MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 301 



stuff and nonsense. In fact, the quotation (from Dryden) set down on the 

 title-page will convey to the understanding of the luckless reader of such 

 balderdash the true state of the redoubtable author's political and historical 

 condition ; doubtless, " my lord " intended these lines to apply to Sir Robert 

 Peel, whom "my lord" has in vain attempted to eulogise ; but, if we are 

 well informed, they more immediately apply to "my lord" himself. 



" So much thy foes thy manly mind mistook, 

 Who judged it by the mildness of thy look ; 

 Like a well-tempered sword it bent at will, 

 But kept the native toughness of the steel." 



" My lord " has condescended to dedicate this trifling offal of his disguised 

 muse to the god of his Utopian idolatry, and in so doing this his lordship has 

 set down in pretty large characters " LATE PRIME MINISTER OF ENGLAND : " 

 as if England or any one of her little unknown scribblers could, by possibility, 

 forget that the Tamworth manifesto-monger had been, and by the king too, 

 placed at the head of affairs in this great and rising nation. The object of 

 this little book, which, like Southey's, has been cast upon the waters, is 

 too impertinent to escape the condemnation it so richly merits at page 

 137. My lord has sensibly enough given us the cue; with that singular 

 fatality which accompanies all the " acts " of lordling treatment, and lets in 

 upon us the light of effrontery, while at the same time he draws the curtain 

 aside and developes all the little common sage gabble his lordship is master 

 of. "My lord" says, very unfortunately for the reputation both of his 

 muse and idol god, Sir Robert Tamworth. 



" These small manoeuvres will no longer do, 

 Two separate trials preceded failures two ; 

 The last weak kick of conscience must be quell'd, 

 Matters are desperate Peel must be expell'd." 



So much for our Poetaster, Peer, and his Prime Minister. We really think 

 Mr. Churton, who is a most respectable publisher, must sustain some injury 

 in respect of his reputation we mean by the publication of such irrational 

 farrago. 



We take leave, in conclusion, to intimate to " My lord," the poetaster in- 

 cognita and by no means in a bad spirit that in our opinion wit and 

 wisdom differ : 'wit is upon the sudden turn ; wisdom is in bringing about 

 ends. Nature must be the groundwork of wit and art : otherwise whatever 

 is done will prove but Jack-pudding's work. 



Songs of the Prophecies. By M. S. MILTON. 



THE name of Milton will, at one and the same time, duly impress the 

 reader with a " poetic reverence," such as belongs to no other save that of 

 Shakspeare himself. This may not prove favourable to the pretensions, and 

 already well-earned reputation, of the author of the OCEAN QUEEN, a poem 

 of acknowledged merit, the authorship of which has very justly been attri- 

 buted to the M. S. Milton, whose songs of the prophecies we are about to 

 notice. 



It has been the almost monthly cant of the last half dozen years, if not 

 the insufferable daily matter of your table and coffee-house talkers, to de- 

 nounce the present as an age devoid of " high poetical talents :" that, " like 

 the age of chivalry, the age of poesy had passed away," and we of the present 

 day had nothing to expect but one doleful continuance of monotonous every - 



M.M. No. 9. 2 Q 



