And where'er thy footsteps tread, Bring the wreath, and bring the flow'r, See the meadows in their pride, Haste, then hasten to my bow'r, From the Panorama, Nov. 1818. [VOL. 4 4. CENE-A Coal Mine that has not been entered since the great explosion, A.D. 1754.-FIRE DAMP seated in a massy elbow chair, with his hands in his pockets; a white night-cap considerably soiled, on his head, and, to all appearance frightened out of his wits. Carburets, &c. &c. stand around at respectful distances, but none of them visible by reason of PITCH-DARKNESS. FIRE DAMP rises and takes a turn---(not only revolving on his own axis, but with a mutual revolution among his particles), he soliloquizes after the manner of Comedians." SHALL who claim these mansions as my Quit my domains, and abdicate my throne death. When dire COMBUSTION ventur'd to attack ON THE DEATH OF A BEAUTIFUL These murky regions, how he drove him BOY. BY J. W. LAKE. back-- Destroy'd--annihilated---put him out, I SAW thee, sweet Boy, in the blush of thy He died, like Samson, at his slav rose yonth, He with slaughter'd Like a flower in its loveliness blowing, All bright in the beaming and beauty of truth, And thine eye in its innocence glowing. I saw thee---nor thought in the bue of that wreath Which the rose and the lily had wove, On by fair budding cheek the foul mildew of death Would blight the fond promise of love. Ilov'd thee, sweet Boy, for in thee were enshrin'd What my youth and my promise had known, Ere Ingratitude rose, like the dark desart wind, Ere Misery made me her own. fors. Born at that moment in his watery grave--- Now, now, alas! sad rumours reach my ears, (ATMOSPHERIC sighs---but is manifestly unable to speak.) Oh how I envy thee---the light-wing'd Bears thee aloft o'er continents and seas; To sweep the surface of the rippling stream. I know no change for should I quit my And seek for freedom in the realms of space, 327 Or, where the Desert's whirlwind columns* Or, to the ice-bergs crashing round the Pole; Or, where the Rhetian avelanche bad swell'd on, Some mutter hollow warnings in the blast--Some file the forest, some the heathy mountain-- Some hurl the hanging rock to cheak the Some lure the nighted traveller to the lake, Even while around the blazing hearth theg press, And pity those at sea, or shelterless ! For well they know they must not meet the Sun: Whilst Nature sobs, convulsed, o'er field and flood, To mark her Spring thus blighted in the bud! tress, No more, my friend---I cannot stay to hear-Arm with dispatch---the enemy is near--Swift he approaches---even while I speak, Trembling, I hear his dirty basket creakHe comes--the Magic Lantern I discern; Now, fire and fury-blaze, blow up, and burn. (Enter Sir HUMPHry Davy with a Safety Lamp in one hand, and Newman's Blow Pipe in the other.)---FIRE DAMP makes an attack On the Lamp, but the retreat of his forces becut off as fast as they come to the attack, he is destroyed by inches. In the course of the struggle he utters many exclamations, but Heaven in thy mercy soothe Her wild disnone of them reducible to writing. What remains of him, Sir HUMPHRY compresses into his Blow Pipe, and sends up from it a sky-rocket of ignited platina. On seeing the signal, old KING COAL, comes forward from the back of the stage, where he has been conSned by the usurper.---He compliments the Hero on his victory, and is in turn congratu- The perjured Murderer, the Mutineer: lated on his restoration.---Sir HUMPHRY Let not that wretch fold wife or infant more, invites him to dinner; be courteously dechines Whose gold is alchymised from Africk's the invitation, (evidently mistaking him for the Duke of the same name)---but calls for his fidlers three "--they play. The whole concludes with a grand dance of Pick-axes and Shovels, singing-- Hurrah,---the Tyrant is dead, DAVY bath slain him, and cut off his head; Exeunt omnes. From the Literary Gazette. DESTRUCTION. Whose babes, perchance, this night are fath erless : If any fali, to guilt decree its fate--- career, gore: Lanch thy red arrow at the pirate's deck, "We were here at once surprised and terrified by a sight surely the most magnificent in the world: in that vast expanse of desert, from W. and to NW. of us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at diderent distances, at times moving with great relerity, at others stalking with majestic slowness; at intervals we thought they were cOIL❤ ing in a very few moments to overwhelm us, DESTRUCTION walks abroad---escap- and small quantities of sand, didey would Wach chained him to Vesuvius' fiery womb; retreat, so as to be almost out of sight, their .... VENETIAN. WHEN thou art far, remember-- To meet but strangers there! [VOL.4 O, I would hang my head most sorrowful, And think on them, Earth's woe-worn wanderers, Whom I had smil'd and wept with--nay, would sue To have my griefs again (And I have had no niggard share, God To feel the balm of natural sympathy W Not that I did unclench thy gall- Whichaounds of bruised hearts--altho ing chains, Nor made my gold thy freedom's talisman, Remember, That I did break the chains within my breast That I paid down a ransom from that mine, More precious, and more dear to part withal, The Priest and Levite pass o' th' other side.--- Like a constrained bird it flaps its wings, head Doth make the striped and gaudy pennant Its shivering finger tow`rds the orient--- TURK. Than that which blush'd in Ophir's yellow Nay, let me ease my heart before I go-- veins-- That I, in yielding thee unto thy friends, TURK. Believe me, brave Italian! I never felt so deep a trouble here--- above Our home became invisible, as if One word, one brief word more---'twill be the last! O, I shall tame my fierce-brow'd countrymen That thou didst draw me to thy bosom then--- The very air breath'd strange and careless The torpor of degraded slavery, lest I EXTRACTED FROM A MS. LETTER OF THE BARON VON LAUERWINKEL. T HE manner in which you express by a higher standard than they might yourself concerning the poetry of otherwise have judged it necessary to Moore, is not unlike that which I have apply. By rejecting, in behalf of their met with in many of your English jour- favourite, the honours which we wilnals, and is withal sufficiently natural to lingly grant to a minor poet, they have a person of your age and habits. Like compelled us to look at his productions you I admire the lively and graceful with a severer eye, and to satisfy ourgenius of this man; like you I appre- selves that he is by no means a great ciate the amiable temperament and dis- one. positions which lend a charm to his To tell you the truth, had Mr.Moore verses, more touching than any thing been Frenchman or an Italian, I am which liveliness, grace, and genius alone sorry to say it, had he been born a could confer; but I cannot consent for a countryman of my own-had similar moment to class Mr. Moore with the great pretensions been preferred in favour of poets of England-no more can I per- similar productions among any other suade myself that he is likely to go down European people,-I know not that I to posterity as the national poet of Ire- should have been inclined to weigh land. The claim which has lately been them so scrupulously, or perhaps justiset up for him is one of no trifling im- fied in rejecting them so decidedly. It port. It would not only assign to him is the belief of the most orthodox dia share of the same magnificent honours vines, that the guilt of a careless Chriswhich have of right descended to Byron, tian is greater than that of an ignorant Wordsworth, and Campbell, but min- Heathen, even although the offences of gle with his laurels another wreath such the two men may have been externally as the grateful affection of your own and apparently alike. " Of him to whom country has already woven for Scott much is given the more shall be requirand Burns. The friends of Mr. Moore, ed." I must do justice to your country or the admirers of his genius, have done even although it should be at the exno service either to the poet or to his pense of your favourite. The English works by their injudicious praises and poet who fails to be held great, chiefly their extravagant demands. The only because he chooses not to be pure, falls effect of their zeal is, to make reflective a splendid sacrifice before the altar to men try the productions of their idol which he was brought an unacceptable 28 ATHENEUM. Vol. 4. 330 Remarks on the Poetry of Thomas Moore. shame;" [VOL. 4 offering. Even genius will not save not spill. The muse which he has him; and yet the highest genius will do profaned asserts her privilege even in much. We listen with sorrow to the her degradation. The sculptor or the pernicious sophisms, and gloomy des- painter may destroy his work, or, if it pondings, which deform and darken has parted from his hands, it may be the native majesty of Byron ; but hope veiled by its possessor; but the impure and trust are mingled with our sorrow, poet has roused a demon which he has and we cannot suppose it would be no spell to lay. The foul spirit has reless than blasphemy to despair of such ceived wings with its evocation, and the a spirit. In Moore the redeeming unhappy sorcerer is doomed, wherever power is less. He possesses not, what- he may go, to hear their infernal flap, ever his nobler brother may do, the and tread on the vestiges of their blightcharm which might privilege him to ing. Year after year may pass, and pass through the fire and be unsinged. repentance may sit in the place of vice, But the genius of a poet is estimated "But tears which wash out guilt can't wash out by every man according to his own private feeling, and it may therefore be as and Mr. Moore, when he is stretched well to lay it for a moment out of the upon the bed of death, will understand question. Since the publication of what it was that troubled, with a tenLalla Rookh, the admirers of Moore fold pang, the last agonies of Rochester. have chosen to talk as if his genius It had been well, however, if, when were of the first order, and yourself, I Mr. Moore learned to despise himself observe, are of the same way of think- for gross impurity, he had not stopped ing. On this point we are not likely half-way in his reformation. It had to agree. But however wavering may been well, that instead of lopping off be the standard of some of the late ad- the most prominent branches, he had mirers of Mr. Moore, I well know that torn up the roots also, and for ever withyou at least will have no objections to ered the juices of his tree of evil. Did try the MORALITY of any poet by the he imagine that the harlot would purify only standard which is unchanging and her nature by the assumption of a veil, unerring. If you find that the elements or that his ideas would be remembered of his elegant compositions are essen- with impunity, only because hi words tially and hopelessly impure, you will might be recited without a blush? His have no hesitation in agreeing with me, muse has abused the passport, which that, whatever his original genius may hypocrisy or self-ignorance procured have been, the use to which he has ap- her; and they who adopt the sentiments plied it has taken from him all right to of the bard of the Melodies and Lalla the place, or the communion, of the Rookh, although indeed they need not great poets of England. That man be confounded with the disciples of must think lightly and erringly, who Little, must remain for ever unworthy doubts the eternal union of the high- and incapable of understanding or enest intellect with the highest virtue. I joying those pure and noble thoughts, doubt not that I shall speedily bring which form the brightest ornament of you to be of the same mind with my- their productions, with whom Mr. self, respecting the tendency of Mr. Moore would fain have himself to be Moore's performauces; and if you do associated. The whole strain of his so, you will, in the sequel, have less music is pitched upon too low a key. difficulty in embracing my opinion con- If he never sinks into absolute pollution, cerning its inspiration also. neither dares he for a moment rise to Of the early productions, by which the the true sublime of purity. He writes name of this poet was rendered notori- for women chiefly, and woman is at all ous, I shall say nothing. He himself times his principal topic. How strange professes to be ashamed of them, and I that he should never have been able to doubt not the sincerity of his ofes- flatter his audience by dignifying his sions. He is, moreover, sufficiently theme! How strange, that he, who punished by their existence. The poi- seems to understand so well every mison which he has once mingled he can- nor, superficial, transitory charm, should |