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From Chambers' Journal. POETRY OF WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

And it remembers its august abodes,
And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there.
Readers of Wordsworth will remember the lines
beginning, "I have seen a curious child,"
&c., and notice their resemblance to the
above. Among other striking and extractable
passages, the following has seemed to us
deserving of quotation. It will be seen that
it expresses a pagan sentiment on the holiness
and efficacy of prayer:

We suspect that the poetry of Mr. Landor is very little known to general readers; and that, even among the studious and most cultivated classes of his countrymen, there are few who can be said to be thoroughly acquainted with it. We remember De Quincey saying, that for many years he believed he was the only man in England who had read Gebir; and that, after some inquiry among his friends, he found Southey to be the only other person who had accomplished the same feat. To say the truth, it is not an easy matter to get through Gebir; and perhaps it deliberate is still more difficult, even after a perusal, to give an intelligible account of its meaning and intention. A dim and misty fable, wherein the supernatural is incongruously mingled with the natural, and brief Of mercy, when clouds shut it from mankind, glimmerings of poetry alternate with heavy They fall bare-bosomed, and indignant Jove passages of vague description and turgidity Drops at the soothing sweetness of their voice the work presents next to no attractions The thunder from his hand. on the surface, and, with the most laborious efforts to understand it, yields at the utmost

For earth contains no nation where abounds
The generous horse and not the warlike man.
But neither soldier now nor steed avails,
Nor steed nor soldier can oppose the gods,
Nor is there aught above like Jove himself,
Nor weighs against his purpose, when once fixed,
Aught but, with supplicating knee, the prayers.
Swifter than light are they, and every face,
Though different, glows with beauty; at the

throne

The brave,

When they no longer doubt, no longer fear.

Again, in regard to the lessons of experience,

we have this

From our own wisdom less is to be reaped
Than from the barest folly of our friend.

Stray lines of pithy sense and wisdom are but inadequate results. We cannot recom- frequently occurring in the poem. Thus, of mend Gelir to anybody as a pleasant enter- brave men it is said: tainment, but we are still prepared to say, that none but a man of genius could have written it. It has an undoubted originality, which, while it gives no attraction to the poem, proves the author to be at least a man of power. The great defect is a certain crudeness of the judgment, implied in the selection of the subject-inatter, and a futher want of Gebir skill and perspicuity in the treatment. possesses some interest as a poetical curiosity, but, except in a few passages, it has none of those peculiar graces of style and sentiment which render the writings of our more prominent modern authors so generally delightful. Such passages as we speak of can never convey any accurate notion of a poem, but, as illustrations of the poetic faculty of the writer, they may, in such a case as Mr. Landor's, he easily detached and cited, without occasioning either misapprehension of his genius or injury to his reputation. One or two we shall here accordingly present, by way of showing the kind of gems which, at wide intervals, are imbedded in the otherwise dark and dreary caves of Gebir. Let us begin with some lines containing an image which Wordsworth afterwards expanded, in a famous passage of the Excursion. A river-nymph is described as saying to a shepherd:

I have sinuous shells of pearly hue
Within, and they that lustre have imbibed
In the sun's palace-porch, where, when unyoked,
His chariot wheel stands midway in the wave:
Shake one and it awakens, then apply
Its polished lips to your attentive ear,

In the way of description, in which Mr.
Landor is sometimes, but not always happy,
the following representation of an Eastern
morning displays a rich and pleasing fancy: —
Now to Aurora, borne by dappled steeds,
The sacred gate of Orient pearl and gold,
Smitten with Lucifer's light silver wand,
Expanded slow to strains of harmony;
The waves beneath, in purpling rows, like doves
Glancing with wanton coyness tow'rd their queen,
Heaved softly; thus the damsel's bosom heaves
When from her sleepy lover's downy cheek,
To which so warily her own she brings
Each moment nearer, she perceives the warmth
Of coming kisses fanned by playful dreams.
Ocean and earth and heaven was jubilee,
For 't was the morning pointed out by Fate,
When an immortal maid and mortal man
Should share each other's nature knit in bliss.

Gebir is a sort of epic, in seven books, and is luckily the only long poem which Mr. Landor seems to have attempted. Without offence to him, or to anybody else, we think it may be said, that there is no description of poetry for which his talent is so unsuited. In dramatic writing, he has succeeded better, though he has given us nothing that can be

properly styled a drama; indeed, he calls majestically-attired Evening moving slowly his pieces of this sort simply "acts and over the landscape, and covering all things scenes ;" and informs us, that although in a as she advances with the folds of her misty dramatic form, they "were never offered to drapery:

find any

-

ceed:

First through the deep and warm and secret
glens,

Through the pale-glimmering privet scented lane,
And through those alders by the river-side :
Now the soft dust impedes her, which the sheep
Have hollowed out beneath their hawthorn shade.
But, ah! look yonder! see a misty tide
Rise up the hill, lay low the frowning grove,
Enwrap the gay white mansion, sap its sides,
Until they sing and melt away like chalk;
Covers its base, floats o'er its arches, tears
Now it comes down against our village-tower,
The clinging ivy from the battlements,
Mingles in broad embrace the obdurate stone
(All one vast ocean), and goes swelling on
In slow and silent, dim and deepening waves.

the stage, being no better than Imaginary From yonder wood mark blue-eyed Eve proConversations in metre." As such they are not by any means uninteresting, though they mostly refer to scenes and circumstances so remote from the studies of the general reader as to offer few attractions to him; and, except here and there in pointed thoughts and fine expressions, they manifest no extraordinary ability. It is chiefly in his collection of Miscellaneous Pieces - short occasional poems, written to express some flitting thought or pensive fancy that Mr. Landor is likely to considerable body of readers. Many of these pieces are purely personal, but are not on that account deficient either in grace or sterling excellence. As it is the vocation of the poet to reflect the mental states of other men, and be the interpreter of their aspirations and emotions, whatsoever affects, interests, or perplexes him, will serve in the representation to excite the sympathies, and more perfectly express the sense of all who any way partake of kindred thoughts and feelings. So considered, these brief and unpretending poems of Mr. Landor seem to be calculated to impart a fine intellectual pleasure, and yield matter for meditation in moments when the heart is inclined to be still and commune with itself. The merit of this poetry lies mainly in its tone of calm reflectiveness, in a certain suggestive power which sets the mind of the reader thinking, and engages him for the time in the serious contemplation of some striking and peculiar view of human life. Such pieces as we have selected for quotation may be not unsuitably introduced by the following lines on the outlooks of middle-age : —

When we have panted past life's middle space,
And stand and breathe a moment from the race,
These graver thoughts the heaving breast
annoy :

Of all our fields, how very few are green!
And ah! what brakes, moors, quagmires, lie

between

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Tired age and childhood ramping wild with joy. It will be seen that, in this little poem, there is nothing gorgeous or particularly felicitous in the language-not a word of imagery or sentimental softness- yet the thought is eminently poetical, and, simply as it is set forth, suggests a great deal more than is expressed the whole throng of cares and pentup sadness which the tried and weary soul conceals, even while they press on him as the inner burden of his life. Our next extract is of a more imaginative aspect, and shows how admirable a picture the author can delineate in words. One seems to see the

We quote next a somewhat longer poem, wherein the influences of wrath and gentleness are very beautifully contrasted : —

Look thou yonder, look and tremble,
Thou whose passions swell so high;
See those ruins that resemble

Flocks of camels as they lie.
'T was a fair but froward city,
Bidding tribes and chiefs obey,
Till he came who, deaf to pity,

Tost the imploring arm away.
Spoiled and prostrate, she lamented
What her pride and folly wrought:
But was ever Pride contented,

Or would Folly e'er be taught?
Strong are cities; Rage o'erthrows 'em ;
Rage o'erswells the gallant ship;
Stains it not the cloud-white bosom,
Flaws it not the ruby lip?

All that shields us, all that charms us,
Brow of ivory, tower of stone,
Yield to Wrath; another's harms us,
But we perish by our own.
Night may send to rave and ravage
Panther and hyæna fell;

But their manners, harsh and savage,
Little suit the mild gazelle.
When the waves of life surround thee,
Quenching oft the light of love-
When the clouds of doubt confound thee,
Drive not from thy breast the dove.

The following, as the reader will perceive, contains a consoling and excellent suggestion in regard to the transitoriness of earthly sorrows:

The wisest of us all, when woe
Darkens our narrow path below,
Are childish to the last degree,
And think what is must always be.
It rains, and there is gloom around,
Slippery and sullen is the ground,
And slow the step; within our sight
Nothing is cheerful, nothing bright.

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The brightest mind, when sorrow sweeps across,
Becomes the gloomiest; so the stream, that ran
Clear as the light of heaven ere autumn closed,
When wintry storm and snow and sleet descend
Is darker than the mountain or the moor.

In the next quotation, the reader will get a glimpse of Mr. Landor's views concerning the poetic art:

Pleasant it is to wink and sniff the fumes
The little dainty poet blows for us,
Kneeling in his soft cushion at the hearth,
And patted on the head by passing maids.
Who would discourage him? who bid him off,
Invidious or morose? Enough, to say
(Perhaps too much, unless 't is mildly said)
That slender twigs send forth the fiercest flame,
Not without noise, but ashes soon succeed;
While the broad chump leans back against the
stones,

Strong with internal fire, sedately breathed,
And heats the chamber round from morn till
night.

Some further ideas on this subject are presented to us in some lines addressed to Southey, between whom and Mr. Landor, notwithstanding the widest difference in their political and social views, there existed a close and uninterrupted friendship. A good deal of sound criticism is here condensed into a small compass. Pope's celebrated Essay contains nothing of equal merit, either in point of judgment or in the graces of expression:

There are who teach us that the depths of thought
Engulf the poet; that irregular

Is every greater one. Go, Southey, mount
Up to these teachers; ask, submissively,
Who so proportioned as the lord of day?
Yet mortals see his steadfast, stately course,
And lower their eyes before him.
Fools gaze
Amazed at daring flights. Does Homer soar
As hawks and kites and weaker swallows do?
He knows the swineheard; he plants apple-trees
Amid Alcinous' cypresses;

up

He covers with his aged, black-veined hand,
The plumy crest that frightened and made cling
To its fond mother the ill-fated child;
He walks along Olympus with the gods,
Complacently and calmly, as along
The sands where Simoïs glides into the sea.
They who step high and swing their arms soon
tire.

The glorious Theban then?

The sage from Thebes,
Who sang his wisdom when the strife of cars
And combatants had paused, deserves more praise

Than this untrue one, fitter for the weak.
Who by the lightest breezes are borne up,
And with the dust and straws are swept away;
Who fancy they are carried far aloft,
When nothing quite distinctly they descry,
Having lost all self-guidance. But strong men
Are strongest with their feet upon the ground.
Light bodied-Fancy - Fancy plover-winged,
Draws some away from culture to dry downs,
Where none but insects find their nutriment;
There let us leave them to their sleep and dreams.
Great is that poet- great is he alone,
Who rises o'er the creatures of the earth,
Yet only where his eye may well discern
The various movements of the human heart,
And how each mortal differs from the rest.

Although he struggled hard with poverty,
He dares assert his just prerogative
To stand above all perishable things,
Proclaiming this shall live, and this shall die.

From these extracts, the character of Mr.
Landor's minor poems will be partially per-
ceived;
readers hitherto unacquainted with
them must now consider for themselves,
whether they possess attractions of a kind
likely to be acceptable to their particular
tastes and temperaments. It will be seen
that the poetry is mostly of a contemplative
cast; not remarkably imaginative, nor im-
bued to any great degree with the graces or
charms of fancy; nowise stately or magnifi-
cent in diction, or particularly polished or
exquisite in style; but, in modest and simple
guise, wisely thoughtful and reflective; full
of hints and intimations of a peculiar ex-
perience, and rich in that quiet wisdom
which a man of fine gifts and extensive
knowledge has constantly in store, and the
utterance of which is to him as natural and
easy as is the delivery of commonplaces to
ordinary persons. No one can read these
poems without observing their unelaborate
and simple structure. They have all the air
of spontaneous effusions. They seem to be
the little sparks of light which the revolving
mind casts off in token of a latent heat which
cannot be contained or all concentrated in
that subtile and vast activity, whose product
in other forms of literature has been so ad-
mirable and magnificent. They have taken
shape without premeditation, and without
labor, and have the appearance of being almost
involuntary utterances. Indeed, they might
have been in some instances improved by a
little more care and manual painstaking in
the versification; but for this mechanical
excellence Mr. Landor appears to have no
regard. He says once, in addressing Words-
worth:

That other men should work for me
In the rich mines of Poesie,
Pleases me better than the toil

Of smoothing under hardened hand
With attic emery and oil

The shining point for wisdom's wand.

Accordingly, what poetry he is in the habit of writing, he throws off from him with an easy carelessness, satisfied if the words and images he uses be such as will just serve as a body to the thought which it is his purpose to express. It is always rather the substance than the form which constitutes the merit of these productions; and though they cannot be said to present any very lofty views of human life and destiny, any grand conceptions of man's relations and vocation in the universe, they yet contain many excellent and consolatory reflections, many just and pure sentiments, much of that solemn and pensive beauty which, like the rays of moonlight about ruins and lonely places, gives a charm and a quiet glory to the sobered sadness that haunts the chambers of a soul deeply learned in manifold experiences. One sug gestion may be given as to what seems the proper way of reading them; they yield most pleasure when perused deliberately, one at a time, following out the thought with its various suggestiveness, until its full meaning is gathered up and taken in. They will, most of them, be found to have a wonderful completeness, and each of them a separate and definite signification. They are not endless repetitions of a few fixed ideas and feelings, but they express a multitude of intellectual and emotional conditions; they are records of all the moods and phases which the author's mind has undergone, in the course of a life now considerably advanced, and bear witness to his large devotion to the interests of truth and beauty. For all men anyway like-minded, they cannot fail to prove pleasant and congenial reading; and to such of these as may not yet have been attracted to them, we here take the opportunity of recommending them. We hold them to be worthy of careful and deliberate study, and can testify that a prolonged acquaintance with them increases the gratification which they are calculated to afford.

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TOO MUCH READING. The following letter of the editor of the " Tribune," in reply to a subscriber, who complains that he has too much reading" furnished to him in these double sheets, is too good to be overlooked; the correspondent may be imaginary, but the hit is nevertheless a palpable one. John H. Smith is the gentleman who writes, and here is the answer: "Dear John Your case is distressing, but it is by no means so peculiar as you seem to imagine. It is not in the Tribune' alone, nor even in reading generally, that people labor under a difficulty akin to yours. For instance, your brother Baxter Smith came down here from the country the other day, and stopped at the Astor House, but had to quit the living was too much for him. The food was very good and abundant — in fact, too much so and that did him up. He did n't eat more than half way down the bill of fare,

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while he saw others on every side who had got very near the bottom of it, and were still working away when he left the dinner-table, so full that he could hardly stand or walk. He had a threatened with apoplexy, so he had to quit the touch of the cholera the second day, and was Astor abruptly, and to take board at a chopfor, plate by plate. Had he stayed, the coffinhouse, where he only ate what he called and paid maker would have taken his measure before this time. Smith, who came down and bought a ticket to Then there was your cousin, John Z. Barnum's Museum, and found it a regular gouge. He thought he was going to see every curious object in the world, and perhaps he might have done so ; but, after looking his eyes almost out of his head for nine or ten hours, and giving himself a torturing headache, he had to give up, leaving half the objects unseen, because the athim it was time to shut up and go home. And tendants began to blow out the lights, and told there your nephew, John Wilkins Smith, who them satisfactorily, and thereupon resolved to came down with a sloop-load of turnips, sold treat himself to a salt-water bath, which he did; but staying in two hours, in order to get the full worth of his money, he came out with an ague, and is now suffering severely from rheumatic debility. His case is even harder than yours; for you can stop the Tribune,' and he has been trying to stop the ague, and can't. There are more such cases, but let them pass. We will stop your paper very cheerfully, but we can't stop putting in more than any one patron will be likely to peruse. In fact, we can't give each without giving his neighbor a great deal that he reader what he wants of the news of the day,

don't want.

he needs to-day, without inserting many things Nor can we give any one just what that he probably would not want to-morrow. So we must try to present a bill of fare from which various appetites may be satisfied, though each may leave a good deal untouched."-Hogg's Instructor.

HARMONIC RAPPING. - If spirits can rap upon a table, it stands to reason that they are also able to strike the keys of a piano. The rappists should therefore extend the range of their entertainments by adding a Broadwood to their mahogany, and by combining the harmonic meeting with the spiritual séance. Weber, who was such a capital hand at supernatural effects, and whose amiable character during life renders it probable that his disposition is accommodating after death, would doubtless willingly oblige the company with an air or two from Der Freischütz, or Oberon, or perform the overture to the Ruler of the Spirits. The ears of the visitors might also be gratified with a genuine "Ghost Melody;" the effect whereof upon those organs would probably be to add, in a preternatural degree, to their natural elongation. - Punch.

THE face of the corpse seems as if it suddenly knew everything, and was profoundly at peace in consequence.

From Chambers' Journal.

THE LOST MESSMATE.

WHEN we lived at Greenwich, long ago, the scene of my greatest earthly delight was the park, and my chosen society the superannuated seamen who strolled down there from Greenwich Hospital. Better company than some of them might have been found for a boy of thirteen, but in those days the seà filled my imagination. Readers, I am a respectable draper in the Blackfriars' Road, and the crossing of St. George's Channel, in which I was terribly sick, has been the utmost limit of my voyages; but the interest now given to water-twist and fast-colors, then hung about double-reefed topsails, land on the lee-bow, and a strange craft bearing down. Great store was therefore set by the old mariners, who would talk and tell stories. Queer tales some of them had to tell, and few were slow to communicate; but the most satisfactory acquaintance I found among them was Tom Patterson. Tom said he was the last man that ever lost an arm by Bonaparte. How he came to the exact knowledge of his own distinction in that respect, I never discovered, but his right arm had been carried off by a cannon-ball, in action with a French vessel, almost at the close of what it is to be hoped we shall long continue to call the last war."

It is my belief that Tom had come from Scotland in his day. His education was certainly better than that of foretop-men in general: he could read and write well; there were even traces of the Latin grammar about him; and at times Tom let out recollections of an old manse, which stood somewhere on the Firth of Clyde, and a wild, graceless lad, who ran away to sea. That part of the past was reserved for his memory's private domain. I cannot tell what ruins might be in it. Tom spoke little on the subject, and was never explicit; but if he had been the wild, graceless lad, there was a good work done by Time, the changer; for when I knew him he was a grave, quiet man, religious withal, after a discreet, sober fashion, and more thoughtful and intelligent than the majority of Greenwhich penWhether Tom patronized me or I him, is still an open question. Half at least of my pocket-money (and that fund was not large) went in good-will offerings of tobacco and pipes for his behoof and benefit; and he talked with me about ships and sea-adventures under the park's old chestnut-trees on summer evenings. Noble trees are they, those said chestnuts, with the circular benches round their roots, on which so many have rested. There is one, in particular, said to have been planted by Henry VII., soon after Bosworth Field had made him King of England. I go to see it yet sometimes, though not now to see Tom Patterson. His cruise on this side

sioners.

the stars has been long finished; but the bench below, overlooking the broad walk and the busy river, was the evening resort of my sailor-friend. On that seat, Tom appeared to me profoundly edifying, as he described the bombardment of Copenhagen, drew a parallel between Nelson and Collingwood (by the way, the latter was his crack-man), or explained how Acre was defended; but none of his historical essays ever made such an impression on my mind as a story he told me once, while we sat together in an April sunset. It was the Easter holidays, and Easter had n't come early that year. The chestnut-trees were in full blossom, and the park in full green. Half London had come out, as usual, to trample it down; but the crowd was growing thin for the sun was setting, and we sat on our accustomed seat, watching its diminu tion, when the great attraction of the day passed by. This was a Chinese- whether real or fictitious I know not; but he sold paper-lanterns, wore a loose cotton gown, a pair of flannel shoes, and an enormous pigtail. I was admiring that weapon of his warfare, and Tom, with the pipe between his teeth, watching him with a look of indefinite suspicion, till he was fairly out of sight, when the old man turned to me and said, in his own sedate fashion, "Master Harry, I don't like them there Chinamen?"

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Why, Tom?" said I, having by this time picked up his prejudices. "Are they as bad as the French ?"

"They 're worse, Master Harry, by several chalks," said Tom. "No Christian can ever be up to them. They're as deep as the South Sea, and I'll tell you what first made me think so.

When I served on board the Rattlesnake, in 1809, our ship was ordered to the China Sea, where the pirates had grown brisk from the scarcity of cruisers. Our captain was a jewel for conduct and consideration, though maybe, too young for such a command. Most of our officers had seen service; there wasn't a lubber in the crew, nor a troublesome soul on board but Dick Spanker. We gave him that surname unanimously - for Dick had none of his own that ever I knew when he threw a somersault in the rigging off Formosa. Where he was born appeared to be a puzzle to himself. Sometimes he said he was a Yorkshire, and sometimes a Cornish man; but one thing was plain to everybody — Dick was no beauty. Low-set, strong, and square of build, he had a dark complexion, very red hair, and a nose broken out of all shape by some blow or accident; but the most remarkable particular about him was an enormous right thumb. It was positively half the breadth of an ordinary hand; and just below the nail was a double x in deep blue. Dick said he put on that mark among the Southsea whalers, with whom such things are in

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