times mistake, it will only be productive of a little more amusement in the discussion of the literary capabilities of some new individuals, with their styles and manners, even down to the composition of a law paper.
We cannot give long extracts from every work which we propose to notice, but we have no hesitation in saying, that the poem of Harold is throughout easy and flowing; never tame, and often exhibits great spirit. But it is apparent that the author had no plan in going on, farther than the very affected and unnatural one, now rendered trite by repetition, of making his hero wed his page, who turns out to be a lady in disguise. All the rest of the poem seems to run on at mere random. The introduction begins with the following stanzas.
"There is a mood of mind we all have known,
On drowsy eve, or dark and low'ring day,
When the tired spirits lose their sprightly tone,
And nought can chace the lingering hours away,
Dull on our soul falls Fancy's dazzling ray,
And, Wisdom holds his steadier torch in vain,
Obscured the painting seems, mistimed the lay,
Nor dare we of our listless load complain,
For who for sympathy may seek that cannot tell of pain!
Ennui!—or, as our mothers call'd thee, Spleen!
To thee we owe full many a rare device;—
Thine is the sheaf of painted cards, I ween,
The rolling billiard-ball, the rattling dice,
The turning lathe for framing gimcrack nice;
The amateur's blotch'd pallet thou may'st claim,
Retort and airpump, threatening frogs and mice,
(Murders disguised by philosophic name,)
And much of trifling grave, and much of buxom game.
Then of the books to catch thy drowsy glance
Compiled, what bard the catalogue may quote!
Plays, poems, novels, never read but once;—
But not of such the tale fair Edgeworth wrote,
That bears thy name, and is thine antidote;
And not of such the strain my Thomson sung,
Delicious dreams inspiring by his note,
What time to Indolence his harp he strung;
Oh! might my lay be rank'd that happier list among!"
The dry humour, and sort of half Spenserian cast of these, as well as all the other introductory stanzas in the poem, we think excellent, and scarcely outdone by any thing of the kind that we know of; and there are few parts, taken separately, that have not something attractive to the lover of natural poetry, while any one page will shew how extremely it is like to the manner of Scott.
A professed imitator will not, we presume, value himself much on his pretensions to originality, else we might perhaps give the author some offence by remarking, that the demeanour of Harold in the fane of St Cuthbert, is too like that of Wat o' the Cleuch in Jedburgh abbey, to be viewed as purely incidental; and it is not a little singular, that he should have judged it meet to borrow from another imitator, who, in that style and instance, is so decidedly his inferior.
We shall only add, that Harold the Dauntless is a fit and reputable companion to Triermain. The poetry is more equal, and has more of nature and human character; yet when duly perused and reflected on, it scarcely leaves on the mind, perhaps, so distinct and powerful an impression.
It is a remarkable fact, that no crisis of our political existence, during the last half-century, has called forth so few of our pamphleteer speculators on statistics as the present;—when the unexampled difficulties which have oppressed our agriculture, our manufactures, and our commerce,—difficulties from whose operation no one amongst us has been exempt, and whose extent no one amongst us can define, present so wide a field to our soi-disant philosophers and statesmen. Whether this silence be owing to a want of ability, or a want of inclination to encounter a subject of such magnitude, it is not now our business to determine. Two plans, however, have been brought forward, which we are assured will relieve us from all our embarrassments. Major Cartwright prescribes for us universal suffrage and annual parliaments, while a distinguished member of the Legislature is not less sanguine in his expectation, that our farmers and our manufactures will find a remedy for all their distresses—in the plains of South America! The subject having been thus neglected, it was with not less pleasure than surprise, that on reading the tract before us, we found that the author,—whoever he be—developes in a masterly manner the causes which have brought us into our present alarming situation, and explains the measures which, he thinks, ought to be adopted to work out our deliverance.
