324 Monthly Review of Literature. 



The Bridal of Naworth ; a Poem in Three Cantos. Simpkin and 



Marshall. 



THE story of this spirited poem is, as we learn from the preface, founded on 

 events narrated in Nicholson's History of Cumberland. It is a wild and fan- 

 ciful theme, filled with the material after olden romances, and is handledwith 

 much taste, feeling, and delicacy. The rhythm is for the moft part excellent, 

 and the characters, though only faintly portrayed, are touched in a masterly 

 style. Since Scott's " Harold the Dauntless," we have seen nothing of the 

 kind superior. This, though high praise in these days, will be found to be 

 fully justified on a perusal of the volume itself. Here is an extract that will 

 suffice to stamp its poetical merits much above mediocrity : 



" Maimed by oppression in each better part, 

 Sensual by nature, brutalized by art, 

 Savage and sullen, grov'lling as the earth, 

 He trod in slav'ry from his hour of birth 

 The abject peasant clank'd his galling chain, 

 And found in crime a recompence for pain. 

 All fearful vices of that barb'rous age 

 Could ease his labours, and his pains assuage ; 

 Revengeful, selfish (vices of the heart 

 Which knows no kin, but ever broods apart), 

 Prowling and daring, ignorant of law, 

 What recked he for the bounds he never saw ? 

 Or what had recked all human ties beheld ? 

 His arm ne'er spared but where its force was quelled. 

 The dark effect accorded with the cause 

 He found no justice, recognized no laws. 

 Driven like a surly beast from stall to field, 

 The goaded serf toiled on, by custom steeled. 

 Spurned by his lord, as fellow to the brute, 

 The mastiff licked, or snarled, or bit the foot, 

 As strength or daring prompted he but knew 

 Such bonds as those his tyrants on him threw ; 

 And wilder, fiercer, from his spirit broke 

 The smothered flame, when once escaped the yoke. 

 Earth was to him as our first parents known ; 

 What yielded to his grasp became his own : 

 And in the deep recesses of a breast 

 So wholly lost, degraded, and oppressed, 

 What marvel such an evil spirit grew 

 As jars with nature, when thus shown to view?" 



Of this Lord Ranulph the hero is the leader, and his deeds are narrated 

 with graphic skill and distinctness. The Third Canto is a very powerful 

 piece of dramatic composition, and indeed the whole framework of the 

 tale evinces capability for that species of writing worth the highest praise. 

 We trust that the author will speedily afford us another opportunity of wel- 

 coming him in print. 



The Outcast. 



Is a poem that affords a very healthy contrast to the majority of versified per- 

 petrations in these days. Its merits are likely to be overlooked, from the fact 

 of its coming before the public in sheets, and without a respectable exterior, 

 but it is deserving of the attention of the patrons of light literature. 



