Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

Cooke. Nay, so strikingly is the fact exemplified in one structure; and secondly, from vegetable physiology, or of the treatises before us, that when Mr Cruickshank the knowledge of the various changes of form they underundertakes to give his readers an account of the sudden go, and the various functions they perform, through the and perfect creation of park scenery, by the Removal of instrumentality of external agents. But such persons as Wood, as one of the most extraordinary efforts of modern these, of course, treat trees as they would treat mere inart, and furnishes a minute account of all the practical organic matter. They operate on them, as the plough. details from Sir Henry Steuart's work, he cautiously ab- man operates on the ground, and the carpenter or the stains from any attempt to make his readers acquainted blacksmith on wood or iron, simply imagining, that they with the scientific principles; a developement of which, themselves are to acquire scientific information, by mere had he given it, would have rendered those details ten dint of mechanical practice ! To reason with such men times more interesting to any reader, learned or unlearn- is vain. Their confidence and self-sufficiency are in the ed. But Mr Cruickshank could not develope what he ratio of their ignorance. Guided by such counsellors, did not comprehend; as clearly appears from the whole however, they oftentimes succeed in misleading others, tenor and complexion of his book. and in retarding the advancement of that knowledge, which they are able neither to appreciate nor comprehend. It is the lamentable want of this knowledge, that has made Boutcher, and Marshall, and Nicol, all meritorious writers, appear unsatisfactory; Hanbury useless; and Pontey ridiculous; and has rendered the Pruning system of the last-mentioned so ruinous to the woods of England. * It is the same want that makes Billington and Cruickshank-two of our best practical men-sometimes write nonsense, and Withers always write it, with the powerful excitement of his conceit and self-sufficiency. Even the venerable Evelyn, in the same way, appears wearisome and prosing to a mind, habituated to look to principles as the groundwork of its researches. In a word, it is this indispensable want of scientific information, that has kept Arboriculture, in all its branches, down to the low rank of a mechanical art, till the present period.

As another eminent example of the same tardy diffusion of scientific knowledge, we may quote a late meritorious publication, on "The Culture of Hardy Evergreens," by Mr William M'Nab, Superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden of Edinburgh, a pamphlet which we noticed in a late Number, with the approbation it deserves. Mr M'Nab, we must say, is a person distinguished as a practical gardener; he is possessed of much observation as a florist and a nurseryman, and not unacquainted with systematic botany. In his tract on Evergreens, there is furnished the most ample evidence of great experience in ordinary culture being found to éxist without a vestige of science, and, strange to tell, in so judicious a practitioner, a most laughable contempt of any advantage to be derived from it! At the same time that he does this, he strikingly demonstrates the absurdity of his own conduct, by giving a variety of what he conceives to be unaccountable phenomena, or difficulties in practice, which, to ourselves, or any other intelligent physiologists, would seem no difficulties at all, if the facts attending them were only stated with accuracy. In a word, were we called upon to adduce the strongest proof of the vast importance of science in the art in question, it would be m the extreme simplicity and ignorance of this worthy man, in every thing beyond the mere matter of mechanical or gardener's practice. Yet this practice in him is, all the while, most excellent in itself, as far as it goes, while the fact of his ignorance of any thing existing beyond it, that is important for him to know, never once occurs to his imagination!

The last example, which we shall mention, of the general ignorance that prevails, regarding tree-culture, especially in England, (where it has been more studied than with us,) is the well-known imposition practised on English landholders by Mr William Withers, a Norfolk attorney, in respect to Trenching and Manuring. This system he has succeeded in making the great majority of country gentlemen believe to be a new discovery of his own, particularly the manuring; whereas the thing has been well known in England for more than two centuries. He has completely persuaded them, that it is the only rational system to be followed for general planting, instead of being fitted merely for particular departments; and that it is the sole method of either raising good oak timber for the Navy, or of improving what is already raised. The English, however, with all their intelligence, as we know well, are, and have ever been, the most gullible people on the face of the globe, from the days of the Bottle-conjurer down to the present period. In fact, honest John Bull is the only person, with whom conceit, impudence, and portentous ignorance, like Withers's, are sure to be swallowed for a season, until, by a return of his natural good sense and reflection, (which always come at last,) John heartily laughs at both the imposition and the impostor, with all the good-humour imaginable.

What is Scientific Arboriculture? We will tell Messrs Macnab and Withers, in a few words. It is the culture of wood, conducted on physiological principles; which principles are drawn, first, from the anatomy of woody plants, that is, a knowledge of their organs and internal

1

We should, then, earnestly advise our planters, and our writers on planting, to unite their best efforts, in bringing about a new era in this neglected but important art They should endeavour at length to learn, that a tree is not, as too many suppose, an inanimate substance, but a living being like themselves; that, in its constituent parts, it contains the same chemical principles as they do, though with different properties, and under different laws of organization.† "A plant," as an able writer has observed, " is a living being. Living beings are distinguished from inanimate bodies by peculiar characters. Their existence depends upon certain conditions, and is regulated by determinate laws. It is obvious, therefore, that there can be no scientific, and consequently no successful, manage ment of such beings, without a knowledge of the pheno mena of life, of the actions upon which these phenomena depend, and of the laws which regulate them. Living beings are distinguished essentially from inanimate bodies by the possession of a peculiar structure, and by the per formance of determinate, and generally internal actions, which are named functions. The structure peculiar to a living body consists in a determinate arrangement of the substances of which it is composed; such an arrangemens being denominated organization, and the body so formed being said to be organized. Organization and function are correlative. Organization is the instrument; function the action of the instrument; and the result the products, or phenomena peculiar to life.”

Such being the facts which vegetable anatomy and physiology open to our view, it becomes the indispensable duty of planters to study this curious being which they have to manage, as a body continually exerting its vege

It is a curious fact, that Pontey's "Forest Pruner," which came out in 1805, had gone through four or five editions, and misled hail the wood-owners of Britain, before his entire ignorance of the true principles of the art-vegetable anatomy and physiology-was suspected; and it was not fully exposed till 1828.-See: The Piani er's Guide," p. 440, et seqq.

+ It had long been ascertained, by chemical analysis, that the stituent parts both of plants and animals, contain precisely the sarct ultimate principles-namely, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and zace, although it is commonly said, that azote is peculiar to animal stance. The correct statement, however, is, that arote pred nates in the animal substance, while the vegetable is by no that there is an analogy of structure, which accurate investigation destitute of it. From this analogy of composition, it was inferte has proved.

1

[ocr errors]

WEEKLY REGISTER OF CRITICISM AND BELLES LETTRES.

tative powers, and daily exhibiting the most striking variations of external form, and often of internal structure. They should strive to make themselves acquainted with its appropriate organs, by means of which its functions are performed, and with the physical agents or stimulants, which act upon those organs, producing the various impressions, and exciting the various actions, that constitute, as above stated, the phenomena of life. In this way, they will perceive, not only how certain results are brought about respecting trees, by why they are brought about. Thus, they will be enabled at all times to resolve seeming difficulties, to effect general and beneficial improvements, and, by practice guided by sound principles, learn to correct their own errors, as well as those of others.

On one point we should further take the liberty of advising them, and that is, to read while they plant, and plant while they read; as there are no two things, that will more benefit each other. Country gentlemen, we well know, will do any thing rather than read; but they should remember, that no one ever yet became a superior practitioner in any art, who did not unite some portion of theory, or intellectual acquirement, with his mechanical or à manual processes. From the sages of physiology much may be learned. As their principles are well founded, so their conclusions will be important and instructive. But from the sages of the Spade and the Quill, whose merits we have already touched upon, little that is valuable or certain can be expected. Having no light to guide their enquiries, and no standard to which to refer their experiments, ordinary gardener's practice is all that can be got from the one, and ignorance and quackery from the other. Still

it is by being able to trace the effects produced upon trees by their physical agents, on which we have already enlarged, and by ascertaining in how far the quantity of those agents is best adapted to their peculiar organization, that planters will best consult the most perfect developement of their subjects, and bring them to the greatest perfection. In a word, it is by one and all of the above means united, that they will become competent to attain the main object in view-namely, that of raising Arboriculture from the condition of a mechanical to that of a scientific art.

If it be asked, in what quarter this reformation in the study of arboriculture should originate? We reply distinetly and without hesitation, with the Landowners and Country-gentlemen. These constitute the great and influential class of British planters; and, were science to become a favourite study among them, it would necessarily be acquired by nurserymen and gardeners, who would, of course, aspire to become its ostensible professors. Were this once brought about, it is plain, that we should hear no more of the prosing ignorance of M'Nab, or the confident pretensions, and still greater ignorance of Withers. Occasional pamphlets, while they stated new facts as they occurred, would at once refer us to their true causes, namely, the actions, simple or compound, of physical agents; and thus observation, instead of puzzling itself about fanciful difficulties, would gradually arrive at general truth, by the only path which sound philosophy ever adopts an induction of facts and experiments. In the case of agriculture, a similar course has already been pursued: and, although men of much science are not often found among professional farmers, or even among country gentlemen, as scientific persons of different classes have already dedicated their time and talents to the art, and rendered it an art of science, so practical men, who have no such knowledge themselves, have gradually come to learn, the results of science, and can bring them successfully to bear on practice accordingly.

What length of time may elapse, ere the same benefit be coaferred universally on Planting, it is not easy to say. The ingenious Earl of Dundonald, whom we have already mentioned, published his essays "On the Connexion between Husbandry and Chemistry," about 1794, and subsequently his Essays. In 1796, Mr Kirwan of the

|

327

Royal Irish Academy, the well-known chemist, composed his enquiry into the nature of "Soils and Manures." Several of the instructive writings of Young had at that time appeared, and those of Darwin soon followed. But it was not till the period between 1802 and 1812, that Sir Humphrey Davy delivered and completed his excellent "Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry," and enjoyed the triumph which had at last been achieved, by scientific investigation, over prejudice and ignorance. We think it improbable, from the experience of so tardy a progress in the sister art before our eyes, that arboriculture is not to improve with a far greater degree of rapidity. publication of "The Planter's Guide," in the end of 1827, gave the first impulse and although nothing scientific has since come out to second it among ourselves, not even in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, (which promises to become the best of our rural periodicals, and treats of planting as well as husbandry,) yet we are glad to see, that a series of papers on "Horticultural Chemistry" has appeared in Loudon's Magazine, and also some similar Essays in the Domestic Gardener's Manual, which do great honour to this nascent science in England.

The

Before ten years go about, we conceive that we may look forward to a revolution in our ideas of British arboriculture not more complete, than important to the interests of the empire. As it is clear, amidst all the changes and chances incident to learning, that THE LITERARY JOURNAL Will still survive, and preserve its verdant honours uninjured by time, we flatter ourselves, that having been the FIRST public writers to bring forward the subject, so we shall, in future, have more than one opportunity of recurring to this our confident prediction. Even long before the time we have ventured to fix upon, we should hope, that the eyes of our present race of planters may be opened, to the clear and comprehensive views of science united with skill and industry, which we have condescended to lay before them, and which, we trust, they will erelong discover to be for their benefit. At no distant day, we know, they will look back with surprise, at their present strange and portentous want of information. They will wonder how the good-humoured ignorance of principles, professed, and nearly boasted of, by the Superintendent of a Royal Botanic Garden, or the far greater ignorance of both principles and practice by a Norfolk attorney, should have escaped general reprobation by the watchful guardians of the press, or rendered necessary the strictures which we have done them the honour to bestow upon them. The future, compared with the present, condition of these planters, will be like that of mariners, who had been at sea without a compass; or like men, who had long worked in the dark, and the light of the sun was let in upon their labours.

Having some further observations to make upon this subject, we shall resume it in an early Number.

The Death- Wake; or, Lunacy. A Necromaunt. In
Three Chimeras. By Thomas T. Stoddart. Edinburgh,
Heury Constable. 1831. 12mo. Pp. 144.
(Unpublished.)

THIS poem deserves attention, were it for nothing but its singularity. Neither in name nor in substance is it In like any other poem we have seen for a long while. these days of smooth and sweet versification, we are glad to find something like originality starting up among us. Mr Stoddart is a young man, not long out of his teens, but his mind is plainly one sui generis; and strengthened, as it appears to have been, by an attentive study of our elder poets and dramatists, we are inclined to think that, when it arrives at its full and matured powers, it will show itself entitled to no inconsiderable elbow-room in the literary world. Our author is evidently determined to reject all the innovations of modern schoolswhether of the Lakists or the Satanics, the Sentimentals or

the Misanthropics. He holds on his own separate course boldly, with many flashes of success, and many indications of good things yet to come. We do not say that the style he has adopted is altogether to be admired, but, when purged and improved, it will ultimately be found to possess much manly vigour, and much of the Doric simplicity of genuine poetry-poetry which depends upon the author's thoughts, not upon his words. At present, there are many inequalities in Mr Stoddart's compositions. Inspired with the afflatus, he plunges on right through, regardless of the art of rendering his course smooth by skilful steering,-now careering gracefully over the top of a broad-backed billow, now down with a sudden plunge into the dark trough of the sea, where it is next to impossible to follow him. It is all one to him;--if bis conceptions assume a clear and distinct shape, it is well; if he gets lost in their maze, he feels that he has a sort of notion of what he would be at himself, and he leaves the reader to make him out the best way he can. What we wish to impress upon Mr Stoddart is this, that the finest ideas are good for nothing, unless they be clothed in distinct language. Byron was a greater poet than Shelley, not because he had a loftier mind, but because he did not attempt to do more with that mind than the words he had at his command enabled him to do. Shelley strained after impossibilities; Byron, with superior judgment, saw the exact extent to which execution could keep pace with conception, and knew that if he went beyond that boundary he passed into a terra incognita, where all was unsatisfactory and vague. Let it not be supposed that we object to a high degree of intellect being infused into poetry; there can be no poetry above the wishy-washy trash to be met with in an inferior Annual, unless it be instinct with intellect. But, in preference to even intellect itself, we demand lucid arrangement-mathematical clearness. This, indeed, is one of the highest triumphs of intellect. Let the thoughts be such, that their depth and novelty demand a pause, but not the pause of perplexing enquiry as to what the thoughts are which the language wishes to embody. Byron has finely said, that the "stars are the poetry of heaven." Let their example profit the earth-born bard. They shine upon their mighty page revealed at once in their separate loveliness; they inspire awe, and questioning, and meditation, but their actual and golden existence is involved in no hazy uncertainty.

The story of the "Death-Wake, or Lunacy," is simple, and easily told. Indeed, the impression it produces altogether is, in a great measure, to be attributed to the earnestness with which so simple an incident is dwelt on and amplified. Julio, a youth of noble parentage, but of a peculiarly constituted mind,-moody and morbid, and apt to prey upon itself, had retired at an early age into a convent, where he became a monk. Soon afterwards he formed an acquaintance with a fair nun, of the name of Agathé, which rapidly ripened into a passion of the deepest and most absorbing character. The holy vows he had taken became hateful to him, and his internal struggles were such, that they drove him to the very brink of madness. At this crisis, Agathé died, and Julio's misery and madness were completed. The first Chimera, or canto, which commences with the death of Agathé, consists of his going to her grave alone by night, opening it, and carrying off the dead body of his beloved, no one knows whither. The second Chimera discovers him seated in his frenzy on the sea-shore, with the corpse beside him. He embarks in a small vessel, of which he and Agathé are the sole tenants, and he sails away across the great ocean, wherever the winds and waves may carry him, the poet describing, as he proceeds, the feelings of the crazed and bewildered man, and the storms, and calms, and little incidents which vary his long and dreary voyage. There is a considerable feeling of sublimity conveyed by the prolonged description with which we are presented of the distracted mariner, alone upon the trackless

main, with that lifeless form for ever before him, and upon which his whole soul has intensified itself. The third Chimera takes us to an island, where Julio lands with the now decayed body of his Agathé, and where he meets a hermit, with whom he has some communing. Refusing, however, to quit either the beach or the mouldering remains of the dead nun, a storm at length arises, which sweeps him back into the sea, and his body and that of Agathé are cast ashore, locked in a final embrace. The hermit buries them, having first discovered that Agathé must have been his own daughter;—and thus the poem closes.

It will be allowed that there is here considerable strength and originality of design, and the mode of execution is quite as original. A few extracts will enable our readers to form a pretty just estimate of Mr Stoddart's style and vis poetica. The poem opens thus:

"An anthem of a sister choristry!
And like a windward murmur of the sea,
O'er silver shells, so solemnly it falls!
A dying music shrouded in deep walls,
That bury its wild breathings! And the moon,
Of glow-worm hue, like virgin in sad swoon,
Lies coldly on the bosom of a cloud,
Until the elf-winds, that are wailing loud,
Do minister unto her sickly trance,
Fanning the life into her countenance;
And there are pale stars sparkling, far and few
In the deep chasms of everlasting blue,
Unmarshall'd and ungather'd, one and one,
Like outposts of the tunar garrison.

"A train of holy fathers windeth by
The arches of an aged sanctuary,
With cowl, and scapular, and rosary,
On to the sainted oriel, where stood,
By the rich altar, a fair sisterhood-
A weeping group of virgins! one or two
Bent forward to a bier, of solemn hue,,
Whereon a bright and stately coffin lay,
With its black pall flung over :-Agathe
Was on the lid-a name. And who? No more!
'Twas only Agathé."

There is something solemn and attractive in this commencement. Still higher powers are displayed in the passage in which Julio is described as digging up Agathé :

"He wields a heavy mattock in his hands,
And over him a lonely lautern stands
On a near niche, shedding a sickly fall
Of light upon a marble pedestal,
Whereon is chisell'd rudely the essay
Of untaught tool, Hic jacet Agathé!'
And Julio hath bent him down in speed,
Like one that doeth an unholy deed.

"There is a flagstone lieth heavily
Over the ladye's grave; I wist of three
That bore it, of a blessed verity!
But he hath lifted it in his pure madness,
As it were lightsome as a summer gladness,
And from the carved niche hath ta'en the lamp,
And hung it by the marble flagstone damp.

"And he is flinging the dark, chilly mould
Over the gorgeous pavement: 'tis a cold,
Sad grave, and there is many a relic there
Of chalky bones, which, in the wasting air,
Fell mouldering away; and he would dash
His mattock through them, with a cursed crash,
That made the lone aisle echo.
But anon
He fell upon a skull,-a haggard one,
With its teeth set, and the great orbless eye
Revolving darkness, like eternity-
And in his hand he held it, till it grew
To have the fleshy features and the hue
Of life. He gazed, and gazed, and it became
Like to his Agathé-all, all the same!

He drew it nearer,-the cold, bony thing!-
To kiss the worm-wet lips. Ay! let me cling-

[ocr errors]

Cling to thee now, for ever!' but a breath
Of rank corruption from its jaws of death
Went to his nostrils, and he madly laugh'd,
And dash'd it over on the altar shaft,
Which the new risen moon, in her grey light,
Had fondly flooded, beautifully bright!"

"And Julio had stolen the dark chest
Where the fair nun lay coffin'd, in the rest
That wakes not up at morning: she is there,
An image of cold calm! One tress of hair
Lingereth lonely on her snowy brow;

But the bright eyes are closed in darkness now;
And their long lashes delicately rest

On the pale cheek, like sun-rays in the west,
That fall upon a colourless, sad cloud.
Humility lies rudely on the proud,

But she was never proud; and there she is,
A yet unwither'd flower the autumn breeze

Hath blown from its green stem! 'Tis pale, 'tis pale,
But still unfaded, like the twilight veil
That falleth after sunset; like a stream
That bears the burden of a silver gleam
Upon its waters; and is even so,-
Chill, melancholy, lustreless, and low!

"Beauty in death! a tenderness upon
The rude and silent relics, where alone
Sat the destroyer! Beauty on the dead!
The look of being where the breath is fled!
The unwarming sun still joyous in its light!
A time-a time without a day or night!
Death cradled upon Beauty, like a bee
Upon a flower, that looketh lovingly!
Like a wild serpent, coiling in its madness,
Under a wreath of blossom and of gladness!"

In the second Chimera, the varying nature of the feelings which Julio experiences in his lunacy is well brought out. The curse of thirst, joined with that of madness, is strongly depicted:

"And hours flew after hours, a weary length,
Until the sunlight, in meridian strength,
Threw burning floods upon the wasted brow
Of that sea-hermit mariner; and now
He felt the fire-light feed upon his brain,
And started with intensity of pain,

And wash'd him in the sea; it only brought
Wild reason, like a demon, and he thought

Of ocean and the sky-the sea and sky,
And the lone bark; no clouds were floating by
Where the sun set, but his great seraph light
Went down alone, in majesty and might;
And the stars came again, a silver troop,
Until, in shame, the coward shadows droop
Before the radiance of these holy gems,
That bear the images of diadems!
And Julio fancied of a form that rose
Before him from the desolate repose
Of the deep waters-a huge ghastly form,
As of one lightning-stricken in a storm;
And leprosy cadaverous was hung
Before his brow, and awful terror flung
Around him like a pall-a solemn shroud!-
A drapery of darkness and of cloud!
And agony was writhing on his lip,
Heart-rooted, awful agony and deep,
Of fevers, and of plagues, and burning blain,
And ague, and the palsy of the brain-
A weird and yellow spectre! And his eyes
Were orbless and unpupill'd, as the skies
Without the sun, or moon, or any star:
And he was like the wreck of what men are,-
A wasted skeleton, that held the crest

Of Time, and bore his motto on his breast!"

Alluding to Julio, Agathé, and the hermit, the poem ends as solemnly as it opened, with these lines; "All three are dead; that desolate green isle

Is only peopled by the passing smile
Of sun and moon, that surely have a sense,
They look so radiant with intelligence,-
So like the soul's own element,-so fair!,
The features of a God lie veiled there!
And mariners, that have been toiling far
Upon the deep, and lost the polar star,
Have visited that island, and have seen
That lover's grave; and many there have been
That sat upon the grey and crumbling stone,
And started, as they saw a skeleton
Among the long sad moss, that fondly grew
Through the white wasted ribs; but never knew
Of those who slept below, or of the tale
Of that brain-stricken man, that felt the pale
And wandering moonlight steal his soul away,
Poor Julio, and the ladye Agathé!".

M

These are sufficient examples to show, that Mr Stoddart can write when he pleases with no ordinary ability.

Strange thoughts, like dreaming men-he thought how In addition, however, to our principal advice touching

those

Were round him he had seen, and many rose His heart had hated; every billow threw Features before him, and pale faces grew Out of the sea by myriads :-the self-same Was moulded from its image, and they came In groups together, and all said, like one,

Be cursed!" and vanish'd in the deep anon. Then thirst, intolerable as the breath Of Upas, fanning the wild wings of death, Crept up his very gorge,-like to a snake, That stifled him, and bade the pulses ach Through all the boiling current of his blood. It was a thirst, that let the fever flood Fall over him, and gave a ghastly hue To his cramp'd lips, until their breathing grew White as a mist, and short, and like a sigh Heaved with a struggle, till it falter'd by,'

[ocr errors]

We look upon the following passage also as highly poetical, and entitling us to augur the very best things of its author:

.

"But, as a passion from the mooded mind,
The storm had died, and wearily the wind
Fell fast asleep at evening, like one
That hath been toiling in the fiery sun.

And the white sail dropt downward, as the wing
Of wounded sea-bird, feebly murmuring
Unto the mast. It was a deathly calm,
And holy stillness, like a shadow, swam
All over the wide sea, and the boat stood,
Like her of Sodom, in the solitude,

A snowy pillar, looking on the waste.

And there was nothing but the azure breast

obscurity, there is one thing we must recommend to him, which is, to cultivate his taste. He is in this respect somewhat like the poet Young. He is often admirable for eight or ten lines, and the next five or six spoil the whole. We confess that in looking out for extracts, we were a good deal puzzled to select passages whose continuous excellence entitled them to that preference. We could cull many detached sentences very happily expressed, but too often set down like flowers in the midst of weeds. As an instance of coarseness, far beyond due limits, we must express our decided disapprobation of the following passage. We have printed in italics those lines which are particularly objectionable:

"And there is not a braid of her bright hair
But lieth floating in the moonlight air,
Like the long moss, beside a silver spring,

In elfin tresses, sadly murmuring.

The worm hath 'gan to crawl upon her brow-
The living worm! and with a ripple now,
Like that upon the sea, are heard below
The slimy swarms, all ravening as they go,
Amid the stagnate vitals, with a rush;
And one might hear them echoing the hush
Of Julio, as he watches by the side
Of the dead ladye, his betrothed bride!

"And, ever and anon, a yellow group
Was creeping on her bosom, like a troop
Of stars, far up amid the galaxy, (!)
Pale, pale, as snowy showers; and two or three
Were mocking the cold finger, round and round,
With likeness of a ring; and, as they wound

About its bony girth, they had the hue
Of pearly jewels glistering in dew.

That deathly stare! it is an awful thing
To gaze upon; and sickly thoughts will spring
Before it to the heart: it telleth how

There must be waste where there is beauty now.
The chalk! the chalk! where was the virgin snow..
Of that once heaving bosom !—even so,-
The cold pale dewy chalk, with yellow shade
Amid the leprous hues; and o'er it play'd
The straggling moonlight, and the merry breeze,
Like two fair elves, that, by the murmuring seas,
Woo'd smilingly together; but there fell
No life-gleam on the brow, all terrible
Becoming, through its beauty, like a cloud
That waneth paler even than a shroud,
All gorgeous and all glorious before;

For waste, like to the wanton night, was o'er
Her virgin features, stealing them away-
Ah me! ah me! and this is Agathé ?”

Mr Stoddart must surely feel, that originality does not consist in rioting among the horrors of corruption, or revealing to us all the loathsome details of the charnelhouse, which a Mudford could do just as well as a Milton. We must not, however, part with our author without telling him, that we look upon him as possessing genius of great promise, and that his "Death- Wake" entitles him to take a highly respectable place among the many more youthful aspirants who are at present looking forward to the fuller honours of the Muse. Had we not thought so, we should not have allotted so much space to the present review; which we have done the more willingly that Mr Stoddart lives among ourselves, and that we have had, for some time back, opportunities of watching the improvement he has been making.

To the longer poem, a few minor pieces are added; and the volume is neatly printed, and handsomely finished.

the same time, to present us with much important information concerning New South Wales generally. His observations on the soil and country, his instructions to settlers, his advice regarding the clearing of land, and the planting of different crops, his account of the domestic and undomesticated animals, his description of the manners of the convicts, and their mode of treatment, and his sensible, and candid remarks on the extensive subject of emigration, are all entitled to attention, and are calculated to give his work a weight and value which it might not otherwise have possessed.

Without farther preface, we proceed to lay before our readers several interesting extracts, as specimens of Mr Dawson's agreeable and instructive style. We begin with

[ocr errors]

A GENERAL VIEW OF AUSTRALIA.

"If I am not much mistaken, the prevailing idea in England is, and always has been, that Australia is a rich and naturally productive portion of the globe. I can only say, that such an opinion of it is quite at variance with my experience. The great extent of the country-if the unknown interior be not barren-will, fortages to come, in some degree compensate for its defective soil; but this circumstance, and the want of navigable rivers into the interior of the country, must for ever cause it to remain a pastoral, and consequently a comparatively thinly populated region. Districts of good soil are generally found in the immediate neighbourhood of rivers, as well as on their banks. The scenery also is sometimes beautifully wild and striking, and sufficiently varied to interest the traveller in noderdinary degree; but these do not constitute the general character of the country; nor have I ever conversed with any persons there of experience and observation who have not expressed themselves greatly disappointed upon these subjects, after comparing the reality of things with the descriptions that had been given of them in England. People in general, however, and especially settlers who emigrated at an earlier period, who have been fortunate in the situation and quality of their land, and whose employment is in the open air, are captivated by the voluptuousness of the climate, and the freedom of the air from distempered miasma, arising from decayed vegetable matter and stagnant pools. The absence of underwood secures this happy result, and leaves an open and grassy country on almost every side of them. It affords also, without previous labour, facilities for grazing flocks. / and herds upon the spontaneous herbage of the soil, and forms a pleasing relief to the eye, under the blaze of an almost perpetual sunshine; but, unfortunately, all these advantages, which render it so pleasant and so healthy an abode for man, are produced by causes which are also the origin of its poverty, and which I shall endeavour more: particularly to explain in the body of this work. "There is another feature in this remarkable country, which must ever have great influence on the extent of its population, and the quantity of its exportable productions, at least, as far as present settlements are concerned-I mean the want of navigable waters. Nowhere has any discovery been made of a river which is navigable above twenty or twenty-five miles, and enough is now known of the coasts at very considerable distances from the present settlements, to warrant a belief that there are none in exist ence of greater extent. The form of the country will explain in some degree the reason of such an extraordinary fact. On the line of coasts, as far as I have seen them, which is from about latitude 27° to 40° both on the eastern and western sides, there are dividing ranges of mounIftains running from south to north, not more than fifty or sixty miles from the sea. The waters from the interior, do not appear anywhere to have penetrated them, and conse of the ocean, take their rise on the exterior sides of the quently, rivers which discharge themselves into those parts ranges, not more than sixty miles from the sea.

The Present State of Australia; a Description of the
Country, its Advantages and Prospects with reference to
Emigration, and a Particular Account of the Manners,
Customs, and Condition of its Aboriginal Inhabitants.
By Robert Dawson, Esq., late Chief Agent of the
Australian Agricultural Company. London. Smith,
Elder, and Co. 1830, 8vo. Pp. 464.

[ocr errors]

This is a useful and interesting work, but the title is too general, and does not convey a correct idea of the nature of the contents. Mr Dawson has limited himself in a great measure to an account of the aboriginal inhabitants, and characteristic sketches of the different wandering tribes of New South Wales. Having resided little at Sydney, the capital, or in any of the already colonized portions of that vast continent, but having been principally occupied in founding a new settlement, and in breaking up new ground for himself, he was necessarily brought much into contact with the simpler forms of what we are accustomed to call savage life, but which appear to have little or nothing savage about them, except that the customs of the woods are different from the customs of cities. The native Australians are an acute, mild-tempered, affectionate, and interesting race. their minds are uncultivated, and their notions limited, their desires also are temperate, and their wants few. Contentment makes their country delightful to them, health gives animation to their spirits, and the little they have plucked of the tree of knowledge has not been sufficient to open up to them the harassing distinctions between good and evil. Mr Dawson mingled with them under all circumstances, and has described in a picturesque and lively manner their dispositions, habits, and pursuits, enriching his narrative with numerous anecdotes and characteristic stories.

Our author, however, while the elucidation of every peculiarity in the aboriginal state of society in Australia is evidently his more immediate object, does not fail, at

[ocr errors]

"It is not yet ascertained on what quarter of the coast. the great interior waters have their outlet; but from the little that is known of the country, and from its exterior appearances, it is conjectured that it takes place on the north-west side of it. In this case, the waters which rise in the mountains south of the settlement called Bathurst, even though they moved in a direct line, must run a dis tance of nearly 2000 miles, but which, according to the tortuous course of rivers, could not be less than 6000 or 7000 miles, the extent of the country being about 2000 miles across it. On the eastern coast, the range has been,

« PreviousContinue »