While quiet as the depth of spotless snow, Whose ringlets like the glittering dew-wire move, Floating and sinking soft amid the breath of love! EDDERLINE'S DREAM. CANTO FIRST. CASTLE-OBAN is lost in the darkness of night, Therein is a lonesome room, When the voice of psalms is shed! Lo! the lamp's wan fitful light, Another gleam! how sweet the while, From her pillow, as if driven Hath fallen her head! The long black hair, In dishevell'd masses riven, Is streaming downwards to the floor. And will that length of glorious tresses, Though flung thus wildly o'er her bed; O dreadful is the world of dreams, When all that world a chaos seems Of thoughts so fix'd before! When heaven's own face is tinged with blood! And friends cross o'er our solitude, Now friends of ours no more! Or, dearer to our hearts than ever, Keep stretching forth, with vain endeavour, To clasp up phantoms, as we go Yet all the while we know not why, Or that his bliss, indeed, is bliss, When bending o'er the death-like cheek At every cold but breathing kiss, Eager to speak-but in terror mute, Like a gleam of light through the darkness moves, And leaning o'er her rosy breath, That flows, yet scarcely seems to flow, So, gently as a shepherd lifts And who art thou that takest thy stand Again she hears her Edith speak Doubt, fear, and trouble leave her cheek, With one light and careless touch, "My soul hath been disquieted, The lamp is dead, but the morning peep When other lights in heaven are none. To that little cheerful shine Turn the eyes of Edderline; And as a cloud that long hath lain Hark! the martlet twittering by But loftier far from cliff remote, Up springs the eagle, like a thought, Music is there on the shore, This the pensive Lady knows, lo round her lovely frame she throws The night before he cross'd the wave loft steps are winding down the stair, And now beneath the morning air Ier breast breathes strong and free; The sun in his prime glorious hour s up, and with a purple shower fath bathed the billowy sea! ! morning's dewy hush divine fath calm'd the eyes of Edderline! baded by the glooms that fall 'rom the old grey castle wall, Or, from the glooms emerging bright, loud-like walking through the light, he sends the blessing of her smiles Y'er dancing waves and steadfast isles, and, creature though she be of earth, leaven feels the beauty of her mirth. low seraph-like the silent greeting, treaming from her dark-blue eyes, it their earliest matin meeting pwards to the dark-blue skies! Quickly glancing, gliding slowly, Child of mirth or melancholy, As her midnight dream again, Of the hush'd or roaring main, Comes and goes across her brain. She sees God's anger flash around her, To one vain signal-gun! While in the lightning's ghastly glow Far, far below, in rocky cell He sits, with long, black, rusty hair, A holy madman! with no chain Down-downwards to his savage cave, Like sea-mew with white rise and fall, And now doth trembling Edith wait 48 BRYAN WALLER PROCTOR. (BARRY CORNWALL.) THIS writer is better known, both at home and in foreign countries, by the appellation of BARRY CORNWALL, usually prefixed to his works for reasons known only to himself. No plausible excuse has been given for his concealment of his real name. No biography of this poet has yet appeared, and little respecting his early life is known even by his friends. Bryan Waller Proctor was born in London, and is of a respectable family in the northern part of England. He received the first rudiments of his education at Ealing, a village near London, and was removed from thence to Harrow Grammar School, where he remained four years, and numbered among his school-fellows Lord Byron, Mr. Peel, the minister for the home department, and several individuals who subsequently became noted in the world. Dr. Drury was head-master of Harrow, at that time, and his encomiums have been sounded in high terms by more than one of his scholars. This Dr. Drury it was who became the means of the introduction of Kean the actor on the London stage, having seen him acting in Devonshire and conceived a high opinion of his talents. From the school at Harrow, Proctor was sent to the town of Calne, in Wiltshire, where he was placed with a solicitor to learn his business. The solicitor's name was Atherston, a clever and excellent man. With this master he remained four years, and then proceeded to London. At the time Proctor resided at Calne, several characters well known to the literary world dwelt in the neighbourhood; among them were Crabbe, Moore, and Bowles. Dr. Priestley, the philosopher, once occupied a house opposite to that in which Mr. Atherston resided. Coleridge, after Mr. Atherston quitted it, dwelt in the house where Proctor had undergone his legal probation. This is not a little curious as a coincidence, for it does not appear that any of these celebrated men were natives of the town of Calne, the very aspect of which is as little poetical or literary or philosophic as it can well be. On leaving Calne and the drudgery of the initiatory part of his profession, the poet became the pupil of a conveyancer in one of the inns of court, it is generally reported of Lincoln's-Inn. He had also determined to go to the bar, but circumstances intervening to change his resolution, Proctor pursued his original profession of a con Barry Cornwall became a great favourite with the public. The subject of this tale is derived from the inexhaustible Decameron, and it is treated very happily; but there is a sombre tone runs through all, which in this writer is not feigned or assumed, as it has been by others. Il health is generally understood to be the cause of that species of melancholy which pervades most of his works, or perhaps a constitutional tendency that way. In 1820 appeared his "Marcian Colonna." This poem is not so felicitous in the plot as in the execution. It has excellencies of the highest order; the descriptions of nature are noble, and the passion of love delineated with a rich sense of feeling. Mirandola" was his next published work; it came out in 1821, well sustaining the author's previous reputation. The models on which Barry Cornwall has founded his poetic style may be found among the older lyric and dramatic poets of England. Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Decker, Marlow, and Massinger, among our writers on the drama, and Milton in the epic walk, he seems to have read with more than common care, and to have studied some portions of their work so closely as to have imitated them unconsciously, as may be observed in his printed works. In stature Proctor is below the middle height rather than above. His physiognomy is mild, and displays with that sedateness and melancholy cast which is observ able in his poetry, the indications of kindness of heart and an amiable although somewhat of a feeble, rather than masculine character. He is married recently, and much of his time is neces sarily occupied with the affairs of business. It is probably owing to this that his appearance before the public has been so rare of late. A page or two in the "New Monthly Magazine," or an oc casional contribution to some of the literary an nuals, are all in which, for several years, his pen is to be recognized by the public. as has been The poetry of Barry Cornwall, already intimated, is built entirely upon the dra matists of the sixteenth century, and all he writes is deeply imbued with their spirit. There is little or none of their energy it is true, but there is much of their fine character, their pathos, their sadness, and their gentle passion. There is a propensity in Barry Cornwall to select subjects from among the morbid feelings of our nature, of from her erratic wanderings, rather than from her master-pieces in intellect and passion. Of the most perfect humanity he is shy; and even prefers to revel, in one instance, amid the dreams of an insanity which is not the offspring of calamity, but inherent from his heroine's birth, born with (378) her and part of her being. Perhaps such a sub-copyist of them to servility, but Barry Cornwal ject is not the happiest for poetry; yet no one resuscitates their spirit, and shows nothing of sercan deny, that in "Marcian Colonna" as much vile imitation-he animates what he writes by their has been made of it, without shocking the feel- beauties, but he rejects their antique language ings of the reader or violating propriety, as it was and conceits; in short, he only borrows their possible to make. There are passages in the graces and the purity of their thoughts. In "Miworks of Barry Cornwall which will bear com-randola," however, where this fondness for the parison with any others of our later poets, when read detached from their immediate connection, their antecedent or subsequent verses. In some of his works the poet falls into scenes of calm, contemplative, philosophical feeling, which afford materials for thinking, as well as yield a fund of high amusement and deep interest. He seems to feel all he writes; and so feeling every thing, he has an earnestness which is rarely to be found so sustained any where as in his unruffled and tranquil poetry. His variations are less than those of most contemporary writers: he pursues his course unbrokenly along, in gentle chaste beauty. earliest dramatists might be supposed to be more conspicuous from the character of the poetry, he does not seem to exhibit more of his predilection for them than in his preceding works, which have no relation to dramatic composition. It has been observed that the variety of the human countenance is so great, it is probable no two persons ever existed exactly like each other, if placed side by side. The same variety seems to hold good in respect to the variety of style and difference among writers. There are no two so much alike that a practised reader can be mistaken, judging from their entire works. Barry Cornwall stands out as distinctly from his conIn his stories or plots Barry Cornwall is not so temporaries, and has his features of difference fortunate as in the filling up of his details. In from them as clearly distinguished, as the poetry "Marcian Colonna" the ill-judged madness of of Byron is to be distinguished from the prosaic the hero is ever before the eyes of the reader, and rhymes or hexameters of Southey. His character though so well painted, it strikes him as in bad as a poet is precisely that of the man, and there taste. In the "Sicilian Story," the plot is Boc-is no difficulty therefore, with his works before caccio's: "Diego de Montilla" is not new. The a stranger, for him to appreciate justly one by the filling in of his pictures, therefore, constitutes other. Of all the living poets of England, not their merit, and the poet exhibits no falling off there; he is, though an imitative rather than an original writer, more especially as respects his connection with the older English dramatists, unequalled in his peculiar walk. Charles Lamb is a one has carried himself more blamelessly, or pursued his course through life's journey with more honour and credit to himself, with less assumption and more claim to honest praise than Barry Cornwall. |