1830.] 



Domestic and Foreign. 



been long extinct. Malvasia is a corruption 

 of this Monemvasia. 



At Tripolitza, he communicates a little 

 bit of information for the naturalists : they 

 are not of ten indebted to him: "An idea pre- 

 vails here, which I have heard repeated in 

 several parts of the Morea, that the swallows 

 come in the spring from Africa on the lacks 

 of the cranes. A person of good credit has 

 assured me, that he has seen a crane light 

 upon a ship at sea with swallows on its back. 

 The storks arrive in the Morea at the same 

 time as the cranes, but are not swallow-car- 

 riers ; whether," he adds, to show that he can 

 be funny if he chooses, " whether from want 

 of charity, or want of strength, I cannot 

 learn." 



Mount Sinai, a Poem, in four Books, ty 

 William Phillips, of the Middle Temple, 

 1830. It is of no manner of use for writers 

 to be continually deprecating in the way they 

 do. The world wish to be informed or 

 amused, and find no compensation, no in- 

 demnity, in apologies and palliatives. Read- 

 ers care not about the arduousness of the task 

 it is the writer's own choice ; nor about his 

 possible inability it is his concern : and as 

 little are they influenced by being told, as 

 Mr. Phillips tells them, that it is a first 

 effort; that (by implication) the next will 

 be better ; that the deed was done in sorrow 

 and suffering. Even the wonder-working 

 pencil of Mr. Martin can do nothing for him, 

 nor ought it. The poem must stand upon its 

 own merits. He was bound neither to write 

 nor to publish. If the writing relieved dejec- 

 tion, it is well ; it answered a good purpose 

 the publishing will do nothing but annoy his 

 readers, and finally himself. Accustomed as 

 we are to force our attention, we could not 

 manage Mr. Phillips's poem: about two- 

 thirds of the first canto wore us to a stick. 

 The author professes to adhere to Milton's 

 " metrical economy, as preferable to that of 

 numbers of more modern extraction." If 

 Mr. P. was to be read by Milton's cotempo- 

 raries, there would be some reason in thus 

 adhering ; they might read it ; but for what 

 purpose the obsolete tournure of his style is to 

 be revived, or who is to be charmed, by it, is 

 past our comprehension. It is the idlest pe- 

 dantry imaginable to employ antiquated words, 

 and not the language of the times to use stale 

 and stiff inversions of phrase because they 

 were fashionable two centuries ago. We 

 hate mere verbal criticism, and never have 

 recourse to it ; but we must ask what beauty 

 the author discovers in create for creation, 

 alternate for successive, equal for adequate, 

 sometime for formerly ? why he employs 

 such words as dissilient or aperient, when he 

 is talking, not of opening medicine, but of 

 opening a door ? or inchoate, natheless, called 

 of for called by, &c. ? 



We must quote a line or two where the 

 writer evidently thinks he is particularly bril- 

 liant. 



Sacred Sleep, 

 Insensate handmaid of the dewy night, 

 Claim'd all in Israel, and the camp was still. 

 Some of the effects of a flight of locusts : 



Pleasant herbs, 



'Neath fell infliction of the frequent fang, 

 Distain the sward with aromatic, while 

 At browse the dusky populace malign 

 In breathing acres batten. 



What enigma is this ? is reflecting meant ? 

 Fair forms of angels from his wrath emerged, 

 Glassing the mellow smile of Him. 

 But a longer scrap will furnish a fairer esti- 

 mate. Moses is setting out for Mount Sinai. 

 The camp thus threads he till the gate extreme 

 Itself is gain'd. Evolving, it divides 

 On mural hinge aperient, but erewhile 

 Albeit impregnable. From thence infer 

 How high his office! Presently, while Night 

 Attain'd her zenith, upon Sinai's skirts, 

 Beyond the frontier of the wild, he stood. 

 Shone full before him (he might else have err'd) 

 Such light as lingers in the filming eye 

 Of late-expiring, red, solstitial eve 

 On fertile Ind, or o'er the Caspian, rich 

 In watery mine. With faltering step and faint 

 On quest portentous clomb the prophet then 

 Steep Sinai difficult with faltering step 

 And faint, on quest portentous he. Though toil 

 Or pain there needs not to a thewe, or nerve 

 Ascending thus that mount precipitous. 

 For seraph strength upon his aged limbs 

 Was knit and girded such a strength divine 

 As mortals boast not: nor yet marvel was 

 That soul wax'd weak, without though seraph- 

 braced, 

 Alone, unsandall'd, he must meet the Lord. 



Then was Moses fatigued or not ? or did he 

 only make believe ? If he was, it must, it 

 seems, have been voluntarily incurred. 



On his arrival at the summit, he was thus 

 addressed : 



Arise and hearkeri, O beloved of God ! 



Beloved as well henceforth as heretofore. 



Which puts a stop to our progress, and will 

 to most others. 



The Pilgrim of the Hebrides, 1830. A 

 tour in rhyme, distributed not into chapters, 

 but cantos ; the first ranging from Glasgow 

 to Staffa, the next from Staffa to Fort Wil- 

 liam, and a third from Fort William to 

 Edinburgh. A second visit comprehends a 

 tour to Inverary, to Skye and Inverness, and 

 back again to Edinburgh. The poet de- 

 scribes ^and remarks by turns, historically 

 and morally, always with facility, and some- 

 times forcibly. He carries the fetters of 

 rhyme lightly ; they seem no burden, no en- 

 cumbrance : he moves as easily with them 

 as without ; they are of silk not metal. The 

 versification is vigorous and sonorous; but 

 the stuff and staple, however elegantly ex- 

 pressed, are of a very ordinary quality, very 

 dull prose ; and the whole wears by the 

 monotony of the cadence and the very preci- 

 sion of the metre, and especially by the com- 

 monness of the sentiment. 



