418 Oxford; a Poem. [APRIL, 



from his stilts. Henceforth his name ceases to blush in large red letters 

 on the play-bill ; instead of figuring alone in a line, he fills it up in con- 

 nection with the inglorious names of Thompson, Smith, or Hopkins ; 

 and, finally, drops drown from Macbeth to the Lord Mayor in " Richard ;" 

 and, from a high-flown tragedian, sinks at once into a very so-so melo- 

 dramatist. 



Mr. Montgomery's poetical career presents an exact parallel to the 

 one we have just described. He started early in life, with a thousand 

 factitious advantages ; was brought before the public accompanied with 

 a thundering flourish of harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and cymbal. 

 He was a prodigy of youthful genius : was to revive in his own person 

 the golden days of poetry ; was to surpass Juvenal as a satirist, and Mil- 

 ton as an epic writer ; and when he died, was to be honoured with a tomb 

 in Westminster Abbey. Like the aspiring Thespian above alluded to, 

 the " Omnipresence of the Deity" was his Hamlet. Charity overlooked 

 the defects of this crude abortion, in the hope that it would be redeemed 

 by the next performance. While this expectation was yet rife among 

 the public, out came his Macbeth, " Satan/' Alas ! here again was a 

 failure, and one of so unequivocal a character, that it was manifest to 

 all who knew a hawk from a hand-saw, that the author's days, as a poet, 

 were numbered. He has taken too high a flight, said the critics ; so he has, 

 echoed the public, and must descend to his proper level. And accordingly 

 he has done so, and this with steps singularly and beautifully progressive. 

 From the Deity he has plunged headlong to the Devil that is to say, 

 from heaven to hell ; and from hell he has degenerated in the rank of 

 intellectual power to Oxford. What his next performance if he should 

 ever perform again, which we doubt may be, it is not for us to antici- 

 pate. Probably from Oxford he may drop gently down to Bath, and from 

 Bath to Brentford, and end his poetic career by figuring as a small ver- 

 sifier in the pages of some monthly periodical. Thus, whether it be the 

 actor or the author, the one who descends from Hamlet to Harlequin, or 

 the other, who sinks from Heaven to Oxford, the result is the same 

 the punishment of extreme presumption. It is not for Phaeton to drive 

 the horses of the sun. It is not for the melodramatist to affect the tra- 

 gedian. It is not for Mr. Montgomery to sport with the majesty of the 

 Godhead. 



This is harsh language. Granted. But we fear it is but too well founded. 

 Of Mr. Montgomery's former works we say nothing : they have long 

 since passed to their great account; our business at present is with 

 " Oxford ;" and it is from this alone that we shall proceed to deduce the 

 fact of his incapacity. The poem professes to be a description moral 

 statistic literary, and even geographical of the celebrated foster- 

 parent of high Tories and Sir Robert Inglises. The subject is a tempt- 

 ing, at any rate a poetic one ; let us see, then, how it is treated. 



" What makes the glory of a mighty land, 

 Her people famous, arid her hist'ry grand ?" 



This couplet, than which no small-beer at a cheap seminary was ever 

 flatter or more vapid, opens the poem, and is followed by a dozen others 

 of the same calibre, in the course of which we are assured that intellect 

 is the only thing that can make a nation famous, and that, therefore, it 

 is to Oxford that England must owe her fame with posterity, and soar 



" on wing sublime, 

 Above the reach of earth, and roar of time." 



