Staffa, I scaled thy summit hoar, I passed beneath thy arch gigantic, That hour the wind forgot to rave, Then the past age before me came, When 'mid the lightning's sweep, And every column wreathed with flame, When 'mid Iona's wrecks meanwhile O'er sculptured graves I trod, Where Time had strewn each mouldering aisle Yet, Staffa, more I felt his presence in thy cave Than where Iona's cross rose o'er the western wave. Mr Sotheby's translation of the Iliad was published in 1831, and was generally esteemed spirited and faithful. The Odyssey he completed in the following year. This was the last production of the amiable and indefatigable author. He still enjoyed the society of his friends, and even made another tour through North Wales; but his lengthened life was near a close, and after a short illness, he died on the 30th of December 1833, in the seventyseventh year of his age. The original poetical productions of Mr Sotheby have not been reprinted; his translations are the chief source of his reputation. Wieland, it is said, was charmed with the genius of his translator; and the rich beauty of diction in the Oberon, and its facility of versification, notwithstanding the restraints imposed by a difficult measure, were eulogised by the critics. In his tragedies, Mr Sotheby displays considerable warmth of passion and figurative language, but his plots are ill constructed. His sacred poem, Saul,' is the longest of his works. There is delicacy and grace in many of the descriptions,' says Jeffrey, a sustained tone of gentleness and piety in the sentiments, and an elaborate beauty in the diction, which frequently makes amends for the want of force and originality.' The versification also wants that easy flow and melody which characterise Oberon. Passages of Sotheby's metrical romance are happily versified, and may be considered good imitations of Scott. Indeed, Byron said of Mr Sotheby, that he imitated everybody, and occasionally surpassed his models. [Approach of Saul and his Guards against the Hark! hark! the clash and clang Of shaken cymbals cadencing the pace Shrill twang of harps, soothed by melodious chime Of chariots rolled with each an armed band; Of solemn entry. Round about the king, Pride of their race. Radiant their armour: some Arrayed; save on their shields of solid ore, [Song of the Virgins Celebrating the Victory.] Shout ye! and ye! make answer, Saul hath slain His thousands; David his ten thousands slain. Sing a new song. I saw them in their rage; I saw the gleam of spears, the flash of swords, Shout ye! and ye! make answer, Saul hath slain Shout ye! and ye! make answer, Saul hath slain His thousands; David his ten thousands slain. Thou heardst, O God of battle! Thou, whose look Our limbs with floating crimson. Then rejoice, Robes, gift of Saul, round their light limbs, in toss Floated like roseate clouds. Thus, these came on There, many a wife, whose ardent gaze from far There, many a beauteous virgin, blushing deep, The Winter's Morn. Artist unseen! that, dipt in frozen dew, Hast on the glittering glass thy pencil laid, Ere from yon sun the transient visions fade, Swift let me trace the forms thy fancy drew! Thy towers and palaces of diamond hue, Rivers and lakes of lucid crystal made, And hung in air hoar trees of branching shade, That liquid pearl distil: thy scenes renew, Whate'er old bards or later fictions feign, Of secret grottos underneath the wave, Where nereids roof with spar the amber cave; Or bowers of bliss, where sport the fairy train, Who, frequent by the moonlight wanderer seen, Circle with radiant gems the dewy green. EDWARD LORD THURLOW. EDWARD HOVEL THURLOW (Lord Thurlow). has published several small volumes of poetry: Select Poems (1821); Poems on Several Occasions; Angelica, or the Fate of Proteus; Arcita and Palamon, after Chaucer, &c. Amidst much affectation and bad taste, there is real poetry in the works of this nobleman. He has been a source of ridicule and sarcasm to various reviewers - and not servedly; yet in pieces like the following, there is a freshness of fancy and feeling, and a richness of expression, that resemble Herrick or Moore. unde Song to May. May! queen of blossoms, Shall we charm the hours? Thou hast no need of us, And many thousand more Thou hast thy mighty herds, When with the jacinth Coy fountains are tressed; And for the mournful bird Greenwoods are dressed, That did for Tereus pine; Then shall our songs be thine, To whom our hearts incline: May, be thou blessed! The Sun-Flower. Behold, my dear, this lofty flower, That now the golden sun receives; No other deity has power, But only Phoebus, on her leaves; As he in radiant glory burns, From east to west her visage turns. The dial tells no tale more true, Than she his journal on her leaves, When morn first gives him to her view,. Or night, that her of him bereaves, A dismal interregnum bids Her weeping eyes to close their lids. Forsaken of his light, she pines The cold, the dreary night away, Till in the east the crimson signs Betoken the great god of day; Then, lifting up her drooping face, She sheds around a golden grace. O Nature, in all parts divine! What moral sweets her leaves disclose! Then in my verse her truth shall shine, And be immortal, as the rose, Anacreon's plant; arise, thou flower, That hast fidelity thy dower! Apollo, on whose beams you gaze, Has filled my breast with golden light; And circled me with sacred rays, To be a poet in his sight: Sonnets. The Summer, the divinest Summer burns, Amid the woods a soft enchantment hold: Doth softly fly, and a light fragrance shed: Hath sprinkled her ambrosial sweets divine: Now Summer has one foot from out the world, Whereat the Muses are expecting her; The crimson Moon, uprising from the sea, To greet the soft appearance of her sphere! The star of evening glimmers in the west : Then raise, ye shepherds, your observant strain, That so of the Great Shepherd here are blest! Our fields are full with the time-ripened grain, Our vineyards with the purple clusters swell: Her golden splendour glimmers on the main, And vales and mountains her bright glory tell: Then sing, ye shepherds! for the time is come When we must bring the enriched harvest home. O Moon, that shinest on this heathy wild, When Harold on the bleeding verdure lay, Torn banners and the dying steeds you shone, When this fair England, and her peerless charms, And all, but honour, to the foe were gone! Here died the king, whom his brave subjects chose, But, dying, lay amid his Norman foes! THOMAS MOORE. A rare union of wit and sensibility, of high powers of imagination and extensive learning, has been exemplified in the poetical works of THOMAS MOORE. Mr Moore is a native of Dublin, where he was born on the 28th of May 1780. He early began to rhyme, and a sonnet to his schoolmaster, Mr Samuel Whyte, written in his fourteenth year, was published in a Dublin magazine.* The parents of our poet were *Mr Whyte was also the teacher of Sheridan, and it is curious to learn that, after about a year's trial, Sherry was pronounced, both by tutor and parent, to be an incorrigible Roman Catholics, a body then proscribed and depressed by penal enactments, and they seem to have been of the number who, to use his own words, 'hailed the first dazzling outbreak of the French Revolution as a signal to the slave, wherever suffering, that the day of his deliverance was near at hand.' The poet states that in 1792 he was taken by his father to one of the dinners given in honour of that great event, and sat upon the knee of the chairman while the following toast was enthusiastically sent round: May the breezes from France fan our Irish Thomas Moore. Oak into verdure.' Parliament having, in 1793, opened the university to Catholics, young Moore was sent to college, and distinguished himself by his classical acquirements. In 1799, while in his nineteenth year, he proceeded to London to study law in the Middle Temple, and publish by subscription a translation of Anacreon. The latter appeared in the following year, dedicated to the Prince of Wales. At a subsequent period, Mr Moore was among the keenest satirists of this prince, for which he has been accused of ingratitude; but he states himself that the whole amount of his obligations to his royal highness was the honour of dining twice at Carlton House, and being admitted to a great fête given by the prince in 1811 on his being made regent. In 1803 Mr Moore obtained an official situation at Bermuda, the duties of which were discharged by a deputy; and this subordinate proving unfaithful, the poet incurred pecuniary losses to a large amount. Its first effect, however, was two volumes of poetry, a series of Odes and Epistles, published in 1806, and written during an absence of fourteen months from Europe, while the author visited Bermuda. The descriptive sketches in this work are remarkable for their dunce! At the time,' says Mr Moore, when I first began to attend his school, Mr Whyte still continued, to the no small alarm of many parents, to encourage a taste for acting among his pupils. In this line I was long his favourite show-scholar; and among the play-bills introduced in his volume, to illustrate the occasions of his own prologues and epilogues, there is one of a play got up in the year 1790, at Lady Borrowes's private theatre in Dublin, where, among the items of the evening's entertainment, is "An Epilogue, A Squeeze to St Paul's, Master Moore." fidelity, no less than their poetical beauty. The style of Moore was now formed, and in all his writings there is nothing finer than the opening epistle to Lord Strangford, written on board ship by moonlight: Sweet Moon! if, like Crotona's sage, By any spell my hand could dare And write my thoughts, my wishes there; And all my heart and soul would send Even now, delusive hope will steal Pursues the murmurers of the deep, And lights them with consoling gleam, And smiles them into tranquil sleep. Oh! such a blessed night as this I often think if friends were near, How should we feel and gaze with bliss Upon the moon-bright scenery here! The sea is like a silvery lake, And o'er its calm the vessel glides, Gently, as if it feared to wake The slumber of the silent tides. The only envious cloud that lowers Hath hung its shade on Pico's height, Where dimly 'mid the dusk he towers, And, scowling at this heaven of light,, Exults to see the infant storm Cling darkly round his giant form! The warmth of the young poet's feelings and imagination led him in these epistles to make some slight trespasses on delicacy and decorum, and a second publication of poems, two years afterwards, under the assumed name of Thomas Little-a playful allusion to his diminutive stature aggravated this offence of his muse. He has had the good sense to be ashamed of these amatory Juvenilia, and genius enough to redeem the fault. Mr Moore now became a satirist not strong and masculine, like Dryden, nor possessed of the moral dignity of Pope-but lively and pungent, with abundance of humorous and witty illustration. The man of the world, the scholar, and the poetical artist, are happily blended in his satirical productions, with a rich and playful fancy. His Twopenny Postbag, The Fudge Family in Paris, Fables for the Holy Alliance, and numerous small pieces written for the newspapers on the passing topics of the day, to serve the cause of the Whig or liberal party, are not excelled in their own peculiar walk by any satirical compositions in the language. is difficult to select a specimen of these exquisite productions without risk of giving offence; but perhaps the following may be found sufficiently irreproachable in this respect, at the same time that it contains a full proportion of the wit and poignancy distributed over all. It appeared at a time when an abundance of mawkish reminiscences and memoirs had been showered from the press, and bore the title of Literary Advertisement.' Wanted-Authors of all work to job for the season, No matter which party, so faithful to neither; Good hacks, who, if posed for a rhyme or a reason, Can manage, like *******, to do without either. It If in jail, all the better for out-of-door topics; Aristotle could scarce keep him more within rules, To have good Reminiscences' (three score or higher), Will meet with encouragement-so much per page, And the spelling and grammar both found by the buyer. No matter with what their remembrance is stocked, That ginger-beer cakes always give them the cholic. * * Funds, Physic, Corn, Poetry, Boxing, Romance, The material within of small consequence is; That Horace, as clearly as words could express it, Was for taxing the Fundholders, ages ago, When he wrote thus-Quodcunque in Fund is, assess it."* In 1813 Mr Moore entered upon his noble poetical and patriotic task-writing lyrics for the ancient music of his native country. His Irish Songs displayed a fervour and pathos not found in his earlier works, with the most exquisite melody and purity of diction. An accomplished musician himself, it was the effort, he relates, to translate into language the emotions and passions which music appeared to him to express, that first led to his writing any poetry worthy of the name. 'Dryden,' he adds, 'has happily described music as being "inarticulate poetry;" and I have always felt, in adapting words to an expressive air, that I was bestowing upon it the gift of articulation, and thus enabling it to speak to others all that was conveyed, in its wordless eloquence, to myself.' Part of the inspiration must also be attributed to national feelings. The old airs were consecrated to recollections of the ancient glories, the valour, beauty, or sufferings of Ireland, and became the Irish Melodies, in connection with Mr Moore's inseparably connected with such associations. songs, nine parts have been published in succession: they are understood to have been materially useful to the poet's fortunes. Without detracting from the merits of the rest, it appears to us very forcibly, that the particular ditties in which he delicately hints at the woes of his native country, and transmutes into verse the breathings of its unfortunate patriots, are the most real in feeling, and therefore the best. This particularly applies to 'When he who adores thee,' Oh, blame not the bard,' and 'Oh, breathe not his Of name; the first of which, referring evidently to the fancy of almost any other poet. It was amidst the fate of Mr Emmett, is as follows: When he who adores thee has left but the name Of his fault and his sorrow behind, Oh, say, wilt thou weep when they darken the fame Yes, weep! and, however my foes may condemn, For Heaven can witness, though guilty to them, With thee were the dreams of my earliest love, Oh, blessed are the lovers and friends who shall live But the next dearest blessing that Heaven can give, Is the pride of thus dying for thee! Next to the patriotic songs stand those in which a moral reflection is conveyed in that metaphorical form which only Moore has been able to realise in lyrics for music-as in the following exquisite example: I saw from the beach, when the morning was shining, Ah! such is the fate of our life's early promise, So passing the spring-tide of joy we have known: Each wave that we danced on at morning, ebbs from us, And leaves us, at eve, on the black shore alone. Ne'er tell me of glories serenely adorning The close of our day, the calm eve of our night; Give me back, give me back, the wild freshness of morning, Her clouds and her tears are worth evening's best light. Oh, who would not welcome that moment's returning, When passion first waked a new life through his And his soul-like the wood that grows precious in burning frame, Gave out all its sweets to Love's exquisite flame! In 1817 Mr Moore produced his most elaborate poem, Lalla Rookh, an oriental romance, the accuracy of which, as regards topographical, antiquarian, and characteristic details, has been vouched by numerous competent authorities. The poetry is brilliant and gorgeous-rich to excess with imagery and ornament-and oppressive from its very sweetness and splendour. Of the four tales which, connected by a slight narrative, like the ballad stories in Hogg's Queen's Wake, constitute the entire poem, the most simple is Paradise and the Peri, and it is the one most frequently read and remembered. Still, the first-The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan-though improbable and extravagant as a fiction, is a poem of great energy and power. The genius of the poet moves with grace and freedom under his load of Eastern magnificence, and the reader is fascinated by his prolific fancy, and the scenes of loveliness and splendour which are depicted with such vividness and truth. Hazlitt says that Moore should not have written 'Lalla Rookh,' even for three thousand guineas -the price understood to be paid by the booksellers for the copyright. But if not a great poem, it is a marvellous work of art, and contains paintings of local scenery and manners unsurpassed for fidelity and picturesque effect. The patient research and extensive reading required to gather the materials, would have damped the spirit and extinguished the snows of two or three Derbyshire winters, he says, while living in a lone cottage among the fields, that he was enabled, by that concentration of thought which retirement alone gives, to call up around him some of the sunniest of those Eastern scenes which have since been welcomed in India itself as almost native to its clime. The poet was a diligent student, and his oriental reading was 'as good as riding on the back of a camel.' The romance of ' Vathek' alone equals 'Lalla Rookh,' among English fictions, in local fidelity and completeness as an Eastern tale. After the publication of his work, the poet set off with Mr Rogers on a visit to Paris. The 'groups of ridiculous English who were at that time swarming in all directions throughout France,' supplied the materials for his satire entitled 'The Fudge Family in Paris,' which, in popularity, and the run of successive editions, kept pace with 'Lalla Rookh.' In 1819 Mr Moore made another journey to the continent in company with Lord John Russell, and this furnished his Rhymes on the Road, a series of trifles often graceful and pleasing, but so conversational and unstudied as to be little better (to use his own words) than 'prose fringed with rhyme.' From Paris the poet and his companion proceeded by the Simplon to Italy. Lord John took the route to Genoa, and Mr Moore went on a visit to Lord Byron at Venice. On his return from this memorable tour, the poet took up his abode in Paris, where he resided till about the close of the year 1822. He had conduct of the person who acted as his deputy at become involved in pecuniary difficulties by the Bermuda. His friends pressed forward with eager kindness to help to release him-one offering to place £500 at his disposal; but he came to the resolution of 'gratefully declining their offers, and endeavouring to work out his deliverance by his own efforts.' In September 1822 he was informed that an arrangement had been made, and that he might with claims of the American merchants had been resafety return to England. The amount of the duced to the sum of one thousand guineas, and towards the payment of this the uncle of his deputy— a rich London merchant-had been brought to contribute £300. A friend of the poet immediately deposited in the hands of a banker the remaining portion (£750), which was soon repaid by the grateful bard, who, in the June following, on receiving his publisher's account, found £1000 placed to his credit from the sale of the Loves of the Angels, and £500 from the 'Fables of the Holy Alliance.' The latter were partly written while Mr Moore was at Venice with Lord Byron, and were published under the nom de guerre of Thomas Brown. The Loves of the Angels' was written in Paris. The poem is founded on the Eastern story of the angels Harut and Marut, and the Rabbinical fictions of the loves of Uzziel and Shamchazai,' with which Mr Moore_shadowed out the fall of the soul from its original purity-the loss of light and happiness which it suffers in the pursuit of this world's perishable pleasures-and the punishments both from conscience and divine justice with which impurity, pride, and presumptuous inquiry into the awful secrets of heaven are sure to be visited.' stories of the three angels are related with graceful tenderness and passion, but with too little of the angelic air' about them. His latest imaginative work is The Epicurean, an Eastern tale, in prose, but full of the spirit and materials of poetry; and forming, perhaps, his highest and best sustained flight in the regions of pure romance. His lives of Sheridan and Byron we shall afterwards allude to in the list of biographical writers. Thus, The |