And other times shall hear: the agony 'And my Covilla! dost thou yet survive? That throwest death, as some light idle thing, This collection of poems opens with one entitled 'Gebir,' a youthful production-a thing distressing to read, and of an unconquerable obscurity-and yet containing glimpses of poetic thought. We quote the following lines-though, unlike most of Mr. Landor's, they have been often quoted before-not only for their own beauty, but because they present a rather singular coincidence with a passage in The Excursion : The 'And I have sinuous shells of pearly hue ;- And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.' Mysterious union with its native sea.' Wordsworth makes a moral application of the image, but in the mere description of the fact or incident we prefer, in this instance, the preceding and inferior poet. Some brief pieces complete the volume. The stanzas addressed to Ianthe' have this merit, that they appear to have been dictated by a sincerity of feeling. There is one entitled a Fæsulan Idyl,' which contains materials for a light and elegant poem, but they are not disposed in a natural or lucid order. The expression of any genuine feeling, taste, or inclination of a writer is almost sure to interest-and accordingly these lines will be read with pleasure: And ' And 'tis and ever was my wish and way Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold.' The polished trifle that follows shall conclude our quotations. 'Imitation of the manner of Catullus. In your own mind;-I'd have but four- Mr. Landor has also published a volume of Latin poems, entitled 'Idyllia Heroica Decem, Librum Phaleuciorum Unum.' The work was published at Pisa, that it might more certainly create for the author a reputation amongst the Italian literati. He tells us in his characteristic manner, Scriptum in Italiâ edidi (cur dissimulem? quæ ambitio enim innocentior?) quia nolui turmalis esse, nolui opinione hominum cum ceteris Britannorum peregrinantium, cujuscunque sint ordinis, conturbari.' But it is not a European reputation only that Mr. Landor proposes to himself; he scarcely disguises from us that he adopts the Latin language in order to secure an imperishable name when the English shall be forgotten; so that when the planks of the British vessel fail him, he may step on the terra firma of the imperial literature of Rome. How long Mr. Landor's works may last in his own language we are not disposed to prophesy. He has himself an ardent faith-a pleasant one-and we have no wish, and are quite aware that neither we, nor any other, have the power, to disturb it. That true salt lies scattered through his works, is certain; whether sufficient, or of savour strong enough to preserve the whole mass from decay and dissolution, we will not venture to assert or deny. But if his fame in after-ages is to depend on these Latin productions, we have no hesitation whatever in pronouncing the futility of his hopes. The poems are accompanied by an essay inquiring Cur poetæ Latini recentiores minus legantur?' Judging from this, Mr. Landor Landor appears to us to be not altogether aware of the extremely disadvantageous position in which a writer places himself who composes poetry in a dead language. Perhaps no task in letters could be devised more difficult than to obtain the lasting protection of the Roman language for modern genius. We read the poems of the ancients, and our remotest posterity, and the posterity of the most distant nations of the earth will probably read them, not only for their intrinsic merit, but because they were really written by Greeks and Romans. The perusal of works produced under the influence of a totally different religion, of a different polity, and in a condition of human knowledge and the arts of life which never can again return, must always be highly interesting, highly beneficial. It corrects the prejudices of times and countries, and is to the intellect a species of foreign travel, liberalizing even still more than it enlightens. But the modern, though he may write in an ancient language, can attach to his work no portion of this interest;-he foregoes the use of words which have grown up with, and been modelled to, the thoughts and feelings of his age;-adopts a language loaded with associations from a distant era ;-he must not see, or hear, or know, what an ancient has not left him a term to express; he becomes unavoidably an imitator; he belongs to no period, to no country,— he is neither Roman nor Englishman, he is merely linguist. To compose under these disadvantages anything which, merely from its essential merit, should be cherished and preserved by a different people, in a distant age, would require far more than the genius of Virgil or of Horace; and such genius who would not regret to see exercised under so great restraints, and deprived of its best resources? At the revival of letters poets wrote in Latin, and naturally, because so large a portion of the ideas they sought to express were immediately derived through the medium of that language; to them, as writers, it was a native tongue; and the ablest of them all, Buchanan, had no other in which he could have expressed the higher and more elegant movements of his mind. Yet even these have obtained no footing on the soil of ancient times; the worst poet in the worst age of Roman literature is more secure of his position than the best of these imitators; their works live but as part of modern literature-must share its fate whatever that may be, and will lie neglected in the meantime, or be read only to be pillaged. As a scholar-like accomplishment-as the graceful amusement of a literary leisure-Latin poetry will at all times be written; nor as such do we seek for a moment to disparage it. But to anything higher than this, we do not expect, and hardly wish it to be carried. Mr. Mr. Landor's volume, viewed in this subordinate character, will do him credit. In his imitations of classic fable, whether mythological or heroic, he has caught the air of antiquity; and he uses But the language as one perfectly familiar with its resources. his line is not melodious, the metre and the thought seldom flow in harmony together, and, above all, there is nothing in the substance itself of the poems to challenge admiration, nothing to render it any loss to the English reader that it was not composed in his native tongue. We meet with little in the Idyls that tempts us to quotation. If we are wearied with reproductions, by a modern, of heathen mythology or Homeric fable, is the case much mended by having the same thing presented to us in the Latin language? But there is a book of Hendecasyllabics, many of which are occasional poems composed on events of our own time, and which, if they have no other interest, are at least very characteristic of their author. We, however, willingly confine ourselves to a single specimen. It is in this amiable and graceful fashion that Mr. Landor thinks fit to disport himself over the grave of Mr. Fox:— 'Epitaphium C. Foxi. 'Torrens eloquio, inque præpotentes Vultu vinculaque et cruces minatus, Quâ nemo cubitum quatit, quiescis! Jacta est alea, et heu! silet fritillus.'-p. 24. We have brought ourselves to the conclusion of Mr. Landor's volumes. They leave upon the mind of the reader impressions singularly discordant of displeasure and admiration; and these we have endeavoured impartially to convey. If praise and blame have alternated somewhat abruptly through our pages, the inconsistency is not in us; if the scales of criticism have vacillated more than usual, this must not altogether be attributed to weakness in the hand that held the balance. Where we have praised we have quoted largely; where we have condemned we have often trusted to our reader's candour, or his memory, for the justification of our censure. Why should we be engaged in scraping refuse into a heap? He who loves such occupation may find employment in Mr. Landor's works. He who, on the contrary, shall set aside what is really excellent in them, and return to a second perusal of this alone, will be abundantly rewarded for his labour.* ART. VI.-The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Edited by her Great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe. 3 vols. 8vo. London. 1837. THESE volumes will, we fear, disappoint in some degree the public expectation; indeed it could hardly be otherwise. When a work is known to have been published with certain prudential restrictions, there is always a strong curiosity excited about the suppressed parts; and it is supposed that what has been concealed must be much more piquant than what has been published. This feeling exists especially with regard to private letters and memoirs, and in no case was it more likely to be pushed to its extreme than with regard to the gay, witty, and superabundantly frank correspondence of Lady Mary Wortley. When such 6 things * After concluding, as we thought, our notice of Mr. Landor's works, we received another production from his pen-a pamphlet in verse-entitled A Satire upon Satirists and Admonition to Detractors. The author, by a strange principle of calculation, seems to reckon upon its very poverty of merit as a passport at least to its circulation. It is only our intimate friends,' says the preface, who like us best when we write well; the greater part of readers are complacent at imagining their superiority as they discover our aberrations. The greater part of readers care for little else than to be pleased with what they read; but, if there are others of an opposite temper, it cannot be denied that Mr. Landor has here written with sufficient mediocrity to secure their attention. Not having ourselves a taste for aberrations into dulness, we should not have alluded to this trifle, but for the injurious mention that is made in it of names which must awaken an interest in every one at all acquainted with English literature. The reader of the Imaginary Conversations must have observed that their author professes a somewhat clamorous friendship for Mr. Southey. To one who is a lover of peace it cannot be very agreeable to find a stout fellow by his side-ever and anon protesting that he is the properest man alive-and defying all the world to gainsay it. Yet such is the attitude which Mr. Landor assumes by the side of his friend Mr. Southey. In the present instance he has signalized this amicable zeal by bringing before him, as the calumniator of his worth, another friend of his own, Mr. Wordsworth. For this purpose, and under pretence of keeping peace between the two poets, he cracks the satiric thong: Under my wrist ne'er let the whip be crackt When poet leaves a poet's fame intact. When from their rocks and mountains they descend To tear the stranger or to pluck the friend, I spring between them and their hoped-for prey, And whoop them from their fiendish feast away.'-p. 24. The author of the Excursion, it seems, is reported to have spoken disparagingly of the author of Thalaba's poetry at some time and place, neither of which are men L. 2 tioned. |