This altar, that baptismal font, These stones which now thy dust conceal, Those scenes the heart can ne'er forget! 'I feel not now as then I felt, The sunshine of my heart is o'er; But thou wert snatch'd, my brother, hence, One Sabbath saw thee bend the knee, For childish faults forgiveness crave — In silence, where my brother slept.' We have preferred an uninterrupted extract, as being fairer to the author; although we are thus forced to deprive our readers of the pleasure of following the poet to still more touching recollections at the last. This young minstrel must possess great versatility of talent; for he appears in the same volume in the character of a very humorous, and perhaps somewhat free writer of burlesque verse, on the well-known story of Lady Godiva. Not a very prudent choice of a subject, we think, has here been made: but little if any thing objectionable occurs in the management of it; and a surprising facility of composition, in the best manner of Beppo himself, is manifested through We cannot, throughout this odd display of juvenile ability. however, approve the taste of some other contributor to these volumes, who talks in such excessive raptures of the genius of his versatile coadjutor, as could hardly be warranted in any private association of authors, and much less in their public and printed capacity. These youths, indeed, praise each other a great deal too much throughout the work. It is quite impossible for us to go regularly through the multiform and manifold contents of these volumes; and therefore, without noticing any other faults in the first, we shall refer with various degrees of praise to several of the essays. The paper on Nicknames' displays considerable boyish fun and cleverness; that on Yes and No,' much neatness of antithesis in jocose argument; that on the Christmas Holidays' might compel us to break our previous resolution of passing no more censure on the contents of this volume: but it is intitled 'The Miseries of the Christmas Holidays,' and this word alone, we are certain, would be enough to condemn the young author in the judgment of his school-fellows. We do not believe that ingratitude, or a disposition to quiz their own homes, is an Etonian vice. The paper on Politeness and Politesse' is a striking specimen of true and hearty John Bullism; and, although we sincerely profess to be better citizens of the world than to indulge in unseemly national prejudices, we must own that at the present moment, while the rage for emigration from old England in the season of her distress is so excessive, we see no harm, but rather good, in administering a strong caution to our travelling countrymen against the faults of foreign character; — lest by chance they should become denationalized, as well as expatriated. - The Treatise on the Practical Asyndeton,' though not so good as a preceding Treatise on the Practical Bathos,' has fancy and sense in sufficiency; and the Peep into Rawsdon Court proves an early acquaintance with the habits of society, as well as a degree of observation on men and manners, which are very singular ingredients in these volumes. On these qualities we shall offer a remark or two, before we conclude. 6 6 The tale of Girolamo and Sylvestra, from the Italian,' reads well and pleasantly: but we must remark that the subject is a farther instance of a somewhat hazardous choice in these young authors. Another prose translation from the Italian seems also ably executed; it is that of the well-known story of Guiscard and Sigismonda: (vol. ii. p. 105.)- but how comes the translator to preserve so solemn a silence about the poem of Dryden on this subject? Does he so far carry M 4 the the Elizabethan affectation of the day as to undervalue Dryden also? 6 • Reminiscences of my Youth' are on a subject which, however hackneyed, is sure to please if treated with feeling, as it is in the verses before us; though, however, they rather too much resemble a cutting down of the manly simplicity of Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," into the little pocket octosyllabics of the age in which we sing. Martin Sterling* on Principle' is a virtuous and highspirited essay, calculated to do much good at a public school; and we eagerly seize this opportunity of observing, with sincere pleasure, that the tone and feeling manifested on all serious occasions by these Etonians is highly creditable to themselves, and to all concerned in their education. By serious occasions we mean such as they thoroughly, and on reflection, feel to be so; and, although their natural flow of spirits, and the truly pardonable levity of youth, may sometimes lead them to treat with too much wantonness that which had better have been left alone, or more gravely mentioned, yet on the whole we have marked very few prominent instances of this defect: the work being altogether as unexceptionably moral, and cheerfully though sincerely religious, as the most anxious parents or governors of youth can wish it to be. This is high praise; and not only " habeant secum" at present, but we may add, which is of much more consequence," serventque sepulchro." The Essay on Coleridge's Poetry' we do not hesitate to call a masterly piece of criticism; exceptis excipiendis in the systematic fervor of admiration. Otherwise, the young critic's quotations would amply bear him out; and they will help to strengthen an opinion of our own, which we have not been backward in expressing on proper opportunities, that in point of intellectual reach and variety, (of genius, in a word,) Mr. Coleridge stands decidedly at the head of his own peculiar sect or party; although we certainly think that he too, in some degree, "To party gave up what was meant for mankind." The criticisms On Wordsworth's Poetry' also shew much originality and strength of observation: but they are liable to a similar objection with that above mentioned, in a more vicious excess; for the passages adduced in justification of * How much better it would have been to have adhered throughout to these fictitious appellatives! the the critic's inordinate praise are plainly of inferior merit, in their own kind, to those which are selected from Coleridge. We must be very brief in our notice of the Second Volume; and we do not profess, in our review of the first, to have given any thing like a complete exhibition of its various contents. Our object has been rather to record its prominent excellences, and to point out its pervading defects, with the sincere wish of benefiting the youthful authors. The paper On the Writings of James Montgomery,' high as the strain of panegyric is, renders no more than justice to that beautiful and touching poet: but, in the comparison between him and Cowper, the writer certainly betrays much deficiency of nice discrimination. The resemblance between them is rather a family than an individual likeness; and, with regard to one conspicuous quality in both, (which is all that we can here specify,) the critic is surely quite in error. The religious spirit and feeling of Montgomery bear a very partial similitude indeed to those attributes in the mind of Cowper; and we do not hesitate a moment in preferring the character of devotion that is stamped on the poetry of the bard of Sheffield, to that which marks the bias of his more popular predecessor. Some confusion of ideas in The Etonian' seems hitherto to have prevented him from perceiving the difference between the pervading gentleness, humility, and subdued tone of heartfelt piety which animate and ætherialize the works of Montgomery, and the equally sincere but certainly more exacting, if not more exclusive, spirit which gives intense nerve and solemnity perhaps, though less attractive persuasiveness, to the writings of the original and unhappy Cowper. We speak of both poets in the general; particular passages might, no doubt, be selected, in which they interchange characters. - A burlesque critique on Mr. Southey's well known song of the "March to Moscow" forms an excellent parallel to the equally well known essay on "The Queen of Hearts" in "The Microcosm ;" and we take this moment to observe that, although nothing in The Etonian' perhaps reaches the compressed and polished wit of some portions of its precursor, we have beyond comparison more variety and an ampler display of talent altogether in the present work. The same sort of remark may be made on comparing the papers before us with "The Miniature," the intermediate work between that and the "Microcosm :" but "The Miniature," we think, occasionally displayed an extent of reading, and a power of just reflection, beyond any thing in its successor; and, if this be so, it is highly honorable to that performance: for, like "The Microcosm," we believe, it was entirely the work of boys boys resident at Eton. The writers in the present volumes have called in the very valuable aid of several contributors both from Oxford and Cambridge, of Eton origin and extraction, indeed, and we hope only of late removal from school. We decline to give any farther opinion on this measure, than that it has added very much to the amusing and valuable properties of the work. From the paper on "The March to Moscow" we select the following specimens: In the first place, then, the "March to Moscow" is a song ; and thence in its very nature, as we shall soon show, a nobler creation than an epic poem. The fact is, in modern times the character of songs has been greatly depreciated, and perhaps with some justice, when reference is had to the shoals of things called, or calling themselves, by that name; but we should not therefore forget that the essence still remains the same, though not successfully substantialized in the imperfect attempts which we contemn. A song is that which was first sung before the jargon of epic, or tragic, or comic, was thought of by a parcel of plodding grammarians; it was the free and spontaneous poetry of the soul, couched in multiform images, dressed in a thousand robes, and comprehending all things, even as the soul itself comprehended them. A song is the original and natural organ of genius; and for this we have the greatest authority; for when the wisest man that ever lived on earth turned his universal mind to poetry, what did he write? An epic poem? A tragedy? A comedy? A melodrama? A satire? A sonnet? An epigram? By no means! He instantly saw, or rather felt, how poetry best showed itself to men, in what dress it least suffered from the imperfection and material touch of language; and in what form it would be most popular, most comprehensive, most penetrating, most melodious. He wrote a song - and verily, a man must be gifted with a more than usual proportion of impudence, who denies or underrates the authority of King Solomon.' It is difficult to give a just idea of the dry humor and irony of this performance, without reading the whole: but we must make another trial or two. After having quoted the Peripeteia and Russian Catalogue,' (which, to do Mr. Southey justice, although he has done little to Napoleon, is truly funny and facetious,) the critic proceeds: Upon this splendid passage we have a few remarks to make. The taking of Troy ended the Trojan war, and the taking of Jerusalem ends the epic of Tasso; but here the taking and subsequent conflagration of a city five times as large as either of the two former, is so far from concluding the war or poem, that it is used only as the commencement of the revolution of a fortune; it is, in fact, nothing, when compared with what follows, except apparently as the matrix of thousands of horrible beings, who seem |