18:^6.] [ 581 ] 



THE FOREST SANCTUAUY, AND OTHER POEJIS, 

 BY MRS. HEMANS. 



It is now too late to discuss Mrs. Hemans' claims to poetical distinction. 

 She has already displayed her powers under all the forms of poetry, and under 

 them all, with very striking success. To feminine grace of language she has 

 united masculine vigour of conception ; she has had the taste to adopt subjects 

 honourable to her delicacy, and the fortunate power to do justice to them, and 

 to the opinion which had been long since excited by her rising genius. 



We feel peculiar pleasure in being able to express those sentunents of a 

 female writer; and even our natural deference for the sex is less interested 

 in this language than our anxiety, that Woman should be found at all times sus- 

 taining the rank which she was by nature entitled to hold, as at once the best 

 example and the most impressive teacher of virtue. 



It is yet remarkable with what fatal facility this high distinction is sometimes 

 cast away by our female writers. At this moment, some of the most unguarded 

 (to use the gentlest term) of our writers are females. Love, in all its extrava- 

 gancies, is the favourite topic, and the most fatiguing common-places are 

 inflicted upon the world, in the shape of the most hazardous principles. We 

 thus have " Passion" Orientalized, Italianized, Grecianized, forcing itself in all 

 shapes and colours upon the general eye, and in all misleading and debasing ; 

 ludicrously untrue to nature, but, it is to be feared, often calamitously injurious 

 to rectitude of understanding and purity of mind. 



Nor vvould we, on the other hand, have poetry, what Paine said a Quaker 

 would have made the world, a " drab-coloured creation ;" we would have the 

 palpable indications of the Supreme will, that we should be as happy as our 

 state will allow, acknowledged, in all our pursuits. We should no more lay an 

 interdict on the grace and animation of poetry, than we should on the grace of 

 the human form or the smiles of the human countenance. Let the sullen 

 Sectary mortify his visage, and mould his language into perpetual moroseness — 

 let the dreaming Mystic abhor the bright realities of life, and wander away into 

 his region of chilling clouds and darkness — let the grim piety of the worshipper 

 of Knox, or the world-loving spirituality of the Quaker abjure the brilliant, 

 the lovely, and the ornamental parts of life. But the same Will that covered 

 the flowers with beauty beyond all art, and crowned the peacock with a diadem, 

 and plumed him with purple and gold — that made the breeze musical, and the 

 simple waving of the woods, and the fall of waters, full o^'rich contemplation ; 

 the very hand that inlaid the morning and sunset sky with the splendours of 

 all gems, and has stamped upon the heai't the faculty of being delighted, 

 cheered, and softened by all these dazzling, and joyous, and solemn things, has 

 declared that, in its highest and holiest sense, to enjoy is to obey. 



We would thus throw open to our poetry the gates of every avenue to 

 the treasures of the palace of imagination ; the ancient and magnificent memo- 

 rials of the heroic times ; the romantic and elevating reliques of the later age ; 

 and the strong-featured, bold, and highwrought groupings of our own stirring 

 time of realities. 



We look upon this volume as a striking exemplification of the fine variety 

 that thus lies before the poet, without the necessity of seeking for subjects 

 in paths humiliating to true talent. We shall now give a few extracts of 

 Mrs. Hemans' work, as altogether the best mode of substantiating the praise 

 which we are so gratified to give. 



" T7ie Forest Sanctumy " the principal poem, is a description of the mental 

 struggles and actual sufferings of a Spaniard, in the time of that reformation 

 which in the sixteenth century dawned on Spain with, unhappily, so brief a 

 splendour. 



After a few stanzas addressed to his boy, who is supposed to be with him 

 tin his South American place of refuge, the Spaniard describes the Aitlo da Fein 

 which his friends were sacrificed. 



