1S23.] Poetical Popularity 



fairies ; and could invest his ciealioiis 

 with shapes and attributes so conso- 

 nant, and endue them with language, 

 sentiments, and feelings, so accordant, 

 that they appear to he scarcely less 

 legitimate existences than the human 

 characters with which, under such 

 finely imaginative civciimstaiices, they 

 are so appropriately mingled. Milton, 

 also, could "hurl his spells into the 

 misty air," and spread around his 

 ideal Comus an enchantment so eredi- 

 tilc to the imagination, that one could 

 almost expect to meet the jolly revel- 

 ler and his rout in some of our mid- 

 night rambles " in the green navel of 

 this woody isle." " Soaring with no 

 middle flight," he could identify a 

 Michael or a Raphael ; or, plunging to 

 the bottomless abyss, could " body 

 forth" his fallen angels with such fear- 

 ful sublimity, and breathe through 

 them such terrific consonancy of pas- 

 sion and emotion, — such vcri-simili- 

 tude of infernal sentiment, that his 

 demonology has become, as it were, a 

 part of the national faith ; and to be- 

 lieve in devils is to believe them to be 

 4>uch as the poet in his Pandemonium 

 has described, 



Mr. Moore has chosen to try his pen 

 in creations of the same imaginative 

 order. But what of tliis creative, this 

 organizing, this sustaining, jtower, tliis 

 divine attribute of imagination, has he 

 displayed? Is it imaginative creation, 

 is it angel-making, to clap a pair of 

 wings upon the slioulders of some 

 amorous Strephon, or some mystified, 

 faalf-scntimental, pelit maitre, and, 

 sticking a star in his forehead, make 

 him "sigh away Sunday" in quaint 

 conceits and sing-song octasyllabics? 

 Is it thus that we are to be " trans- 

 ported out of tills ignorant present" 

 into the region of idealities? Are these 

 the high sublimities of which the sub- 

 ject chosen by Mr. Moore is eiiher 

 capable, or else it is a subject not fit 

 to have been ehosiMi at all? Not to 

 soar, with such a theme, into the sub- 

 lime, is to sink into bathos. It is per- 

 fectly unfit for sing-song mediocrity. 



iiut Mr. Moore lias a name that is 

 up, — and deservedly up for his smaller 

 and lighter pieces. Some of his songs 

 may be justly ranked among the most 

 beautiful in our language; ami his 

 Anacreon has a fascination that defies 

 all jriticism. Other circumstances 

 have also conspired to give him an 

 tclut, and to beget an expectation of 

 4 



511 



higher things ; of which, nevertheless, 

 he has not shown himself capable. 

 The " Fire-worshippers" has indeed 

 some heart-stirring beauties ; but all 

 the rest of his " Lulia Rook," was mere 

 la In. 



But his " Loves of the Angels" is to 

 be sustained, if it can, for the fashion's 

 sake, in all its glitter ; and- every 

 mean is tried to levy u])on the public 

 a general lax of admiration. It is 

 thrust upon us again and again, week- 

 ly, monthly, quarterly, — in extract and 

 embellishment, — in Review, in Maga- 

 zine, in Journ;)l. Artists colleague 

 with typographists to thrust it upon 

 our eyes, if we will not take it in at 

 our ears. The pencil and the graver 

 are employed to give printshop-win- 

 dow immortality to literary evanes- 

 cence, and to emblazon in picture 

 what in words must die. 



A periodical publication, in parti- 

 cular, whose literary merits might 

 entitle it to a less fiddle-faddle title 

 than it assumes, has undertaken to 

 embellish several of its successive 

 numbers with a series of illustrations 

 from this poem. Three of the pro- 

 posed prints have already appeared ; 

 all exquisitely engraved, and the first 

 of them almost as beautilul in design 

 as in execution: the second, and, still 

 more, the third, mistaking, like the 

 poem they are devoted to, meretricious 

 prettiness for the heau ideal of imagi- 

 native beauty. 



But it is the taste of the artist in the 

 selection he has made of a passage 

 for the subject of his third illustration, 

 that has led to these animadversions. 

 The quotation is as follows: — 

 'Twas first at twilight, on the shore 



Of the smooth sea, he heard the lute 

 And voice of her lie lov'd steal o'er 



The sUvcr waters, that lay mule, 

 As loth, by even a breath, to stay 

 The idlgrimai^e of that sweet lay, 

 Whose echoes still went on and ov, 

 Till last iimmif; the llirlii that shone 

 Far off, hcyo;v| the ocean's brim. 



Silver watc-rs laying mute, that they 

 may not stop the pilgrimage of a sweet 

 lay ! and echoes yoing on and on till 

 they are lost among far-olf Un-ht! 

 That is to say, (if I may be iiermitled 

 to compress to meaniii<r what the poet 

 has thought fit to dilate into verhiurje,) 

 sounds that waters will not prevent 

 from travelling on and on, till they are 

 out of sight. What a pity that the 

 artist eonid not e<m(riv«! to introduce 

 some of these pilgrim sounds into hi.s 

 picture! 



