero, to allay the
storm, of which she gives this splendid description:

'The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,
But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,
Dashes the fire out.'

Prospero replies:

'Be collected;
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There's no harm done.'

'To this consolatory piece of intelligence Miranda most
singularly answers, 'O wo the day!' and Prospero rejoins, 'No
harm; wipe thou thine eyes; have comfort.' From all which it
would appear that Miranda was crying because nobody had been
drowned. Prospero then bids her 'obey, and be attentive.' He
relates that, just twelve years before, he was the Duke of
Milan, but that his brother had usurped his dignity; and that
himself and his daughter, having been put into a 'rotten carcass
of a boat,' arrived safely at the island. But this interesting
story is by no means so briefly told in the play, and is,
moreover, perpetually interrupted in its course, after this
fashion:

'PROSPERO. My brother, and thy uncle, called Antonio;
I pray thee mark me--thy false uncle--
Dost thou attend me?

MIRANDA. Sir, most heedfully.

PROS. Thou attend'st not.

MIR. Good Sir, I do.

PROS. I pray thee mark me, then. Hence, his ambition growing--
Dost thou hear, child?' etc., etc.

But, all this having nothing to do with the storm, Miranda very
properly puts the question:

'And now I pray you. Sir,
(For still 'tis beating in my mind,) your reason
For raising this sea-storm.'

To which Prospero returns the following very clear and
intelligible answer:

'Know thus far forth.
By accident most strange, bounteous fortune,
Now, my dear lady, hath mine enemies
Brought to this shore; and by my prescience
I know my zenith doth depend upon
A most auspicious star, whose influence,
If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes
Will ever after droop.'

He seems well convinced, however, of the natural effect of this
kind of poetry, for he adds:

'Here cease more questions.
Thou art inclined to sleep. 'Tis a good heaviness.
And give it way. I know thou canst not choose.'

In which opinion all Mr. SHAKSPEARE'S readers will readily
concur.

We could wish that we had space for the equally interesting and refreshing satire upon 'a spirit called ARIEL,' the dialogue between whom and PROSPERO is turned into ridicule. We must pass on, however, to the assassination of the character of CALIBAN, that wonderful creation of the great bard. Does the reader remember any thing more thoroughly 'tortured from its sense' by any ancient or modern ARISTARCHUS, than the scene in question here:

'WE are now introduced to a new personage called Caliban, the
son of a certain witch, whose services Prospero thus recounteth:

'We cannot miss him: he does make our fire,
Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices
That profit us. What, ha! slave! Caliban!
Thou earth, thou! speak!'

'It would seem, however, that _fetching in wood_ was his
principal occupation, for, without asking what his master
wanted, he replies:

'There's wood enough within.

PROS. Come forth, I say; there's other business for thee.'

'Yet it turns out that it is none other than this very business
on which he was to be employed:

'PROS. Hag-seed, hence!
Fetch us in fuel, and be quick, (thou wert best,' etc.)

'Ferdinand, the son of the king of Naples, who had been just
'cooling the air with sighs' for his father, whom he supposed to
be drowned, now enters, accompanied by Ariel, _invisible_, who
sings a charming song of his own composition, of which we can
only afford to give the conclusion:

'Hark! hark! Bow-wow; the watch-dogs bark.
Bow-wow.
Hark! hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry cock-a-doodle-doo!'

'Ferdinand calls this a 'sweet air!' * * * 'The second act
introduces us to the king of Naples and his lords, who have
escaped from drowning; but his majesty, happening to miss his
son, is very naturally made to express a strong curiosity to
know what kind of fish had eaten him:

'O thou, mine heir
Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish
Hath made his meal of thee?'

'After some farther conversation, Mr. S., not knowing what to
do with the personages he has brought on the stage, devises the
notable expedient of making them all fall suddenly asleep:

'GONZ. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am very heavy!

ALON. What! all so soon asleep? I wish mine eyes
Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts: I find
They are inclined to do so.

SEB. Please you, Sir,
Do not omit the heavy offer of it, etc.

ALON. Thank you. Wondrous heavy.

SEB. What a strange drowsiness oppresses them!

ANT. It is the quality o' the climate.'

'The invention of that author who bethought him of sending his
characters off _kneeling_ was great, but it was nothing to
this. It is evidently a favorite contrivance of the author for
terminating a scene, and is here employed in order to introduce
Caliban at his everlasting work of _fetching in wood_.

'Enter Caliban _with a bundle of wood_. He sees a sailor:

'CAL. Here comes a spirit of his now to torment me
For bringing wood in slowly.'

'Supposing every body to be as fond of wood as Prospero, he adds:

'I'll show thee the best springs, I'll pluck thee berries;
I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough.'

'The act ends with this seducing person getting drunk and
singing this delicious lay:

'No more dams I'll make for fish.
Nor fetch firing at requiring.
Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish.
Ban, ban, Ca--Caliban,
Has a new master. Get a new man.'

'The third act represents Ferdinand at the eternal employment of
_fetching in wood_. Then follows a love-scene, which we omit.'

How many petty enemies had the 'myriad-minded SHAKSPEARE,' who would have chuckled over this criticism, had it actually appeared in his day! What nuts it would have been for that feeble reviler and feebler rival of his, 'one HILL!' The summing up of the reviewer is quite in keeping with the fine fancy and striking acumen displayed in the detail of his criticism. 'The Tempest,' he says, 'shows us how ridiculous are those rules, to which writers have hitherto subjected themselves, for the purpose, as they fondly imagined, of giving interest to their dramas. It is to be hoped that Mr. SHAKSPEARE's example will release them, in future, from all obligation to pay any regard to probability in their incidents, or to nature in their characters. It is evidently much more easy to invent a jargon for witches, demons, and spirits, than to deal with human passions and human affections; and it is clearly quite unnecessary to diversify a play with pathetic incidents, when the sleep which has hitherto been confined to the spectators is here transferred to the persons of the drama. Writers need no longer search for lofty subjects, which have been so absurdly deemed requisite to tragedy, when every one can readily find a storm either at sea or on shore. Many improvements will no doubt be made upon the new system, and we may shortly expect to see tragedies upon a fall of snow or a heavy shower of rain. 'The Tempest' fairly entitles Mr. SHAKESPEARE to the honors due to a reformer of our poetry, and if it produces as much profit as some of those plays in which he has praised princes and traduced the people, we shall be convinced that there are other persons beside Lapland conjurors who can make a comfortable living upon contrary winds and wrecked vessels.'

Turn we now to GIFFORD's review of MILTON's 'Paradise Lost,' in which the cut-and-slash style of that great critic, which was 'nothing if not personal,' is very faithfully portrayed. It opens as follows:

'A CONSIDERABLE part, of this poem, we understand, was written
in gaol; and, though the knowledge of such a fact is by no means
likely to prejudice us in favor of the author or his work, we
can assure our readers that we have come to the examination of
_Paradise Lost_ without any personal feelings toward Mr. MILTON,
though we believe he is the same person who, after canting
about liberty, sold his flattery to a tyrant and usurper; that
he is the author of various seditious pamphlets, of which we
have never read a line, and of a book on divorce, so infamous
as to have been deemed by the bench of bishops worthy of being
burned by the common hangman. A poem founded on a fact recorded
in Scripture by a person notorious for his hatred to the church
was of itself sufficiently curious to justify us in taking an
early notice of it; but we found it at once so extravagant and
so unreadable, that we should not have troubled the public with
any account of its demerits, had not the author, in a most
affected preface, announced certain new notions about rhyme, and
laid claim to the merit of setting an admirable example to the
writers of all future epics. The subject of Mr. M.'s poem would
appear from the title to be the Fall of Adam; but what will
our readers think when we assure them that almost the whole of
the poem is made up of the disputes, adventures, battles, and
defeats of devils, who make war upon their Creator; a monstrous
fiction, founded upon the apocryphal book of Enoch? There is
only one book out of the twelve (the ninth) in which there is
any thing about the loss of Paradise. Throughout the whole
poem the author seems always glad to quit our first parents
to get back to the devil, who is by far the most brilliant
and interesting character of his pages, and on whose feats,
indeed, he reposes with a delight not unworthy of a Manichee.
All the lofty enterprises of this amiable personage are related
with a feeling of partiality for their hero, which would be
amusing were they not told in a singularly involved, obscure,
and affected diction. Mr. MILTON's idiom is generally Hebrew or
Greek; but, when he condescends to be familiar, the structure of
his sentences is modelled upon the Latin. He never condescends
to use a plain term when there is a scientific one, an English
word when he can find a foreign one, nor an old word when he can
coin a new one. _Dry_ with him is _adust_; _a close vest_ is _a
habit succinct_; _starry_ is _stellar_; _flag_ is _gonfalon_;
_four_ is _quaternion_; _powerful_ is _pleni-potent_; and
_mingled_ is _interfused_. To tell us that war is at hand, he
says that it is in _precinct_; and, to tell us something else,
he makes GOD address this line to the angels, counting, no
doubt, upon their power of divining what is quite unintelligible
to mere mortals:

'Meanwhile, inhabit lax, ye powers of heaven!'

'A learned angel, who gives Adam the history of the creation,
illustrates his meaning by such terms as _quadrate_, _cycle_,
and _epicycle_, _centric_ and _eccentric_, nocturnal and diurnal
_rhomb_, etc.; and the same personage is so unacquainted with
the language of this earth as to form such nouns and adjectives
as _hosting_, _battalions_, _aspect_, _solstitial_, _vacuous_,
_opacous_, etc.

'We have a proper sense of the obligation our language has
to Mr. MILTON for these splendid additions; our only fear is
that it will _sink_ under them. Mr. MILTON was some time at
the University, and there, perhaps, became so enamored of the
ancients. Had his college residence not been so _abruptly_
terminated, perhaps he might have learned that the language of
poetry, in order to be delightful, should be intelligible, and
that HOMER and VIRGIL never attempted to engraft foreign words
upon the languages which were spoken and understood in the age
and country in which their immortal poems were written.'

After a querulous consideration of his preface, and an examination of what MILTON calls 'English heroic verse without rhyme,' GIFFORD enters upon the work:

The first book opens with a description of hell, of which the
flames give 'no light, but darkness visible;' and then follows
a dialogue between Satan and Beelzebub, on their fall from
heaven, in the course of which Satan thus speaks:

'Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable, doing or suffering;
but of this be sure, to do aught good will never be our task,
but ever to do ill our sole delight, as being the contrary to
His high will we resist. If then His Providence out of our
evil seek to bring forth good, our labor must be to prevent
that end, and out of good still to find means of evil, which
ofttimes may succeed, so as, perhaps, shall grieve him.'

'This speech, though printed in the poem as verse, we have
reduced to its proper state of prose for the purpose of
exemplifying Mr. MILTON's notions of musical delight,' his 'apt
numbers,' and 'the sense variously drawn out from one verse into
another.'

'We have next a biographical catalogue of devils, imitated from
HOMER's catalogue of ships. How much finer the imitation is than
the original may be seen from the following specimen:

'Next, Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,
From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild
Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond
The flowery dale of Sibma, clad with vines,
And Eleale to the Asphaltic pool.
Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel in Sittim,' etc.

'Satan now tries to address a speech to his followers, but
is seized with _a fit of crying_, which hinders him from
proceeding. At last, he succeeds in delivering his harangue, in
which he proposes to call an infernal council, and has a palace
built for the speakers, though lie had just finished addressing
his followers to as much purpose in the open space. Mr. MILTON
minutely describes the whole operation of 'scumming the bullion
dross' to adorn the edifice, and kindly informs us that the
pillars were of the Doric order. The higher orders of devils get
into the hall 'in their own dimensions like themselves,' but
the poor devils are obliged to reduce themselves 'to smaller
shapes,' in order to find room. With this clumsy contrivance
the first book closes: and the second contains a report of the
debate.

'War is declared, and the council breaks up. Some of the devils
amuse themselves with _horse-races_, others sing songs, with a
harp accompaniment.

'Satan then goes to find out this world, and, after passing
'many a fiery Alp,' arrives at the gates of hell, where he
encounters Sin and Death, about whom there is a most disgusting
allegory.

'The third book shows us Satan flying between earth and heaven,
and God the Father is represented as pointing him out to His
Son. A long dialogue, in the taste of the dullest Puritanical
eloquence, ensues on the causes and consequences of the fall
of man; towards the end of which Satan, having safely arrived
at the sun, in the disguise of an inferior angel, requests the
Archangel Uriel to direct him to the new-created world. The
archangel, with the utmost politeness, shows him the way to the
earth, just as any mortal might direct another to a new street,
which Satan very properly acknowledges with a low bow. Then
we have a history of Adam and Eve, and their embraces, which
we dare not quote. The happiest circumstance, however, in the
situation of our first parents, appears, in the opinion of Mr.
MILTON, to have been their nakedness; for they

'Eased the putting off
These troublesome disguises which we wear,' etc.

'In the mean time, Uriel, 'the sharpest-sighted spirit of
all in heaven,' is convinced that Satan has deceived him; he
accordingly warns Gabriel, 'chief of the angelic guards,' who
immediately orders half a company to 'draw off',' and search for
the intruder. They find him in the captivating disguise of a
toad at the ear of Eve; but he springs up at their approach, 'as
when the smutty grain, with sudden blaze diffused, inflames the
air;' which means, being interpreted, like a spark of gunpowder.
He is then brought before Gabriel, who calls him a spy, a liar,
a hypocrite, and various other polite names. Satan only replies
by a lofty defiance; but the Deity hangs out a pair of scales:

'In these he put two weights,
The sequel each of parting and of fight;
The latter quick up-flew, and kicked the beam.'

'And Satan, knowing 'his mounted scale aloft,' flies from
Paradise.

'In the fifth book, Raphael is sent down from heaven to warn
Adam of Satan's devices; he 'with quick fan winnows the buxom
air,' and alights in Eden just at the hour of dinner:

'And Eve within, due at her hour, prepared
For dinner.'

'Adam goes to meet the angel, and

'Awhile discourse they held,
No fear lest dinner cool.'

'Adam having expressed some fears lest his repast should be
'unsavory food to spiritual natures,' the angel assures him that
spirits require food as well as man; that even the sun receives

'From all his alimental recompense
In humid exhalations, and at even
Sups with the ocean.'

'Therefore,' saith he, 'think not I shall be nice. So down they
sat, and to their viands fell.'

'After dinner, Adam requests Raphael to relate the history of
the rebellion in heaven, which he does at no small length, for
the sixth book finds him only at the beginning of the first
battle. He describes the arming of angels on foot, and angels
on horseback, and gives them _swords_ to fight with, though they
could not be wounded. We are told, indeed, that Michael's sword
met Satan's, and, that some of his followers, 'though huge, and
in a rock of diamond armed,' were 'down cloven to the waist;'
but then 'the ethereal substance closed, not long divisible,'
and these worthy personages recover all their infernal powers.
At last the evil spirits invent cannon and gunpowder, for which
they find materials _in heaven_.

'The battle, though waged against the _Almighty_, is represented
as being doubtful for some time; but at last the Son of God
drives the rebels from heaven, and we are told, in mellifluous
verse,

'Eternal wrath
Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.'

'The angel here concludes his account of the celestial
rebellion: but Adam's curiosity is not yet satisfied, and
he entreats to be told about the creation of the world. The
angel kindly complies in the seventh book, which is merely an
amplification of the first chapter of Genesis.

* * * * *

'In the tenth book we find Death 'drawing a scent of carnage,'
and 'tasting the savor of death,' though mortality was as yet
unknown; and he and Sin set about building a _chain-bridge_ from
hell to this world, which they at last happily accomplish:

'By wondrous art
Pontifical, with pins of adamant,
And chains, they made all fast,' etc.

'In the meantime the CREATOR

'Bid his angels turn askance
The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more
From the sun's axle; they with labor pushed
Oblique the central globe,' etc.

'an operation which, we think, must have a little deranged the
plan of the bridge which had just been built. Adam and Eve feel
the change of climate, and the scolding dialogue which was begun
in the ninth book is continued here. In the eleventh book the
archangel Michael is sent down to banish Adam and Eve from Eden,
and arrives there clothed 'in a purple vest, as man clad to
meet man,' though man was not yet clad. Adam, at his approach,
'heart-struck with chilling _gripe_ of sorrows stood,' but the
angel, after a few words, carries him up to a mountain, from
which Mr. MILTON says he might have seen all the kingdoms of the
earth but for one trifling reason, viz. that they did not yet
exist:

'Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can,
And Samarchand by Oxus, Temir's throne,
To Paquin of Sinæan kings, and thence
To Agra and Labor of Great Mogul,' etc.

'Astolf sees many kingdoms as he is hurried through the air;
and this is the fiction of Ariosto, which Mr. MILTON here
has borrowed only to spoil. The angel first shows Adam _an
hospital_, the diseases of whose inmates are described in a page
taken from the _Nosology_:

'All feverous kinds,
Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,
Intestine stone and ulcer, cholic pangs,
Demoniac frenzy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.'

'After this brilliant and agreeable spectacle, the angel
displays to Adam a kind of panoramic sketch of universal
history, from Cain to the Apostles, to whom Mr. MILTON only
alludes for the sake of showing his malignity to the church in a
passage too long for quotation. The vision which we have noticed
thus briefly extends through the eleventh and twelfth books. At
its close the angel hurries our first parents out of Paradise,
and then leaves them:

'They hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.'

'Such is the termination of this 'example of heroic poem,' which
is completely destitute of human interest from the nature of the
subject, and derives none from the comparisons and illustration
which are so profusely introduced. Classical names and fables
are strewn about with prodigality; but they are always produced
not to show how like, but how _unlike_ they are to the
personages and actions described in the poem.'... 'In order to
make out his 'apt number and fit quantity of syllables,' Mr. M.
frequently employs the Procrustean method of lengthening the
short and shortening the long. _Hermit_ is _eremite_, _mortal_
is _unimmortal_, _survive_ is _over-live_, _marsh_ is _marish_,
etc. In like manner, _malignant_, _ungrateful_, _magnificent_,
_interrupted_, are docked into _malign_, _ingrate_, _magnific_,
_interrupt_; and we have '_dark_ with excessive _bright_' for
_brightness_. Yet, in spite of the ample use of this liberty,
the verse often halts for want of feet.'

A capital specimen of verbal criticism, involving comments upon the 'jingling-sounds,' and 'perpetual bulls' of the author, closes the critique and the article. Although these _pseudo_ reviews are intended merely to form a light, amusing paper, they have yet to our conception a deeper meaning; and as valuable lessons in literature, are well worthy of perusal and preservation.

A NIGHT ADVENTURE IN ENGLAND: THE MYSTERY OF STYLE.--We scarcely know why it was, that a perusal of the remarkable adventure which ensues should so forcibly have struck the electric chain of memory, and carried us back to early childhood, and the book which was its especial delight, the 'Pilgrim's Progress' of BUNYAN. If the reader will turn with us, however, to the scene in that most felicitous of narratives, where CHRISTIAN and HOPEFUL find their way into the dungeons of 'Doubting Castle,' they will be able perhaps to discover the secret of the association. Let us condense therefore a passage of that scene, in illustration of these remarks. 'Now I saw in my dream,' says BUNYAN, 'that the pilgrims went on their way to a pleasant river, and their path lay just upon the bank; and here CHRISTIAN and his companion walked with great delight. On either side of the river was a beautiful meadow, curiously beautified with lilies; and it was green all the year long. Now I beheld in my dream that they had not journeyed far, when the river and the way for a time parted; at which they were not a little sorry; yet they durst not go out of the way. Now the way from the river was rough, and their feet tender by reason of their travels: so the souls of the pilgrims were much discouraged because of the way. Now a little before them, there was on the left hand of the road a meadow, and a stile to go over into it; and behold a path lay along by the way on the other side of the fence; so they went over the stile; and when they were gone over, and were got into the path, they found it very easy for their feet; and withal, looking before them, they espied a man walking as they did, whose name was VAIN CONFIDENCE. So they followed; and he went before them. But behold, the night came on, and it grew very dark; so that they that were behind lost the sight of him that went before; who, not seeing the way before him, fell into a deep pit, and was dashed in pieces with his fall. Now CHRISTIAN and HOPEFUL heard him fall; so they called to know the matter; but there was none to answer; only they heard a groaning. And now it began to rain, and thunder and lighten in a most dreadful manner; and the waters rose amain! Then said CHRISTIAN, 'Who would have thought that this path should have led us astray? Oh, that we had kept on our way!' But now, for their encouragement, they heard the voice of one saying: 'Let thine heart be toward the highway; even the way that thou wentest, turn again!' But by this time the waters were greatly risen; by reason of which the way of going back was very dangerous. Yet they adventured to go back; but it was so dark, and the flood so high, that in their going back they had like to have been drowned nine or ten times. Neither could they, with all the skill they had, get again to the stile that night; wherefore, at last lighting under a little shelter, they sat down there till the day-break; but being weary, they fell asleep.' Here it was, it will be remembered, that GIANT DESPAIR found them sleeping in his grounds, and with his 'grievous crab-tree cudgel' drove them before him into 'a very dark dungeon' of Doubting-Castle.

But let us come to the adventure to which we have alluded. Perhaps some of our readers will remember a work published in England a half century or more ago, entitled 'The Adventures of HUGH TREVOR,' written by THOMAS HOLCRAFT. At the recommendation of a friend, on whose literary opinion we place the firmest reliance, we obtained the volumes; and not without difficulty, there not being a copy of the work to be found in any of the metropolitan libraries, nor indeed any where short of that unequalled _omnium gatherum_, 'BURNHAM'S,' of the modern Athens. From this work, of which we may have more to say hereafter, we condense the following striking scene. It should be premised that TREVOR and his companion, a man named CLARKE, after a variety of reverses of fortune, are on their way on foot from a town in one of the retired shires of England to the great metropolis. At nightfall they find themselves on the borders of a forest. As they proceed, they meet with a countryman, who learning their destination, informs them that by striking a little out of the road they may save themselves much travel; that he is going part of the way himself, and that the remainder is too plain to be mistaken. Accordingly they place themselves under his guidance. But suppose we now permit the narrator to tell the story in his own words:

'THE sun had been down by this time nearly an hour and a half.
The moon gave some light; but the wind was rising, she was
continually obscured by thick, swift-flying clouds, and our
conductor advised us to push on, for it was likely to be a
very bad night. In less than a quarter of an hour his prophecy
began to be fulfilled. The rain fell, and at intervals the
opposing clouds and currents of air, aided by the impediments
of hills and trees, gave us a full variety of that whistling,
roaring, and howling, which is heard in high winds. The darkness
thickened upon us, and I was about to request the countryman
to lead us to some village, or even barn, for shelter, when he
suddenly struck into another path; and bidding us good night,
again told us 'we could not miss our road.' We could not see
where he was gone to; and though we repeatedly called, we called
in vain; he was too anxious to get shelter himself to heed our
anxiety, and was soon out of hearing.

'So long as we could discern, the path we were in appeared to be
tolerably beaten; but we now could no longer trace any path; for
it was too dark for the ground to have any distinct color. We
had skirted the forest, and our only remaining guide was a hedge
on our left. In this hedge we placed our hopes. We followed its
direction, I know not how long, till it suddenly turned off at
an angle; and we found ourselves, as far as we could conjecture,
from the intervening lights and the strenuous efforts we made to
discover the objects around us, on the edge of some wild place,
probably a heath, with hills, and consequently deep valleys,
perhaps streams of water, and precipices. We paused; we knelt
down, examined with our eyes, and felt about with our hands, to
discover whether we yet were in a path; but could find none.
We continued our consultation, till we had begun to think it
advisable to return, once more guided by the hedge. Yet this was
not only very uncertain, but the idea of a retrograde motion was
by no means pleasant.