At the same time, I am free to confess that the thoughts of my late friend, if not original, have a savour of originality, and that there is a quaintness in his turns of expression, in these days of fine-spun dulness and long-drawn platitude, peculiarly refreshing. The characters too, who bear him company, although too often unadvisedly introduced and abruptly dismissed, have a distinct individuality and complete vraisemblance with nature. The horse-jockey, faithful to the death to his master, and a rogue to all the world beside, is a true picture of character, and the factory-boy's account of himself, is too good to be the offspring of the imagination alone-it is a photogenic drawing of a natural object by natural means-it is full of poetry and pathos, worth, not to rate it too highly, a wilderness of Trollopes. Of the state and prospects of the Oyster-Eater's family, it is essential that I should say something-that being also the regular thing. The widowed Sophia resides with her daughter, a sweet girl of twelve years old, in an empty house in an obscure court off Mecklenburgh Street, which she is permitted to occupy until let, without paying rent, on the sole condition of keeping it clean, and exhibiting it to probable tenants. Her household furniture consists of a few broken chairs, a paralytic table, an old pianoforte, and a bit of carpet on the floor here this admirable woman, worthy of a better fate, spends her days and nights with her daughter, in unintermitting toil, to procure clothing and food by preparing little articles of female skill for sale at the various bazaars and charitable repositories of this charitable metropolis. Herc, of an evening, the curate of the parish himself does not disdain to look in on the desolate woman, to comfort her on her misfortune (for such she strangely enough considers the loss of a husband all unworthy of her), to tell the gossip of the day, and to observe the progress of her little labours-here, of an evening, one or two respectable decayed women like herself, assemble, and combine from their slender resources the womanly luxury, a cup of tea-here Sophia, laying aside for the moment her needle and her thimble, charms her friends with her sweet voice and here I often look in myself, to witness, in this poor family, poverty made respectable by virtue ! One evening, in particular, when a cheerful little party (for virtuous poverty is ever cheerful) was, in the usual way, assembled, the curate produced a bottle of sherry from his pocket, begged permission of Sophia to treat the ladies with a glass of wine (the curate is poor, but very generous), which being promptly granted, glasses were subscribed for from the lodgings of the decayed ladies (each having one at home, as it happened), and the frugal glass being duly honoured, Sophia was requested by the curate to favour the company with a song. My deceased friend's wife is not a woman to spoil our appetite for her singing by unmannerly delay; laying aside her work, therefore, she seated herself gracefully at her piano, and with an apology that the tone of her mind would not permit her to sing any thing lively, entreated the indulgence of the little party for some verses of her own, which she had attempted to set to music. SONG BY SOPHIA. 1. Tis ever thus! when youth and joy Make life an infant's new-found toy; The happy moments fall as fast As leaves on an autumnal day; And still, ere half enjoy'd, are past— A moment blissful-and away. 'Tis ever thus I 2. Tis ever thus! when care draws nigh, With the sad brow and frequent sigh, And our light-heartedness is gone The tedious hours, prolong'd and slow, Vex life with their continued stay, And dreary come and dreary go. 'Tis ever thus ! 3. 'Tis ever thus ! when to be blest Is but to dream ourselves possess'd Of friendship and of love. The heart, O'ermastering the less ardent mind, Gives all in love-will all impart "To make that heaven it cannot find." 'Tis ever thus ! 4. 'Tis ever thus, when friendship's gay Delusive dreams have pass'd away, Sophia ceased-the decayed ladies, who seemed to have caught cold, betaking themselves to their pockethandkerchiefs. The curate went to the window, opened it, and, looking out, observed that it rained, then returned to his seat. I looked out of the window, and saw that it did not rain, but observing some drops on the window-sill, where the curate had been looking out, I concluded it was going to rain. I had almost forgot to state that the Oyster-Eater's only son, a fine youth of fourteen, very like his late father, is employed as one of the under waiters in the Emporium of O'Hara, who has been excessively kind to the family of the deceased, and in whose service the young lad, I am happy to be enabled to state, is giving every satisfaction. It may seem strange that the Oyster-Eater should have permitted his son to occupy this humble position in society; but having entertained a salutary dread that the young man, if permitted to learn reading or writing, would pine away his life behind a brass plate as a fellow of the College of Physicians, or starve in a garret in the Temple, under pretence of being a briefless barrister (starvation being the only certain prospect held out by that honourable degree), steadily refused to permit the boy to become possessor of such dangerous and fatal accomplishments. Accordingly, the youth being not educated above his hopes, is satisfied with his situation; and, instead of being a burden to his surviving parent, will, by being put in the way of an honest living, be probably enabled, in time, to afford some little comfort to her declining years. There lurks a moral under the Oyster-Eater's account of himself; and I must confess that I would as soon read a temperance tract as one of those moral tales, where the wisdom floats like the scum of a broth-pot at top, and which the reader is expected to stand by with his ladle and skim off. I say again there is a moral in the story of this unfortunate man, which I leave you to find out for yourself; if you have not penetration to find it, you will not have fortitude to profit by it. His observations on the folly and vanity of parents, and the misery that vanity and folly entail upon their unhappy offspring, will, if he had never written another line, command the gratitude of every man who has had experience (as I have) of the vast addition made from this source to the sum of human misery. It is not my wont to use my own language when there is better ready cut and dry to my hand, and therefore I take the liberty to borrow the concluding sen- . tence of the life of the unfortunate Savage, by his gigantic friend Johnson, to illustrate the position so applicable to the case of my gifted but ill-fated friend, where it is wisely and greatly laid down, "that nothing can compensate for the want of prudence, without which knowledge is useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible." The Oyster-Eater is gone; but I do not ask you to drop a tear to his memory-it will be better reserved in pity to those he has left helplessly behind. He is no more-nor need I direct you to his lowly and unhonoured grave. Let me only entreat the humane and courteous reader, who has borne with him so long-who has been beguiled of the sorrow of an hour by his eccentricities of thought of of expression-or who has detected in his writings a spark of genius so lamentably misapplied-that whenever he visits the Emporium of O'Hara, to eat oysters in, or lobsters out of the season, he will suffer himself to be attended by the Oyster-Eater's son, and "Pray, remember the waiter!" DII MINORUM GENTIUM. No. I. CAREW AND HERRICK. THE names which we prefix to this article have been often united together, as the representatives of kindred as well as contemporary genius, and the objects of similar and nearly equal commendation. The poets to whom they belong, have indeed several points of mutual resemblance in their history and character. Both of them must be ranked in the class of minor poets, as well for the number and compass of their several compositions, as for the elevation of excellence to which they aspired. Both contributed in no inconsiderable degree to smooth the versification and polish the language of English poetry; and both descended to dishonour the muse, and degrade their own fair fame, by sullying the purity of their style with impurity of sentiment. The civil commotions and fanatical severities which overtook or followed closely after the periods in which they lived, had the effect of alike consigning both of them to contempt or forgetfulness: and neither regained his just position in literary estimation till long after the cessation of those causes that originally operated to deprive them of celebrity. But with these features of strong similarity, we can discover also many striking marks of diversity be tween them, and we conceive that a very different measure of praise is due to the one and the other, whether we regard the objects at which they respectively aimed, or the degree of success which attended their attempts. In point of manliness of thought, tenderness of feeling, dignity of manner, and soundness of taste, we consider Carew to be very greatly superior to his competitor. We propose now to give some analysis of the best productions of each, with the view of illustrating both their separate and their comparative merits. Carew may be considered first in order, as the earlier in point of time, having been born, it is believed, in 1589, and having died at the age of fifty, in 1639, while the dates of Herrick's birth and death appear to be 1591, and about 1674. A gentleman by birth, and a courtier by his sovereign's favour, Carew seems naturally to have turned his poetical talents chiefly to those lighter subjects that would be most acceptable to the immediate circle in which he was placed; yet so that the attainments of the scholar, and the observation of the man of travel, gave at once solidity and finish to his compositions. Love was, perhaps, his principal and most prominent theme; and that not always of the purest or most poetical kind. Yet, although we may be shocked by his occasional violations of virtue and propriety, and may wonder at the incongruities which we find linked together in his verses, we are bound to say that, unless many of his offensive compositions have been suppressed, the proportion which they bear to his whole works is smaller than might have been expected from a man of pleasure, in an age where virtue itself was not always accompanied with delicacy. The omission of half a dozen pieces, and of a few lines in half a dozen more, would render Carew's volume as inoffensive as it is delightful. The licentiousness of Carew is not the rule, but the exception: he has for the most part written worthily of women and of love and there are many true and touching exhortations to mental dignity and virtue, which should more than compensate or correct his occasional errors. What shall we say of that style of gallantry and compliment with which women were wont to be addressed as beings of a superior and almost sacred order? We do not ridicule, but approve and delight in it, believing that it flowed from a right source, and fulfilled a salutary purpose. It has ever been the mark of a noble spirit to treat the softer portion of humanity not only with tenderness, but with homage and reverence. Our German ancestors believed that a sanctum aliquid resided in the female breast, and a form of the same feeling has diffused among their best descendants that devotion and fidelity of attachment which gives to life its dearest enjoyments, and to society its surest solidity. Bacon has pointed out to us the generosity that inspires the inferior creation when they find themselves maintained by the countenance of man, who, to them, is instead of a god or melior natura. So, not to speak it profanely, woman is to us as a melior natura, in whom the image of the heavenly character is less defaced, and from whose presence we derive or renew those kinder and purer feelings, which the toil and travel of business and the world would otherwise exclude. Cruel and callous should many of us indeed be, if we did not ever and anon seek, with reverential docility, in the converse of meek-hearted women and innocent children, that softening of the soul without which we should lose our human feelings, and be converted each of us into something worse than the fox or wolf. In a rude or a sensual age, this influence is peculiarly necessary to purify and elevate the passions; but even in a period like the present, of false liberality and cold calculation, when, as we think, the mere intellectual part of the female mind is unduly advanced over the heart and imagination, a return to the loving worship of that moral grace, that simple rectitude, and that pure affection, of which woman is to us the earthly impersonation, would be a strong remedy against the evils we suffer. We rejoice, therefore, to recur to those tributes of tender and submissive admiration, which taught the poets of the school of romantic love to represent the fair forms of their mistresses, and the gentle minds which animated them, as something more nearly allied to divinity than we that are of coarser clay. Carew contains many elegant verses of this class, from which we shall make a selection. Our fair readers will turn over their albums a good while, before they light upon any compliment so pretty as the following: LIPS AND EYES. "In Celia's face a question did arise Which were more beautiful, her lips or eyes: Whereat the Lips, moved with delight and pleasure, A PRAYER TO THE WIND. "Go, thou gentle, whispering wind, In our next extract, any approach to hyperbole is sweetly tempered by the wholesome counsel added in the close. THE COMPARISON. "Dearest, thy tresses are not threads of Thy eyes of diamonds, nor do I hold Such may be others' mistresses, but mine Thy lips congealèd nectar are, and such (But only that it far exceeds them both) Aurora's blush resembles, or that red That Iris struts in when her mantle's spread; Thy teeth in white do Leda's swan exceed, Thy skin's a heavenly and immortal weed; And when thou breathest, the winds are ready straight To filch it from thee; and do therefore wait Close at thy lips, and snatching it from thence Bear it to heaven, where 'tis Jove's frankincense. Fair goddess, since thy feature makes thee one, Yet be not such for these respects alone! What we are about to quote is more familiarly known; its insertion in Percy's Relics having been among the first things that revived the admiration for Carew. We give, as Percy did, only two verses of the song as now printed; but, in doing so, we believe we are only restoring it to its condition as originally published and set to music. It is true and beautiful after its kind, and what more can be sought for in poetry? What more can be sought for in life, than the treasures so sweetly described in the second verse as the fit object of affection,a smooth and steadfast mind, "gentle thoughts and calm desires," when to these are added the crowning gift of "hearts with mutual love combined." Percy has given to it a title of his own, which we shall borrow as more appropriate to the poem in its shortened state, than that of "Disdain Returned," adopted by Carew when he added the inferior lines which we are omitting. UNFADING BEAUTY. "He that loves a rosy cheek, "But a smooth and steadfast mind, Gentle thoughts and calm desires, Kindle never-dying fires. The following stanzas, though composed as part of a dramatic fiction, have much of the power of indignant truth, and might well paint the sympathy of an honest mind for sufferings such as we have witnessed in our own day, inflicted on a spotless spirit by the calumnies of those who themselves have no other conception of virtue than as the skill to escape detection. FEMININE HONOUR. "In what esteem did the gods hold Fair Innocence, and the chaste bed, When scandal'd virtue might be bold, Barefoot upon sharp coulters spread, O'er burning coals to march, yet feel Nor scorching fire, nor piercing steel! "Why, when the hard-edged iron did turn Soft as a bed of roses blown, When cruel flames forgot to burn Their chaste pure limbs, should man alone 'Gainst female innocence conspire, Harder than steel, fiercer than fire! "O hapless sex! unequal sway Of partial honour! who may know Rebels from subjects that obey, When malice can on vestals throw Disgrace, and fame fix high repute On the close shameless prostitute! "Vain honour, thou art but disguise, A cheating voice, a juggling art; No judge of virtue, whose pure eyes Court her own image in the heart, More pleased with her true figure there Than her false echo in the ear." We like the manner in which Carew handles the ten-syllable couplet. Without denying that the noblest examples of that admirable and truly English form of versification are to be found in Dryden and Pope, and without advocating a different standard from what their practice has set up, we can read with pleasure the laxer verses of the older school, where the sentiment is less exposed to that Procrustean operation which a correspondence with the completed rhyme so commonly involves, and which nothing but a masterly genius can wholly avoid or conceal. Carew's lines run on with almost the freedom of blank verse. But they please our ear, and the recurrence of the full close, after a temporary suspension of the regular movement, produces in us something like what we feel in music |