William Bates

“ It has none of the affected ruggedness and the studied obscurity, which seems now-a-days necessary to tickle a palate cloyed with the vapid graces and luscious sweets of the old school. I do not believe that there is a halting rhythm, a faulty line, or an imperfect rhyme in the entire poem, which thus stands forth in antipodal majesty and beauty, contrasted with those monstrous superfœtations of conceit upon inanity,—if not mere impostures,—which, native in origin or imported from America, have in these latter years brought burning disgrace upon the sacred name of poetry. ”

“ The German, indeed, it essentially the language of poetry; while, were I called upon to assign to the other idioms of Europe the department for which each was best fitted, I should indicate the English for oratory, the French for conversation, the Italian for song, and the Spanish for love—that is, the expression of the tender passion.
More than one generation has passed away since that which first wept over the sufferings of the youthful Werther (1774) , or imitated his eccentricities. It is a work of true genius, instinct with profound pathos and energic passion. ”

“ It was characteristic of Lockhart's peculiar individuality, that, whereever he was at all known, whether by man or woman, by poet, man of business, or man of the world, he touched the hidden chord of romance in all. No man less affected the poetical, the mysterious, or the sentimental; no man less affected anything ”

“ As I occasionally quote from the older poets, I rejoice that, looking at this queer drawing, a quatrain comes into my head from the pen of a modern poet, Mr. W. M. Rossetti; and which the admirers of the new "school" no doubt consider rhythmical, polished, and pregnant with intelligent meaning. Let it serve as a specimen.
"To a grateful and discerning public, who can appreciate talent and do justice to worth, we gladly submit the effigy of our Man of Genius. Yes; this is Tydus-Pooh-Pooh, the translator of the poetry of the
OUR MAN OF GENIUS.
Sandwich Islands! ”

“ I have associated the name of Moore with that of Burns; the comparison, indeed, forces itself upon the mind, and, whether right or not, these two poets must stand forth as the lyrical genii of their respective countries. Each has his merits. We know the profound passion and simple pathos of the Scottish peasant, and regarding Moore as a national poet, cannot but see some truth in the saying of Hazlitt, that he "-changed the wild harp of Erin into a musical snuff-box." ”

“ It is sad to record that the lot of one who composed for us such' pure and graceful episodes of English life was not itself easy and devoid of care. It was, indeed, hardly so: a literary career, even when successful, is fraught with frequent anxiety and disappointment; and that of Mary Russell Mitford was no exception to the rule. ”

“ And if in these, Moore is not always perfect; if we miss earnestness of purpose, simplicity, natural impulse and spontaneity of utterance; if there is sometimes too much elaboration of wit and stimulation of fancy,—let it be remembered that no art is more difficult than that of writing a good song, and that compositions worthy of the name, the coinage of the heart rather than of the brain, and inspired by true feeling as distinguished from imitative and febrile sentiment, are much rarer, in this or any other language, than is generally suspected. ”

“ Welcome, once and again, Miss Martineau; who, though you may rather belong to the Marthas, who are "careful about many things," than the Maries who choose "the better part," have yet earned our respect and gratitude for a long and consistent life of labour, whose sole object was the improvement and benefit of your generation. ”

“ Nature is mantled in the enchanting hues of the poet's imagination, and life seems but a tender tale set to music." Perhaps there is no didactic poem in our language so well known and loved as this, if not as a whole, by its component parts. ”

“ They exhibit, we are forced to admit, no lack of shrewd Scotch humour, pawky sagacity, and occasional pathos; but their humanity, somewhat narrowed and localized by provincialism, is less catholic in its sweep than that which lives and breathes in the immortal fictions of Scott; and they are deficient in those touches of nature which bring the whole world into kinship. ”

“ As Rogers enjoyed the most refined society of his long day—that of the frequenters of his ever memorable breakfasts, so did he live surrounded with the choicest memorials of past and present literature and art. His walls were hung with rare specimens of the older masters, and the brighter aquarelles of Turner and Stothard. The mantel-piece in his drawing-room was designed by Flaxman ”

“ As Byron wrote in his diary; "if you enter his house—his drawing-room—his library—you, of yourself, say this is not the dwelling of a common mind. There is not a gem, a coin, a book thrown aside on his chimney-piece, his sofa, his table, that does not bespeak an almost fastidious elegance in the possessor."
Rogers made a good use of his wealth, which has, however, been overstated. It probably was never much above £5000 a year, of which he spent a fourth part in charity. ”

“ By posterity, he will be better known as a diplomatist and politician than as a man of letters. "In him," said the Times, on the occasion of his death, "we have lost a man who illustrates the history of England for half a century better, perhaps, than any other person of his time. During his long season of toil there were more brilliant political intellects, more striking masters of debate, and men more gifted with the various qualities of party leadership. There were, on the whole, statesmen of greater foresight, and more executive ability. ”

“ Abbotsford, the pet creation of Sir Walter, and the home, as he fondly but vainly hoped, of a long progeny, has been termed a mediaeval romance in stone and cement. Like many other romances, it is characterized by those incongruities and anachronisms of style which Maginn has satirized in his humorous novel, Whitehall: or the Days of George the Fourth; but is certainly imposing and picturesque in its general effect. ”

“ When Lockhart quitted Oxford,—fellowships were not then, even in Balliol, open to competition,—he turned his attention to the study of Scottish law. But, having long been a proficient in the German language, he was extremely desirous, before taking up his necessary residence in Edinburgh, of visiting Germany, and making the personal acquaintance of Goethe, and others of that band of poets and scholars who, in a single generation, had raised their language from barbarism, and gained for the literature of their country the high rank which it holds among the nations of Europe. ”

“ It possesses an infinite variety which is never staled by custom, and each new perusal will bring you under the dominion of words that ring in the brain and take possession of the thoughts as no other poem or work but this,—and Shakespeare,—alone can ever do. I read it wandering through Rhineland,—in native Frankfort,—in friendly Weimar,—and in beautiful Berlin, "light of the world;" [2] —and longer study and wider apprehension have only increased the opinion I then formed of the beauty of its poetry, the profundity of its meaning, and the almost universality of its significance. ”

“ What is it to Wilson's leaping? A gipsy, a magazine, a wit, a six-foot club man, an unflinching ultra in the worst of times!—In what is he not great?"
It is very hard to have to say something about a man of whose genius a great master has proclaimed that nothing worthy can be said. ”

“ On the whole, the career of Lockhart, though ultimately embittered by those calamities which are inseparable from human destiny, was a reasonably prosperous and happy one. Possessed of some private means, he had never known the res angusta domi, which is almost proverbially the lot of those, who, as he did, forsake the liberal-handed Themis for that occupation which, as Sir Walter Scott said, might serve as a stick, but should never be relied on as a crutch. Literature was to Lockhart not unremunerative, and his editorship produced him a regular and liberal income. ”

“ This uncle, described as having a face like a snipe, and a very small receptacle for brains in his skull, is conducted in the narrative through almost every walk of Literature and Philosophy; attaching himself rather to that which is new, than to that which is useful. The tone of satire is not ill-natured, and even the allusions to particular persons are hardly of a nature to give offence. ”

“ Croker might well submit to the same test; for if he has not left the shade of a great name upon the earth, he attained a respectable place in the republic of letters, and has left behind him the sweet savour of an honourable and useful career. ”

“ XVI.—RIGHT HON. JOHN WILSON CROKER.
It is Southey who somewhere says that bad poets make malevolent critics, just as weak wine turns to vinegar; and he elsewhere expresses a doubt whether any man ever criticised a good poem maliciously who had not written a bad one himself. So poor Haydon wrote, in consolatory vein, to Mary Russell Mitford smarting under adverse judgment,—"all the critics in the papers are ci-devant poets, painters, and tragedy-writers who have failed. A successful tragedy, and by a lady, rouses their mortified pride, and damnation is their only balm. ”

“ It was, I have said, in 1818, that Irving, on the failure of certain commercial enterprises, came to London. Here he met with two young artists who had preceded him, Charles Robert Leslie and Gilbert Stuart Newton, [1] and the trio,—all under an inspiration and promise of future fame which Time has in each case to some extent fulfilled,—became soon united in habits of close friendship and commensality. He had already gained some reputation in his native country by his Salmagundi, and Knickerbocker's History of New York, which latter work may be said to inaugurate American literature. ”

“ XII.— MARY RUSSELL MITFORD.
"In our village,"—I take the description as I find it, for it is a capital imitation of the manner and style of the subject of this notice,—"we have an authoress too, and her name is Mary Mitford. Now, let nobody suppose that Mary, on account of the pretty alliteration of her name, is one of the fine and romantic young ladies who grace pastorals in prose and verse. On the contrary, our Mary is a good-humoured spinster of a certain age, inclined, we do not know whether with her own consent, or not, to embonpoint, and the very reverse of picturesqueness. ”

“ Death is the stopper; ashes end the whole."
Washington Irving never married. He was engaged early in life to a young lady of rare beauty and worth. She died; and the bereaved man thenceforth contented himself with the memory of his vanished love, sought no other bride, and lived for literature, friendship and nature. ”

“ This is not the place for an elaborate criticism of the Spenserian "Gertrude of Wyoming," exquisitely beautiful and pathetic as much of it is; of "Theodric," which is pure, if wanting in force and spirit; or of the "Massacre of Glencoe."' Neither does the prose of Campbell, most of which was task-work, demand much notice; as the production of such a poet, it could hardly be otherwise than tasteful and felicitous, though it is too often florid and affected. ”

“ The novelist may take history, if he chooses, as the foundation of his story, but it will always be read with the suspicion that facts have been moulded,—as, indeed, they generally are,—to suit the writer's idea of poetic justice or artistic development. Thus, very little is gained; and though the book may keep its place as a work of imagination, it will fail, however truthful it may be, as a relation of historical or biographical facts. ”

“ He was ever distinguished by his love and reverence for literature; and will be remembered as the friend of men of letters, and for his generosity to them, when in need of assistance.
As a minister and politician men do, and will, form opinions widely diverse as to his conduct and abilities. But I doubt not that the ultimate verdict of posterity will be that he was, through his long career, when all his solecisms and shortcomings as a diplomatist are taken into account, a consistent Liberal according to his lights,—an honest man,—and a faithful servant, alike of his queen and his countrymen. ”

“ There are, however, very few girls in our village, or twenty villages beyond it, that can dress up so pretty a basket of good-looking and sweet-smelling natural flowers, all of the true English soil, not foreign and flaunting like the flaring dahlias that one class of bouquet-gatherers thrust under our noses with so much pretence, nor smelling of turf and whiskey like the strong-scented bog-lilies which are offered to us by the basket-women of the provinces ”

“ In 1839, appeared her first novel, Deerbrook, in the orthodox three-volume form; a production which, perhaps, hardly sustained the reputation which her political tales had gained her as a writer of fiction—certainly not as a teacher of social economy. To her next novel, which exhibits a marked improvement in dramatic interest and constructive skill, may be applied the remarks which I have already made on the propriety of employing fiction to enforce or illustrate fact. ”

“ There were statesmen who exercised a far more powerful fascination on the minds of rich and poor. But there was no other man so closely identified with the political movements which will make fifty or sixty years of our history memorable to the future."
The political career of Lord John Russell extended over the period allotted alike by experience and biblical authority to the life of man. ”

“ When in London, Irving took up his residence for a while in Canonbury House, Islington. To the literary pilgrim from the far West, this "land of the grey old past" is the Mecca and Medina of his youthful aspirations. "None but those who have experienced it," says Irving, in one of his own charming essays, "can form an idea of the delicious throng of sensations which rush into an American's bosom, when he first comes in sight of Europe. ”

“ But the "paths of glory," and those of obscurity, converge alike to one common centre; and after an existence of nearly a century, which had been entirely devoted to science, literature, and art, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe rendered up his spirit at Weimar, on the 22nd of March, 1832, in the eighty-third year of his age, with the memorable words upon his lips,—to which some would apply a secondary meaning,—"Dass mehr Licht hereinkomme." ”

“ It is known that the materials were first confided to Maginn,—not an over squeamish man certainly,—who shrank aghast from the hideous apocalypse. Moore was applied to, and the result is that portraiture of the poet-lord, which, if but an idealized representation, does not at least require to be veiled like his own "Prophet of Khorassan." The problem of Byron's life yet waits an Œdipus for its solution.
In 1817, appeared Lalla Rookh. This is a poem of splendid diction and gorgeous imagery ; too rich in ornament, too dazzling in uncontrasted light. ”