1825.) 
fatigue, and sought) for recreation: in» the 
lighter paths of lyric andimpromptu: But, 
alas! the parterre,was.as dull as the high 
road.. We found no fragrance in the flowers, 
and the. creaking of a “‘ chimney top’? was 
the best substitute for the harmony that 
should have breathed ‘‘ above, below; and 
all around.” So we ventured once again 
upon. a prolix ditty, “‘ The Bride of Thry- 
bergh ;” the versification of which we found 
almost as harmonious as the name, and the 
interest of the story almost upon a par with 
the versification. We got through, how- 
ever, in some sort of way, almost to the 
catastrophe where 
‘© the wounded knight awoke 
From sleep which seemed his last, and spoke, 
As wild he looked the attendants on,— 
** Where, where is my Edwina gone?” 
Here was he interrupted by 
. | Edwina’s shriek of ecstacy,”— 
But finding that 
«« Th’ emotions sweet, which then her breast 
Withsuch o’erwhelming power possessed, 
_ Thelovely maiden quite oppressed,” 
we even left her most ungallantly, with her 
wounded knight, to her attendants and her 
hartshorn : —i.e. we shut the book without 
reading the two remaining pages. We sus- 
pect that the generality of readers will make 
shorter work of it. 
The Maid of the Greek Isle ; Lyrics, &c. 
12mo. That the singular genius and splendid 
reputation of Byron should have produced 
a new school of poetry was inevitable: al- 
most eaually was it inevitable that the 
scholars, in general, should imitate only the 
defects of the master. His excellencies 
originated in his extraordinary power, and 
what may be called his almost equally ex- 
traordinary adventures. These cannot be 
taught: they are out of the reach of imita- 
tion. Itis not merely dishing up the frag- 
ments of a story of rape and murder, with 
a Giaour and a Pirate and a Rock, that 
will make a Byronic poem ; nor the adop- 
tion of a few oriental names and words that 
will secure his affluence of imagination ; any 
more than brewing harsh compounds of 
“storm-wrought graves,’ and , “ storm- 
wrought lightnings,’ and ‘“‘storm-scared 
seagulls,’’ and “ night-shrouded deeds,’’ 
and ‘“‘night-shrouded brows,” &c., will 
ive his nervous energy of style; or, than 
inverted accents, or the disregard of num- 
_bers and prosodial quantities will transfuse 
is varied and expressive harmony. The 
beauties of Byron’s versification resulted 
from the fine perceptions of his ear; his 
irregularities, and even negligencies, from 
his rapidity and careless confidence. What 
labour of scholarship can imitate these? 
Of such affiances of prose and nonsense as 
the oe we might produce instances 
enough ; 
“The scream of the storm-scared seagull, 
Wats ne'er 0 sadly musical!” 
dat the poet. can. find music in. such 
screams, it would be unreasonable to look 
a 
© Domestic and: Foreign: 
61 
for it in}his verses. “But ‘let ‘uk’ piveone 
fer specimen: and without affirming’ that 
there is nothing better, or flattering the 
reader that he will find nothing worse;'wé 
may roundly assert that it is a fair specimen 
of the author’s style. 
«* While thus in stirless trance she lay, 
Like frozen flower on Winter’s day, 
While heedlessly her arm is thrown 
Round her conductor’s blood-stain’d one, 
While with unconscious clasp she press’d 
Her guiltless, to his guilty breast; 
_ Like rainbow round the tempest’s wrath.” 
. The frozen flower on winter’s day, and 
the rainbow round the tempest’s wrath, are 
phenomena, we suppose, which the poet has 
alone beheld ; and both of them undoubtedly 
were very like ‘a guiltless, -press’d to a 
guilty breast ;”’ but the substantive usé of 
the numeral, the ‘‘ conductor’s blood-stain’d 
one”, for “blood-stain’d arm,” though it 
cannot boast the same originality, is neither 
from the school of Byron nor of Scott, 
(who by the way seems also to be one ‘of our 
tyro’s models) ! but from the lack-a-daisical 
one of a very different master, who, witha 
prosing simpleness all his own, sweetens 
lengthy. inanities with the barley-sugar of 
affectation.- fe 
Of the Lyrics, &c. which follow, the 
author himself shall be the reviewer. He 
tell us that * though he certainly wrote nota 
line of poetry till he was in love, and though 
love is the pure Castalian spring,” many of 
these were composed ‘before he knew 
prosody and composition ;’? that ‘“ they 
were, of course, critically incorrect, as well 
as radically poor ;”? and that his ‘friends ° 
and loves will find they have received no 
alteration since.’” Nowif this be the case, 
which we have certainly no disposition to 
controvert, why are they published ? Is it 
fair and honest to get seven shillings out of 
the reader’s pocket by a catching title-page, 
and then tell him, by a preface in the middle 
of the book, how it happens that it is 
not worth reading? Of all authorial sins 
against common sense and fair dealing, one 
of the most unpardonable is an apologetical 
preface. 
The Troubadour and other Poems. By 
L. E. L., “‘ Author of the Improvisatrice.” 
—We confine ourselves, for the present, 
to the mere announcement of this volume ; 
for we have not yet had time for a critical 
perusal, and Miss Landon is worthy of con- 
siderate animadversion—worthy of having 
her fame and her talents rescued from the 
overlaying adulation of those who disgrace, 
not exalt her, by ill-written panegyrics and 
indiscriminate adulations—which look to 
the judicious like interested puffs ;-and’ to 
herself, if she have not the good taste to 
‘despise them, can only act as intoxications 
of the ear that pervert the inward sense. 
She has in fact great poetic beauties, but 
she has also faults ;, and if we. can find time 
in. our next, we will shew her, how highly 
we estimate her merits, by the freedom 
with 
