theatre (and I think this is not likely to be disputed), so far these great masters are upon equal ground. Eschylus was a warrior of high repute, of a lofty, generous spirit, and deep, as it should seem, in the erudition of his times. In all these particulars he has great advantage over our countryman, who was humbly born, of the most menial occupation, and, as it is generally thought, unlearned. Eschylus had the whole epic of Homer in his hands, the Iliad, Odyssey, and that prolific source of dramatic fable, the Ilias Minor; he had also a great fabulous creation to resort to amongst his own divinities, characters ready defined, and an audience whose superstition was prepared for every thing he could offer. He had, therefore, a firmer and broader stage (if I may be allowed the expression) under his feet than Shakspeare had. His fables in general are Homeric, and yet it does not follow that we can pronounce for Shakspeare that he is more original in his plots, for I understand that late researches have traced him in all or nearly all. Both poets added so much machinery and invention of their own in the conduct of their fables, that whatever might have been the source, still their streams had little or no taste of the spring they flowed from. In point of character we have better grounds to decide; and yet it is but justice to observe that it is not fair to bring a mangled poet in comparison with one who is entire. In his divine personages Eschylus has the field of heaven, and indeed of hell also, to himself; in his heroic and military characters he has never been excelled: he had too good a model within his own bosom to fail of making those delineations natural. In his imaginary being, also, he will be found a respectable, though not an equal, rival of our poet; but in the variety of character, in all the nicer touches of nature, in all the extravagancies of caprice and humor, from the boldest feature down to the minutest foible, Shakspeare stands alone. Such persons as he delineates never came into the contemplation of Eschylus as a poet: his tragedy has no dealing with them; the simplicity of the Greek fable, and the great portion of the drama filled up by the chorus, allow of little variety of character; and the most which can be said of Eschylus in this particular is that he never offends against nature or propriety, whether his cast is in the terrible or pathetic, the elevated or the simple. His versification with the intermixture of lyric composition is more various than that of Shakspeare; both are lofty and sublime in the extreme, abundantly metaphorical, and sometimes extravagant. Both were subject to be hurried on by an uncontrollable impulse, nor could nature alone suffice for either. Eschylus had an apt creation of imaginary beings at command; He could call spirits from the vasty deep, and they would come; Shakspeare, having no such creation in resource, boldly made one of his own. If Eschylus, therefore, was invincible, he owed it to his armor, and that, like the armor of Eneas, was the work of the gods; but the unassisted invention of Shakspeare seized all and more than superstition supplied to Eschylus.-Observer, No. 69. JAMES GRAHAME, 1765-1811. JAMES GRAHAME, the author of The Sabbath, was the son of a respectable attorney of Glasgow, and was born in that city on the 22d of April, 1765. He was educated at the excellent public schools of that city, and had a very early and strong desire to enter the clerical profession; but it was the long-cherished wish of his father that he should be bred to his own calling. Accordingly, our poet sacrificed his own wishes to those of his parent, and studied law. Many irksome years-the best years of his life-were wasted in this, to him, most uncongenial pursuit; and it was finally abandoned. For many years, however, he toiled on in it, and, from a sense of what he owed to his family, he gave to it all the attention of which a mind devoted to higher purposes was capable. In 1804 he published anonymously his poem of The Sabbath. He had kept from all his friends, and even from his wife, who was possessed of fine literary taste, all knowledge of what he had been engaged in, and silently laid a copy of his poem on his parlor-table as soon as it appeared. Mrs. Grahame was led by curiosity to examine it, and, while doing so, he was walking up and down the room, awaiting some remark from her. At length she burst into enthusiastic admiration of the performance, and, well knowing her husband's weak side, very naturally added, "Ah, James, if you could produce a poem like this!" Longer concealment was impossible; and Mrs. Grahame, justly proud of her husband's genius, no longer desired to check its bent. The Sabbath was warmly received throughout Scotland. It came from the heart; and it spoke to the heart of the nation. Grahame's vocation was now confirmed; and, in the following two years, during the long recess of the Scottish courts he retired with his family to a cottage at Kirkhill, on the classic banks of the Esk, and gave himself up to "Calm contemplation and poetic ease." He now determined to abandon the law, and zealously prepared himself for the ministry. This profession had been his early choice. His appearance, voice, manner, as well as his talents and his piety, were all in keeping with that calling. He was ordained in 1809, and soon after settled with his family in Shipton, in Gloucestershire. In the same year he published his British Georgics, a didactic agricultural poem. His health had long been delicate, and he was induced, in 1811, to go to Edinburgh for a change of air and for medical advice. I Notwithstanding a rather severe criticism la the Edinburgh Review, v. 437. But subsequently, in reviewing the author's Georgics, the same Review made amends for its former severity. See xvi. 213. But it was apparent to all that his days on earth could not be long. He had a natural desire of breathing his last in his native city, and Mrs. Grahame set out with him, on the 11th of September, for Glasgow. He was barely able to reach the place, and died there on the 14th of September, 1811, in the fortyseventh year of his age, most sincerely and deeply lamented by a large circle of friends.1 Of the character of Grahame's poetry there is now but one opinion. Its great charms are, its elevated moral tone, and its easy, simple, and unaffected description. "His Sabbath will always hold its place among those poems which are, and deserve to be, in the hands of the people." He exhibits great tenderness of sentiment, which runs through all his writings and sometimes deepens into true pathos. "We do not know any poetry, indeed, that lets us in so directly to the heart of the writer, and produces so full and pleasing a conviction that it is dictated by the genuine feelings which it aims at communicating to the reader. If there be less fire and elevation than in the straina of some of his contemporaries, there is more truth and tenderness than is commonly found along with those qualities."3 SABBATH MORNING. How still the morning of the hallow'd day! Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man, 1 Professor Wilson has written some beautiful lines to his memory. 2 Quarterly Review, iii. 457. Both seat and board, screen'd from the winter's cold He hopes (yet fears presumption in the hope) To reach those realms where Sabbath never ends. Now let me trace the stream up to its source Tangled so thick with pleaching bramble shoots, That fans my throbbing temples! smiles the plain But, oh, more sweet the thought-heart-soothing thought— Of toil partake this day the common joy 1 The genius of Grahame is characterized by that cheerfulness which seeks and sees beauty in all the aspects of creation, and finds d-light in whatever is high, holy, 'pure, and of good report.' This must be felt by every one capable of dissociating fanaticism from true religion, and of believing that Christianity and gloom, instead of being synonymous terins, are utterly irreconcilable and separated."-MOIR. But, hark! a plaintive sound floating along! Which He, who listens to the hallelujahs THE POOR MAN'S FUNERAL. The younger's plaint; languid he raised his head, The coffin is borne out; the humble pomp As falls each spadeful of the bone-mix'd mould. A last farewell: all turn their several ways. Woes me! those tear-dimm'd eyes, that sobbing breast! |