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ART. II.-The Naiad; a Tale. With other Poems. 8vo. London. 1816.

In the long catalogue of poetical sins there is no one which so powerfully excites the irritability of our race as affectation and there is none which, we believe, has been more frequently committed since the commencement of the nineteenth century. It is that which most casily besets modern authors-it leads them to conceive themselves eminently original and forcible, when in fact they are only eminently ab surd and fanciful-it betrays them into a thousand fantastical errors, which they display with the utmost self-complacency, and persuades them into a belief that the whimsical and ca pricious vagaries which they exhibit are only proofs of the high disdain which genius has ever been supposed to cherish for the vulgar matters of life. They suppose, too, that, be cause they are fine and finical, they are lively-whereas, in addition to the disgust which foppery always inspires, they are equally dull with more elaborate artists, after we have once laughed at the follies which they commit, and at the cordial bonhommie with which they present them to our

view.

These notions are abundantly ludicrous, even when they are accompanied by great powers and acquirements, as in the case of Messrs. WORDSWORTH, COLERIDGE, and Co.but when they are conjoined with very ordinary talents, as in the case before us, they become intolerably provoking. We shall never be unwilling to punish the fault which pro duces these perverted views of things, whether it appears in Lord BYRON or in the author of the Naiad-but we natu❤ rally incline to visit it with the severest chastisement, when, instead of being overlooked in the surrounding splendour, it is the only very remarkable thing in a very middling poem.

A person who says a good thing in an affected manner, takes away very considerably from its force and beauty; but when a very indifferent truism is enunciated in the same obtrusive and arrogant style, we are always heartily disposed to pour our derision upon the person who utters it. We might indulge this feeling of contempt with ample justice in the present instance-for the author has told us nothing that has not been told ten times better before, and has accompanied his manner of telling it with the most fantastical and

ridiculous affectation. Notwithstanding all this contempt of our high office, we shall endeavour to be impartial-we shall tarn from the contemplation of this fault of the writer, where it is possible, and shall attempt to present such an analysis of his poem as may enable our readers to form an opinion of it for themselves.

The author has thought fit to form his manner upon that of Mr. WORDSWORTH and of Mr. LEIGH HUNT be has taken his ideas of simplicity, consistency, and nature in his characters from the first, and his notions of the graces of style, and of long-drawn-out harmony, from the poetry of the latter. In both of these adoptions, whatever may be the opinion of the author and of his admirers, he appears to us to have been completely misdirected-and whatever love or veneration we may be disposed to feel for some qualities of the writers whom we have named, we think that in the particulars in which it has pleased the author of the Naiad to select them for imitation, he could not have made a more unfortunate election. He has grafted upon this mongrel stock the agency of supernatural beings, and has been profuse of those fairies who made so conspicuous a figure in our poetry about the close of the last century.

Every body knows that it is much easier to paint the freaks of imaginary beings, than to describe the passions and actions of ordinary life-for fancy often forms creatures of the former sort in the minds of persons who are not at all poets and colours them with hues as bright as those in the poems before us. If any person, when in this shaping mood, were to give utterance to his thoughts, we should pronounce him to be mad-but when an author embodies them in the present fashion, and gives them a name, and a local habitation, in a wire-wove and hot-pressed octavo, the gentle reader, though he may sometimes wonder at his flights, is in general so good as to consider as the genuine Loxian inspiration, what in reality is only a tissue of such ravings as are worthy of Bedlam.

The Naiad opens with a piece of description according to the present mode-which we regard as one of the most splendid specimens of namby-pamby with which this age bas been favoured.

" 'Twas autumn-tide,-the eve was sweet,

As mortal eye hath e'er beholden;
The grass look'd warm with sunny heat,--
Perchance some fairy's glowing feet

Had lightly touch'd,—and left it golden:

A flower or two were shining yet;
The star of the daisy had not yet set,—
It shone from the turf to greet the air,
Which tenderly came breathing there :
And in a brook, which lov'd to fret
O'er yellow sand and pebble blue,
The lily of the silvery hue

All freshly dwelt, with white leaves wet.
Away the sparkling water play'd,

Through bending grass, and blessed flower ;
Light and delight seem'd all its dower:
Away in merriment it stray'd,→

Singing, and bearing, hour after hour,
Pale, lovely splendour to the shade.
Ye would have given your hearts to win
A glimpse of that fair willow'd brook:
The water lay glistening in each leafy nook,
And the shadows fell green and thin.
As the wind pass'd by-the willow-trees,
Which lov'd for aye on the wave to look,

Kiss'd the pale stream,—but disturb'd and shook,
They wept tears of light at the rude, rude breeze.
At night, when all the planets were sprinkling
Their little rays of light on high,

The busy brook with stars was twinkling,-
And it seemed a streak of the living sky;

'Twas heavenly to walk in the autumn's wind's sigh,
And list to that brook's lonely tinkling."

p. 2, 3.

After a good deal more of this delicious matter, we are introduced to a certain Lord Hubert-and if people are generally judged of from their introductory conversation, we should conceive this lord to be one of the silliest persons with whom we are acquainted. They are riding by the side of a stream:

"The waters are merry and pleasant, my page!

' The waters are merry and bright;

'Now tell me at once, thou youthful sage,
"What is so lovely to sight?-

'What is so mirthful, and mild also,

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'What is so graceful, I fain would know?

See, the moon is rising-a pale young thing!

'Nay, do not give her in thy answering;
"But bid thy fancy a new image bring:

'Now SPEAK ME, young page, outright?'

p. 5,

Such is the question which this gallant lord puts to his page-which, even if he could have understood its meaning, he would have been puzzled to answer:-however, he hits at random upon a reply:

"The waters are merry, my Lord Hubert!
'The waters are merry and bright;-
'But the lady whose heart is pure as the day,
"Whose soul is framed of the breath of May,
Is as lovely and mirthful to sight:
'Her form is as graceful, her spirit as gay,
Her eye is as tenderly light.

'I see the moon will be breaking soon,
'But I will not liken the lovely moon;-
The evening star is beaming far,

But what to me is the evening star?

'Lord Hubert! the lady we ride to greet,

'Is as fair as the wave, and as passingly sweet!”

P. 6.

This solution of the riddle, whatever our readers may think of it, highly delights Lord Hubert-and he regards this new Oedipus as a miracle of ingenuity:

"Now fair fall thy lip-thou page of my heart,
"That tone on my ear all sweetly fell,

'Like the greeting of lovers long torn apart,
Like, touch'd to nun's ear, the convent-bell;

'Ne'er may thy breast feel affliction's smart,

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For, in sooth, fair boy! thou hast spoken well.

For a moment with pleasure hisbridle-hand shook, &c.”—p. 7, 8.

The joy of the knight at the response, however, was not solitary for the author tells us that both his horse and the water participated in it—

"The steed in its joy mock'd the wave on the brook,
It play'd-and danc'd up for a moment—no more—
Then gently glided on as before."

p. 8.

After all these wonders are over, they proceed homeward, to visit the Lady Angeline; who is said (p. 6.) to be as "passing sweet as water"-a gentle way of telling us that she was very insipid-and the Lord Hubert beguiles the way with such fond converse as this-taking care to render him. self perfectly intelligible even to the nursery:

"A little while, and thou shalt press
'Thy lady's hand-thy own scarce less;
And with soft tales her heart engage,
'And chat with her, my pretty page!!!'"

p. 10.

Just as he is in the midst of this high monologue, he sees a lady advancing towards him out of the stream-her brow, we are told, "seemed a mingling of sunbeam and air, "-and, from many other attributes with which the natives of the earth are quite unacquainted, it was at once evident to us that she was of some other element-though the author, having dwelt so long in the regions of fancy, is for some time in

doubt about it. As she "sleeks her locks," she sings a song of her own composition, which is as much an exotic as the personage herself. To be sure, the author may be of the opinion of Bayes, that spirits must not be compelled to speak sense. This interesting person approaches very familiarly, and, with the most amiable simplicity, and a total absence of all those "dolci durezze, e placide repulse," which some other poets have so foolishly esteemed beautiful, thus addresses Lord Hubert:

"Then come thee to these arms of mine,

'And come thee to this bosom fuir, &c."

The page, however, is quite unmoved-and dissuades his master from the acceptance of this kind invitation, in the following polite manner:

"Ah, pause-Lord Hubert, pause! thou'rt dreaming;

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Nay follow not this form of seeming;

"And wilt thou imitate the moon,

' In looking kind, and changing soon?' »

p. 16.

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This eloquent oration is thrown away upon Lord Hubert, who, after recovering from a fit of holoplexy, greets the singing and the saying" of the lady, as the author phrases it -and gazes after her as she advances to the water. "The moon shone down upon her coldly-Lord Hubert followed her course right boldly." It is not very clear whether he followed the course of the lady, or of the moon;—we are told that be vanished from the earth, and that he was never more seen;-but from sundry hints we infer that he was drowned. The Lady Angeline anxiously awaits his arrival-he had promised, she says, to come before breakfast; and alas! it was now supper-time! While she is thus complaining, she feels herself embraced by unseen arms, which are "like bands of ice, and fresh from the water." The poor lady catches cold in consequence, and dies-and with this the poem ends!

Such is the story-which is as unfit for modern poetry, as it is destitute of all interest and probability. The author, indeed, thinks otherwise-he says "that it forms one of the richest subjects for fanciful and feeling poetry that can possibly be imagined." (Preface, p. viii.) We would charitably believe that, in the present instance, the author has been misled by this notion-and that the fault has been in his subject-for, although his poetry is fanciful enough, there is very little feeling about it. He tells us very ostentatiously, that he procured the ballad on which this poem is founded

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