BRUARY WE are already in the second month of the year; still all around us wears a wintry aspect. We' are not yet quite emancipated from the "snow upon the ground," and the severe frost with which we have so recently been visited shall not have entirely passed from the "memory of man," however mild the month of February may be. This, however, is one of the most variable and disagreeable seasons of the year. To-day we may be still in the depths of winter, and to-morrow we may have arrived, as it were, in the very middle of the merry, merry months of spring. Nay, such a sudden transformation of climate often takes place within the compass of a single day; and, were it not for the unmistakeable signs of winter which still linger upon the surface of the earth, or in the nooks and corners of our "highways and byways," we might felicitate ourselves on having taken a final adieu of King Frost, at least for another year. Dreary, cold, and naked, however, is the face of the country. "Ill fares the traveller now, and he that stalks The wain goes heavily, impeded sore By congregated loads, adhering close To the clogged wheels; and in its sluggish pace, So Cowper sings. February takes its name from Februo, which signifies to purify, this being the time when the ancient Romans held a feast, during which they offered expiatory sacrifices to the manes of the dead. "In ancient times, purgations bad the name Of Februa; various customs prove the same." Gifts were, at the same time, laid upon the graves of the departed; and Virgil says that he "will offer gifts to the shade of the youthful Marcellus, too early snatched from the earth." Such sacrifices and offerings were intended either to render the infernal gods propitious to the deceased, or to appease the deceased themselves, whose "perturbed spirits" might, like such as animated the shade of Hamlet's father, be inclined to revisit "the glimpses of the moon." Our Saxon ancestors called the month Sprout-Kele, because kele-wurt, or colewort, was one of the first vegetables that began to sprout in this month. This name, however, was subsequently changed to Sol-Monath, on account of the returning sun. It is also called February-fill-Dike, from the torrents of rain by which it is too often characterized, and which swell the rivers to such a degree as, in many parts, to realize the appearance of a miniature deluge. Gloomy and repellent as the general aspect of the month may be, however, Nature begins to exhibit signs of preparation for a universal revivification. Already does the crocus, "dainty young thing of life," begin to peep from its wintry bower; whilst the snowdrop, its fancied bride, may be seen waking from its wintry slumber, not far from its side. "Say what impels, amid surrounding snow, Soon will the elder-tree put forth its flower-buds, and the earlier strawberry and the yew-tree be in flower; the wood-lark will begin his lay, and the missel-thrush sing from yonder bower. The forthcoming jubilee of Nature has already been announced, whilst the minstrels wait to regale us with their numbers. To Meadows. YE have been fresh and green; Ye have been filled with flowers; And ye the walks have been Where maids have spent their hours. Ye bave beheld where they The richer cowslips home. You've heard them sweetly sing, Like unthrifts, having spent HERRICK-BORN 1591. The Holly Tree. O READER! hast thou ever stood to see The eye that contemplates it well, perceives Ordered by an intelligence so wise, Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen, No grazing cattle, through their prickly round, Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme; One which may profit in the after-time. Thus, though abroad, perchance, I might appear To those who on my leisure would intrude, Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be, And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know, All vain asperities, I, day by day, Till the smooth temper of my age should be And as, when all the summer trees are seen The holly leaves their faceless hues display, So, serious should my youth appear among That in my age as cheerful I might be R. SOUTHEY, 1774-1843. The Midnight Wind. Of hopes that bloomed to die- This midnight wind doth moan! Mournfully! O, mournfully, To the dreamy joys of early years, On the heart's bloom-ay! well may tears MOTHERWELL, 1797-1835. The Hunter's Song. RISE! Sleep no more! 'Tis a noble morn; Under the steaming, steaming ground; corn? The horn-the horn! The merry, bold voice of the hunter's horn. O! the sound of all sounds is the hunter's horn. THE clouds are scudding across the moon; A misty light is on the sea; The wind in the shrouds has a wintry tune, Brothers, a night of terror and gloom Speaks in the cloud and gathering roar; Thank God, He has given us broad sea-room A thousand miles from shore. Down with the hatches on those who sleep! The wild and whistling deck have we; Though the rigging shriek in his terrible grip, Hark! how the pitiless tempest raves! Yet, courage, brothers! we trust the wave, BAYARD TAYLOR-BORN 1825. The Merry Lark was Up and Singing. And the lark beside the dreary winter sea, CHARLES KINGSLEY. BOOKS OF THE MONTH. WE have, in one breath, to say that the author of "Mary Powell" has been again (it is her fourth or fifth offence) book-making, and that the book she has "made" contains really interesting matter. But it is, in truth, precisely so. Family Pictures, &c., &c., by the Author of "Mary Powell" (Arthur Hall, Virtue, and Co. Pp. 261), is a conspicuous piece of literary manufacture-a hash, pure and simple-containing family anecdotes-anedotes of royal personages, about whom nobody cares, such as Alexander I. of Russia, the Princess Charlotte, Prince Leopold, and others-scraps of versescraps of autobiography-and, lastly, a prose fragment of Tasso, now first translated. Now, the anecdotes of royal personages, and such like, are downright twaddle; the scraps of verse are neither this thing nor that; the fragment of Tasso is of little interest to a reader uninformed of the known details of the poet's life; but the remainder of the volume is readable, rememberable, and thinkable, as genuine family and autobiographic anecdotes are pretty sure to be. Charles Lamb, in his "Elia," makes mention of one "Joseph Paice, of Bread-street-hill, merchant, and one of the Directors of the South Sea Company," and goes on to say that he was the only pattern of consistent gallantry he had ever met with-a gentleman, it seems, of the Sir Charles Grandison breed. He would give the side of honour, in the street, to the ugliest, raggedest old beggar-woman-would stand bareheaded to answer a servant-girl who asked her way of him-and tenderly escort, with his umbrella held over her head, a poor market-woman, whose basket of fruit might otherwise be damaged by the shower. Of this Mr. Paice, the author of "Mary Powell"-who, by-the-bye, puts her signature to this volume, "Anne Manning," and inscribes it to her nephews-says, "I can only remember my mother's taking me, at three years old, to the bedside of a dying old man, of heavenly aspect, who laid his hand gently on my head, and said, 'Sweet lamb.' But when I was only a few hours old, he had bent his knee to kiss my hand-his homage to the sex in the person of its representative." And Mr. Paice appears to have been a rare specimen of his peculiar type of character. We are about to give cynical old bachelorsif any such persons should read this paper-a capital opening for a sneer. Mr. Paice died unmarried; and ill-natured people may say, if they please, that that accounts for his being able to keep up the spirit of woman-worship. Never mind; let ill-natured people say what they like: what we are more concerned about is the opinion our lady readers may form of Ar. Paice's deserts in relation to matrimony. Evidently, he would have been married if he could. He could not. Now, our verdict is, Serve him right!"-and we want to know if our friends will support us in delivering it. Here are the facts:-When a young man, Joseph Paice fell in love with a Miss Hunt, of Ewell; but found out, soon afterwards, that his cousin was in love with her too. What did he do? He set himself to consider which of the two would make the girl happiest; decided in favour of his cousin; and-held his tongue. His rival married Miss Hunt; and miserably the marriage turned out. The wife died in a consumption, broken-hearted. Joseph had twice to pay the extravagant husband's debtsamounting, each time, to 10,000l.; and, in other particulars, behaved as he ought to have done. We say ought to have done, because, loving the girl as he is said to have loved her, he must have blamed himself for her misery. We submit that a man has no right to decide between himself and a rival. It is the woman's inalienable privilege to do so. His motto should be, "Every man for himself, and God for us all;" and, with that motto on his helm, he should put lance in rest for his ladye against all comers. It would not have altered our view if the marriage in question had been ever so happy; "it's the principle we object to," as stingy people say when they refuse to give Christmas-boxes. We cannot, then, yield to Mr. Paice the unqualified homage and hearty praise which Miss Manning claims for him. He was a very striking specimen of the class of character which Miss Manning has been all her life writing up-of the sort of people who appear to take such a delight in sitting down upon themselves, that one hardly doubts if it is necessary to pity them for their self-abnegation. They seem so steadily to take it for granted that whatever is unpleasant must be right, that we're glad to find they like it, and pass on-thankful, for the world's sake, that the majority of men and women are more combative. Among the little personal matters talked of by Miss Manning, we often come across something nice. Any bit of real life is sure to be pleasant. She tells how, when she was three years old, she used to have waking dreams of walking on fleecy clouds with the Lord Jesus, who gave her a Prayer-book, bound in pink kid, as a token of favour! This is worth a thousand flunkeyish stories about Leopold and Alexander-more especially if "abridged from Dr. Pinkerton's Russia." But the story of the old man living in the little cottage near Claremont is not so bad. He was "a character," and had bought Pope's clock at a sale at Twickenham. Flattering himself he was going to do the right thing, and was a first-rate antiquarian, he had it done up! One Saturday afternoon the old boy saw a young lady and gentleman running for shelter from a shower to his outhouse. So he "goes to the front door, and hallos, 'I say, you'd better come in here!"-and in they came. He asked them into the parlour; but the lady said, "Oh, I'd rather go into the kitchen; for I see you have a fire, and my shoes are wet." The young man began to talk, but made mistakes; said the turf was good turf, while all the while it was bad turf; praised some old "chaney," which was "delft," and so on. But the young lady looked at the clock; asked about it; and said it was a pity he had had it "done up," as 666 otherwise she would have bought it of the old man. Meanwhile, two dogs, which the gentleman had got with him, began gambolling on the peppermint beds. Hallo, sir!' says I, 'do you know I sell my peppermint ?" But the rain cleared off, and away scudded the guests. Horrible to relate, the old man found out, before long, that he had been saying "hallo!" to Prince Albert, and patronising the Queen! That he was immediately sent to the Tower, and beheaded for treason next morning-is not true; but the Queen sent him five pounds, and did so every autumn till the man died. He used to send her a basket of cherry pippins every season, and, by his will, left Pope's clock to the Prince. "Family Pictures, &c, &c," contains, we repeat, pleasant reading; but it is not a good or a creditable volume. Book-making is rife just now; the author of "Mary Powell" has been, unhappily, one of the most flagrant sinners in that kind; and her last offence is her worst. Nearly akin to the error of book-making, is that of working too hard a vein that "takes." Of that error, we cannot, we fear, acquit the author of Legends and Lyrics; a Book of Verses (Second Volume), by ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER. (Bell and Daldy. 1861).—Readers who have read Miss Procter's first volume will hardly-unless they belong to a peculiar order -take very kindly to her second. Mr. Longfellow, in Evangeline," and some of his other poems, struck the key-note to which so much of our modern poetry has been accommodated, that strong, sincere naturs, are beginning to weary of it. "Love," "Service," "Self-sacrifice,' Endurance," are now (more pity!) the commonplaces of a school, rather than meaningful, pathetic words, as they once were. If the current supply of these "precious things" bears only a fair proportion to the quantity of current talk about them, we are nearer "the Coming" than the hottest of Plymouth brothers would pretend. But we are suspicious that it is otherwise. The professionally-resigned lady of the drawing-room is not the angel painted in the poetry she takes to; she may be seen, any evening, in society, with the countenance of a nun in a painted window, the pomposity of a beadle, the snappishness of a lap-dog, and the meanness of a small shop-keeper. Of numerous cases of palpable reminiscence and imitation in this volume we say nothing now; but at least the writing might have been less slovenly. Too often it is necessary, in reading Miss Procter, to get several verses ahead before one can make out how a poem is to be scanned, so very careless is the versification. Still more frequently, the writing runs into downright prose-e. g. (p. 118), "He was gentle, kind, and generous stil; deferring to her wishes always; nothing seemed to mar their tranquil life," or (p 120), That through all those years of waiting he had slowly learnt the truth; he had known himself mistaken, but that, bound to her in honour, he renounced his life, to pay her for the patience of her youth." This is not only prose, but bad prose. Quiet passages are used by true poets to relieve the effect of splendid or weighty writing, or to give an air of naturalness to improbable incident; but Miss Procter is neither splendid nor weighty, and these instances, and scores of others, are something lower than "quiet." There are graver and more ominous faults in these poems. One is, constant confusion of opinion with insight. We doubt if any a y avowedly controversial book printed this year contains more disputable matter than these pages, which should, by right, contain none at all. Look. for instance, at the poem called "Maximus.” What is laid down in every verse authoritatively is mere matter of opinion. Whether it is easier to be a good king or a good slave-to forgive or to bear forgiveness-to win or to lose with true continence-depends entirely on circumstances, and chiefly on the constitution of the individuals concerned. Some men would find it easier to be good kings, some to be good slaves, some to win, some to lose. The poem called " Optimus" contains equally rash and inconsequent doctrine; and so on for at least half the volume. A worse blot on its merits could not exist. A very little deliberate attention would save Miss Procter from strange blunders. In a poem called "Expectation," very prettily constructed, and likely enough to be admired and set to music, we have the "King's three daughters on the terrace," before the sea. May and Alice complain-one (having something to hope), that time is slow; the other (having something to fear), that time is quick. Gwendoline "the youngest," patronizes both her seniors, and gravely makes these truly tremendous statements: The Future's fathomless mine of treasures, All countless hordes of possible pleasures, Might bring their store to my feet in vain. And -not to fear, because all is taken, Is the loneliest depth of human pain. With what face could a girl, with two living sisters, whom she at least pretended to love, deliver herself of these astounding "sentiments?" Our judgment is, that Princess Gwendoline wanted sending to bed without her supper, and being set to -teach the orphan-boy to read, And teach the orphan-girl to sew; and that poets should leave off delivering, ez cathedrû, the cant dogmas of sentimental sects as if they were canons of law divine. Far better, more careful, more finished, is the workmanship we find in The Worn WeddingRing, and other Poems, by W. C. BENNETT (Chapman and Hall, 1861). Mr. Benue t、 also, wants warning, perhaps, against over-doing what he can do well; but he is always natural, undogmatic, correct, and never writes nonsense. As a domestic poet, we infinitely prefer him to Dr. Mackay. Sometimes, as in "Mother and Son," he shows real dramatic power; and everywhere in his writings we see enough to make it clear that, if he had had leisure and opportunity to woo a less discursive muse, he might have cut his name deeper in the poetic literature of the day. But this volum will not, we think, either raise or lower Mr Bennett's position as a pet. Our respectful counsel to him would be to write no more, or, at least, to publish no more, for a long time. |