672 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[\JUNE, 



Some Intersperse 



Salt waters through the sordid heaps, and seize 

 The flowers and figures starting fresh to view. 



That is the workmen scrub the dirt 

 off' the pieces of tesselated pavement, 

 and make the flowers and figures visible. 

 For this purpose salt water is more effi- 

 cient than sweet another proof of Mr. 

 Lander's close observation of facts. 



Others rub hard large masses, and essay 

 To polish into white what they misdeem 

 The growing green of many trackless years. 



Here we confess we should have been 

 quite at a stand, but for a benevolent 

 note. They were scrubbing verde an- 

 tique, which they mistook for Parian, 

 stained by vegetation, and long exposure 

 to the weather. 



Far off at intervals the axe resounds 



With regular strong stroke, and nearer home 



Dull falls the mallet with long labour fringed. 



These are nice observations that mark 

 the poet. The mallet was an old one, 

 or had been much used, was conse- 

 quently fringed, or worn to ribbons at* 

 the edges, and of course did not give the 

 sharp sound of a new one. 



Here arches are discovered, there huge beams 

 Resist the hatchet, but in fresher air 

 Soon drop away, fyc. fyc. 



The poet's philosophy his knowledge 

 of nature and art too, has no limits ; and 

 the fearless prodigality with which he 

 lavishes it upon the reader, shews a re- 

 liance upon the opulence of his resources 

 that is quite enviable. 



Mr. Landor has a trick of spelling his 

 words after his own fancy in contempt 

 9f all custom or analogy. He has des- 

 pach for despatch, and rhymes it with 

 scratch. This is in Gunlaug, to which, 

 by the way, we direct the reader's at- 

 tention. In it the poet attempts the 

 familiar but, as it often happens when 

 people are unused to the exercise, he 

 only plays the fool, and that very clum- 

 sily. 



Old Man of the Mountain, $c. Tales 

 from the German of Tieck. 1 vol Tieck 

 has, we believe, a very high reputation 

 among his own countrymen for skill in 

 handling diableries and mysteries, or- 

 dinary and extraordinary ; but except 

 with boys and girls in their teens, and 

 a few dreaming persons who never get 

 out of them, none, we suspect, are likely 

 to be very much charmed with him 

 here. If curiosity prompt others to 

 look at his performances, contempt must 

 scon force them to throw them aside 

 the tales are far too childish in material, 

 and too crazy in construction, to afford 

 amusement to people who are not half 

 as addled as the author, or at least as 

 most of the personages who figure in his 

 scenes. A German romancer is not con- 



tent with marking the workings of hu- 

 man passions in the encounters of com- 

 mon life in the complications of cir- 

 cumstances which realities furnish in 

 inexhaustible variety more marvellous 

 by far than mere imagination supplies 

 but he must revive again the worn- 

 out extravagances of ages of ignorance, 

 or at least or ages of coarse and clouded 

 observation, and intermingle them with 

 modern precision and refinement thus 

 producing alienation and disgust where 

 his purpose is to interest, and astound, 

 and conciliate. When magic and mar- 

 vels were subjects of serious belief, they 

 stood on a level with facts, and might 

 claim, even pre-eminently, description 

 and discussion ; and so the existing pre- 

 judices of a people, in whatever class of 

 that people, are fair subjects still ; but, 

 unluckily, Tieck represents them in a 

 style and manner fitted only for the 

 nursery. The Old Man of the Moun- 

 tain's story is a succession of circum- 

 stances, scarcely any two of which hang 

 together effects stand without their 

 causes, aod actions without their mo- 

 tives and the characteristic of the 

 piece is of course obscurity. The old 

 man is rich to repletion in mines and 

 manufactories ; in early life he has ex- 

 perienced troubles, and they have soured 

 him, and, in spite of a kindly tempera- 

 ment, have given him a distrust of man- 

 kind. He shuts himself up, and trusts 

 his concerns to agents ; and he is of 

 course robbed and plundered ; but such 

 is his general and unaccountable pros- 

 perity, that the loss is but a drop from 

 a bucket, and he prefers suspecting every 

 body in the mass, and nobody in particu- 

 lar, to discovering the source of depreda- 

 tion. The author of all proves finally to 

 be his chief privy counsellor, and the 

 detection seems to' strike the death-blow 

 of the Old Man of the Mountain whose 

 character is a perfect puzzle ; and the 

 last thing Tieck thinks of is to unriddle 

 it himself, or give others a clue. The 

 bulk of the tale is occupied with the 

 speculations of the old man's subordi- 

 nate agents, and their schemes for dis- 

 covering the marauders ; and nothing 

 can exceed the absurdity of the prating 

 about the possible secrets of nature, but 

 the detailing of them thus without aim 

 or effect. 



The " love-charm" is the murder of 

 a child by a lovely young woman and an 

 old crone, to fascinate the affections of 

 a young gentleman akeady sufficient- 

 ly disposed to admiration. The lover 

 sees the whole atrocity through a 

 chink ; and the bridal ceremony closes 

 with his stabbing the lady, and throwing 

 himself out of the window, we believe. 



Pietro is neither more nor less than a 

 scholar who, by dint of hard study, gets 

 a command over some poor subordinate 





