Reviewer selects as feeble and unintelligible, there is both poetic beauty and justness of conception. To this extent, therefore, we disagree with the general estimate which Jeffrey has formed of his writings. But while we think the estimate of the poet defective and erroneous, we do not blame the Reviewer's severity. If Wordsworth's faults had been native to him, we should have thought otherwise; but his warm admirers-and we profess ourselves of the number-cannot deny that he perpetually and wilfully obscures his strong and vigorous powers of fancy by an affectation absolutely indefensible; and an affectation all the more revolting that it consists in the intentional expression of plain and strong thought in language at once obscure and feeble, like a robust and powerful man putting himself in leading-strings. Scott himself expresses his wonder, "why he will sometimes choose to crawl upon all-fours, when God has given him so noble a countenance to lift to heaven." For this wilful degradation of genius we have no sympathy, nor could we ever find an excuse. Whether or not it was the result of a peculiar theory of the poetical, really signifies nothing; if there was such a theory, it was a false one. The mannerism, both of thought and expression, was deliberate, and it truly deserved no more mercy than it met with. To one accustomed, like the Reviewer, with the unencumbered action of Shakspeare, and Johnson, and Massinger, this perpetual walking in voluntary fetters was intolerable; and he scourged the delinquency all the more smartly, that the perpetrator could have thrown them off at pleasure, and given the efforts of his free genius to the world. We can only regret that the punishment had less effect in the way of correction than of warning; for we have always thought that if Wordsworth had only allowed unconstrained scope to his powers, and written as freely as Milton or Byron wrote, few names would have ranked higher among the poets of England.

Southey has very well expressed the real fault of his mystical brethren. "Both he (Coleridge) and Wordsworth, powerfully as they can write, and profoundly as they usually think, have been betrayed into the same fault-that of making things easy of comprehension in themselves, difficult to be comprehended, by their way of stating them-instead of going to the natural spring for water they seem to like the labour of digging wells." This from the hand of a friend, and a member of the brotherhood, is nearly as severe as anything Jeffrey ever said of them.

We have little of Southey in the collection. The single review reprinted is that of Don Roderick in 1815, selected, plainly, from the unwillingness, on the part of the critic, to wound the

VOL. I. NO. I.

* Lockhart's Life, Vol. v., p. 40.

admirers of the departed bard by recalling the harsher censures he had passed on his earlier works. And Don Roderick is perhaps Southey's best poem, written after much of his false taste had been purged by public opinion and his own experience. But we would rather have had the original review of " Thalaba," which we presume, on our own responsibility, to attribute to the same pen, as a better example of the style of chastisement which has been so much questioned. It was the first public assault on the poets of the simple school; and although the Reviewer would now probably moderate much both of the sentiment and the expression, it exhibits very strikingly the flood of false taste and conception which he undertook to stem, and the unrelenting severity with which he discharged his task. The review of "Thalaba" is an exaggeration, undoubtedly. Perhaps the novelty of the metre, and the lawlessness of the structure of the poem, jarred more on the critic's ear than it would now. And this general remark may undoubtedly be made of his principle of criticism, that he was sometimes too intolerant of "extravagant and erring" genius, and visited their trespasses out of bounds with a schoolmaster's disregard of the spirit or enterprise which tempted them to the transgression. Thus he extols Crabbe and Rogers in proportion as he objurgates Wordsworth and Southey, because the former wrote according to rule, violated no solemn canon, and set no pernicious example of forbidden license. Yet although, for the same reason, Crabbe and Rogers will always be popular authors when Wordsworth and Southey may be sparingly read, few, we think, would now hesitate to place the latter in a class of poetry to which the former have no pretension. When Southey does rise free from his trammels, he soars a flight far higher than the pinion of Crabbe or Rogers could ever reach. After all, the strictures of the Reviewer were not only well-founded in regard to his faults of style and manner, but they were also not without effect. Southey's brilliant diction, and fine sense of natural beauty, were endowments too great and rare to be sacrificed to the artifice of so constrained a system. Vain as he was-and his vanity seems to have been marvellous-his later works were much more under the control of sound judgment; and he appears to have been the only one of the fraternity who, while he abused the preacher, endeavoured to amend his life.

We need not enlarge on these topics. The Reviewer's task is done-his wand is broken. The bards over whom he wielded it sleep in their graves; or living, have ceased to sing. The impress of the judgment of another generation is beginning to be stamped upon their numbers, and to separate the immortal from the less ethereal parts. What share soever the critic's art may

have had in directing their genius, and however far his sentences may be found to coincide with those pronounced by the age in which they flourished, all this is now matter of history. Distance, which has softened their defects, enables us to discern and to appreciate their true magnificence. We look back with mourning to that brilliant galaxy; and gladly would we now see on the horizon one flash of that radiant fire which blazed with such glory, and lighted up the firmament, in the days of our fathers. Let us hope that the spirit of poetry may again awake after so long repose, and that it may be our lot, in the career we have just commenced, to hail a new revival of English song.

While, however, the department of poetry was the Reviewer's peculiar care, the reputation of our author as a writer for posterity stands, we think, even more firmly on another class of compositions. Less strictly critical, and partaking less of a literary aim, the political essays in these volumes deserve deep study. While the more piquant and racy castigations excited at the time more popular interest, justice, perhaps, has not been generally done to the enlarged and statesmanlike conceptions of the Reviewer, both on the general principles of government, and the details of public policy. The great value of these volumes, in their separate form, consists, we think, in preserving, from an oblivion into which they were quickly passing, these valuable reflections on the science and practice of politics.

The services of the Review as an advocate of freedom-of human liberty and happiness-cannot be too highly rated; nor are these forgotten, or in any danger of being so. It started during the full torrent of revolutionary violence, and monarchical bigotry. Perhaps at the first blush, the Reviewers did not discern so clearly, amidst the din and dust of contending parties, the precise course to steer; but from the first, liberty was their aim, and they speedily guided their bark into the true current. They erected a noble bulwark against tyranny and oppression in all quarters, fearless of the frowns of the great, and the remonstrances of the timid. They hurled indignant denunciations against corruption in high places. The persecuted in all stations, from the Queen on the throne, to the wretched slave, found in them undaunted defenders. In the days of apostacy, they were found faithful among the faithless, and lifted up an undying testimony for the pure doctrines of constitutional right, and the personal independence of British subjects. For the courage, consistency, and consummate power with which they fought that battle, we in this day owe them a deep debt of gratitude. If there is aught of reverence for our ancient birthright-if any abiding good in free speech, free action, freedom of conscience, opinion, or government-if any charm in those golden links which unite our demo

cratic constitution to all the stability of monarchy-and if we have gladly seen the gradual dissipation of those palpable clouds of darkness which so long brooded over the venerable fabricnever can their labours be forgotten, who with constancy kept the standard flying, when the handful that surrounded it was at the lowest. We have seen honour descend on those at whom the finger of scorn was pointed, and against whom all the artillery of power was brought to play. Men who began life as a contemptible and derided band, proscribed for their principles, have, by their steady adherence to them, raised themselves and their principles together to public reputation and power. These things have come to pass, and teach us, how soon, after all, ERROR, though arrayed in robes of state, and armed with authority, may melt like a summer cloud. They teach us to look with a less unquiet eye on the vicissitudes of human affairs, or the reverses which are suffered in the battles of the truth. In the revolutions of states, as of seasons, periods of darkness are given us, that we may the more prize the too neglected light.

"Damna tamen celeres reparant cælestia Lunæ."

And not time and the tide only, but stedfastness and true hope will wear out the roughest day.

In this great conflict the whole strength of the society was engaged; the fierce energy of Brougham-the deep power of Horner and the wit and satire of Sydney Smith, were all concentrated in this high vocation. It is not now easy for any one, having no access behind the scenes, to assign his share to each; therefore we are the more indebted for the selection of the Essays before us, as giving us the means of appreciating Jeffrey's peculiar merits as a political writer,

Three of these strike us as being of singular ability, and very great interest. The review of Sotheby's Song of Triumph-that of Moore's Life of Sheridan, and that of O'Driscoll's History of Ireland. They exhibit the author's general manner of treating public questions in a favourable light, and afford a good criterion of the general cast of his political reflections.

The feature which chiefly gives them a distinctive character, is the prospective spirit in which they are all conceived. The author is prone to vaticinate; not from fancied inspiration, but from quiet reasoning on the impulses which generally move large bodies of men, and from the lights which history affords. These three articles illustrate this peculiarity. They are all full of anticipations-more or less borne out by results-but conceived in such a spirit of practical wisdom, as to deserve and amply repay the intelligent study of them.

The review of the Song of Triumph, was written immediately

after the battle of Leipsic, and affords an interesting example of the tone of feeling which actuated such men at the time, and the way in which they were affected by the startling and exciting events which had succeeded each other so rapidly. It is in itself, as the Reviewer indicates in a note, such a Song of Triumph as few now would be disposed to join in. But amid the

"Roar of liberated Rome,

Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd,"

it was natural that men of all parties should share in the general enthusiasm. Europe was sick of war, and men naturally welcomed with joy a new order of things, which seemed to promise a respite from excitement which had become intolerable; and the dreamers after perfectibility, who had hailed the dawning star of the French Revolution, were the first to sacrifice the visions of their youth to the prospect of peace and quiet. It had not then appeared, that those who had struck the Eagle down were only doing homage to the Wolf. And thus we find Lord Jeffrey joining in the universal shout of exultation over the fallen Emperor, extolling the clemency, chivalry, and magnanimity of Alexander, and foretelling, if not exactly Saturnian days, at least a probable career of rational liberty for France.

We certainly do not refer to this article as exemplifying the infallibility of his prophetic vein; but chiefly as showing the general course of deduction on which his prognostics were founded. It is needless to observe, that his estimate of the great military leader of France must have suffered as much modifica tion by the lapse of years, as his admiration for the Czar. Napoleon was a usurper, and ruled with an iron rod; and therefore all true freemen must reprobate his career. But his soul was lofty, and his conceptions magnificent, and some of the epithets in the article before us quadrate ill with the verdict already returned on the greatest chieftain of modern Europe. On the other hand, the sagacity of the Reviewer was altogether at fault in the expectations he had formed of the exiled family. No wonder;-he thought like the rest of the world, that in their exile they must have learnt and must have forgotten something-and like the rest of the world he found himself mistaken. As little did he dream that the Alliance, which he then thought united in defence of the common liberties of Europe, was so soon to become the watchword and soubriquet of despotism in all its monarchies. But he saw the contingencies before him clearly, and states them with singular precision:

"The project of giving them a free constitution, therefore, may certainly miscarry, and it may miscarry in two ways. If the Court can effectually attach to itself the Marshals and Military Senators of Bona