down the con amore spirit with which we regard it, than to persuade ourselves, as in some other cases, into an agreement with the general belief, that certain works, bearing the authority of great names, are pure abstractions of poetry and pathos. This feeling is not at this time produced by the operation of the usual causes-for the work before us neither gives evidence of much learned labour, nor of much taste on the part of the editor-nor always of much poetical feeling, tenderness, or wildness of fancy, in the compositions of those who have given him their aid. In the first place, we heartily rejoice that the wild and magical airs which are now before us have been thus preserved from sinking into oblivion. The music of the Highlands is, like the race that inhabits their lofty mountains and silent glens, completely distinct in character from that of every other nation upon the face of the earth. This peculi arity may be accounted for by the recollection of the singularity of their superstitions, and that idiosyncrasy which prevented them from mingling with the "people of the plains"-and this character was thus preserved entire until the rebellion in 1745. The poetry and music of every nation are tinctured by the character of the scenery with which they are familiar. Thus the glowing skies and profuse vegetation of Italy have thrown over its music and its song that warmth, and richness, and variety, which so intensely delight us-and in France, the gaiety of perpetual spring, and the associated ideas of romantic passion and truth, have given to what may be called their own poetry and music, its air of vivacity, mixed with that kind of voluptuous tenderness, which has been so touchingly described by ROUSSEAU. If we turn to the north, we may easily recognize the effects of scenery in the wild and gigantic fictions of the Edda, and in the darker superstitions of that mythology which gave rise to the wild chaunts which constituted at once the poetry and music of Scandinavia. All the influences of scenery are caused by the recollections of human feelings and human actions. We associate with the scenery of Spain, for ex ample, the ideas of Moorish magnificence and Asturian chivalry-the gallantry of the Cid, and the profuse splendour of Abdurrahman-and, in the scenery of Italy, those who can forget the giants, and magicians, and enchanted castles, and griffin-horses, and impossible feats recorded in her modern poets, will meet every where with some object that will remind him in a way much more exquisite of her ancient glories. If the scenery of the Highlands does not awaken recollections of literary splendour, or of magical pomp, it possesses associations which, on the minds of the natives, equal them in their qualities of inspiration. They can people every glen with the generations which have passed away and not a cloud sails over their frowning mountains which does not bear the shade of a hero. They hear his voice in the wind and in the thunder, and it rouses all their powers of poetry and of song. Their triumphs over the Saxons, too, have given to their warlike poetry a character of batred similar to that of the American Indians. Their poetry and music, for these reasons, have alternately an air of sadness, like that which we feel at the recollection of a departed friend,-of triumphant and swelling consciousness that they possess a race of heroes, who have not forsaken the lakes and vallies and dark mountains among which they lived-or a mixture of both these, added to their national prejudices against the race whose hills cannot, like their own, raise them to the storms, and echo with far other sounds than the screaming of the eagle. In the next place, we rejoice to see the great names which adorn the work, and to think that in after-times they will be associated with the melodies which have soothed, or the airs which have agitated the bosoms of the Highland clans: that they will not only be remembered with delight by the learned and the lovers of poetry, but with affection by those who have never heard of the Lay of the great Minstrel, the Queen's Wake of Mr. HoGG, or the various and splendid talents of Mr. DOUGLAS, of Mr. WILSON, or of Mr. JA MIESON. At the twenty-fourth page there is a fine Highland air-to which Mr DOUGLAS has written some verses, in which a common thought, (the uncertainty of the future,) is ex pressed with singular delicacy and beauty: "Like lightning gleams along the sky The sunshine of our tardy summer; Calm days glide like the wavelets, kist That heavily rolls round the mountain." p. 25. The verses of MR. PRINGLE, beginning "I'll bid my heart be still," are sweet and plaintive, and accord very well with the character of the music to which they were written. And those called "The Sea-Mew," by Mr. WILSON, have a certain tender wildness about them, which is as exquisite as it is appropriate, and far more suited to the subject of the air than the uniform gaudy voluptuousness which Mr. THOMAS MOORE casts over all his pieces, whether gay or pathetic. We cannot, however, speak so favourably of the favourite song of an old clergyman, with which the editor has favoured us at page 65. This reverend person, it seems, was somewhat partial to wine, and has kindly given us his reasons in this song for this partiality. The editor, however, has counterbalanced the strains of this worthy parallel of the YOUNGES and the KETTS by the insertion of the following; which our readers, we are sure, will at once recognize as a genuine production of MR. WALTER SCOTT, and as instinct with the life and spirit and fire, which his poetry always possesses. "Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, Pibroch of Donuil, Wake thy wild voice anew, True heart that wears one; Broad swords and targes. Come as the winds come, when Forests are rended; Come as the waves come, when Navies are stranded; Faster, come faster, come Faster and faster; Chief, vassal, page, and groom, Tenant, and master. Fast they come, fast they come; Blended with heather. Cast your plaids, draw your blades, Forward each man set! Pibroch of Donuil Dha, Knell for the onset! p. 89. We must now take our leave of this fragment of the work. There are some verses by MR. HOGG of great merit; but our limits forbid us to quote them. Our thanks are due to the editor, who has brought out these airs from the cold obstruction in which they lay-to his patrons--and especially to the Highland Society, under whose auspices this publication was undertaken. ART. V.-Waterloo, and other Poems. By J. WEDDER. BURNE WEBSTER, Esq., Paris; printed for Ridgway, London. 1816. THESE poems are passing good, considering that they are the productions of a gentleman who never could harbour a wish so vulgar as that of becoming learned; and who, till the other day, would much sooner have heard it said, that he did not know a foot of the road to Parnassus, than that his horse had made a single false step in a trotting match. Pegasus was not then his favourite steed; for it was not over the hills of Thessaly, but those between London and Brighton, that he loved to urge his course. We do not, it seems, owe the perusal of Mr. Webster's poems to any thing like courtesy, but to the importunity of friends. We have no right to take this circumstance amiss; but we should have been better pleased, if it had not been mentioned the advice of friends being usually far more partial than sound, and therefore an indifferent apology for making a book. We do not say that this is exactly the case, in the present instance; and certainly Mr. Webster does not use the apology for the purpose of propitiating either ordinary readers or the critics; for at the head of the minor poems we find the following lines: A veteran soldier is expected to speak out frankly; yet if Mr. Webster had paid a little more attention than he has done to rhyming rules, and some of the more obvious qualities of good verse, his "careless lay" might have served to wing away pleasantly the hours of other people as well as of himself. Did he and his friends not know, that many more poems had appeared on the achievements of Waterloo than were likely ever to be read? We have, fortunately or unfortunately, we do not choose to say which, seen a full score of them, and are at this moment threatened with several others! It cannot be very difficult to persuade one to do what he is already somewhat inclined to do, and, least of all, to undertake that which is soothing to human vanity. And we must say for Mr. Webster's advisers, that, from the variety which is obvious in the mechanism and turn of thought of these productions, it is probable that there were both ladies and gentlemen who considered it as their right to offer counsel in regard to the publication of them. All this, however, is little to the purpose-if the productions themselves be good. In the poem entitled "Waterloo," the author does not enter into any particulars of the fight-jam totum vulgata per orbem. He merely describes some of the principal inci dents, and touches on the beneficial effects of the victory upon mankind. This poem is written in the octo-syllabic measure, except the "conclusion," which is in the heroic couplet. None of these effusions is at all stately, or finely polished. But we occasionally find in them something that sparkles prettily enough. LII. " "Twere some indeed, though slight, relief, To consecrate the soldier's bier: LIII. Yet, Albion, thou hast cause to joy, When Freedom hail'd thy sacred word, And Peace had sheath'd thy Wellesley's laurell'd sword. |