Thus, the picture of the Mother and Child is unequalled for truth and sweetness.

"As ever, ever, to her lap he flies,

When rosy sleep comes on with sweet surprise.”

What more affecting than the allusion to Jane Grey?

"Who in her chamber sate

Musing with Plato, though the horn was blown,
And every ear and every heart was won,

And all in green array were chasing down the sun.

Again, the lines on Youth.

"Then is the age of admiration-then

Gods walk the earth, or beings more than men; &c.
Then, from within, a voice exclaims Aspire,'" &c.

a very high merit.

And the allusions which follow to Lord Surrey and to Byron, are of So there is a startling beauty in these two lines: "When by a good man's grave I muse alone,

Methinks an angel sits upon the stone.”

Lastly, we incline to think the plan and conception of " Human Life," to be the witness of a very noble order of inventive faculty; but in the execution, we blame the ambition that sought, and we question the judgment that selected the peculiarities of a new school as an admixture with the graces of the old. A man should be very young to change a method of writing in which he has been successful. A happy mannerism either comes early, or must be brooded over long. But enough of this. Turn we to the last and greatest of our author' poems, " Italy."

S

An edition has lately been published of this work that has brought it, almost as a new poem, again before the world-an edition that so highly honours the arts which have adorned it, that we look upon it with a national pride, as a sort of epoch in the history of letters. Italy" is before us; as we turn over its pages, the verse and the engraving make the divine land visible. The forms, the vases, the palace, the ruin, the lake, the beings of history, the creatures of legend, yea, the very sky, the very moon of Italy-all-we see them all :

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The great character of this poem, as it is in the "Pleasures of Memory," is simplicity; but here simplicity assumes a nobler shape. Although to a certain degree there is an alteration in the tone of the last from that of the first published poem, an alteration seemingly more marked from the difference between blank verse and rhyme; and although there is something of the new Persian odours breathing from the myrtle wreaths of a muse whom "displicent nexæ philyrà coronæ," yet, unlike what we felt inclined to blame in " Jacqueline"

and the "Human Life" we see nothing that reminds us of individual traits in another; nothing that reminds us of Byron, though he strung his harp to the same theme; nothing that recalls any contemporaneous writer, unless it be occasionally Wordsworth, in Wordsworth's purer, if not loftier vein: we see no harsh, constrained abruptness emulating vigour; no childish minauderies that would fain pass themselves off for simplicity. Along the shores and palaces of old glides one calm and serene tide of verse, wooing to its waters every legend, and every dream, that can hallow and immortalize.

This poem differs widely from the poems of the day, in that it is wholly void of all that is meretricious. Though Nature itself could not be less naked of ornament, yet Nature itself could not be more free from all ornament that is tinsel or inappropriate. A contemplative and wise man, skilled in all the arts and nursing all the beautiful traditions of the past; having seen enough of the world to moralize justly; having so far advanced in the circle of life as to have supplied emotion with meditation; telling you in sweet and serene strains all that he sees, hears, and feels in journeying through a country which Nature and History combine to consecrate: this is the character of Rogers's "Italy," and the reader will see at once how widely it differs in complexion from the solemn " Harold," or the impassioned "Corinne." This poem is perfect as a whole; it is as a whole that it must be judged; its tone, its depth, its hoard of thought and description, make its main excellence, and these are merits that no short extracts can adequately convey.

Of all things perhaps the hardest in the world for a poet to effect, is to gossip poetically. We are those who think it is in this that Wordsworth rarely succeeds, and Cowper as rarely fails. This graceful and difficult art, Rogers has made his own to a degree almost unequalled in the language.

"Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori:

Hic nemus, hic ipso tecum consumerer ævo." We open the page (p. 135 of that superb edition we have referred to)-how beautiful the vignette!

"The rising moon we hail,

Duly, devoutly from a vestibule,

Of many an arch o'er wrought, and lavishly

With many a labyrinth of sylphs and flowers,

When Raphael and his school from Florence came,

Filling the land with splendour.

It is remarked, we perceive, by a correspondent, in another part of this number, viz. in the Conversations with an Ambitious Student, that the Author of " The Pleasures of the Imagination" was a professional man--the scholar of a city, not the fields. So, with the Author of "The Pleasures of Memory"- —a banker, a wit, a man of high social reputation-we find it is from the stony heart of the great world that the living waters of a pure and transparent poetry have been stricken. Few men of letters have been more personally known in their day, or more generally courted; a vein of agreeable conversation, sometimes amene, and more often caustic-a polished mannera sense quickly alive to all that passes around, and, above all, perhaps, a taste in the arts, a knowledge of painting and of sculpture-very rare in this country-have contributed to make the Author of "Italy"

scarce less distinguished in society than in letters-a society, it is true, that while it calls itself the best, is the most empty in all things, but pretension-made up of all the triflers in knowledge and all the coxcombs in politics-all the lords among wits, and all the wits among lords of the sycophant, termed humorist, among the low-born of the Mævius turned Mæcenas among the high-with a good-natured quack at the bottom of the table, and a Canidia, who apes the Aspasia, at the top!

This is not the circle in which, for our part, and with our zeal for the true dignity of letters, we are willing to find a great poet the common resident. Such scenes he should visit, but not dwell in ; seen occasionally, they sharpen the observation; constantly haunted, they emasculate the genius.

"Le ton du monde n'est plus souvent qu'un persiflage ridicule.

Quelque éloge qu'on donne à ce jargon, si, pour apprécier le mérite de la plu part de ces bons mots si admirés dans la bonne compagnie, on les traduisoit dans une autre langue, la traduction dissiperoit le prestige, et la plupart de ces bons mot se trouveroient vuides de sens.'

In a word

"Quand le bon ton paroit, le bon sens se retire!"

We have made these remarks openly, for we think that to such society Moore has owed much that adulterates, and Rogers much that has weakened his native genius. To them it is now too late for conviction; to us it is never too late (for when will their works die?) for regret.

In composition, it is said that Mr. Rogers writes with labour, and polishes with great care. In character, those who know him best have declared him to be generous, kindly, and humane; to be free ' from envy, and alive to benevolence-willing to sympathise now with the distress of his brethren, and now (harder task!) with their prosperity.

These short remarks upon the writings of an accomplished and true poet contain our honest opinion; they are recorded by one who once did him a boyish injustice, who is now eager to repair it-not by a blind, pan-eulogium, but a candid, though brief criticism. Long may the poet, whose youth and age have equally delighted us, continue to foster those studies which so gracefully embellish the decline of life; may he and ourselves, even in these noisy and active times, yet find leisure, the one to furnish, and the other to acknowledge, new obligations. Among the shades and recesses of the excited world, there is always one spot that is sacred-that spot over which Poetry presides and gathers a devoted and faithful court. Thither, from time to time, the sternest of us, not unmindful of young thoughts and early visions, will silently steal away, when

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A WEEK AT DERBY, DURING THE FESTIVAL."

You ask me to give you an account of the Festival at Derby. You say, amongst many other agreeable things, that you are desirous of learning what impression a series of these exhibitions make upon a man of-I quote your words" of some sensibility, whose apprehension of the delicate and grand in sound, are not obscured by an undue respect for the mere technicalities of music." You wish also to know how "the heart of the country" responds to these musical intimations; and, in a word, you desire to know all my "whereabout, without excuse, curtailment, or delay." The result of all this is, that I send you a journal of my proceedings; a small requital, I confess, for your compliments, which I have found, as you see, irresistible.

The Festival of Derby was given for the benefit of "The General Infirmary;" the Sacred Music being performed in All Saints' Church, and the Miscellaneous (or profane) at the County Hall.

It is a pleasant thing to find oneself in a place devoted to enjoyment of any sort; and this pleasure is not diminished when music of the loftiest character is to form a part of the recreation. Accordingly, I felt that I was about to enter upon an agreeable scene, and I resolved to enjoy it as much as I might. The preparations, with their hum and bustle, the dusky old-fashioned houses in the Irongate, the deep red of the newer buildings, the exceedingly fair complexions of the damosels of Derby, the occasional recognition of faces that I had seen in London, all interested me. The first person whom I recognized, as the mail rolled into the town, was François Cramer, the steady, excellent leader of the band, ready dressed, and looking both in time and tune, and altogether presenting a pleasant intimation of what was about to happen. The band which he led, consisting of about a couple of hundred performers, reckoned amongst them the names best known in the world of music. The chorus singers (in number from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and fifty, I believe,) were alone worth a journey thither; for there is never the same vast body of voice to be heard in London. The principal singers were Mrs. Knyvett, Madame Stockhausen, Miss Cramer, and Miss Masson (a delightful singer), Mr. Vaughan, Mr. Wm. Knyvett, Mr. E. Taylor, Mr. Phillips, and Mr. Braham. To these were added (for the evening concerts only) De Begnis. The person, however, who mainly interested me (and who was in effect the solid prop of the Derby Festival) was the Chevalier Sigismond Neukomm. Of him I shall speak hereafter.

We will now proceed to discuss the performers. I shall first, however, trouble you with a few words touching my right (not being a professor of the art) to give any opinion on the subject. The question has been a good deal agitated lately, whether a man, ignorant of counterpoint (but otherwise being fairly entitled to entertain an opinion for himself, and having, moreover, ears of no extraordinary dimensions) may speak of the dealers in sweet sounds. I confess I think that a jury would decide in his favour. Let it be remembered that music consists, not only of a collocation of sounds, formed upon established rules (which is the science, properly so called) but of expression and character also; and be it said under favour-the highest parts of music are by no means those which are built upon mere technical knowledge. Science is simply the power or director. Fancy and imagination (added to the knowledge of the human heart) it is, which generate fine music. Science enables you to avoid error-to use the thoughts that come thronging into the mind with effect. But it does not create those thoughts. They arise from the taste, the sensibility, the imagination, the general intellect of the man, and crown his work with beauty and splendour; which else would remain a dull, uninteresting mass of sound, possessing no claims even to the name of music. A person of cultivated ear has as undoubted a right to speak of the effect of music as a professed musician. If it be not so, let us understand at what precise period of his scholarship the learner of music becomes entitled to decide, in preference to the experienced lover of the art? Here is a dilemma. Is Diggory, fresh from the fallows, who has been playing on the salt-box, with horrible success, for a twelvemonth, to

frown down an intelligent amateur, who has been listening half his life to the divine melodies and harmonious combinations of Beethoven and Handel, of the learned Haydn, and the sweet-souled Mozart? Is the traveller, whose eye is acquainted with the beauties of Greek and Roman temples, to be laughed at by the brick-builder, when he hazards an opinion as to the elegance of Soll's Row, or Islington Terrace, which the said builder has built-not according to Vitruvius, but " according to contract?"-The thing is preposterous. Let the truly scientific man be deferred to, in matters of science merely. But when the result be a thing affecting taste, or sensibility, or the general understanding of men, let others be admitted to form their judgments also.

With this preamble, I proceed to the first morning exhibition of music, which commenced, in All Saints' Church, two hours after I arrived at Derby.

Tuesday, Sept. 27. The Festival opened with an Anthem of Orlando Gibbons, succeeded by the " Te Deum,” and “Jubilate." Then came Dr. Boyce's delightful duet," Here shall soft Charity repair," which I used to hear Bartleman and Harrison sing five-and-twenty years ago. It was sung on the present occasion by Vaughan and Phillips, and sung well. The first is a pure but ineffective singer-and a good master, as I imagine; but in a church he is almost lost. The latter (who has a capital voice, a barytone) is an invaluable singer, as well for the quality of his tones, which are eminently rich, as for his general taste and good sense. "The Prophecy of Babylon," (a composition of the Chevalier Neukomm) was given with good effect by Mr. E. Taylor, to whom the musical world are indebted for various translations and adaptations from Italian and German composers of eminence. I was told that this gentleman was originally an amateur only, but that circumstances had rendered it desirable for him to follow Music as a profession. This, and the intimation of his having always patronized the art and its followers, gave him an interest in my eyes. His voice (a regular bass) is very effective in quartets, &c. and he uses it with judgment. A manuscript composition of Attwood was next heard; and then Braham gave the famous recitative " Deeper and Deeper Still." To my thinking, he sung it more finely than I had ever heard, more purely, and with a more touching effect. His performance of the air "Waft her Angels," was not, I thought, equal to his introductory recitative. There is sometimes an approach to exaggeration in this great singer, and sometimes almost too great a fusion of the dramatic into his sacred songs, but in the recitative from Jephtha all was perfect, and in the best taste.

If Braham be not the most extraordinary singer (and I think the matter may admit of some debate on his behalf), he is, beyond a question, one of the most extraordinary singers that ever lived. Here has he been singing for almost half a century, manifesting (when he pleases) the purest taste, great science, and a power of voice that is beyond parallel. The thrilling exultation of some of his songs shakes the heart within us, like the blast of a trumpet. It is difficult to imagine that the tender but clear notes which he sometimes gives out, like the sound of silver, proceed from the same throat, that at other times sends abroad terrible notes that drown the brazen voices of the orchestra. He has infinite flexibility and power of adapting himself to any subject. The tender air, the merry song, the "terribil via," are all and completely his. He ranges about, chartered libertine," subduing all things before him. He is at home with every composer, and in all their moods; representing with equal power, and seemingly with equal facility, the sublimity of Handel or Haydn, the pathos or grandeur of the Chevalier Neukomm, the frenzy of the songs of Purcell, the boisterous merriment of Martini, and the bacchanalian madness of wine!

like a

Tuesday evening.-The Concert-room was not crowded this evening; but afterwards, the evening performances were exceedingly well attended. You will suppose that some interest was excited by the festival, when I tell you that Mr. Moscheles, Mr. Horseley, Mrs. Anderson, and various others, honoured by the lovers of music, were among the company at Derby. Mr. Thomson (a young composer of promise, and very considerable science, as I understand) was also there; and the Chevalier Neukomm conducted, whenever his own compositions