What this lady-for whom and for whose opinion we still have the highest respect-can mean by calling the praise of Southey " more authoritative" than her own, is a point we shall not pause to determine. Her praise is at least honest, or we hope so. Its "authority" is in exact proportion with each one's estimate of her judgment. But it would not do to say all this of the author of "Thalaba." It would not do to say it in the hearing of men who are sane, and who, being sane, have perused the leading articles in the "London Quarterly Review" during the ten or fifteen years prior to that period when Robert Southey, having concocted "the Doctor," took definite leave of his wits. In fact, for anything that we have yet seen or heard to the contrary, the opinion of the laureate, in respect to the poem of "Amir Khan," is a matter still only known to Robert Southey. But were it known to all the world, as Miss Sedgwick supposes with so charmingly innocent an air; we mean to say were it really an honest opinion, this "authoritative praise,”—still it would be worth, in the eyes of every sensible person, only just so much as it demonstrates, or makes a show of demonstrating. Happily the day has gone by, and we trust for ever, when men are content to swear blindly by the words of a master, poet-laureate though he be. But what Southey says of the poem is at best an opinion and no more. What Miss Sedgwick says of it is very much in the same predicament. "Amir Khan,” she writes, "has long been before the public, but we think it has suffered from a general and very natural distrus: of precocious genius. The versification is graceful, the story beautifully developed, and the orientalism well sustained. We think it would not have done discredit to our most popular poets in the meridian of their fame; as the production of a girl of fifteen it seems prodigious." The cant of a kind heart when betraying into error a naturally sound judgment is perhaps the only species of cant in the world not altogether contemptible. We yield to no one in warmth of admiration for the personal character of these sweet sisters, as that character is depicted by the mother, by Miss Sedgwick, and by. Mr. Irving. But it costs us no effort to distinguish that which, in our heart, is love of their worth, from that which, in our intellect, is appreciation of their poetic ability. With the former, as critic, we have nothing to do. The distinction is one too obvious for comment; and its observation would have spared us much twaddle on the part of the commentators upon "Amir Khan." We will endeavour to convey, as concisely as possible, some idea of this poem as it exists, not in the fancy of the enthusiastic, but in fact. It includes four hundred and forty lines. The metre is chiefly octo-syllabic. At one point it is varied by a casual introduction of an anapæst in the first and second foot; at another (in a song) by seven stanzas of four lines each, rhyming alternately, the metre anapæstic of four feet alternating with three. The versification is always good, so far as the meagre written rules of our English prosody extend; that is to say, there is seldom a syllable too much or too little; but long and short syllables are placed at random, and a crowd of consonants sometimes renders a line unpronounceable. For example: "He loved, and oh, he loved so well That sorrow scarce dared break the spell." Occasionally the versification rises into melody and even strength; as here ""Twas at the hour when Peris love To gaze upon the Heaven above, Whose portals bright with many a gem Are closed-for ever closed on them." Upon the whole, however, it is feeble, vacillating, and ineffective, giving token of having been "touched up" by the hand of a friend from a much worse into its present condition. Such rhymes Such rhymes as floor and shower-ceased and breast-shade and spread-brow and wo-clear and far— clear and air-morning and dawning-forth and earthstep and deep-Khan and hand—are constantly occurring; and although, certainly, we should not, as a general rule, expect better things from a girl of sixteen, we still look in vain, and with something very much akin to a smile, for aught even approaching that "marvellous ease and grace of versification" about which Miss Sedgwick, in the benevolence of her heart, discourses. Nor does the story, to our dispassionate apprehension, appear "beautifully developed." It runs thus :- Amir Khan, Subahdar of Cachemere, weds a Circassian slave who, cold as a statue and as obstinately silent, refuses to return his love. The Subahdar applies to a magician, who gives him 66 a pensive flower Gathered at midnight's magic hour;" the effect of whose perfume renders him apparently lifeless while still in possession of all his senses. Amreeta, the slave, supposing her lover dead, gives way to clamorous. grief, and reveals the secret love which she has long borne her lord, but refused to divulge because a slave. Amir Khan hereupon revives, and all trouble is at an end. Of course, no one at all read in Eastern fable will be willing to give Miss Davidson credit for originality in the conception of this little story; and if she have claim to merit at all as regards it, that claim must be founded upon the manner of narration. But it will be at once evident that the most naked outline alone can be given in the compass of four hundred and forty lines. The tale is, in sober fact, told very much as any young person might be expected to tell it. The strength of the narrator is wholly laid out upon a description of moonlight (in the usual style) with which the poem commences-upon a second description of moonlight (in precisely the same manner) with which a second division commences—and in a third description of the hall in which the entranced Subahdar reposes. This is all-absolutely all; or at least the rest has the nakedness of mere catalogue. We recognise, throughout, the poetic sentiment, but little-very little-of poetic power. We see occasional gleams of imagination: for example "And every crystal cloud of Heaven Bowed as it passed the queen of even. . . . . Amreeta was cold as the marble floor That glistens beneath the nightly shower. . . At that calm hour when Peris love To gaze upon the Heaven above, The Subahdar with noiseless step .... Rushed like the night-breeze o'er the deep." We look in vain for another instance worth quoting. But were the fancy seen in these examples observable either in the general conduct or in the incidents of the narrative, we should not feel obliged to disagree so unequivocally with that opinion which pronounces this clever little production one which would not have done discredit to our most popular poets in the meridian of their fame!" "As the work of a girl of sixteen," most assuredly we do not think it "prodigious." In regard to it we may repeat what we said of "Lenore,"—that we have seen finer poems in every respect, written by children of more immature age. It is a creditable composition; nothing beyond this. And, in so saying, we shall startle none but the brainless, and the adopters of ready-made ideas. We are convinced that we express the unuttered sentiment of every educated individual who has read the poem. Nor, having given the plain facts of the case, do we feel called upon to proffer any apology for our flat refusal to play ditto either to Miss Sedgwick, to Mr. Irving, or to Mr. Southey. WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. IN speaking of Mr. William Ellery Channing, who has just published a very neat little volume of poems, we feel the necessity of employing the indefinite rather than the definite article. He is a, and by no means the, William Ellery Channing. He is only the son of the great essayist deceased.* He is just such a person, in despite of his clarum et venerabile nomen, as Pindar would have designated by the significant term τις. It may be said in his favour that nobody ever heard of him. Like an honest woman, he has always succeeded in keeping himself from being made the subject of gossip. His book contains about sixty-three things, which he calls poems, and which he no doubt seriously supposes so to be. They are full of all kinds of mistakes, of which the most important is that of their having been printed at all. They are not precisely English-nor will we insult a great nation by calling them Kickapoo ; perhaps they are Channingese. We may convey some general idea of them by two foreign terms not in common use the Italian pavoneggiarsi, "to strut like a peacock," and the German word for "sky-rocketing," Schwärmerei. They are more preposterous, in a word, than any poems except those of the author of "Sam Patch;" for we presume we are right (are we not?) in taking it for granted that the author of "Sam Patch" is the very worst of all the wretched poets that ever existed upon earth. In spite, however, of the customary phrase about a man's "making a fool of himself," we doubt if any one was ever a fool of his own free will and accord. A poet, therefore, should not always be taken too strictly to task. He should be treated with leniency, and, even when damned, should be damned with respect. Nobility of descent, too, should be allowed its privileges not more in social life than * Mr. W. E. Channing is not the son but the nephew of Dr. Channing. -Ed. |