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By Root 15540 0

both such) are the finest possible examples of the purely ideal. There is little of fancy here, and every thing of imagination. With each note of the lyre is heard a ghostly, and not always a distinct, but an august and soul-exalting echo. In every glimpse of beauty presented, ­we catch, through long and wild vistas, dim bewildering visions of a far more ethereal beauty beyond. But not so in poems which the world has always persisted in terming fanciful. Here the upper current is often exceedingly brilliant and beautiful; but then men feel that this upper current is all. No Naiad voice addresses them from below. The notes of the air of the song do not tremble with the according tones of the accompaniment.

It is the failure to perceive these truths which has occasioned that embarrassment which our critics experience while discussing the topic of Moore’s station in the poetic world that hesitation with which we are obliged to refuse him the loftiest rank among the most noble. The popular voice, and the popular heart, have denied him that happiest quality, imagination — and here the popular voice (because for once it has gone with the popular heart) is right — but yet only relatively so. Imagination is not the leading feature of the poetry of Moore; but he possesses it in no little degree. We will quote a few instances from the poem now before us — instances which will serve to exemplify the distinctive feature which we have attributed to ideality.

It is thesuggestive force which exalts and etherealizes the passages we copy.

Or is it that there lurks, indeed,

Some truth in man’s prevailing creed,

And that our guardians from on high,

Come, in that pause from toil and sin,

To put the senses’ curtain by,

And on the wakeful soul look in!

Again —

The eternal pyramids of Memphis burst

Awfully on my sight — standing sublime

‘Twixt earth and heaven, the watch-towers of time,

From whose lone summit, when his reign hath past,

From earth for ever, he will look his last.

And again —

Is there for man no hope — but this which dooms

His only lasting trophies to be tombs!

But ‘tis not so — earth, heaven, all nature shows

He may become immortal, may unclose

The wings within him wrapt, and proudly rise

Redeemed from earth a creature of the skies!

And here —

The pyramid shadows, stretching from the light,

Look like the first colossal steps of night, ­

Stalking across the valley to invade

The distant hills of porphyry with their shade!

And once more —

There Silence, thoughtful God, who loves

The neighborhood of Death, in groves

Of asphodel lies hid, and weaves

His hushing spell among the leaves.

Such lines as these, we must admit, however, are not of frequent occurrence in the poem — the sum of whose great beauty is composed of the several sums of a world of minor excellences.

Moore has always been renowned for the number and appositeness, as well as novelty, of his similes; and the renown thus acquired is strongly indicial of his deficiency in that nobler merit — the noblest of them all. No poet thus dis-tinguished was ever richly ideal. Pope and Cowper are remarkable instances in point. Similes (so much insisted upon by the critics of the reign of Queen Anne) are never, in our opinion, strictly in good taste, whatever may be said to the contrary, and certainly can never be made to accord with other high qualities, except when naturally arising from the subject in the way of illustration — and, when thus arising, they have seldom the merit of novelty. To be novel, they must fail in essential particulars. The higher minds will avoid their frequent use. They form no portion of the ideal, and appertain to the fancy alone.

We proceed with a few random observations upon Alciphron. The poem is distinguished throughout by a very happy facility which has never been mentioned in connection with its author, but which has much to do with the reputation he has obtained. We allude to the facility with which he recounts a poetical story in a prosaic way. By this is meant that he preserves the tone and method of arrangement