and nightingales, and moonlight, and village bells, and pour away Effusion on Effusion with the most resolute defiance of common sense as well as of all rules of poetry! And what a lesson does this little volume teach to the WORDSWORTHS, the COLERIDGES, and hoc genus omne, with the whole herd of their imitators! They may here see how by the mere force of common-sense views of matters of fact, an effect is produced infinitely more powerful than they, with all their learning, and metaphysics, and transcendentalism, can give to their whimsical representations to their beggar-women in white caps; their idiot-boys; their leech-gatherers; their mastiff-bitches; their philosophical pedlars; their Martha Rays in red cloaks, and their Alice Fells in duffil ones; their fantastical schoolmasters; and their affected ravings about small Celandines; and their long and unintelligible stories about baptizing places with new names, after the fashion of the Methodists; and a hundred other persons and things equally consistent and interesting. Mr. WORDSWORTH and Mr. COLERIDGE are persons of great talents and genius; but what talents or genius can render those things poetical, which are in themselves mean and ludicrous? No powers, however applied, can preserve the subjects themselves from ridicule, and this ridicule is generally extended, even at present, to the authors of the attempt to do so; and, in future times, it will be inherited solely by them, by the decision of those dispensers of fame, who know the names of COLERIDGE and WORDSWORTH only by their chivalrous enterprise. If they preach a new doctrine, therefore, they have put a good deal upon hazard; and they have declared themselves ready to suffer exclusion from the temple of immortality in the cause, rather than that the washing-tubs, and old hats, and baby-houses, which they have so zealously laboured to commemorate, should not take a conspicuous place there, among the remains of demigods, and heroes, and poets. How humbling is it to reflect, that the profuse talents which such men possess, should have been employed in the defence of a paradox; in the support of a schism! The party has been lately weakened by the defection of Mr. SOUTHEY, who has now receded from his old poetical principles, as well as from his old political ones; and, we suppose, has acquired about as great an increase of respectability by the desertion of the one as of the other. And how deplorable is it, that a parallel between such persons and the authoress of the Essays before us, instead of being ridiculous, should, as far as judgment and nature are concerned, be prodigiously to the advantage of the latter!

ART. VI.-1. Monody on the Death of the Right Honourable R. B. Sheridan, written at the Request of a Friend, to be spoken at Drury Lane Theatre. 8vo. London. 1816. 2. A Garland for the Grave of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. By CHARLES PHILLIPS, Esq. 8vo. London. 1816.

THE ashes of Sheridan have not been suffered to rest in peace; Bedlam and Parnassus broke loose at the same moment with his spirit. His long abode in the purgatory of poverty and ingratitude, it seems, was not sufficient to expiate the sins which he committed in this life; and a punishment far more intense has been prepared for him in the hell of panegyrical scribbling. This consummation, though little to be wished, was much to have been dreaded; and poets, noble and ignoble, have accordingly contributed their aid to the work of retribution. The damnatory praises of the two authors whose productions we have placed at the head of this article, however, because they will be most generally read, are the most ruthless inflictions with which his memory has been visited: and the turgid nonsense of the first, and the twisted absurdity of the second, will be echoed by the million, for the sake of these faults, as well as for the sake of the mighty dead over whose sepulchre these weeds, not flowers, have been thrown.

The first is generally ascribed to Lord Byron, If it be really his, he has a second time shown the public that, in spite of the glowing fruits which his genius has produced, there yet remains that rude graft in the stock, which gave as the Hours of Idleness and Ennui, The Prologue on the re-edification of Drury Lane Theatre, has luckily been forgotten by the public. Of the other author we have formerly spoken at some length: and the present piece, which he has in pure kindness bestowed upon the public, has convinced us, that in spite of all our admonitions, Mr. Phillips still remains Mr. Phillips; and that this idiosyncrasy is always evident, whether he steals from CURRAN or perwerts CICERO; whether he overwhelms with his damning eulogies Lord ERSKINE or SHERIDAN; whether he writes prose full of all the common-places of poetry, or poetry full of all the common-places of prose. We would not willingly give our readers a too powerful dose of these two

narcotics: but we think it right to present them with a specimen of what every one has read, and which, perhaps, many of them may have admired. As it is our office, however, to point out the faults rather than the beauties of the productions which come under our critical examination, (for the world is always ready enough to bestow its praises where it is pleased,) we shall proceed to show, that in detached passages, the Monody, in spite of its imposing glitter of surface, is not only destitute of any thing like high poetry, but that the muse which inspired it almost uniformly drags along the ground; that it is not only unpoetical, but unintelligible; and that its author has clearly shown what would seem self-evident, (if the author of the Naiad and a few others of that class did not contradict it,) that poetry does not consist in setting the rules of common sense and syntax at defiance.

Of the character of Mr. Philips's poetry we cannot speak; fortunately we never read his Emerald Isle; but it seems to be of a school which existed in POPE's days as well as in our own; among whose disciples its founder places the immortal names of AMBROSE, PHILIPS, and Sir RICHARD, and WELSTED, and the Laureate*. The rest were long to tell. A stiff-necked race trod in their steps in spite of the Dunciad, and the breed is still kept up in our times, in defiance of the Baviad, the Mariad, and the Pursuits of Literature.

The Monody opens with the following lines, of which we confess ourselves unable to make any thing; nor can we distinguish any analogy between the thoughts and the metaphors under which they are presented:

"When the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart-as dew along the flower?
With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes
While Nature makes that melancholy pause,
Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time
Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime,
Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak, but weep,
A holy concord—and a bright regret,

A glorious sympathy with suns that set?

To some readers it may be doubtful whether we here allude to Mr. CIBBER, or to Mr. SOUTHEY; we therefore add this note to declare that Mr. CIEBER is the person to whom we refer.

'Tis not harsh sorrow-but a tenderer woe,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness-but full and clear,

A sweet dejection—a transparent tear," &c. Pp. 5, 6.

The next passage is very different; it is original, and full of beauty:

"Even as the tenderness that hour instills

When summer's day declines along the hills,
So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes

When all of Genius which can perish-dies." P. 6.

In the following extract there is a strange mixture of metaphor, and a great deal of common-place and quaint

ness:

"A mighty Spirit is eclipsed-a Power

Hath passed from day to darkness-to whose hour
Of light no likeness is bequeathed-no name,
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame!
The flash of Wit-the bright Intelligence,
The beam of Song-the blaze of Eloquence,
Set with their Sun-but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal Mind,
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
But small that portion of the wondrous whole,
These sparkling segments of that circling soul,
Which all embraced-and lightened over all,

To cheer-to pierce-to please-or to appall," &c. Pp. 6, 7.

We are next told that the characters of his dramas are "bright with the hues of his Promethean heat,” a phrase which we do not understand; and (which is equally unintel ligible) that they are

"A halo of the light of other days,

Which still the splendour of its orb betrays." P. 8.

There is considerable force, however, in the expression of what follows, though there is nothing very striking or original in the sentiment:

"But should there be to whom the fatal blight
Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight,
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone
Jar in the music which was born their own,

Still let them pause-Ah! little do they know

That what to them seemed Vice might be but Woe.
"Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze
Is fixed for ever to detract or praise,

Repose denies her requium to his name,
And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.''

The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands sentinel-accuser-judge-and spy,
The foe the fool-the jealous-and the vain,
The envious who but breathe in others' pain,
Behold the host! delighting to deprave,
Who track the steps of Glory to the grave,''
Watch every fault that daring Genius owes
Half to the ardour which its birth bestows,
Distort the truth-accumulate the lie,
And pile the Pyramid of Calumny!

"These are his portion-but if joined to these
Gaunt Poverty should league with deep Disease,
If the high Spirit must forget to soar,

And stoop to strive with Misery at the door,
To soothe Indignity-and face to face

Meet sordid Rage-and wrestle with Disgrace,
To find in Hope but the renewed caress,

The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness

If such may be the Ills which men assail,

What marvel if at last the mightiest fail?" Pp. 8–10.

The Monody concludes with the following lines, which contain, by way of epigram, a wretched imitation of the wretched conceit of the Italian poet:

Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that nature formed but one such man

And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!" P. 11.

We have said that the poetry of Mr. Phillips is of the school of Martinus Scriblerus, and we go on to point out a few of its characteristics in his poem. A preface, written in the worst style of his worst speeches, gives us, at no small length, the very novel information, that Mr. Sheridan possessed variety of talent; at least, this is the only meaning that we can discover in the following extravagant diatribe:

"What scene did not his life illumine! What circle has not his loss eclipsed! Another Burke may chain the senate; another Shakspeare crowd the theatre; another Curran fascinate the board; another Moore enchant the fancy, or another Hampden vindicate the land: but where shall we behold their bright varieties again combined, concentrating, as it were, their several lights in one refulgent orb that left no cloud unlinged; no charm uncreated!" P. 7.

Of the passage which follows, we can make nothing at all, notwithstanding all the labour of thought which we have bestowed upon it: it seems from its tune and its redolence of nonsense, to have been originally a part of the