great beauty (some we shall have occasion to extract); and to these may be added three or four sonnets of undoubtedly first-rate merit. Were we inclined to quarrel with any thing in this pleasant book, it would be an expression in the dedication. The author says, in reference to his writing verse, Think not with this I now abuse my powers. Now it is not an abuse of any man's powers to employ them in writing poetry. To write fine poetry is to do something better than to write (or speak) fine prose. It is doubtless absurd enough, when a man continues to scribble bad rhyme, long after he (or the world) has discovered that he has no talent for it, -when he himself is essentially a piece of prose, without fancy, or mind, or music, or spirit: but our author has none of these disqualifications to plead in excuse for his under-rating the "peerless" art. It is a common error with persons who (unlike Mr. Hamilton) know nothing of poetry, save that it generally ends in rhyme, to think slightly of it, and to place all reputed poets on a level. The facility with which indifferent verse is manufactured naturally generates such a mistake. Hence it is, that poetry is called "light reading," and is spoken of as "only verses," and so forth, in terms of ignorant and undue disparagement. An instance is within our own personal knowledge of a merchant who requested a friend to select some books for his library: among others, he purchased Shakspeare; but the honest trader was dissatisfied with the bargain: he said, turning over the volumes, that they were "only plays," and desired that they might be exchanged, choosing, in their stead, Hervey's Meditations, and a few other matters of print and paper resembling that serious performance! But poetry has been the employment (and the delight) of the first intellects of the world. It contains the germ of all that is good, and great, and wise. "Light reading," as it is called, inculcates more original and profound truths than were ever found in the whole region of prose; not laboured and wrought to tediousness, indeed, but struck out in the heat of genius, bright, and self-evident, and lasting. It teaches sometimes by precept, but chiefly by example. From it the king may see how to govern, and the subject to obey. The soldier may learn temperance, the pedant modesty, and the conqueror moderation.-Folly may be advised, and vanity reproved. Beauty may see her likeness, and her defects. It is the glass wherein all fashions, all forms, may be seen; all manners, all moods of the mind: the birth, the progress, and the last consequence of things, both good and evil, are there, fine practical lessons of wisdom and pure morality. There is often more meaning (and there has often been more thought exhausted) in one single epithet of poetry than in a whole page of dissertation. Shakspeare alone is more than sufficient to prove all that we have said. Be it remembered, however, that these observations apply to writers of poetry, and not to writers of rhyme only. There is as much difference among the people so called (yet this is by no means generally supposed) as between the house-painter who scrawls a thing like a wreath on your ceiling, and Titian who crowned the twelve Cæsars with laurel,—or as between the daub of a red lion at a country public-house, and the "Transfiguration" of Raffaelle, or the "First Created Man" of Michael Angelo. Having said thus much, we do not know why we should detain our readers longer from Mr. Hamilton's poems. They are much better than any thing which we could hope to entertain them with in prose; and accordingly we shall, without more ado, enter on our consideration of the book. There is a short preface to the volume from which the following is an extract : The stories from Boccaccio (The Garden of Florence, and the Ladye of Provence) were to have been associated with tales from the same source, intended to have been written by a friend;-but illness on his part, and distracting engagements on mine, prevented us from accomplishing our plan at the time; and death now, to my deep sorrow, has frustrated it for ever. He, who is gone, was one of the very kindest friends I possessed, and yet he was not kinder perhaps to me, than to others. His intense mind and powerful feeling would, I truly believe, have done the world some service, had his life been spared-but he was of too sensitive a nature and thus he was destroyed! One story he completed, and that is to me now the most pathetic story in existence ! The poet here alluded to is, we conjecture, the late Mr. John Keats. We feel tempted to say something on that point; but it will, perhaps, afford us matter for a future paper; and it is altogether of too melancholy a nature to be mixed up with the consideration of any living writer. We pass, therefore, without further comment, to "The Garden of Florence."-This poem is founded on one of the tales of Boccaccio, and is simply the story of two young lovers, "Pasquino and Simonida," who are poisoned successively by tasting some leaves plucked from a bed of sage, at the root of which lay an enormous toad that infected the whole. The lovers are sporting, on a summer morning, in a garden near Florence; and Pasquino chews a leaf which causes his instant death: Simonida is overwhelmed with grief, and in this state is carried before a magistrate, by some persons who saw her lover fall. Being accused, she denies the guilt of murdering Pasquino, but is disbelieved by the populace, who are anxious (as usual) for summary justice. The magistrate, however, has some pity for her, and some faith in her distress; and the inquisition is adjourned to the place where Pasquino's body lies. Here the poor girl tells her tale again; and in showing the manner of her lover's death, she casually chews another leaf of the sage. The people send up their most sweet voices" in derision, and while they are shouting she drops down dead before them. The lovers are buried, and the poem ends. There is not much incident here, as the reader will see; but the tale is told gently and sorrowfully, and is not decked out with too much ambition. Mr. Hamilton has wisely left Boccaccio's simplicity to work its effect on his reader's heart.-We will quote one passage from this poem, to show the very pleasant and delightful style in which it runs. The extract refers to the period of the first meeting of the lovers, (in the "Garden of Florence,") after And their bright cheeks commingling seem'd to taste Each other's rosy beauty: overhead A bee, that had been trammel'd in his haste That magic eve, a lulling murmur bred; And dewy leaves a hymn to sylvan quiet shed. A wand was waved through the charmed air, And up there rose a very costly throng Of ivory tables, stored with dainties rare, At sight of which e'en dieted men might long : They rose amid strange minstrelsy and song, And there was pheasant from enchanted wood, And swan from fairy stream,-and these among, Were chalices of Eastern dew-wine brew'd By pearly hands in far Arabian solitude. And golden berries, steep'd in cream, were soon Brought there from stores in Asian palaces; And from the lonely Mountains of the moon, From which swarth Afric's serpent-river frees Its wily head,-fish, stranger than the seas Hold in their deep green wastes, to the bright feast Were brought in coral dishes by streak'd Go, silent as a star beneath her beaming, And golden apples of a fairy size,— And glossy nuts, the which brown squirrels drew, Eying them longingly with their dark eyes, And stealing when they could a little hazel prize. And think of me! trees, And the pale blossom on the cherry bough The glowworms waited on the fairies' I should be happier than the linnet's wing mirth, Spread in the first mild sunlight of the spring! Oft do I see thee, as I lonely lean ones; Oft do I see thee in my thoughts,-that take Westerly wanderings,--thy enjoyment make From the enchantments of an evening sea That weaves its own sweet pastime merrily, Or sleeps beneath some sea-nymph's waving wands ; Or as it fawns upon the golden sands Ever at rest, amid Elysian bowers, That fade and sparkle while the spirits rise: thee For then to Steals that long line of pure and silver light Across the waters, which all starry bright Doth from the chasten'd Deity seem to And sylvan pleasures, in a joyous mass, Revived about my heart, and died againTouching the next few moments with dim pain. I thought of those I loved-I thought of thee And of our pastime when the night was free The bustle of the books the lonely notes Of a melancholy melody that floats For ever and for ever through the mind,Leaving a sad and sweet delight behind! thought of Him,-the deathless-the inspired Whose light my very earliest boyhood fired, And of his rich creations :-have we not Sorrow'd at high Macbeth's distorted lotSigh'd over Hamlet's sweet and 'wilder'd heart And, when we came upon that piteous part Of love's romance, where long before 'twas day The Ladye of the moonlight pined away, Over the sleeping fruitage-passion-pale, Have we not loved young Juliet ? The last poem in the book we do not like so well as some others: but, as it seems, from its being distinguished from the rest, to be a favourite with the author, we may reasonably feel some doubt as to our judgment. We now leave Mr. John Hamilton to take his chance among the lovers of poetry. If they have not forgotten their taste for what is good, we have little apprehension as to his success.-There are some of his lines which we might have found fault with, as being harsh and unmetrical; but (the errors of the book being so few) we have preferred the critic's more pleasant province, and have spoken of this volume of poetry as we felt it ought to be mentioned by every one who is not more ready to discover blemishes than to do justice to good and unaffected writing. SKETCH OF THE PROGRESS OF VOCAL SCIENCE IN ENGLAND; WITH NOTICES OF THE PRINCIPAL PERFORMERS AND COMPOSERS FROM THE CLOSE OF THE LAST CENTURY TO THE PRESENT TIME. No. III. WE closed our last essay * with a promise, that our next should contain some description of the extraordinary powers, which, for about twenty-five years, have continued to confer upon their possessor the most exalted place, perhaps, amongst English vocalists. * Vol. II. Page 665. During that long period, the professional exertions of Mr. Braham have been required at the theatre, in the orchestra, at church, at the table, and occasionally at the Italian opera; and it would not be easy to say in which of those situations, each demanding a different kind of talent, he has most excelled; though in all of them, his execution has not been free from great imperfections. Mr. Braham was initiated into the science of music at a very early age, and his education was completed by Rauzzini of Bath. He had sung in concerts; but it was his appearance at Drury-lane, in the opera of Mahmoud, that first made his accomplishments generally known to the English public. He was engaged for twelve nights; at the expiration of which term he left England, and remained abroad for some time. much as to avoid being seen. Even when seated amongst the principals of an oratorio, you could not take him for one of any mark or likelihood. When he advances to the front of an orchestra for an occasional performance, his bearing is depressed by the same characteristic, and, as we conceive, deep-felt humility; for he is never to be allured into the assumption of superiority by any, nor all, of the seductive flatteries that attend upon so successful a public career. * Yet is he not without the consciousness of his desert, and of the solidity of his claims, and the understanding, and acknowledgment of those claims, on the part of the public. M.Vallebreque, the husband of Catalani, in a letter to a conductor, some years ago, set his valuation upon the whole catalogue of vocalists; and estimating the services of his wife at five hundred pounds, reduced Braham to ten, or some such low degree of the scale, coupling his rate, at the same time, with the remark, that "Braham was nothing but one Jew." The estimate found its way into print, and soon after Vallebreque entered a room where Braham was carelessly sitting upon a table waiting for the rehearsal of a concert. "Well, Christian!" was his address to the Frenchman; who, perceiving the drift of this abrupt apostrophe, began to stammer out some words of apology. "Spare yourself excuses, friend," continued the singer, "you cannot injure ME:" and at the same time offered the abashed calumniator his hand. The judgment and the temper of the reproof are each admirable. Nature seems to have delighted herself with contrasting opposite qualities in the construction of this extraordinary and gifted individual. In Mr. Braham you see a small, but not inelegantly formed man, with a steadfast countenance, marked, however, with the peculiarity of his nation. The physiognomy is that of one sobered by fixed, and somewhat severe thought. The demeanour is something dejected and hesitating, rather than informed with any of the superiority of confidence or command, Yet there is a latent fire in the eye, a visible, but unemployed spring and elasticity in the well-compacted, though reduced scale of the whole form, that indicates power when called into action. Upon the boards of Old Drury, in the ordinary dress of his country, he would be taken for nothing beyond one of those walking gentlemen of the play-house, who merely deliver a message, or set a chair. In the costume of the aigretted and turbaned princes of the East, wherein the poets of the opera sometimes array their heroes, he bears himself like one whose greatness is thrust upon him; like a man picked up on a sudden behind the scenes, who, though furnished out, and sent on to swell a pageant, is solicitous about nothing so Never was there a singer who possessed such faculties and acquirements as Mr. Braham: never was there one so provokingly unequal in his manner. Hear him in his best and most finished performances, and he disgusts you the very instant after he has raised the sense to ecstasy.-Listen to his very worst, and most tawdry, and mawkish ballads, "The Bewildered Maid,” for instance, or any other stuff with which it pleases his fancy to infect the taste of the town, and you will be yet more A published song beginning "Fair grove, to thee alone I do impart," bearing his name, must have been composed by him when not more than seven or eight years old. 5 |