270 LADY OF THE LAKE BLEMISHES OF EXECUTION.

Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending,
And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy;
Thy numbers sweep with nature's vespers blending,
With distant echo from the fold and lea,

And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee.
"Hark! as my ling'ring footsteps slow retire,
Some Spirit of the Air has wak'd thy string!
'Tis now a Seraph bold, with touch of fire;
'Tis now the brush of Fairy's frolic wing.
Receding now, the dying numbers ring

Fainter and fainter down the rugged dell!
And now the mountain breezes scarcely bring
A wand'ring witch-note of the distant spell-

And now, 'tis silent all! - Enchantress, fare thee well!"

p. 289, 290.

These passages, though taken with very little selection, are favourable specimens, we think on the whole, of the execution of the work before us. We had marked several of an opposite character; but, fortunately for Mr. Scott, we have already extracted so much, that we shall scarcely have room to take any notice of them; and must condense all our vituperation into a very insignificant compass. One or two things, however, we think it our duty to point out. Though great pains have evidently been taken with Brian the Hermit, we think his whole character a failure, and mere deformity

-hurting the interest of the story by its improbability, and rather heavy and disagreeable, than sublime and terrible in its details. The quarrel between Malcolm and Roderick, in the second canto, is also ungraceful and offensive. There is something foppish, and out of character, in Malcolm's rising to lead out Ellen from her own parlour; and the sort of wrestling match that takes place between the rival chieftains on the occasion is humiliating and indecorous. The greatest blemish in the poem, however, is the ribaldry and dull vulgarity which is put into the mouths of the soldiery in the guard-room. Mr. Scott has condescended to write a song for them, which will be read with pain, we are persuaded, even by his warmest admirers: and his whole genius, and even his power of versification, seems to desert him when he attempts to repeat their conversation. Here is

FLATNESS OF THE COARSE SCENES.

271

some of the stuff which has dropped, in this inauspicious attempt, from the pen of one of the first poets of his age or country:

"Old dost thou wax, and wars grow sharp;

66

Thou now hast glee-maiden and harp,
Get thee an ape, and trudge the land,
The leader of a juggler band.'-

No, comrade! -no such fortune mine.
After the fight, these sought our line,
That aged harper and the girl;
And, having audience of the Earl,
Mar bade I should purvey them steed,
And bring them hitherward with speed.
Forbear your mirth and rude alarm,
For none shall do them shame or harm."
'Hear ye his boast!' cried John of Brent,
Ever to strife and jangling bent:

Shall he strike doe beside our lodge,
And yet the jealous niggard grudge
To pay the forester his fee?

I'll have my share, howe'er it be.'

p. 250, 251.

His Highland freebooters, indeed, do not use a much

nobler style. For example:

66 6

It is, because last evening tide

Brian an augury hath tried,

Of that dread kind which must not be

Unless in dread extremity,

The Taghairm called; by which, afar,
Our sires foresaw the event of war.
Duncraggan's milk-white bull they slew.'-
'Ah! well the gallant brute I knew ;
The choicest of the prey we had,
When swept our merry-men Gallangad.
Sore did he cumber our retreat;
And kept our sternest kernes in awe,
Even at the pass of Beal 'maha."

-p. 146, 147.

Scarcely more tolerable are such expressions as —

"For life is Hugh of Larbert lame;"

Or that unhappy couplet, where the King himself is in such distress for a rhyme, as to be obliged to apply to one of the most obscure saints on the calendar.

""Tis James of Douglas, by Saint Serle;

The uncle of the banish'd Earl."

272 LADY OF THE LAKE- ITS FAULTS VERY VENIAL,

We would object, too, to such an accumulation of strange words as occurs in these three lines:

"Fleet foot on the correi;
Sage counsel in Cumber;
Red hand in the foray,'" &c.

Nor can we relish such babyish verses as

These, however, and several others that might be mentioned, are blemishes which may well be excused in a poem of more than five thousand lines, produced so soon after another still longer: and though they are blemishes which it is proper to notice, because they are evidently of a kind that may be corrected, it would be absurd, as well as unfair, to give them any considerable weight in our general estimate of the work, or of the powers of the author. Of these, we have already spoken at sufficient length; and must now take an abrupt leave of Mr. Scott, by expressing our hope, and tolerably confident expectation, of soon meeting with him again. That he may injure his popularity by the mere profusion of his publications, is no doubt possible; though many of the most celebrated poets have been among the most voluminous: but, that the public may gain by this liberality, does not seem to admit of any question. our poetical treasures were increased by the publication of Marmion and the Lady of the Lake, notwithstanding the existence of great faults in both those works, it is evident that we should be still richer if we possessed fifty poems of the same merit; and, therefore, it is for our interest, whatever it may be as to his, that their author's muse should continue as prolific as she has hitherto been. If Mr. Scott will only vary his subjects a little more, indeed, we think we might engage to insure his own reputation against any material injury from their rapid parturition; and, as we entertain very great doubts whether much greater pains would enable him

If

AND PROBABLY NOT WORTH CORRECTING.

273

to write much better poetry, we would rather have two -beautiful poems, with the present quantum of faultsthan one, with only one tenth part less alloy. He will always be a poet, we fear, to whom the fastidious will make great objections; but he may easily find, in his popularity, a compensation for their scruples. He has the jury hollow in his favour; and though the court may think that its directions have not been sufficiently attended to, it will not quarrel with the verdict.

(APRIL, 1808.)

Poems. By the Reverend GEORGE CRABBE. 8vo. pp. 260. London, 1807.*

WE receive the proofs of Mr. Crabbe's poetical existence, which are contained in this volume, with the same sort of feeling that would be excited by tidings of an ancient friend, whom we no longer expected to hear of in this world. We rejoice in his resurrection, both for his sake

* I have given a larger space to Crabbe in this republication than to any of his contemporary poets; not merely because I think more highly of him than most of them, but also because I fancy that he has had less justice done him, The nature of his subjects was not such as to attract either imitators or admirers, from among the ambitious or fanciful lovers of poetry; or, consequently, to set him at the head of a School, or let him surround himself with the zealots of a Sect: And it must also be admitted, that his claims to distinction depend fully as much on his great powers of observation, his skill in touching the deeper sympathies of our nature, and his power of inculcating, by their means, the most impressive lessons of humanity, as on any fine play of fancy, or grace and beauty in his delineations. I have great faith, however, in the intrinsic worth and ultimate success of those more substantial attributes; and have, accordingly, the strongest impression that the citations I have here given from Crabbe, will strike more, and sink deeper into the minds of readers to whom they are new (or by whom they may have been partially forgotten), than any I have been able to present from other writers. It probably is idle enough (as well as a little presumptuous) to suppose that a publication like this will afford many opportunities of testing the truth of this prediction. But, as the experiment is to be made, there can be no harm in mentioning this as one of its objects.

It is but candid, however, after all, to add, that my concern for Mr. Crabbe's reputation would scarcely have led me to devote near one hundred pages to the estimate of his poetical merits, had I not set some value on the speculations as to the elements of poetical excellence in general, and its moral bearings and affinities for the introduction of which this estimate seemed to present an occasion, or apology.

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