66 By a similar conceit (a mode of writing quite unusual with him) has he spoiled one of his finest passages :— "Meanwhile apart in the twilight-gloom of a window's embrasure, Next to the spectacle of a man destroying a noble constitution, or marring fine faculties, is that of an author deliberately spoiling a passage which otherwise had touched or trembled on perfection. It is a case of literary felo de se. What business had the idea of a forget-me-not at such a moment? Gabriel Lajeunesse himself, we are certain, enamoured as he was, and even in that most imaginative hour, never could dream of seeing an angel with a knot of stars on his breast while visiting his true love. Such faults are rare in this writer. Once or twice, indeed, he approaches the brink of the bathos, and snatches one of those few, perilous, and precious flowers which bloom along it. Thus, in "Hyperion," he compares a glacier to a gauntlet of ice, thrown down by winter, in defiance of the sun; a thought so beautiful, that you forget the danger which he has encountered and escaped in finding it for you. A striking little copy of verses he has entitled "The Light of Stars." His "bright particular star" is not the 'star of Jove, so beautiful and large," nor the star of lovers, Venus, nor the star of suicides, Saturn. It is the star of warriors, "the red light of Mars." We share with him in his feelings. Mars has, to men, more points of interest and sympathy than almost any other planet. One frozen band at least binds us to it. One white signal has been hung out by this near vessel; snow and winter are there. And if, as analogy would plead, there be inhabitants, these inhabitants must be somewhat like ourselves. There are fires, there are hearths, there are homes in Mars! There is struggle, there may be sin, there may be death-there is contest, there is mystery, there may be victory! What home sounds, what thrilling tones, what an array of signals, what a sheaf of telegraphic rays, from that red planet! Hear Longfellow "Earnest thoughts within me rise, When I behold afar, Suspended in the evening skies, O star of strength! I see thee stand Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand, Within my breast there is no light, But the cold light of stars; We must not overlook a poem entitled "Footsteps of Angels." Who are the angels who visit and imprint his heart? No cherubim-dim to him amid all their blaze of intelligence. No strange seraphs-cold to him amid all their flames of fire. They are the friends of his youth -the loved of his early heart-now sons and daughters of the grave. The eye of his heart sees them; the ear of his heart hears their soft footsteps, and their voices so low and sweet. Have all of us not at times such angel visits! Are we not at this moment summoned to look up, and see and hear them? Ah! we know that strong deep-furrowed face, that lofty brow, those locks sprinkled with grey, that eye restless with the fire of intelligence, and with the light of paternal affection. We know too, too well, that young form, that step light as the roe's upon the mountains, that clear blue eye, that brown curling head, that forehead so high, that face so pale and beautiful, over which, ere her ten winters had passed, death had spread a ghastlier pale ness-it is our Agnes, at once sister and child! And we cry, "O God! if it be thus, and thou Longfellow's writings are in general prophetic of, and preparatory for, the grand reconciliation of man, both as regards man the individual, and man the species. In his "Arsenal," and his "Occultation of Orion," he shadows forth the "coming of the milder day," when there is "Peace! and no longer from its brazen portals The blast of War's great organ shakes the skies! The holy melodies of love arise." And both in "Hyperion" and "Evangeline," the agency of sorrow, in purging the eye, subduing the senses, watering all the stronger plants in the soul's garden, is abundantly recognised. Perhaps still another's "Pilgrim's Progress," cut out through rougher ways, darkened by deeper shadows, and exhibiting more the teaching of error than either "Hyperion" or "Sartor," is still desiderated by the age. We cannot linger much longer with this delightful writer. He has scattered many other delicious drops of song along his course. Such are " Rain in Summer," "To a Child," "To the Driving Cloud," and "The Old Clock on the Stairs." These are all amiable carols, inspi rited with poetic life, decorated with chaste image, and shadowed with pensive sentiment, like the hand of manhood laid gently upon the billowing head of a child. The character of a translator's own genius may be gathered with considerable accuracy from his selection of pieces to translate. In general, the graceful bends to the graceful, the pensive sighs back to the pensive, and the strong shadows the strong. Longfellow has not dared any lofty heights, or sounded any dark hollows, of foreign poetry. The exquisite patriarchal simplicities of the Swedish ballad have attracted his kindred spirit. It is not "deep calling unto deep." It is one corn-field responding to another, across the hedge, under one soft westerly breeze. Need we do more than allude to "The Children of the Lord's Supper," which, both in verse and spirit, is the model of 'Evangeline." Thus he characterises himself as a translator:-"The translation is literal, perhaps to a fault. In no instance have I done the author a wrong, by introducing into his work any supposed improvements or embellishments of my own. I have preserved even the measure, that inexorable hexameter in which, it must be confessed, the motions of the English muse are not unlike those of a prisoner dancing to the music of his chains; and perhaps, as Dr Johnson said of the dancing dog, 'the wonder is not that she should do it so well, but that she should do it at all.'" We close our paper with feelings of gratitude and respect for our transatlantic author. It is pleasant, in this melancholy world, to "light upon such certain places," where beautiful dreams, and lofty, generous aspirations, lift us up, on a ladder, into ideal regions, which are yet to become real; for every such aspiration is a distinct step upwards to meet our expected New Jerusalem of man, "coming down as a bride adorned for her husband." Every volume of genuine poetry, besides, constitutes a cool grotto of retreat, with the altar of a bloodless sacrifice standing in the midst. We love, too, even better than the poetry of this volume, its sunny, genial, human, and hopeful spirit. Perhaps there are more depth and power, certainly there are more peculiarity and strangeness, in Emerson's volume, but over many parts of it is suspended a dry, rainless cloud of gloom, which chills and withers you. You become, it may be, a wiser, but certainly a sadder man. Longfellow sheds a checquered autumnal light, under which your soul, like a river, flows forward, serene, glad, strong, and singing as it flows "Let us then be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Learn to labour and to wait." 66 PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. THESE sketches are by no means intended as a complete literary history of the age; yet we believe that in our two "Galleries” few names of great note will be found altogether omitted. We have not, indeed, analysed at length such writers as Dickens, Thackeray, Horne, Robert Browning, or our admirable friend Marston, partly because we are not fully acquainted with their works, and partly because they have been thoroughly treated by other writers. To omit, however, a distinct notice of such a phenomenon as Festus" were unpardonable, and to this we now address ourselves. "Festus" is, indeed, a phenomenon. "When I read 'Festus,"" said poor David Scott to us, "I was astonished to find such work going on in a mind of the present day." It seemed to him, as Edinburgh on first view was called by Haydon, a giant's dream." Indeed, it much resembles one of Scott's own vast unearthly pictures, the archetypes of which he may have recognised now in that world of shadows, of which he was born and lived a denizen; for surely, if ever walked a phantom |