THE AUTHOR OF *^ DARTMOOR." 215 



terminate his existence ; driven to desperation by losses 

 resulting from gambling, and unable to support the 

 load of an existence which his imprudence has rendered 

 miserable, he plunges through death, unshrived, into 

 the realms of eternity. 



The rushing impetuosity of the verse is well adapted 

 to the character of the subject : we are borne along 

 with the rider, in a strain of fearful rapidity, through 

 the tumult of the tempest and the desolation of the 

 desert, till the sudden and masterly close of the poem 

 leaves us shrinking from the brink of the cataract 

 wherein he has died. 



" To the destined gaol he swept 

 With eye unflinching, and with soul unawed, 

 Through the wild night ; by precipice and peak 

 Tremendous, — over bank, and bridge, and ford — 

 Breasted the torrent — climbed the treacherous brink — - 

 Scaled the rock-crested hill, and burst anon 

 Into the valley, where a thousand streams. 

 Born of the mountain storm, with arrowy speed 

 Shot madly by. His spirit scorned them all — 

 Those dangers and those sounds — for he v^as strong 

 To suffer; and one master aim possessed 

 With an unnatural and resistless power, 

 That lost, lost victim ! — On he sternly plunged 

 Amid the mighty tumult ; — o'er his brow 

 ^Quicker and brighter streamed the lightning; — loud 

 And louder spoke the thunder ; still, unnerved, 

 He pressed his steed — the frightful gulf, at last. 

 Was won, — the river foamed above the dead /" p.p. 92, 93. 



It is sometimes interesting to hear the opinions of 

 talented men on similar subjects : that clever reviewer 

 and sparkling essayist, Hazlitt, says, in speaking of 

 the Cemetery of Pere la Chaise, " They have taken 

 the ^ lean, abhorred monster, death,' and strewed him 

 o'er and o'er with sweets ; they have made the grave 

 a garden, a flower bed, where ail Paris reposes, the 

 rich and the poor, the mean and the mighty, gay and 

 laughing, and putting on a fair outside as in their life 

 time. Death here seems life's play-fellow ; and grief 

 and smiling content sit at one tomb together : roses 

 grow out of the clayey ground; there is the urn for 



