556 MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND ART. 



that one line would not have told us that the " view" required was to 

 be " extensive." But Dry den has a line near to the point 



" No longer letted of his prey, 

 He leaps up at it with enraged desire; 

 O'erlooks the neighbours with a wide survey, 

 And nods at every house his threat'ning fire." 



To " o'erlook his neighbours" one would almost consider was a 

 " survey" sufficiently " wide." Mr. Sharpe thought so well of his 

 remark that he retailed it to Byron, who entered it in his Journal, 

 stating that the first line was "heavy and useless." Read the first six 

 lines of Pope's Iliad, and you will find a useless word in each line. 



In the same letter Mr. Sharpe has borrowed a truth from Johnson. 

 " Its (poetry) character, its very essence, being to give pleasure."' 

 p. 37. Let Mr. S. read the Preface to Shakspeare, and he will see 

 that the end of all poetry is to please. 



Mr. Sharpe says, in writing poetry, " an irresistible and peculiar 

 genius is indispensable." This struck us as remarkable when we 

 read the latter half of this volume. 



LIFE OF Sm WALTER SCOTT, BARONET; WITH CRITICAL NO- 

 TICES OF HIS WRITINGS, BY GEORGE ALLAN, ESQ. EDIN- 

 BURGH, THOMAS IRELAND, JUN. 



MR. ALLAN'S Life of Scott may not unaptly be termed an immense 

 storehouse of anecdote for all future biographers to select from ad 

 libitum. Much of his work, necessarily, is compilation ; partly from 

 those delicious snatches of autobiography which Sir Walter scattered 

 here and there in the various editions of his works, and partly from 

 the thousand-and-one anecdotes reported from the pens of his ex- 

 ceedingly good, but somewhat over-curious, friends. The present 

 biographer seems to have a thorough knowledge of the Scottish lite- 

 rature of the nineteenth century, and a tolerable smattering of that 

 of Germany. Were we to judge, from his extreme minuteness on 

 points judicial, we should say he was one of those praiseworthy 

 noblesse de sa robe of " Auld Reekie," who contrive to eke c-ut the 

 somewhat scanty fees of the outer house. He has certainly written 

 his book with much skill and industry; and no one could have made 

 more of the superficial materials he had to draw from than has Mr. 

 Allan. 



Were any one, however, to write with the pen of an angel upon 

 this subject, his effusions would be but coldly received. Lockhart's 

 Life is looked forward to by all classes with eager impatience ; and, 

 in proportion as the public are kept on the tenter-hooks by the some- 

 what protracted delay of this work, so will they reject any attempt to 

 propitiate them with te a sop in the pan." We wish sincerely well 

 to Mr. Allan's book, but we doubt much if his evidently laborious 

 task will meet with the encouragement which it undoubtedly de- 

 serves. 



