looks were tranquil, but with unusual solemnity of expression, and I now gazed upon her with some awe; but suddenly her countenance grew dim, and, turning to the mountains, I perceived vapours rolling between us; in a moment, all had vanished; thick darkness came on; and in the twinkling of an eye I was far away from mountains, and by lamplight in Oxford-street, walking again with Ann -just as we walked seventeen years before, when we were both children.

As a final specimen, I cite one of a different character, from 1820.

The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in dreamsa music of preparation and of awakening suspense; a music like the opening of the Coronation Anthem, and which, like that, gave the fecling of a vast march, of infinite cavalcades filing off, and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day — a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where somehow, I knew not how-by some beings, I knew not whom a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting, was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music; with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in dreams (where, of necessity, we make ourselves central to every movement), had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the power, if I could raise myself, to will it; and yet again had not the power, for the weight of twenty Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inexpiable guilt. "Deeper than ever plummet sounded," I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the passion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake; some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms; hurryings to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives. I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad; darkness and lights; tempest and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me, and but a moment allowed,

and

1 The music was written in 1727 by Handel for the coronation of George II. 2 Cf. The Tempest, III, iii, 101.

clasped hands, and heart-breaking partings, and then everlasting farewells! and, with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name of death, the sound was reverberated everlasting farewells! and again, and yet again reverberated everlasting farewells! And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud -"I will sleep no more!"

GEORGE NOEL GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788-1824)

FROM ENGLISH BARDS AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS

*

A man must serve his time to every trade, Save censure critics all are ready made. Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote, With just enough of learning to misquote; 66 A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault; A turn for punning, call it Attic salt; To Jeffrey 3 go, be silent and discreet, His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet: Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit; Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit: Care not for feeling - pass your proper jest, And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.

And shall we own such judgment? no

soon

Seek roses in December, ice in June; Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff, Believe a woman, or an epitaph,

71

as

Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics who themselves are sore:
Or yield one single thought to be misled 81
By Jeffrey's heart, or Lambe's1 Boeotian head."

On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast.

While mountain spirits prate to river sprites, That dames may listen to their sound at night;

And goblin brats of Gilpin Horner's brood,2 151
Decoy young border-nobles through the wood.
And skip at every step, Lord knows how high,
And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows
why;

While high-born ladies in their magic cell,
Forbidding knights to read who cannot spell,
Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave,
And fight with honest men to shield a knave.
Next view in state, proud prancing on his
roan,

The golden-crested haughty Marmion, 160
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,
Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight,
The gibbet or the field prepared to grace
A mighty mixture of the great and base.
And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit per-
chance,

171

On public taste to foist thy stale romance,
Though Murray with his Miller3 may combine
To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line?
No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade.
Let such forego the poet's sacred name,
Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame:
Low may they sink to merited contempt,
And scorn remunerate the mean attempt!
Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted muse and hireling bard!
For this we spurn Apollo's venal son,
And bid a long "good night to Marmion."
These are the themes that claim our plau-
dits now;

These are the bards to whom the muse must bow: 180

1 A jibe at the metres of Scott, Coleridge, etc. 2 Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel was suggested by a folk-tale of a goblin called Gilpin Horner. 3 Constable, Murray, and Miller were Scott's publishers. Originally spoken with sorrow by Henry Blount on reading the death of Marmion

Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch,
Behold her statue placed in glory's niche,
Her fetters burst, and just released from
prison,

A virgin Phoenix from her ashes risen.
Next see tremendous Thalaba3 come on,
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wondrous son;
Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew.
Immortal hero! all thy foes o'ercome,
Forever reign the rival of Tom Thumb!
Since startled metre fled before thy face, 211
Well wert thou doom'd the last of all thy race!
Well might triumphant Genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conqueror of common sense!
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his
sails,

Cacique in Mexico, and Prince in Wales;
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,
More old than Mandeville's, and not so true.
Oh! Southey, Southey! cease thy varied
song!

A Bard may chaunt too often and too long:220
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy spare!
A fourth, alas! were more than we could bear.
But if, in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;
If still in Berkley ballads, most uncivil,
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue;
"God help thee," Southey, and thy readers

The simple Wordsworth, framer of a lay
As soft as evening in his favourite May;
Who warns his friend "to shake off toil and
trouble;

And quit his books, for fear of growing double;"

Who, both by precept and example, shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose,
Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
Poetic souls delight in prose insane;
And Christmas stories, tortured into rhyme,
Contain the essence of the true sublime: 240
Thus when he tells the tale of Betty Foy,
The idiot mother of "an idiot Boy;"
A moon-struck silly lad who lost his way,
And, like his bard, confounded night with day;
So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
And each adventure so sublimely tells,
That all who view the "idiot in his glory,"
Conceive the Bard the hero of the story.

250

Shall gentle Coleridge pass unnoticed here, To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear? Though themes of innocence amuse him best, Yet still obscurity's a welcome guest. If Inspiration should her aid refuse To him who takes a Pixy for a Muse, Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass The bard who soars to elegize an ass. How well the subject suits his noble mind! "A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind!"

Disporting there like any other fly,
Nor deem'd before his little day was done
One blast might chill him into misery,
But long ere scarce a third of his pass'd by,
Worse than adversity the Childe befell;
He felt the fullness of satiety:

Then loathed he in his native land to dwell, Which seem'd to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell. 36

For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run, Nor made atonement when he did amiss, Had sigh'd to many, though he loved but one,

And that lov'd one, alas, could ne'er be his. Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss

Had been pollution unto aught so chaste; Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss,

And spoil'd her goodly lands to gild his waste,

Nor calm domestic peace had ever deign'd to