Some in life's winter may toil to discover Dying when fair things are fading away! A deep interest belongs to the life and poetry of LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON-the 'L. E. L.' of the periodicals of her day-(1802-1838), authoress of The Improvisatrice, and several other volumes. With an external manner which seemed gay and volatile, she breathed in her verse the spirit of romantic melancholy. FELICIA HEMANS (1793-1835) obtained equal distinction by her poems, in which we find a similar tone of melancholy, joined to profound tenderness, along with a profusion of beautiful images. There is, however, in the works of both these ladies, a sameness which prevents them from being much read. Another female author of sad history, is the Hon. Mrs NORTON, 'the Byron of modern poetesses.' Her chief works are The Undying One (on the story of the Wandering Jew), The Dream, and The Child of the Islands. MARY HOWITT enjoys a respectable rank in this class, principally on account of her many beautiful ballads. By universal consent, the highest place among living poetesses is assigned to Mrs BROWNING (born Elizabeth Barrett), the wife of the poet Robert Browning. From her seventeenth year, notwithstanding ill health and other afflictions, this lady has been pouring out volume after volume of beautiful and impressive poetry, under the titles of an Essay on Mind, The Seraphim, The Romaunt of the Page, Casa Guidi Windows, Aurora Leigh, &c. Many of her latter years have been spent in Italy. In her style, she shows an affinity to Shelley and Tennyson, but with a force and originality that bring her to the level of these bards. A keen sympathy with all who are believed to be oppressed-whether nations, or classes, or individuals-is one of the strongest features of Mrs Browning's muse. She thus puts the case of factory children : MRS BROWNING. Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, 221 They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, The young lambs are bleating in the meadows; They are weeping in the playtime of the others, For oh, say the children, we are weary, If we cared for any meadows, it were merely Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping-- Through the coal-dark, underground- For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning- Till our hearts turn-our heads, with pulses burning, Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling- All are turning, all the day, and we with all! And, all day, the iron wheels are droning; And sometimes we could pray, ye wheels'-breaking out in a mad moaning- Ay! be silent! let them hear each other breathing Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing Let them feel that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God fashions or reveals Let them prove their inward souls against the notion That they live in you, or under you, O wheels! Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, As if Fate in each were stark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, ALLAN CUNNINGHAM (1785-1842) was the author of various poetical volumes, as well as of several novels and biographies; but his reputation must rest on a group of imitations of old ballads and songs, which he produced in early life, ere he had yet emerged from the ranks of the Scottish peasantry. Another bard of this grade, but of less happy history, is JOHN CLARE, a native of Northamptonshire. His poetry displays a minute acquaintance with external nature, and an earnest love of it, joined to much amiable feeling. After enjoying, from the success of his poems, a brief period of prosperity, Clare fell into misfortunes, which had the effect of depriving him of reason. More recently, Scotland produced a genuine poet in ROBERT NICOLL, whose span of life, however, was limited to twenty-four years. The poems and songs of Nicoll, some of which are in his vernacular tongue, have given him the name of Scotland's Second Burns. They display much of the passionate energy, and a large share of the philanthropy, which characterise the works of the Ayrshire bard. Another modern Scottish poet of genuine merit was WILLIAM MOTHERWELL (1797-1835). His ballads of Jeanie Morison and Wearie's Well are replete with a tragic melancholy that stands quite alone in Scottish verse. Circumstances are not favourable to the cultivation of any provincial language; nevertheless, the pretensions of the Scottish Muse continue to be ably upheld by JAMES BALLANTINE, many of whose songs -for example, one embodying the poetical proverb, Ilka blade of grass keps its ain drap o dew-exhibit a sweetness and tenderness marking the true poet. The publication of the Rejected Addresses in 1813 obtained a brilliant reputation as a comic poet for JAMES SMITH (1775-1839), the brother of Horace HOOD BARHAM-TENNYSON. 223 Smith the novelist. The volume consisted of imitations of the chief poets of the day; but, unlike the generality of burlesque poems, those of Smith may be read over and over again for their own merits. The sale of twenty editions of such light familiar poems, while many volumes of esteemed verse rest with one, shows in a striking manner how much more acceptable is that which makes us smile, than even the profoundest exhibitions of sentiment. THOMAS HOOD (1798-1845) attained a high reputation on account of his many comic effusions, in which punning was practised with an accompanying humour that for once made it respectable in literature. In some of his productions, such as The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies, The Dream of Eugene Aram, The Haunted House, and above all, The Song of the Shirt, he displayed other qualities-imagination and feeling-which were fast raising his name into a higher kind of distinction, when he was cut off by a lingering illness in the prime of life. The Rev. WILLIAM BARHAM, author of Ingoldsby Legends, may be ranked with this class of modern poets: since Hudibras, the English language has never been so dexterously or so comically handled. The highest place among our living bards is, since the death of Wordsworth, accorded to ALFRED TENNYSON, now poet-laureate. His reputation rests on a group of miscellaneous pieces first issued in 1830, and afterwards, with additions, in 1842, and on several larger poems since published, The Princess, In Memoriam, Maud, and the Idylls of the King. They have fixed the attention of a large proportion of the young and thoughtful minds of our time. Mr Tennyson's muse is contemplative, retrospective, earnest, and replete with an elegant melancholy. There is often an exquisite simplicity in his thoughts. It may at the same time be remarked that no poet has, within so small a compass, exhibited such a wide range of styles and subjects. In his pages, says one of his critics, 'legendary history, fairy fiction, Greek poetry, and trees endowed with human speech, blend in the procession with Egyptian fanatics, rapt nuns, English ladies, peasant girls, artists, lawyers, farmers-in fact, a tolerably complete representation of the miscellaneous public of the present day; while the forms vary from epic fragments to the homeliest dialogues-from the simplest utterance of emotion in a song, to the highest allegory of a terrible and profound law of life.' FROM THE LOTOS-EATERS. [The lotos is an Eastern plant, eaten for the sake of the luxurious sleepiness which it produces.] Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, All things have rest, and ripen towards the grave; Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, With half-shut eyes ever to seem Falling asleep in a half dream! To hear each other's whispered speech; Eating the lotos, day by day; To watch the crispéd ripples on the beach, To lend our hearts and spirits wholly To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; To muse and brood, and live again in memory Heaped over with a mound of grass, Two handfuls of white dust shut in an urn of brass. Lord MACAULAY (1800-1859), while chiefly esteemed as a historian, has also a high reputation as a poet. His juvenile ballad of Ivry, a Song of the Huguenots, embodying the triumph of Henry IV. over the army |
