of the poet, the true sublime may be found among passages of exquisite beauty in the Voyage of Columbus. A brief example may be adduced. Describing the flight of Merion, the guardian angel of America, the poet characteristically says, he Rose like the condor, and at tow'ring height, In pomp of plumage sail'd, deep'ning the shades of night, Roc of the west, to him all empire given, Who bears Axalua's * dragon folds to heaven: His flight a whirlwind, &c. The commencement of Canto the Second, alluding to the submersion of the Atlantis of Plato and Solon, or rather of the Egyptian priests, might be referred to as another example; and the conclusion of the passage, which describes armed shapes' of godlike stature, slowly passing along the red battlement of the evening sky Streaming a baleful light that was not of the sun, is radiant with sublime splendour, and imbued with mysterious excitement. The most striking feature of this epic sketch, and with the notice of which I shall conclude, is 'germane to the matter' of this pamphlet. I mean the graphic power of its occasional descriptions -a sure test of an excited imagination, and therefore, of the highest order of poetry. It is curious, that here, and here only, in direct opposition to his usual style, * The resemblance of the theology of Mexico to the Egyptian, Chinese, and Scandinavian, cannot here fail to strike the antiquarian. Her chronology and astronomy were Chinese. Rogers resorts to those pictural words and phrases which have been noticed as the chief beauty and peculiar distinction of Montgomery. For example; And from his wings of gold shook drops of liquid light. Oh whence as wafted from Elysium, whence Those perfumes, strangers to the raptured sense? Those boughs of gold and fruits of heavenly hue, Tinging with vermeil light the waters blue? But Whose cunning carved this vegetable bowl? does not express the vivid image of P. Martyr: Ex ligno lucido confectum, et arte mira laboratum. Again Where many a fire-fly shooting thro' the glade Spangled the locks of many a lovely maid, Who now danced forth to strew our path with flowers. There guavas blush'd as in the vales of light. The episode of the Fount of Youth-a beautiful Mexican fable, sung by the humming-bird— Gem full of life, the fairy king of flowers— is exquisitely vivid; of the mystic fount he says, It met the sun in many a rainbow shower While instituting the preceding comparison of affinities suggested by a review of the Omnipresence, I may not inappropriately adduce the following passages, bearing out my view of the resemblance of Montgomery's style in Satan to Cowper, Young and Akenside. They are less faultless than the first, but not so tame on the other hand, they are more faultless and free from conceits and wordy amplification than the two last. The subjoined resembles Cowper's passages, For wealth too grasping,' and 'Ambition, avarice,' Task, Book III*. I am sorry my space will only allow me to refer to, not to quote the kindred passages, in the three above-named authors. To eyes, Where avarice hath raised a blinding film That flatters, while it bounds the view, her scenes Dark lanes, and smoke-roof'd streets,-what mingled * These lines of observing and cold irony on selfish snugness may be quoted as a happy specimen of analogy to the polished antitheses of Cowper Too mean for virtue, too polite for vice, The happy medium which their spirits keep Is fully toned to temporal joys.-Satan, p. 146 While Commerce, in her thousand shapes and moods, Her round of wonders, and of gain. * * * * * Yet here, methinks, had not one hideous thirst The hollow cheeks, and livid brow of Toil, Of heated chambers, where in sad revenge The infant young, and friendless orphan poor ; They who should gambol on the lusty meads, While gamesome blood danced beauty through their cheeks, Thus doom'd to languish in degenerate toils! Why, what a hell-slave will this Commerce prove, When life and feeling perish for her cause! Already hath an evil spell begun; * Though a proud empire will not see, her heart Is fever'd with a fest'ring mass of thought,— A lust of gain, that rankles into lies, O'er fraudful means, or knavish arts; while Truth, Integrity, and Honour, are diseased, And die away in avaricious dreams. The next extract will remind the reader of a favou rite cognate passage in Akenside Yet who the summer, that bright season-queen, Hath hail'd, beheld the march of midnight worlds, The sun in glory, or his skiey realm, When thunder-demons are abroad again, In smiles of beauty,-all this living might, Again, Akenside's admirers will not fail to be pleased with the subjoined extract, on the score of diction and imagery Such will not ever be: thy death-gloom pierced, Will blaze a sun-burst of revealing truth! Where bright Immortals dwell; the moon's romance, From Heaven let down, and link'd around the soul, This subjoined short sentence is strikingly like Young By Day the present, but at Night the past Again,― When this world dies, the next begins to live. |