2(K> Mr. Robert Montgomery, and [AUG. 



denly, plumy tribes (fish, of course) winged into being there (upon the 

 deep), till earth's creatures donkies, to wit geese, foxes, bull-dogs, 

 eagles, lions, &c. &c. rose thick as dews upon a twilight green. Very 

 like dews, indeed ! 



" And thus thou wert, and art, the fountain-soul, 

 And countless worlds around thee live and roll; 

 In sun and shade, in ocean and in air, 

 Diffused, though never lessened, every where." 



All this has been told us twice already in the very first six lines. 



" Lord of all being ! where can fancy fly, 

 To what far realms unmeasured by thine eye, 

 Where dwell'st thou not ? the boundless-viewless one." 



A fourth repetition, slightly varied, of the first six lines. 



" How did thy Presence smite all Israel's eye, 

 Flashed backward by the gleams of Deity !" 



To smite a nation's eye, is an expression that even the utmost licence 

 of poetry can scarcely allow. It is very like giving Israel a black 

 eye. No wonder that it instantly flashed backward. 



" For Thee, whose hidden but supreme control 

 Moves through the world, a universal soul." 



A fifth repetition of the first six lines ! 



" The mercy-fountains of divinity 



Now stream through all with vigour, full and free, 

 As if unloosened from their living source, 

 To carry with them spring's creative force." 



Here is a sonorous farrago of words ! The mercy-fountains of divinity 

 stream through all (through all what?) as if to carry with them 

 spring's creative force. Where to whom or to what are they to carry 

 this creative force ? What is the new " heliacal emersion" talking 

 about ? Can any one of his admirers tell ? Can he tell himself? 



" The boughs hang glittering in their locks of green, 

 The meadow-minstrels carol to the scene." 



By " meadow-minstrels/* Mr. Montgomery of course means birds. 

 Yet what have birds to do with meadows, any more than with moun- 

 tains, glens, woods, moors, or vallies ? The epithet, is lax, and incom- 

 plete. 



" Ye mountain-piles, earth's monuments to heaven ! " 



Sheer nonsense ! Earth did not rear these monuments to heaven ; it 

 was heaven, rather, that reared them 



te Around whose tops the giddy storms are driven, 

 When like an ermine-pall the black cloud broods 

 In misty swell upon your solitudes ; 

 E'er since your giant brows have dared the sky, 

 Almighty Majesty has lingered by !" 



Really, this is wondrous information ! Then for its elevation of thought, 

 who would imagine that a passage with such a grandiloquent opening 



