castigation, that even his admirers admitted to be 'Sacred to the memory of Robert Southey, whose Few authors have written so much and so well, with so little real popularity, as Mr Southey. Of all his prose works, admirable as they are in purity of style, the Life of Nelson alone is a general favourite. The magnificent creations of his poetry-piled up like clouds at sunset, in the calm serenity of his capacious intellect-have always been duly appreciated by poetical students and critical readers; but by the public at large they are neglected. A late attempt to revive them, by the publication of the whole poetical works in ten uniform and cheap volumes, has only shown that they are unsuited to the taste of the present generation. The reason of this may be found both in the subjects of Southey's poetry, and in his manner of treating them. His fictions are wild and supernatural, and have no hold on human affections. Gorgeous and sublime as some of his images and descriptions are, they come like shadows, so depart.' They are too remote, too fanciful, and often too learned. The Grecian mythology is graceful and familiar; but Mr Southey's Hindoo superstitions are extravagant and strange. To relish them requires considerable previous reading and research, and this is a task which few will undertake. The dramatic art or power of vivid delineation is also comparatively unknown to Southey, and hence the dialogues in Madoc and Roderick are generally flat and uninteresting. His observation was of books, not nature. Some affectations of style and expression also marred the effect of his conceptions, and the stately and copious flow of his versification, unrelieved by bursts of passion or eloquent sentiment, sometimes becomes heavy and monotonous in its uniform smoothness and dignity. WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR. His This gentleman, the representative of an ancient family, was born at Ipsley Court, Warwickshire, on the 30th of January 1775. He was educated at Rugby school, whence he was transferred to Trinity college, Oxford. His first publication was a small volume of poems, dated as far back as 1793. The poet was intended for the army, but, like Southey, he imbibed republican sentiments, and for that cause father then offered him an allowance of £400 per declined engaging in the profession of arms. annum, on condition that he should study the law, with this alternative, if he refused, that his income should be restricted to one-third of the sum. The independent poet preferred the smaller income with literature as his companion. On succeeding to the family estate, Mr Landor sold it off, and purchased two others in Monmouthshire, where it is said he expended nearly £70,000 in improvements. The ill conduct of some of his tenants mortified and exasperated the sensitive land-owner to such a degree, that he pulled down a fine house which he had erected, and left the country for Italy, where he has chiefly resided since the year 1815. Mr Landor's works consist of Gebir, a poem; dramas entitled Andrea of Hungary, Giovanni of Naples, Fra Rupert, Pericles and Aspasia, &c. His principal prose work is a series of Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen, three volumes of which were published in 1824, and three more in 1836. Gebir' there is a fine passage, amplified by Mr Wordsworth in his Excursion, which describes the sound which sea-shells seem to make when placed close to the ear: And I have sinuous shells of pearly hue ; In And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there. His Wakeful he sits, and lonely and unmoved, smaller poems are mostly of the same medita tive and intellectual character. An English scene received, he never stops to consider how far his is thus described : Clifton, in vain thy varied scenes invite The mossy bank, dim glade, and dizzy height; I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone, I checked him while he spoke; yet could he speak, For reasons not to love him once I sought, And wearied all my thought To vex myself and him: I now would give Who lately lived for me, and when he found He hid his face amid the shades of death! Who wasted his for me; but mine returns, And waking me to weep up in sleep, Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years 'Merciful God!' such was his latest prayer, 'These may she never share!' Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold Than daisies in the mould, Where children spell athwart the churchyard gate His name and life's brief date. Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er ye be, And oh! pray, too, for me! own professed opinions may be consistent with each other: hence he contradicts himself almost as often as any other body. Jeffrey, in one of his most brilliant papers, has characterised in happy terms the class of minds to which Mr Landor belongs. The work before us,' says he, is an edifying example of the spirit of literary Jacobinism-flying at all game, running a-muck at all opinions, and at continual cross-purposes with its own. This spirit admits neither of equal nor superior, follower nor precursor: "it travels in a road so narrow, where but one goes abreast." It claims monopoly of sense, wit, and wisdom. To agree w th it is an impertinence; to differ from it a crime. It tramples on old prejudices; it is jealous of new pretensions. It seizes with avidity on all that is startling or obnoxious in opinions, and when they are countenanced by any one else, discards them as no longer fit for its use. Thus persons of this temper affect atheism by way of distinction; and if they can succeed in bringing it into fashion, become orthodox again, in order not t be with the vulgar. Their creed is at the mercy of every one who assents to, or who contradicts it. All their ambition, all their endeavour is, to seem wiser than the whole world besides. They hate whatever falls short of, whatever goes beyond, their favourite theories. In the one case, they hurry on before to get the start of you; in the other, they suddenly turn back to hinder you, and defeat themselves. An inordinate, restless, incorrigible self-love, is the key to all their actions and opinions, extravagances and meannesses, servility and arrogance. Whatever soothes and pampers this, they applaud; whatever wounds or interferes with it, they utterly and vindictively abhor. A general is with them a hero if he is unsuccessful or a traitor f he is a cor queror in the cause of liberty, or a martyr to it, be is a poltroon. Whatever is doubtful, remote, v.sionary in philosophy, or wild and dangerous 11 politics, they fasten upon eagerly, “recommending and insisting on nothing less;" reduce the one to demonstration, the other to practice, and they turn their backs upon their own most darling schemes, and leave them in the lurch immediately.' When the reader learns that Mr Landor justifies Tiberius and We quote one more chaste and graceful fancy, en- Nero, speaks of Pitt as a poor creature, and Fox as titled Sixteen :— a charlatan, declares Alfieri to have been the greatest man in Europe, and recommends the Greeks, in their struggles with the Turks, to discard fire-arms. and return to the use of the bow, he will not deemi this general description far from inapplicable in the case. And yet the Imaginary Conversations and other writings of Mr Landor are amongst the most remarkable prose productions of our age, written in pure nervous English, and full of thoughts which fasten themselves on the mind, and are ‘a joy for ever.' It would require many specimens from these works to make good what is here said for and against their author; we can afford room for only one, but in it are both an example of his love of paradox, and of the extraordinary beauties of thought by which he leads us captive. It forms part of a conversation between Lords Chatham and Chesterfield: Chesterfield. It is true, my lord, we have not always been of the same opinion, or, to use a better, truel, and more significant expression, of the same side in politics; yet I never heard a sentence from your lordship which I did not listen to with deep atten tion. I understand that you have written some pieces of admonition and advice to a young relative: they are mentioned as being truly excellent; I wish I could have profited by them when I was composing mine on a similar occasion. Chatham. My lord, you certainly would not have done it, even supposing they contained, which I am far from believing, any topics that could have escaped your penetrating view of manners and morals; for your lordship and I set out diversely from the very threshold. Let us, then, rather hope that what we have written, with an equally good intention, may produce its due effect; which indeed, I am afraid, may be almost as doubtful, if we consider how ineffectual were the cares and exhortations, and even the daily example and high renown, of the most zealous and prudent men on the life and conduct of their children and disciples. Let us, however, hope the best rather than fear the worst, and believe that there never was a right thing done or a wise one spoken in vain, although the fruit of them may not spring up in the place designated or at the time expected. Chesterfield Pray, if I am not taking too great a reedon, give me the outline of your plan. Chatham Willingly, my lerd; but since a greater ma chan ither of us nas laid down a more compreher ive ue, contain.ng all I could bring forward, old it not be preferable to consult it? I differ in neshing from Locke unless it be that would recomID-nd the lighter as well as he graver part of the ancien classics, and the constant practic of imitatlag them in early youth. This is no change n the systen., and no larger an addition than a woodbine to sacred grove. Chesterfield. I do not admire Mr Locke. Chatham. Nor I-he is too simply grand for admiration-1 contemplate and revere him. Equally deep and clear, he is both philosophically and grainmatically the most elegant of English writers. mountain know in ་་་་་e lucasure its altitude, by comparing it with all objects around; but those who stand at the bottom, and never mounted it, can com pare it with few only, and with those imperfectly. Until a short time ago, I could have conversed more fluently about Plato than I can at present; I had read all the titles to his dialogues, and several scraps of commentary; these I have now forgotten, and am indebted to long attacks of the gout for what I have acquired instead. Chesterfield. A very severe schoolmaster! I hope he allows a long vacation? Chatham. Severe he is indeed, and although he sets no example of regularity, he exacts few observances, and teaches many things. Without him I should have had less patience, less learning, less reflection, less leisure; in short, less of everything but of sleep. Chesterfield. Locke, from a deficiency of fancy, is not likely to attract so many listeners as Plato. Chatham. And yet occasionally his language is both metaphorical and rich in images. In fact, all our great philosophers have also this property in a wonderful degree. Not to speak of the devotional, in whose writings one might expect it, we find it abundantly in Bacon, not sparingly in Hobbes, the next to him in range of inquiry and potency of intellect. And what would you think, my lord, if you discovered in the records of Newton a sentence in the spirit of Shakspeare? Chesterfield. I should look upon it as upon a wonder, not to say a miracle: Newton, like Barrow, had no feeling or respect for poetry. Chatham. His words are these: I don't know what I may seem to the world; but as to myself, I Chesterfield. If I expressed by any motion of limb seem to have been only like a boy playing on the or feature my surprise at this remark, your lordship, sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then find- & I hope, will pardon me a slight and involuntary trans- ing a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordigression of my own precept. I must intreat you, be-nary, whilst the great ocean of Truth lay at! undisfore we move a step farther in our inquiry, to inform covered before me.' me whether I am really to consider him in style the most elegant of our prose authors? Chatham. Your lordship is capable of forming an opinion on this point certainly no less correct than mine. Chesterfield. Pray assist me. Chatham. Education and grammar are surely the two driest of all subjects on which a conversation can turn; yet if the ground is not promiscuously sown, if what ought to be clear is not covered, if what ought to be covered is not bare, and, above all, if the plants are choice ones, we may spend a few moments on it not unpleasantly. It appears then to me, that elegance iu prose composition is mainly this; a just admission of topics and of words; neither too many nor too few of either; enough of sweetness in the sound to induce us to enter and sit still; enough of illustration and reflection to change the posture of our minds when they would tire; and enough of sound matter in the complex to repay us for our attendance. I could perhaps be more logical in my definition and more concise; but am I at all erroneous? Chesterfield. I see not that you are. Chatham. My ear is well satisfied with Locke: I find nothing idle or redundant in him. Chesterfield. But in the opinion of you graver men, would not some of his principles lead too far? Chatham. The danger is, that few will be led by them far enough: most who begin with him stop short, and, pretending to find pebbles in their shoes, throw themselves down upon the ground, and complain of their guide. Chesterfield. Surely Nature, who had given him the volumes of her greater mysteries to unseal; who had bent over him and taken his hand, and taught him to decipher the characters of her sacred language; who had lifted up before him her glorious veil, higher than ever yet for mortal, that she might impress her features and her fondness on his heart, threw it back wholly at these words, and gazed upon him with as much admiration as ever he had gazed upon her.* EDWIN ATHERSTONE. EDWIN ATHERSTONE is author of The Last Days of Herculaneum (1821) and The Fall of Nineveh (1328), both poems in blank verse, and remarkable for splendour of diction and copiousness of description. The first is founded on the well-known de struction of the city of Herculaneum by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in the first year of the Emperor Titus, or the 79th of the Christian era. Mr Ather stone has followed the account of this awful occurrence given by the younger Pliny in his letters to Tacitus, and has drawn some powerful pictures of the desolating fire and its attendant circumstances. * A very few of Mr Landor's aphorisms and remarks may be added: He says of fame- Fame, they tell you, is air; but without air there is no life for any; without fame there is none for the best." The happy man,' he says, is he who distinguishes the boundary between desire and delight, and stands firmly on the higher ground; he who knows that pleasure is not only not possession, but is often to be lost, and always to be endangered by it. Of light wit or sarcasm, Chesterfield. What, then, can be the reason why he observes-Quickness is amongst the least of the mind's Plato, so much less intelligible, is so much more quoted and applauded? Chatham. The difficulties we never try are no diffiulties to us. Those who are upon the summit of a properties. I would persuade you that banter, pun, and quibble are the properties of light men and shallow capa cities; that genuine humour and true wit require a sound and capacious mind, which is always a grave one.' PORTS. ENGLISH LITERATURE. There is perhaps too much of terrible and gloomy painting, yet it enchains the attention of the reader, and impresses the imagination with something like Mr Atherstone's second subject is dramatic force. of the same elevated cast: the downfall of an Asiatic empire afforded ample room for his love of strong and magnificent description, and he has availed himself of this license so fully, as to border in many His battle passages on extravagance and bombast. scenes, his banquets, flowering groves, and other descriptions of art and nature, are all executed with oriental splendour and voluptuousness-often with dazzling vividness and beauty and true poetical feeling. The failure of the author to sustain the interest of the reader is owing, as a contemporary critic pointed out, to the very palpable excess in which he employs all those elements of pleasing, and to the disproportion which those ornaments of the scene bear to its rctual business-to the slowness with which the story moves forward, and the difficulty we have in catching a distinct view of the characters that are presented to us, through the glare of imagery and eloquence with which they are surrounded. This is the fault of genius-espe cially young genius-and if Mr Atherstone could subdue his oriental imagination and gorgeousness of style, and undertake a theme of more ordinary life, and of simple natural passion and description, he might give himself a name of some importance in the literature of his age. The following passages, descriptive of the splendour of Sardanapalus's state, have been cited as happy specimens of Mr Atherstone's style : The moon is clear-the stars are coming forth- A thousand golden lamps their lustre fling, * Like a mountain stream, Amid the silence of the dewy eve * Heard by the lonely traveller through the vale, Through all the city sounds the voice of joy * * Then went the king, Flushed with the wine, and in his pride of power 65 Purple and edged with gold; and, standing then Amid the far-off hills, Listened awhile-then laid his monstrous mouth In fierce reply. He comes at length- The brazen gates: sounds then the tramp of hoofs- * Behind the car, [The Bower of Nehushta.] 853 1 With a soft whisper. To a graceful arch Of heroes of old days: the harp, sometimes, No subterfuge! The pillared crypt, and cave Within the circus, tribunal, and shrine, It seems but yesterday! Half sculptured there, The streets are hollowed by the rolling car In 1833 appeared two cantos of a descriptive poem, The Heliotrope, or Pilgrim in Pursuit of Health, being the record of a poetical wanderer in Liguria, Hetruria, Campania, and Calabria. The style and versification of Byron's Childe Harold are evidently copied by the author; but he has a native taste and elegance, and a purer system of philosophy than the noble poet. Many of the stanzas are musical and picturesque, presenting Claude-like landscapes of the glorious classic scenes through which the pilgrim passed. We subjoin the description of Pompeii-That still in strength aspire, as when they bore that interesting city of the dead : Pompeia! disentombed Pompeia! Here Shook to its centre, the convulsive soil of ancient fable:-crypt, and lintelled door Their Roman standard-from the whelming showers The author of the Heliotrope' is DR W. BEATTIE, a London physician of worth, talent, and benevolence, who is also author of Scotland Illustrated, Switzerland Illustrated, Residence in the Court of Germany, &c. CHARLES LAMB. CHARLES LAMB, a poet, and a delightful essayist, of quaint peculiar humour and fancy, was born in London on the 18th February 1775. His father was in humble circumstances, servant and friend to one of the benchers of the Inner Temple; but Charles was presented to the school of Christ's hospital, and from his seventh to his fifteenth year he was an inmate of that ancient and munificent asylum. Lamb was a nervous, timid, and thoughtful boy: 'while others were all fire and play, he stole along with all the self-concentration of a monk.' He would have obtained an exhibition at school, admitting him |