LXIX.

And is this all that genius has to hope for?
Immortal fame forbid it! What is gold,
Compared with all th' ethereal mind hath scope for!
'Tis but a fancied blessing, bright, but cold,
And only fit for sordid hands to grope for;
Time sweeps off its possessors, young and old,
And all that they can do is-make a will!
Better whole reams with odes and epics fill.

LXX.

And has he no bequest to leave behind?

Has he been writing all these years in vain?
'Tis true, his heirs nor house nor land will find,
Nor deeds, nor mortgage, will attest his gain:
Instead of parchments, poems duly signed,

They'll see in piles - long epics three times twain-
Couplets for consols-tragedies for freehold;
It wo'nt be his fault if they cannot be sold !

LXXI.

Bards do'nt grow rich, that's an acknowledged truth ;
I know not why, but they have not the knack
Of getting gold-they always look so high,
That if a purse were dropt upon their track,
'Tis ninety-nine to one they past it by,-

The grovelling herd conspire to beat them back :
They who are always stooping to the ground
Have the best chance of what is to be found.

LXXII.

Luxuries are not made for poets' use,

Perhaps 'tis best- —a bard should not be fat,"Twould dull his inspiration, and reduce

Verse to the tamest after-dinner chat.
Good poetry will never spring from goose;
A thin spare diet-not too much of that,-
This is the food to make a bard sublime,-
When they get big, they're renegades from rhyme.
LXXIII.

Go on, thou child of genius! heed them not,-
Fill leaf on leaf with thought, and quire on quire;
Thou mayst survive when they are all forgot!
Pour out, ev'n though it be unseen, thy fire,-
Write verse till death, nor ask for whom--for what;
Rhyme even in despite to show thine ire!
Thou canst at last but meet the poet's doom,-
Get nothing here-but praise beyond the tomb.

3

4

160

SPIRITS' SONG.

I.

CROW'D the cock?—The cock hath crow'd;
Palér still the glow-worm glow'd,

As his shrill awakening horn
Welcom❜d in the approach of morn,-

Fled the darkness with affright,

Fled the vestals that glanc'd on the night;
Abash'd they turn'd their lamps away,

As his clarion proclaim'd the god of the day!
Where are the ghosts of the dead,

That forsook their earthy bed,

And startled the darkness dismal and drear,
With shrieks of horror and fear,

And, piercing the veil of night,

Stood like columns of terrible light,

Like meteors their eyes, and so pallid their hue,

Like giants their stature increasing to view,

Swath'd in the soil'd sheets of the charnel and tomb,
While trembled the peasant, belated in gloom,

As pacing the yawning church-yard thrill'd with dread,
Who willingly would, had he power, have fled

From the yells of the damn'd, and the groans of the dead?-
Have the spirits of darkness sped?

II.

Over a murderer's all-shunned grave,
Where fiends howl, and goblins rave;
While the bandogs hoarsely bark,
Meet the hags with Guthmond dark,-
There, with mickle toil and trouble,
Then they make the hell-broth bubble!
Three and three the cauldron round
Dance infernal beats the ground,-
While the hollow vaults all ring,
And their impious rites they sing,
Rites abhorr'd to Hecate,
Which the sun may never see :
And, as round the ghosts assemble,
Even they with horror tremble;-
Quails each corse within its shroud,
The untouch'd belfry peals aloud,
Many a sepulchre is riven,

Blasted seems the moon in heaven,
And the stars refuse their light,

Acheron enwraps the night.

But they hear the cock crow, and they start as they hear,
The bells cease their peal, and the rout disappear;

Each ghost to his prison-house fleetly retires,

To fast, and to purge off his guilt in the fires.

A

H.

161

REVIEWS.

Queen Hynde, a Poem, in Six Books. By James Hogg, Author of the Queen's Wake, Poetic Mirror, Pilgrims of the Sun, &c. &c.—London, Longman. 1825. pp. 443. THIS wildly-beautiful and very original poem has remained almost unnoticed by the reviewers, though highly deserving the warmest welcome, and the most cordial support, of all true lovers of genuine song and a tale of the "olden time." The Westminster Review, indeed, has inserted a trumpery and unfeeling article respecting it, which, for its want of candour, and utter insensibility to the pure poetic merits of the piece, ought to put that periodical at once out of circulation, as a pseudocritical work from which it is vain to expect either truth or taste. It is in truth a hoggish article, but has the misfortune of not grunting so musically as the famous porker against whom it is ignorantly obstreperous, and who grunts you as sweet as any"-we would say " nightingale," but that himself forbids it. He will be nothing but a lark-" a lark, lost in the heavens' blue."

"The nightingale may give delight
Awhile, 'mid silence of the night;
But th' lark, lost in the heavens' blue,
O, her wild strain is ever new!"-p. 56.

And a lark he is too, for all his name, which, by some sly caprice of chance, was bestowed upon him as the opposite of his nature; perhaps by contrast, to heighten the charm of his genial sweetness, or to surprise us into admiration by the prompt appearance of his native bearing, so different from the character of his announcement. We know he is a lark, but fortune called him Hogg in jest. Well,

"A rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

But let us call the Westminster reviewer what we may, his article will remain a swinish one-a mere grunt. Let him VOL. III. PART I.

M

learn, however, to grunt more mellifluously before he attempt again to write upon our sweet songster of a lark, which we and all, in the mere tantilising freedom of familiar fondness, denominate Hogg, solely because that, from his "wild strain,"

"Pleasures flow in so thick and fast
Upon our hearts, that we at last
Must needs express our love's excess

With words of unmeant bitterness."

What are we to think of the perception of a critic, who refuses to praise the following, as one of the finest specimens of poetical composition he ever read?

Yes, I'll be querulous or boon,

Flow with the tide, change with the moon;
For what am I, or what art thou,

Or what the cloud and radiant bow,

Or what are waters, winds, and seas,
But elemental energies?

The sea must flow, the cloud descend,
The thunder burst, the rainbow bend,
Not when they would, but when they can,
Fit emblems of the soul of man!
Then let me frolic while I may,
The sportive vagrant of a day;
Yield to the impulse of the time,
Be it
toy, or theme sublime;
Wing the thin air or starry sheen,
Sport with the child upon the green;
Dive to the sea-maid's coral dome,
Or fairy's visionary home;

Sail on the whirlwind or the storin,
Or trifle with the maiden's form;
Or raise up spirits of the hill,
But only if, and when I will.

Say, may the meteor of the wild,
Nature's unstaid, erratic child,
That glimmers o'er the forest fen,
Or twinkles in the darksome glen,
Can that be bound? Can that be rein'd?
By cold ungenial rules restrain'd?
No!-leave it o'er its ample home,
The boundless wilderness, to roam!
To gleam, to tremble, and to die,
"Tis Nature's error, so am I !

Then, O forgive my wandering theme!
Pity my faults, but do not blame!

1

We have reason to reproach ourselves for having delayed our notice of this exquisite production, which, but from peculiar circumstances, would have appeared in the last number of our Journal. We had already devoted a considerable portion of a previous number to an examination of the merits of a minstrel of the mountain land, whose genius is somewhat too much restrained, perhaps, by the cold rules of art; and we waited impatiently for the reappearance of this untutored child of song, whose only monitor is nature, that our pages might be agreeably diversified with the representation of the various manners in which genius delights to manifest itself to an admiring world.

The history of Scottish Song is rich in examples of uneducated genius; and the name of Burns is in itself a tower of strength. England too can boast of her untutored sons; and, had we leisure and space, an interesting comparison might be instituted between the different kinds and degrees of merit by which each is distinguished. But the present is no opportunity for the display of national vanity, and we would proceed to our task, like impartial critics, without national prejudice or affection; and least of all would we wish to alloy, with any adscititious admixture, the pleasure which may and ought to be derived by every reader of taste and feeling, from such fine poetry as our "lark in the heavens' blue" has uttered in the broad daylight of his genius-in the full development of his extraordinary powers, and the perfect awakening of his inexhaustible ability.