ing. Public edification has been postponed to the gratification of private revenge, and thinking men have beheld with astonishment, mingled with regret, talents capable of instructing and pleasing mankind, employed in a warfare in which victory could gain no laurels, nor defeat incur additional disgrace. We feel strongly disposed to say more on this subject. It is every way important, and demands more attention than has hitherto been paid to it. In the mean time, our limits will only permit us to remark, that the cure of the evil lies with that public which is itself the greatest sufferer. Let the silent disapprobation of public opinion (more effectual than a thousand voices) be pronounced against it-let it only be treated with the NEGLECT it deserves -and one of the greatest nuisances of modern literature will disappear. THE UNIVERSE; A POEM.* As there can be no doubt, we think, that Melmoth and the devil are one and the same personage, and, as we are of opinion that Mr Maturin, in the concoction of his late novel, had got into the worst possible company, we are truly happy to find that he has at last abandoned Beelzebub, and betaken himself to poetry; And though we cannot very much felicitate him on the first fruits of his deliverance from the diabolical copartnery, the event was so desirable in itself, and is so likely to be productive of beneficial consequences to the author, that we are content to meet with him on his own terins," with all his imperfections on his head."-" The Universe! A Poem!" -Our nerves are none of the weakest or most delicate; yet, verily, the title is appalling. From the very nature of things, the Aristotelian rule must here be set at defiance. Where, in the name of criticism and common sense, could he begin with a subject that had no beginning, or finish with that which, being infinite and eternal, can have no end? He has followed no plan-He has given his fancy the rein. His flight is wild and discursive, but indicates a bearing in no particular direction. He sometimes mounts upward, and that on no ignoble wing, but still he is not the eagle seeking to kindle his undazzled eye in a nearer approach to the source of light. As he ascends, the clouds gather around him, and he is soon lost in those mists which he wants brilliancy and splendour to dissipate. His poem is not a whole: any man might as well have tried to cram the solar system into a cockle-shell as to produce a complete and finished poem on such a subject. Far less was this attainable by a writer, like Mr Maturin, who appears to deliver himself up to every thought, conceit, fancy, or whim, that visits his singularly-constituted mind, without for a moment stopping his course to establish connections, or trace sequences. Accordingly, he has transgressed against grammar, sense, propriety, arrangement, keeping; nay, almost every established canon of criticism. Of his blunders it may truly be said that their name is legion, for Universe" they are many." The " is a mere farrago of poetical expressions, ideas, and pictures, aggregated in a rude and undigested mass. Sometimes, indeed, he is fortunate; and, in spite of the notorious carelessness and hurry with which the present poem has been got up, we shall be able to produce not a few very beautiful passages. At other times, again, he raves worse than any poetical bedlamite, and not unfrequently indites arrant nonsense. In this latter attribute, indeed, we had believed that the Pilgrims of the Sun had stood pre-eminent; but, in justice to Mr Hogg, we must confess that the "Universe" beats his Pilgrims out and out. The Pilgrims of the Sun is a perfect piece of logic, compared to it. Yet it is but fair to alcided advantage over its rival in fus low that the "Universe" has one de tian and fanfaronnade. Unlike the erudite and modest Shepherd, who, in a luckless hour, discovered that "what the bedesmen say is neither true nor plain to man," Mr Maturin takes things as they are, and does not, like Hogg, set about concocting a new system of religion and philosophy, of which system, by the bye, no man was ever able to underBy the Rev. C. R. Maturin. Lon- stand any thing but himself-in such don: Henry Colburn and Co. 1821. Pythian obscurity are the Shepherd's * From Araby to Ind; flinging sweet dews Upon their fugitive twilight: -or the trees, And flow'rets of the vernal tempered zone, Brief pensioners of Spring, that deck Earth's wilds Bestrew'd with all diversities of light,Seen in the rainbow when its coloured arch But moving at the will of wantoning winds, Launch'd without compass-lost in boundless ways! -So fares the shallow Sophist, reasoning Omnipotence at their bar; or more pro- pp. 7, 8. The disinterinent of Pompeii "from its long sleep of darkness," is a subject fit only for the powerful pen of Hangs glitt'ring on the humid air, and Lord Byron. Mr Maturin, however, drives has been more fortunate here than in other parts of his performance, involving less difficulty. But there thy spectral visage darken'd forth, Amid the joyous bosom scenes of life, From its invisible ambush! There it found The myriad fantasies of hearts and brains, Young loves and hopes and pleasures all abroad, Spreading their painted wings, and wantoning In life's glad summer's breeze, from flower to flower! And, with the fatal spell of one dread glance, Blasted them all!-How sunk the tender maid Then silent in the chill and stiffening clasp Of her dead lover! Echo had not ceased To catch love's inarticulate ecstasies, Strained in a first embrace for ever, then, Fixed statue-like in Death's tremendous arms; A hideous contrast! - One fell moment stilled Lovers and foes alike; -workers of good, And guilty wretches; then the statesman's brain Stopp'd in its calculation, and the bard Sunk by his lyre; -the loud procession Before the temple-all the cares of life, With action and contrivance, through the groan Of agitated Nature; and beneath, Bright sunbeams lit the plain-a nameless The author is an optimist, and indulges in visions of the " splendid destiny" and interminable perfectibility of our race. His estimate of human nature is obviously too high, but, as we abhor all misanthropes, and their creeds, from the wayward Childe down to the lowest grumbler that ever impugned "the ways of God to man," we shall give the whole passage, though rather long for our limits, now narrowing apace. They have not passed! - Nor was your coming vain, Lights of the ancient world :-'Tis not the name, The origin of empires, or their fall,But the completion of the mighty plan, The fabric of the moral universe That is the world; improvement to the end, Moves in the sleepless track of unknown time, Above the dust of empires. Ancient states Fell into ruin; it was th' earthly frame Of long-subsisting night, the lovely form Of Nature sprung, -last, from the lingering strife Of mind's more active principle, shall grow The beauteous consummation of the plan, That moral world complete! The bird of lives on, Breaking the chain of ancient tyrannies, And still imposing new, but lighter framed, As the fair honours of enlightened life Spread wider o'er the world their influence. Ages roll or, and each has some bright change Till the whole plan appear; philosophy, As from a luminous centre, sheds its rays Where once was darkness! and opinion grows Pervading downward to the crowd of life, As God first plann'd it, one enlightened Back to the Stygian cave, whence, thick and black, Like vapours of the infernal fire, they rose, Clouding the moral sphere, and with their dim Refractive medium, all its beauteous forms Of virtue, justice, and philosophy, Discoloring and distorting, 'till they seemed The spirits of its darkness! But the night Is breaking! and sublime above the shade, The angel, Truth, with sunlike vision, hovers, Fanning away, with heaven-descended wing, Its unsubstantial gloom! pp. 60-63. What does Mr M. mean by a "metropolis of starry mansions?" Does he intend us to understand, that the houses of that " metropolis" are built of "stars?" If this be the case, he may come to have a claim as the au thor of a somewhat novel discovery in modern architecture. Nobody will accuse him of borrowing the figure from the Apocalypse.-In p. 7 we have the following lines: Earth and all her lowly shores contain Him not, Nor all the myriad orbs that CULMINATE Their wildering brightness DOWN the steep of night! Now, in the first place, this is a plagiarism from Hogg, who somewhere, in his "Solar Pilgrims," talks of a defunct world sent "elattering, (or "wildering," we forget which,) down the steep of night for ever;" and, in the second place, it is both nonsense, and a solecism in language. "TO CULMINATE brightness DOWN the steep of night!!"-" To culminate -to be vertical; to be in the meridian," says Dr Johnson. "Culmination, the passage of a star, or planet, over the meridian, or that point of its orbit which it is in at its greatest altitude." (Dr Hutton's Mathematical Dictionary, voce Culmination.) VOL. IX. These examples, and many others which we could produce, warrant us to tell Mr M. that every man who knows the elements of his vernacular tongue, is aware, that the verb " to culminate" is neuter, not active, as he has blunderingly made it. "To culminate brightness" is, therefore, not English; and " to culminate brightness DOWN" is not philosophy; two subjects with which the author had better make himself acquainted forthwith. (We leave the care of his Latin to the Quarterly.) If the phrase, to culminate brightness," had any meaning at all, it would be directly the reverse of that affixed to it by this author: it would mean, that "brightness" had been caused to ascend to the highest point of the meridian or the zenith. But let us proceed with our analysis. The "orbs" not only "CULMINATE wildering brightness DOWN," generally, but specially and particularly DOWN the steep of night!" We never knew before that light, or, in the author's phrase, "wildering brightness," had any particular, spe cific, or natural tendency to descend; but, be that as it may, had this "wildering brightness" actually descended, or " culminated down," there can be little doubt that it would have produced day, and not night, as the author alleges. We leave the phrase, "the steep of night," without challenge, as it is now somewhat old, being the property, or part and parcel of the property, of James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd. Again, in p. 10, our author describes a " terrible volcano," as exploding its UNDERground artillery OVER affrighted cities." Before he write any more, we beg, that he will have the goodness to study Mr John Horne Tooke's diagram illustrative of the meaning of the prepositions! Where did our author find the word VASTITUDE?" -"the VASTITUDE of ruin?" Shakespeare has once, and only once, used the word vastidity," but even his authority has been deservedly ineffectual in giving it currency. The two following lines are a sort of parodical plagiarism from Hamlet. (The au " ८८ F thor's unacknowledged appropriations There are in Heaven unbroached calami- As an instance of the carelessness that pervades the whole of this poem, (manifesting, as it nevertheless does, very considerable power,) we may farther mention, that the author classes Chimborazo among burning mountains. Figures, to be poetically beau tiful, should always be literally just. Chimborazo is no more a burning mountain, than Cader Idris, or Schihallain. We beg to inform Mr M. that Cotopaxi, not Chimborazo, is the volcano to which we presume he meant to allude. Both words have the same number of syllables, and the former is not a whit less poetical than the latter. As to the phrases, "boon time," -" the horoscope of space," -et genus omne, we leave their meaning as subjects of speculations to the curious. id ORIGINAL POETRY. EDINA, A POEM, IN SIX CANTOS. CANTO I. EDINA aid my lays, why need we fly From art and mirth to Paris, or to France? The beaux, the shepherds, and the lawyers dire, Must paint the scenery, the time of day, These mighty incidents, like him pourtray O'clock, past noon; the sky was pure and bright, Than give a brief description of the beau; |