1830.] ' Mr. Edward Clarkson. 211 



Course of Time ever forgets. Let the reader compare the two descrip- 

 tions. Montgomery's we have already given. Here is Mr. Pollock's : 



" The cattle looked with meaning face on man 

 And there were sights that none had seen before, 

 And hollow, strange, unprecedented sounds 

 And earnest whisperings, ran along the hills 

 At dead of night ; and long, deep, endless sighs 

 Came from the dreary vale, and from the waste 

 _Vi Came horrid shrieks, and fierce unearthly groans 



And shapes strange shapes in winding-sheets were seen 

 Gliding through night, and singing funeral songs, 

 And imitating sad sepulchral rites ; 

 And voices talked among the clouds, and still 

 The words that men could catch were spoken of them. 

 * * * * * * ' * 



Night comes last night ; the long, dark dying night 

 That has no morn beyond it, and no star. 

 No eye of man hath seen a night like this ; 

 Heaven's trampled justice girds itself for fight ; 

 Earth, to thy knees, and cry for mercy cry 

 With earnest heart" 



What an awful, shadowy spirit of sublimity breathes through this 

 noble passage ! But few images, yet each one a picture ! Who can 

 read, without a shudder, of the strange shapes " gliding through 

 night, arid singing funeral songs ?" The image is replete with 

 power, yet neither too particular nor too elaborate. Had Mr. Mont- 

 gomery attempted to work out an idea of this sort, he would have for- 

 gotten the " funeral songs," in his haste to describe the length, breadth, 

 dresses and decorations of the shapes in the same way as, when manu- 

 facturing a death-bed scene, the thing that most struck his fancy was 

 that poetic article of furniture, the pillow. We return to the Course of 

 Time. " And earnest whisperings ran along the hills." The word 

 " earnest" has amazing significance ; yet is perfectly natural. It is 

 Shaksperian, in the best sense of the term ; in its expressiveness, not 

 less than in its brevity. Mr. Montgomery would have diluted it into 

 some such lines as these : 



Strange whisperings wooed the hills with strong caress, 

 Full of a grand tremendous earnestness I 



But we are forgetting poor Pollock. What can be fuller of that awful 

 mystery which is the soul of effect, than the " voices heard talking 

 among the clouds ?" What more intense in its feeling of humanity, than 

 the idea of man partially overhearing the announcement of his destiny ? 

 The personification of earth, in the simple but expressive phrase, 

 " Earth, to thy knees," is another hint full of lofty meaning, embody- 

 ing a comprehensive spirit of humanity, and differing from Milton 

 insomuch only as it combines excessive feeling with equal boldness of 

 conception. In addition to this graphic energy, the reader will not 

 fail to admire, throughout Mr. Pollock's description, the ease, the force, 

 the almost colloquial simplicity of the language. The words seem to 

 drop into their proper places unconsciously and without effort. The 

 thought is grand, the style natural and unaffected. With Mr. Mont- 

 gomery's catalogue or inventory, the case is diametrically the reverse. 



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