RHYME versus POETRY. THIS is not the age of poetry. There is a tide in the affairs of verse, as well as of men, which rises and falls according to a law of its own, giving to one generation all the healthy vigour of a spring-tide, and to the next the loneliness of receding waves, melancholy seaweed, and a silent strand. It is clearly ebb-tide with us in this foggy November, 1854; and the fact has been gradually growing apparent any time these last ten years. "The Poetry of earth is never dead," says a true bard; but the poetry of men would seem to be less enduring. The golden harp of Tennyson is indeed now and then touched, and its true melodies fall upon the willing ear like dew on thirsty flowers, or the cheering murmur of a far-off brook on the ear of a wayworn traveller in the desert. But these snatches of song divine are few and far between; in the midst of a thousand Babel tongues, that seem never weary of outpouring the idle jargon of mock sentiment, dulness, and conceit. James Montgomery is gone from us; the green old age of the author of "The Pleasures of Memory" gives us no hope of "Yet one more Spring, and bloom once more." Kit North's music is dumb, though a noble echo of her past greatness has rung through the land from Aytoun's silver trumpet; Swaine has yet to sing a song more worthy of his name; Bailey to leave awhile his flight among the stars with Lucifer of the morning, and the murky depths of shade with Faust, and speak to us of things more comprehensible, not in the unknown tongue. Besides these, and perhaps half-a-dozen other names of less note, who are there worthy to be called the great Apollo's sons? It may be, indeed, that the mighty bard of "Woman," "Luther," and "Satan," has yet in store for us, yea, is now solemnly labouring at, some one more tremendous Epic, of twenty thousand lines, destined "To wrap our bacon, or reline our trunks." This we know not, for we know not what the Gods have in store for us. Meanwhile, if this be not the age of Poetry, it surely is the age of Rhyme. Every vender of oils and butters, and every purveyor of cheeses or coffees, every inventor of perriwigs and pomatums, every "astounding discoverer" in the realms of blacking, soap, or hairdye, every scientific inventor of unwrinkled breeches, and unexampled shirts-one and all make known their virtues, excellences, sacrifices, and merits, by means of Rhyme. The sons of song, after all, abound among us, street corner. 66 All Grub Street' or Parnassus is let out." and we, in thankless ignorance, go on our way not rejoicing. The very air teems with verse. It flies in at the windows of cabs, rail, and omnibus, it creeps under our very doors, and infests our areas. Verse meets us in the street at every turn. Human bipeds walk between boards, "animated sandwiches" of wooden rhyme; seedy, severely seedy "parties" present us with sonnets, odes, effusions, blank verse itself, at every Mr. Ahasuerus Levi never invents a perfect paletot, or a seraphic shirt, without at once celebrating the event in an ode or acrostic; copies of which fly, forthwith, on the four wings of heaven, to the ears of men. The shirt cost, perchance, four-pence half-penny, and its poet demands a shilling; but with a Greek name, and a tag of rhyme, what villainy will not pass muster? what shirt will not sell-and be dirt cheap at "four and six ?" But there is yet another domain of Rhyme much more genteel, far less Catholic in nature, yet almost equally productive. This realm includes many "gushes of melody," "snatches of song," "sighs from broken reeds," "sprays from deserted hedge rows," and other similar abortive entities; but, above all, it includes a world of so-called "religious poetry." Gentlemen and ladies of all ages, of all or no ability, unable or unwilling to improve themselves, forthwith proceed to improve every possible subject, occurrence, or occasion, for the behoof of others. Universal Samaritans, they rush into rhyme to benefit mankind. There is no amount of labour they will not undergo to attain this laudable object; they compose sonnets, elaborate odes, break forth into blank verse, meander into acres of sentiment, seas of pity, oceans of self-gratulation; get out of their depth, yet still rave, gush, and expatiate; boiling over with affection for all men and the world in general, yet without a grain of respect for themselves. The No subject is safe; from the very highest to the lowest. very highest is improved by correction and embellishment, the lowest positively demands improvements and expansion. Let us illustrate our remarks from the existing world of books; taking our first specimen from one bearing the highest and holiest of all names on its title page: "Jesus,' a poem, &c. &c. in six books." Nothing can be more full of pretension, or in worse taste, as our readers may easily see. It is, in fact, a mild and milk-and-watery dilution of Gospel history, as recorded for us by those ordinary persons, the four Evangelists. The Gospels being only plain, humble prose, a poet has done them into blank verse; being far too brief, he has expanded and amplified them into upwards of three thousand lines; being in parts obscure, he has infused into them the light, the blaze, of genius; in short, being altogether capable of improvement, he has improved them. St. Luke improved into blank verse, falls strangely on the ear; yet such is our good fortune in this foggy November. For sixteen centuries, Christianity has managed to make its way; the world has become more civilized; millions of men have learned to live and to die, as the truth prevailed; though St. Matthew was undiluted, St. Mark unexpanded, St. Luke unimproved, and St. John still in prose. How light would have been the labours, how easy the toils, of those early seekers of truth-on through century after century, up to the time of the Dark Ages-if our poet had then shone on the benighted world, and mild epics had been printed in the Strand. But, as saith P. L., "let us be more alive to our own gains than to other people's losses;" we do live in the felicitous age; Genius does now dwell within hail, and mild epics are printed in the Strand, that all mankind may buy. Let us be thankful then, and walk discreetly into the realms of blank verse. The gates are open; within will be found the latest improvements. the If there be one passage in the life of the Saviour of more solemn mystery than another, it is that of the Temptation; needing at once the calmest, most reverent, most thoughtful deliberation, from poet, scholar, or divine, who treats of it. But how is it in the pages before us? Is there ought of difficulty, reserve, or caution, in the record there? Not the slightest difficulty, not the faintest reserve, not the most mitigated caution. What can be more easy than blank verse? Who more apt than the poet's muse? Therefore, O, Reader! listen to St. Luke improved: The Evangelist records the incidents of that solemn Temptation in about twelve short verses. His words are few, concise, and full of powerful grandeur. He tells us the plain facts; our Poet is good enough to point the moral, and "adorn the tale;" and the twelve verses are expanded into some two hundred lines. Thus sings the Bard: The solemn wilds of solitude are as And vaulted galleries, and chambers filled If these lines have any meaning, they appear to tell us that, to the Son of God, led up into the desert to be tempted, the desert seemed as a stern majestic entrance to the halls of a potentate, which led beyond winding passages, galleries, and chambers filled with gold, there collected to dazzle the eyes of unpractised gazers. Wherein the fitness of the comparison lies, which is to come first in the simile, the halls, the treasures, the corridores, or the galleries; whether we are to enter on these awful wilds by the winding passage or the stern entrance, it is not for us to say. We can boast of but ordinary gifts, and it may not be for us to fathom such a depth. If the passage be meant as a sample of mysterious bathos, over which mild young men and sorrowful young ladies are to muse in silence, and interpret proportionally, so let it be, for there we leave it, as admirably suited. We have neither space nor patience here to quote further from this strange composition, which is called Religious Poetry, written, we believe, by an honest, religious man, who has made a mistake in the choice of his subject. "Ex uno omnes;" as is the first book, so are the other six; equally profound, equally palatable; or, to speak proverbially, when of one book we have reached the conclusion, then, of a sooth, we foretaste what the next will be like; even as the first draught from a pitcher doth prefigure what yet is to come. But enough of this; we are weary, if our readers are not. Let us descend from these proud heights, and cull a few flowers from humbler beds of bloom. Let us turn to a lower theme, "Poems by a Painter;" he is at once modest and merciful, gives us but a dozen lines of preface, and then opens the door for us to walk into his garden. The Poems are miscellaneous-ranging from "The Duke's Funeral" to " Green Cherries." Now the Duke's Funeral has unfortunately been done already by a Mr. Tennyson; and as to green cherries, they might sour us. But "Mary Anne" has been already printed twice; it is evidently a favourite. Dear Reader, allow us to introduce you to Mary Anne. Delay but for one instant. One single passage in the Duke's Funeral strikes us as so inimitably original, that we must quote so grand and abrupt a fragment. The bard speaketh of Paris after the Peace: "The sharp thin nostril of the high-born swelled, The diplomat rewoke, all clothed in smiles." Tuftless attachés like stunned oxen stared At Hapsburgh, Bourbon, Guelph and Romanoff. Europe was saved! once more, as in old times, The privileged worthies of the world could follow Each his vocation: Metternich trepan Unwary guests for customers of wine; Talleyrand titillate his black brain with talk Of omelets, &c. &c. In such a galaxy of splendour, it is hard to select the greater orbs of light, but the exquisite example of alliteration in "titillating Talleyrand," &c. is at once so happily euphonious that every reader will thank us for the sight of it. Tuftless attachés, too; what awful beings! staring like stunned oxen! what a scene it must have been. (Smithfield let loose). But now for Mary Anne, the favourite, already twice in print. For this wondrous poem we can do no more here, than give our Readers a glimpse of its salient points of mystery and beauty. It occupies thirty pages, and is divided into fifteen sections; each section bearing a title, thus: I. AGE, EIGHT YEARS. II. AGE, SIXTEEN YEARS. And so on, up to fifteen, Age unknown. for the present. This mystery we reserve No. I introduces us to Mary Anne, aged eight, going to Church with her mother, in a knitted nankeen bonnet (the lining is not mentioned). No. II abruptly rushes to age sixteen; and here we find Mary Anne's first admirer already flying on the wings of love to meet her through the damp fields. (When will young men learn to be prudent?) The rash youth's name is not mentioned, or we should certainly hold him as a living caution. He says: I. I've come o'er the fields to meet thee, lass, Before the sun has dried the grass, Or the earliest lark was seen. Having uttered four verses to this intent, he disappears, and we are introduced to III. AGE, SEVENTEEN. "Your mother tells me, simple girl, you are to be a seamstress now; I like to see a blush; take off your shapeless cap; do you read and write? And dance and sing, perhaps, as well?" This, Age seventeen, on the whole, we take to be the finest specimen of blank verse in existence. It has the wondrous power of reading like prose, and so, dear Reader, we have printed it. to the full meaning of the passage, who it is that addresses her, Your mother tells me, simple girl, But as |