scene of happiness and joy. But if she is more favourably circumstanced, every supplication for pardon will have the effect of angelprayers; and this is the reward of those who in this life cultivate social connexions, and are bound in the endearing ties of friendship.' -pp. 74, 75. Trifling as this little work may appear in itself, yet it is impossible to glance over it without feeling that such gossiping pages as these are calculated to make us better acquainted with Persian female manners than a more grave and learned treatise. Life is composed of really little things-especially domestic life, in which the routine of one day scarcely differs from that which follows or precedes it. Foreigners can seldom penetrate the privacy of oriental families; and native writers too rarely think of describing habits which are of every hour's use, and have therefore no novelty to recommend them. ART. IX. Poems by Hartley Coleridge. Vol. I. 8vo. pp. 157. Leeds, 1833. TWO WO sons of Dryden were clever versifiers; but we are not aware of any instance in our literary history of the son of a great poet achieving for himself the name of poet. Here, however, is such a claim advanced by the son of Coleridge; and, weak and merely imitational as many of the pieces included in this volume are, we are bound to say that we consider its author as having already placed himself on high vantage-ground, as compared with any of the rhymers of these latter years. From the locality of the publication, Leeds, taken together with various melancholy allusions in the verses themselves, we are compelled to believe that the fate of this gentleman has not been such as his birth, education, and talents, with the well-won celebrity of several of his immediate connexions, might have been expected to lead him to. What his actual situation may be we know not; but we are grieved to hear the language not only of despondency, but of self-reproach bordering almost on remorse, from one who must be young, and who certainly possesses feelings the most amiable, together with accomplishments rich and manifold, and no trivial inheritance of his father's genius. It is impossible to read the two following sonnets without deep and painful interest : Too true it is, my time of power was spent From From duty and from hope,-yea, blindly sent • If I have sinn'd in act, I may repent; That makes my hungry passion still keep Lent Where, in all worlds, that round the sun revolve And shed their influence on this passive ball, One sinful wish would make a hell of heaven.'-p. 27. We have no desire to penetrate the mystery in which this unfortunate shrouds his sorrow. Let us rather afford our readers some evidence, that whatever may have been his errors, he has the gentle heart, as well as the power and music of a poet. We remember no sonnets so nearly resembling the peculiar and unaccountable sweetness of Shakspeare's, as the three following, all addressed To a Friend.'— When we were idlers with the loitering rills, Our love was nature; and the peace that floated 'In the Great City we are met again, Where many souls there are, that breathe and die, The - The sad vicissitude of weary pain :- 'We parted on the mountains, as two streams Have crept along from nook to shady nook, Where flow'rets blow, and whispering Naiads dwell. O'er rough and smooth to travel side by side.'-p. 3. The following, To SHAKSPEARE,' is worthy of being so inscribed it seems to us hardly inferior to any sonnet in Wordsworth : 'The soul of man is larger than the sky, Deeper than ocean-or the abysmal dark Whate'er Love, Hate, Ambition, Destiny, Or the firm, fatal Purpose of the Heart Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same, Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.' Some stanzas 'To the Nautilus' appear to us full of life and grace. We quote two of them :— Where Ausonian summers glowing, Leap Leap along with gladsome buoyance, Do'st thou appear, In faery pinnace gaily flashing, Through the white foam proudly dashing, Small Marinere, Are thine within thy pearly dwelling,- Obedience, perfect, simple, glad, and free, To the great will that animates the sea.'-pp. 57, 58. We are not less pleased with an address To certain Golden Fishes :' 'Restless forms of living light Or of the shade of golden flowers, When ye would elude our eyes Pretty creatures! we might deem As gay, as gamesome, and as blithe, As light, as loving, and as lithe, As As gladly earnest in your play, Is but the task of weary pain, An endless labour, dull and vain; And while your forms are gaily shining, Nay-but still I fain would dream That ye are happy as ye seem.'-pp. 113, 114. We conclude with another of his sonnets: it is inscribed To a lofty Beauty, from her poor Kinsman :' • Fair maid, had I not heard thy baby cries, Nor seen thy girlish, sweet vicissitude, Old times unqueen thee, and old loves endear thee.' p. 34. The Beauty must, we think, be cold as well as lofty, if these delicious lines did not reach her heart. It is an old saying, that the oakling withers beneath the shadow of the oak; and perhaps had it been the happier destiny of this lady's 'poor kinsman' to spend his early manhood under the same roof with the father and bard revered' to whom he dedicates his little book, we should never have been called upon to announce a second English poet of the name of Coleridge. If he will drop somewhat of that overweening worship of Wordsworth which is so visible in many of these pages-so offensively prominent in the longest piece they contain-and rely, as our extracts show he is thoroughly entitled to do, solely upon himself, we are not afraid to say that we shall expect more at his hands than from any one who has made his first appearance subsequent to the death of Byron. ART. |