22 PRESUMPTUOUS POETRY. 



Looked and laughed loud and, as they laughed, they plunged 

 The poinards in laughed as they plunged them in 

 And laughing drew them out, and, as they fell 

 Backward, laughed dying ; laughing, so they died 

 In ecstasy, both victors, both death-crowned." 



This, it must be confessed, is much superior to the celebrated 

 " lock" dagger scene in " The Critic." The cachinnatory contrivance 

 was altogether beyond Sheridan. 



We find also a laughing nightingale. Mr. Tennyson was the first, 

 we believe, to discover this strange propensity in birds, and we shall 

 not be surprised if more. recent naturalists do not discover for us a 

 tittering torn- tit, a simpering owl, or perhaps a sighing gander. 

 Every one must have heard of Mr. Coleridge's unpoetical endeavour 

 to convert a feeling into a fact, by attempting to show that the note 

 of the nightingale is merry and not sad ; Mr. Heraud, unwilling to 

 compromise his opinion, keeps clear of the argument to which Mr. 

 Coleridge's assertion has given rise : bidding us take notice at the 

 same time that he is aware that the question has been raised. 



He says, 



" The night bird utters her peculiar song, 

 Of joy or grief uncertain, and to both 

 Strangely attuned." 



But he settles the question, too, in another place, in the following 

 impartial manner : 



" And mingled song the timorous bird outpours, 

 Weeping forth joy, or laughing in its grief." 



This " whichsumever you please, my good little boy,'* method of 

 arranging the matter is truly exhilarating to the exhausted inquirer. 

 But this extraordinary nightingale (e smiling at grief," and " weeping 

 for joy," is not more marvellous than 



" The ass, poetic brute, and dignified 

 With great associations." 



It is true that many a " poetic brute" is an ass; but we know not 

 what to say to the converse of the proposition. We should like to 

 hear that a bonajide donkey had taken pen in hoof, and completed a 

 poem, to be called " Balaam, in twelve books, by Edward Bray/' 



Mr. Wordsworth speaks of " similitude in dissimilitude." The 

 poet before us furnishes us with an illustration of his meaning : 



" Like a morning Iris arched, 



O'er the deep music of a cataract, 



The imperial purple glowed about his loins." 



Of the admirable propriety of Mr. Heraud's diction, let the fol- 

 lowing suffice as a specimen : 



" The foot advanced, one steel-clenched fist grasped air, 

 The other embraced with violence his brows." 



Who ever beheld a horse, whether in real life or in sculpture, with 

 nostrils in this predicament ? 



" The head of that pale horse 



Snorts fire each nostril to each eye constrained 

 In nigh- disrupting rage dilated, tort." 



