space of some forty or fifty stanzas, made to include, at the same time, an essay on motives, deduced from the text "whatever is must be," and illuminated by a long note at the end of the poem, wherein the systime (quære système ?) de la Nature is sturdily attacked. Let us speak the truth: this note (and the whole of them, for there are many), may be regarded as a glorious specimen of the concentrated essence of rigmarole, and, to say nothing of their utter absurdity per se, are, so ludicrously uncalled for, and grotesquely out of place, that we found it impossible to refrain, during their perusal, from a most unbecoming and uproarious guffaw. We will be pardoned for giving a specimen-selecting it for its brevity:

66

Reason, he deemed, could measure everything,

And reason told him that there was a law

Of mental action which must ever fling

A death-bolt at all faith, and this he saw
Was Transference." (14)

Turning to Note 14, we read thus

"If any one has a curiosity to look into this subject (does Mr. Dawes really think any one so great a fool?) and wishes to see how far the force of reasoning and analysis may carry him, independently of revelation, I would suggest (thank you, sir) such inquiries as the following:

"Whether the first Philosophy, considered in relation to Physics, was first in time?

"How far our moral perceptions have been influenced by natural phenomena ?

"How far our metaphysical notions of cause and effect are attributable to the transference of notions connected with logical language?"

And all this in a poem about Acus, a tailor!

Waldron prefers, unhappily, Geraldine to Alice, and Geraldine returns his love, exciting thus the deep indignation of the neglected fair one,

"whom love and jealousy bear up

To mingle poison in her rival's cup."

Miss A. has among her adorers one of the genus loafer

VOL. IV.

N

whose appellation, not improperly, is Bore. B. is acquainted with a milliner-the milliner of the disconsolate lady.

"She made this milliner her friend, who swore,

To work her full revenge through Mr. Bore."

And now says the poet

"I leave your sympathetic fancies,

To fill the outline of this pencil sketch."

This filling has been, with us at least, a matter of no little difficulty. We believe, however, that the affair is intended to run thus:-Waldron is enticed to some vile sins by Bore, and the knowledge of these, on the part of Alice, places the former gentleman in her power.

We are now introduced to a fête champêtre at the residence of Acus, who, by the way, has a son, Clifford, a suitor to Geraldine with the approbation of her father-that good old gentleman, for whom our sympathies were excited in the beginning of things, being influenced by the consideration that this scion of the house of the tailor will inherit a plum. The worst of the whole is, however, that the romantic Geraldine, who should have known better, and who loves Waldron, loves also the young knight of the shears. consequence is a rencontre of the rival suitors at the fête champêtre; Waldron knocking his antagonist on the head, and throwing him into the lake. The murderer, as well as we can make out the narrative, now joins a piratical band, among whom he alternately cuts throats and sings songs of his own composition. In the mean time the deserted Geraldine mourns alone, till upon a certain day,

"A shape stood by her like a thing of air

He laid her gently down, of sense bereft,

And sank his picture on her bosom's snow, And close beside these lines in blood he left; 'Farewell for ever, Geraldine, I go

Another woman's victim-dare I tell?

"Tis Alice-curse us, Geraldine !-farewell!'"

The

There is no possibility of denying the fact: this is a droll piece of business. The lover brings forth a miniature (Mr. Dawes has a passion for miniatures), sinks it on the bosom of the lady, cuts his finger, and writes with the blood an epistle (where is not specified, but we presume he indites it upon the bosom as it is "close beside" the picture), in which epistle he announces that he is "another woman's victim," giving us to understand that he himself is a woman after all, and concluding with the delicious bit of Billingsgate

"dare I tell?

'Tis Alice !-curse us, Geraldine!-farewell! "

We suppose, however, that, "curse us is a misprint; for why should Geraldine curse both herself and her lover?—it should have been "curse it!" no doubt. The whole passage, perhaps, would have read better thus

"oh, my eye!

'Tis Alice !-d-n it, Geraldine !-good-by!"

The remainder of the narrative may be briefly summed up. Waldron returns to his professional engagements with the pirates, while Geraldine, attended by her father, goes to sea for the benefit of her health. The consequence is inevitable. The vessels of the separated lovers meet and engage in the most diabolical of conflicts. Both are blown all to pieces. In a boat from one vessel, Waldron escapes—in a boat from the other, the lady Geraldine. Now, as a second natural consequence, the parties meet again-Destiny is everything in such cases. Well, the parties meet again. The lady Geraldine has "that miniature" about her neck, and the circumstance proves too much for the excited state of mind of Mr. Waldron. He just seizes her ladyship, therefore, by the small of the waist and incontinently leaps with her into the sea.

However intolerably absurd this skeleton of the story may appear, a thorough perusal will convince the reader that the entire fabric is even more so. It is impossible to convey, in any such digest as we have given, a full idea of the niaiseries with which the narrative abounds. An utter

want of keeping is especially manifest throughout. In the most solemnly serious passages we have, for example, incidents of the world of 1839 jumbled up with the distorted mythology of the Greeks. Our conclusion of the drama, as we just gave it, was perhaps ludicrous enough; but how much more preposterous does it appear in the grave language of the poet himself!

"And round her neck the miniature was hung

Of him who gazed with Hell's unmingled wo;
He saw her, kissed her cheek, and wildly flung
His arms around her with a madd'ning throw—
Then plunged within the cold unfathomed deep
While sirens sang their victim to his sleep!"

Only think of a group of sirens singing to sleep a modern "miniatured" flirt, kicking about in the water with a New York dandy in tight pantaloons!

But not even these stupidities would suffice to justify a total condemnation of the poetry of Mr. Dawes. We have known follies very similar committed by men of real ability, and have been induced to disregard them in earnest admiration of the brilliancy of the minor beauty of style. Simplicity, perspicuity, and vigour, or a well-disciplined ornateness of language, have done wonders for the reputation of many a writer really deficient in the higher and more essential qualities of the Muse. But upon these minor points of manner our poet has not even the shadow of a shadow to sustain him. His works, in this respect, may be regarded as a theatrical world of mere verbiage, somewhat speciously bedizened with a tinselly meaning well adapted to the eyes of the rabble. There is not a page of anything that he has written which will bear, for an instant, the scrutiny of a critical eye. Exceedingly fond of the glitter of metaphor, he has not the capacity to manage it, and, in the awkward attempt, jumbles together the most incongruous of ornaments. Let us take any passage of "Geraldine" by way of exemplification.

"Thy rivers swell the sea-
In one eternal diapason pour
Thy cataracts the hymn of liberty,
Teaching the clouds to thunder."

Here we have cataracts teaching clouds to thunder—and how? By means of a hymn.

"Why should chromatic discord charm the ear,

And smiles and tears stream o'er with troubled joy?"

Tears may stream over, but not smiles.

"Then comes the breathing time of young Romance,
The June of life, when summer's earliest ray
Warms the red arteries, that bound and dance
With soft voluptuous impulses at play,

While the full heart sends forth as from a hive
A thousand winged messengers alive."

Let us reduce this to a simple statement, and we havewhat? The earliest ray of summer warming red arteries, which are bounding and dancing, and playing with a parcel of urchins, called voluptuous impulses, while the bee-hive of a heart attached to these dancing arteries is at the same time sending forth a swarm of its innocent little inhabitants.

"The eyes were like the sapphire of deep air,
The garb that distance robes elysium in,
But oh, so much of heaven lingered there

The wayward heart forgot its blissful sin,
And worshipped all Religion well forbids
Beneath the silken fringes of their lids.”

That distance is not the cause of the sapphire of the sky, is not to our present purpose. We wish merely to call attention to the verbiage of the stanza. It is impossible to put the latter portion of it into anything like intelligible prose. So much of heaven lingered in the lady's eyes that the wayward heart forgot its blissful sin, and worshipped everything which religion forbids, beneath the silken fringes of the lady's eyelids. This we cannot be compelled to understand, and shall therefore say nothing further about it. "She loved to lend Imagination wing

And link her heart with Juliet's in a dream,

And feel the music of a sister string

That thrilled the current of her vital stream."