DETACHED THOUGHTS. rage out of it. What can it give us but years and those have little of good but their ending. partly because I had filled my paper-book. But the Neapolitans have betrayed themselves and all the world; and those who would have given their blood for Italy can now only give her ther tears. The world visits change of politics or change of religion with a more severe censure than a mere "Some day or other, if dust holds together, 1 difference of opinion would appear to me to deserve. But there must be some reason for this feeling;and think it is that these departures from the have been enough in the secret (at least in this part carliest instilled ideas of our childhood, and from of the country) to cast perhaps some little light the line of conduct chosen by us when we first enter upon the atrocious treachery which has replunged into public life, have been seen to have more mis- Italy into barbarism: at present I have neither ne chievous results for society, and to prove more time nor the temper. However, the real Italians of the boot, which the Hun now wears, and will weakness of mind than other actions, in themselves are not to blame; merely the scoundrels at the heel trample them to ashes with for their severity. 1 more immoral." have risked myself with the others here, and how Some of them, like Craigengelt, Of the bust of himself by Bartollini:-"The far I may or may not be compromised is a problem uust does not turn out a good one,-though it may at this moment. But, come what may, the cause was a selves.' assure you be like for aught I know, as it exactly resembles a would tell all, and more than all, to save themAgain, "I superannuated Jesuit." Bartollini's is dreadful, though my mind misgives glorious one, though it reads at present as if the me that it is hideously like. If it is, I cannot be Greeks had run away from Xerxes. Happy the long for this world, for it overlooks seventy." "As far as fame goes (that is to say, living fame,) I have had my share, perhaps-indeed, certainly more than my deserts. few who had only to reproach themselves with believing that those rascals were less rascaille' than they proved!-Here in Romagna, the efforts were necessarily limited to preparations and good intentions, until the Germans were fairly engaged tiers, without a single fort or hill nearer than San in equal warfare-as we are upon their very fron"Some odd instances have occurred, to my own Marino. Whether hell will be paved with those esperience, of the wild and strange places to which good intentions,' I know not; but there will prob name may penetrate, and where it may impress. ably be a good store of Neapolitans to walk upon Two years ago, (almost three, being in August or the pavement, whatever may be its composition. July, 1819,) I received at Ravenna a letter, in Eng- Slabs of lava from their mountain, with the bodies Lish verse, from Drontheim in Norway, written by a of their own damned souls for cement, would be the Norwegian, and full of the usual compliments, &c., fittest causeway for Satan's 'Corso.'" "Pisa, November 5, 1821. &c. It is still somewhere among my papers. In the same month I received an invitation into Hol"There is a strange coincidence sometimes in stein from a Mr. Jacobsen (I think) of Hamburgh; also, by the same medium, a translation of Medora's song in the Corsair by a Westphalian baroness (not the little things of this world, Sancho,' says Sterne Thunderton-Tronck'), with some original verses in a letter, (if I mistake not,) and so I have often "In page [1012,] of this collection, I had alluded of hers, (very pretty and Klopstock-ish,) and a found it. About a week or two afterward, 1 prose translation annexed to them, on the subject of my wife;-as they concerned her more than me, to my friend Lord Clare in terms such as my feel I sent them to her, together with Mr. Jacobsen's ings suggested. letter. It was odd enough to receive an invitation met him on the road between Imola and Bologna, to pass the summer in Holstein, while in Italy, from after not having met for seven or eight years. He I never knew. The letter was addressed to was abroad in 1814, and came home just as I set out "This meeting annihilated for a moment all the Venice. Mr. Jacobsen talked to me of the wild in 1816. years between the present time and the days of Clare too was roses growing in the Holstein summer.' Why then did the Cimbri and Teutones emigrate? "What a strange thing is life and man! Were I Harrow. It was a new and inexplicable feeling, to present myself at the door of the house where like rising from the grave to me. my daughter now is, the door would be shut in my much agitated-more in appearance than was myI did. We face-unless (as is not impossible) I knocked down self; for I could feel his heart beat to his fingers' the porter; and if I had gone in that year (and ends, unless, indeed, it was the pulse of my own perhaps now) to Drontheim, (the furthest town in which made me think so. He told me that I should Norway,) or into Holstein, I should have been find a note from him left at Bologna. received with open arms into the mansion of stran- were obliged to part for our different journeys, he again in spring. We were but five minutes together, gers and foreigners, attached to me by no tie but by for Rome, I for Pisa, but with the promise to meet that of mind and rumor. "As far as fame goes, I have had my share: it and on the public road; but I hardly recollect an has indeed been leavened by other human con- hour of my existence which could be weighed against tingencies, and this in a greater degree than has them. He had heard that I was coming on, and ccurred to most literary men of a decent rank in had left his letter for me at Bologna, because the longer. life; but, on the whole, I take it that such equi-people with whom he was travelling could not wait poise is the condition of humanity." "Of all I have ever known, he has always been the least altered in every thing from the excellent qualities and kind affections which attached me to Among the various Journals, Memoranda, Dia- him so strongly at school. I should hardly have have kept in the course of my thought it possible for society (or the world, as it is ries, &c., which living, I began one about three months ago, and called) to leave a being with so little of the leaves "I do not speak from personal experience only carried it on till I had filled one paper-book, (thin- of bad passions. nish,) and two sheets or so of another. I then left off, partly because I thought we should have some but from all I have ever heard of him from others. business here, and I had furbished up my arms and during absence and distance. got my apparatus ready for taking a turn with the patriots, having my drawers full of their proclama "I revisited the Florence Gallery, &c. My tions, oaths, and resolutions, and my lower rooms former impressions were confirmed; but they were too many visiers there to allow one to feel any two the new English and Spa aiah Atlantides will thing properly. When we were (about thirty or be masters of the old countries, in all probability forty) all stuffed into the cabinet of gems and as Greece and Europe overcame their mother Asia knick-knackeries, in a corner of one of the gal- in the older or earlier ages, as they are called. leries, I told Rogers that it felt like being in the watchhouse.' I left him to make his obeisances to After saying, in reference to his own choice o some of his acquaintances, and strolled on alone-Venice as a place of residence, "I remembered the only four minutes I could snatch of any feeling General Ludlow's domal description, Omne solum for the works around me. I do not mean to apply forti patria,' and sat down free in a country which this to a tête à tête scrutiny with Rogers, who has had been one of slavery for centuries," he adds, an excellent taste, and deep feeling for the arts," But there is no freedom, even for masters, in the (indeed much more of both than I can possess, for midst of slaves. It makes my blood boil to see the of the FORMER I have not much,) but to the thing. I sometimes wish that I was the owner of crowd of jostling starers and travelling talkers Africa, to do at once what Wilberforce will do in around me. time, viz., sweep slavery from her deserts, and look "I heard one bold Briton declare to the woman on upon the first dance of their freedom. on his arm, looking at the Venus of Titian, Well, "As to political slavery, so general, it is men's now, this is really very fine indeed,'-an observa- own fault: if they will be slaves, let them! Yet it tion which, like that of the landlord in Joseph is but a word and a blow.' See how England for Andrews on the certainty of death,' was (as the merly, France, Spain, Portugal, America, Switzerlandlord's wife observed) 'extremely true.' land, freed themselves! There is no one instance "In the Pitti Palace, I did not omit Goldsmith's of a long contest in which men did not triumph prescription for a connoisseur, viz., that the pic-over systems. If Tyranny misses her first spring, tures would have been better if the painter had she is cowardly as the tiger, and retires to be hunted. taken more pains, and to praise the works of Pietro Perugino.' "Going to the fountain of Delphi (Castri) is 1809, I saw a flight of twelve eagles (H. says they "People have wondered at the melancholy which were vultures at least, in conversation) and 1 runs through my writings. Others have wondered seized the omen. On the day before, I composed at my personal gayety. But I recollect once, after the lines to Parnassus, (in Childe Harold,) and on an hour in which I had been sincerely and particu- beholding the birds, had a hope that Apollo had larly gay and rather brilliant, in company, my wife accepted my homage. I have at least had the name replying to me, when I said, (upon her remarking and fame of a poet during the poetical part of life, my high spirits,) And yet, Bell, I have been (from twenty to thirty;)-whether it will last is called and miscalled melancholy-you must have another matter. seen how falsely, frequently?'No, Byron,' she answered, it is not so: at heart, you are the most melancholy of mankind; and often when apparently gayest.' "In the year 1814, as Moore and I were going to dine with Lord Grey in Portman square, I pulled out a Java Gazette,' (which Murray had sent to me,) in which there was a controversy on our r "A young American, named Coolidge, called on spective merits as poets. It was amusing enough me not many months ago. He was intelligent, that we should be proceeding peaceably to the sa very handsome, and not more than twenty years table, while they were squabbling about us in the old, according to appearances; a little romantic, Indian seas, (to be sure, the paper was dated sin but that sits well upon youth, and mighty fond of months before,) and filling columns with Batat poesy, as may be suspected from his approaching criticism. But this is fame, I presume. me in my cavern. He brought me a message from "One of my notions different from those of my an old servant of my family, (Joe Murray,) and contemporaries is, that the present is not a har told me that he (Mr. Coolidge) had obtained a copy age of English poetry. There are more poets (0) of my bust from Thorwaldsen at Rome, to send to distant) than ever there were, and proportionaly America. I confess I was more flattered by this less poetry. This thesis I have maintained to young enthusiasm of a solitary transatlantic travel- some years, but, strange to say, it meeteth not with ler, than if they had decreed me a statue in the favor from my brethren of the shelf. Even More Paris Pantheon, (I have seen emperors and dem- shakes his head, and firmly believes that this is the agogues cast down from their pedestals even in grand age of British poesy. my own time, and Grattan's name razed from the street, called after him in Dublin;) I say that I "Of the immortality of the soul, it appears to me was more flattered by it, because it was single, un- that there can be little doubt, if we attend for a political, and was without motive or ostentation,- moment to the action of mind: it is in perpeted the pure and warm feeling of a boy for the poet he activity. I used to doubt of it, but reflection admired. It must have been expensive, though:-taught me better. It acts also so very independent I would not pay the price of a Thorwaldsen bust of body-in dreams, for instance-incoherents and for any human head and shoulders, except Napo- madly, I grant you, but still it is mind, and ou leon's, or my children's, or some absurd woman-more mind than when we are awake. Now that kind's, as Monkbarns calls them-or my sister's. this should not act separately, as well as ointly, If asked why, then, I sat for my own?-Answer, who can pronounce? The stoics, Epictetus nod that it was at the particular request of J. C. Hob- Marcus Aurelius, call the present state ‘a mai house, Esq., and for no one else. A picture is a which drags a carcass,'-a heavy chain to be different matter;-every body sits for their picture; but all chains being material may be shaken oế but a bust looks like putting up pretensions to How far our future life will be individual, or, rather, permanency, and smacks something of a hankering how far it will at all resemble our present existetor, for public fame rather than private remembrance. is another question; but that the mind is sterza, "Whenever an American requests to see me, seems as probable as that the body is not so (which is not unfrequently,) I comply, firstly, be- course, I here venture upon the question withest cause I respect a people who acquired their freedom recurring to revelation, which, however, is at leas by their firmness without excess; and, secondly, as rational a solution of it as any other. ecause these transatlantic visits, few and far be- resurrection seems strange and even absurd, 1957 tween,' make me feel as if talking with posterity for purposes of punishment; and all postrest from the other side of the Styx. In a century or which is to revenge rather than correct si a 04 DETACHED THOUGHTS. norway wrong; and when the world is at an end, natural imagination than a fortuitous concourse "Plutarch says, in his Life of Lysander, that "It is useless to tell me not to reason, but to be- Aristotle observes that in general great geniuses lieve. You might as well tell a man not to wake, are of a melancholy turn, and instances Socrates, but sleep. And then to bully with torments, and Plato, and Hercules, (or Heraclitus,) as examples; all that! I cannot help thinking that the menace and Lysander, though not while young, yet as in of hell makes as many devils as the severe penal clined to it when approaching towards age.' Whecodes of inhuman humanity make villains." ther I am a genius or not, I have been called such by my friends as well as enemies, and in more countries and languages than one, and also within a no very long period of existence. Of my genius "Man is born passionate of body, but with an I can say nothing, but of my melancholy, that 11 innate though secret tendency to the love of good is increasing and ought to be diminishing.' But in his mainspring of mind. But, God help us all! it is at present a sad jar of atoms." how? "I take it that most men are so at bottom, but that it is only remarked in the remarkable. The Duchesse de Broglio, in reply to a remark of mine on the errors of clever people, said that they were not worse than others, only, being more in view, more noted, especially in all that could reduce them to the rest, or raise the rest to them.' In 1816 this "Matter is eternal, always changing, but reproduced, and, as far as we can comprehend eternity, eternal; and why not mind? Why should not the "In fact, (I suppose that) if the follies of fools mind act with and upon the universe, as portions of was. it act upon and with the congregated dust called mankind? See how one man acts upon himself were all set down like those of the wise, the wise and others, or upon multitudes! The same agency, (who seem at present only a better sort of fools) in a higher and purer degree, may act upon the would appear almost intelligent." stars, &c., ad infinitum." "It is singular how soon we lose the impression I have often been inclined to materialism in of what ceases to be constantly before us: a year philosophy, but could never bear its introduction impairs; a lustre obliterates. There is little disinto Christianity, which appears to me essentially tinct left without an effort of memory. Then, infounded upon the soul. For this reason, Priestley's deed, the lights are rekindled for a moment; but Christian Materialism always struck me as deadly. who can be sure that imagination is not the torchBelieve the resurrection of the body, if you will, bearer? Let any man try at the end of ten years to but not without a soul. The deuce is in it, if, after bring before him the features, or the mind, or the having had a soul (as surely the mind, or whatever sayings, or the habits of his best friend, or his greatyou call it is) in this world, we must part with it in est man, (I mean his favorite, his Bonaparte, his the next, even for an immortal materiality! I own this, that, or t'other,) and he will be surprised at my partiality for spirit." "I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day, as if there was some association between an internal approach to greater light and purity, and the kindler of this dark lantern of our external existence." the extreme confusion of his ideas. I speak confidently on this point, having always passed for one who had a good, ay, an excellent memory. I except, indeed, our recollection of womankind; there is no forgetting them (and be dd to them) any more than any other remarkable era, such as the revolution,' or 'the plague,' or 'the invasion,' or epoch,-being the favorite dates of mankind, who the comet,' or the war,' of such and such an have so many blessings in their lot, that they never make their calendars from them, being too common. The night is also a religious concern, and For instance, you see, the great drought,' 'the even more so when I viewed the moon and stars Thames frozen over,' the seven years' war broke through Herschell's telescope, and saw that were worlds." they tion commenced,' 'the Lisbon earthquake,' 'the out,' the English, or French, or Spanish revoluLima earthquake,' 'the earthquake of Calabria,' the plague of London,' ditto of Constantinople,' If, according to some speculations, you could the sweating sickness,' the yellow fever of Phila prove the world many thousand years older than delphia,' &c., &c., &c.; but you don't see the the Mosaic chronology, or if you could get rid of abundant harvest,' the fine summer,' the long Adam and Eve, and the apple, and serpent, still, peace,' the wealthy speculation,' the reckless what is to be put up in their stead? or how is the voyage,' recorded so emphatically! By-the-way, difficulty removed? Things must have had a be- there has been a thirty years' war and a seventy ginning, and what matters it when or how?" years' war; was there ever a seventy or a thirty years' peace? or was there ever a DAY's universal peace? except perhaps in China, where they have found out the miserable happiness of a stationary and unwarlike mediocrity. And is all this because nature is niggard or savage, or mankind ungrateful? Let philosophers decide. I am none." I sometimes think that man may be the relic of sume higher material being wrecked in a former world, and degenerated in the hardship and struggle through chaos into conformity, or something like it, as we see Laplanders, Esquimaux, &c., "In general I do not draw well with the literary inferior in the present state, as the elements beDorne more inexorable. But even then this higher pre-Adamite supposititious creation must have had men; not that I dislike them-but I never know an origin and a Creator,-for a creation is a more what to say to them after I have praised their las' publication. There are several exceptions, to be selves. At the same time, there are probably mus sure, but then they have either been men of the ments in most men's lives which they would hw world, such as Scott and Moore, &c.; or visionaries over the rest of life to regain? Else why do w out of it, such as Shelley, &c.: but your literary live at all? because Hope recurs to Memory, both every-day man and I never went well in company, false; but-but-but-but and this but drags on till especially your foreigner, whom I never could abide; -what? I do not know: and who does? He that except Giordani, and-and-and-(I really can't died o' Wednesday?" "Alcibiades is said to have been successful in al name any other)-I don't remember a man among them whom I ever wished to see twice, except perhaps Mezzophanti, who is a monster of languages, the Briarius of parts of speech, a walking Poylg ott, and more, who ought to have existed at the time of his battles '-but what battles? Name them! I the Tower of Babel, as universal interpreter. He you mention Cæsar, or Hannibal, or Napoleon, you is indeed a marvel-unassuming also. I tried him at once rush upon Pharsalia, Munda, Alesia, Cau in all the tongues of which I knew a single oath, næ, Thrasymene, Trebia, Lodi, Marengo, Jena (or adjuration to the gods against postboys, sav- Austerlitz, Friedland, Wagram, Moskwa: but it is ages, Tartars, boatmen, sailors, pilots, gondoliers, less easy to pitch upon the victories of Alcibiades: muleteers, camel-drivers, Vetturini, postmasters, though they may be named too, though not so read. posthorses, posthouses, post every thing,) and, ily as the Leuctra and Mantine of Epaminon las egad! he astounded me even to my English." the Marathon of Miltiades, the Salamis of Themis tocles, and the Thermopyle of Leonidas. Yet, upon the whole, it may be doubted whether there be a name of antiquity which comes down with such "No man would live his life over again,' is an a general charm as that of Alcibiades. Why? 1 old and true saying which all can resolve for them-cannot answer. Who can ?" REVIEW OF WORDSWORTH'S POEMS. TWO VOLS., 1807.* [FROM "MONTHly Literary RECREATIONS," FOR AUGUST, 1807.] Be men who hold its many blessings dear, IHE volumes before us are by the author of Lyrical Ballads, a collection which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause. The characteristics of Mr. W.'s muse are simple and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious verse, strong, and sometimes irresistible appeals Seven Sisters, the Affliction of Margaret to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments. The song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, the -, possess all the beauties, and few of the dr Though the present work may not equal his former fects, of this writer: the following lines from the efforts, many of the poems possess a native ele- last are in his first style:gance, natural and unaffected, totally devoid of the tinsel embellishments and abstract hyperboles of several contemporary sonneteers. The last sonnet in the first volume, p. 152, is perhaps the best, without any novelty in the sentiments, which we hope are common to every Briton at the present crisis; the force and expression is that of a genuine poet, feeling as he writes: "Another year! another deadly blow! O dastar!! whom such foretaste does not cheer! I have been a reviewer. In 1807, in a Magazine called "Monthly Literary Recreations," I reviewed Wordsworth's trash of that time. In the Monthly Review I wrote some articles which were inserted. This was in the latter part of 1811, "Ah! little doth the young one dream But do not make her love the less." be The pieces least worthy of the author are tho entitled " Moods of my own Mind." We certainly wish these "Moods" had been less frequent, = not permitted to occupy a place near works what only make their deformity more obvious; when M: W. ceases to please, it is by "abandoning mind to the most common-place ideas, at the same time clothing them in language not simple, b puerile. What will any reader or auditor, ost a the nursery, say to such namby-pamby as Las written at the Foot of Brother's Bridge? The green field sleeps in the sun; Are at work with the strongest ; Like an army defeated, On the top of the bare hill." "Hey de diddle, The cat and the fiddle The cow jump'd over the moon, The little dog laugh'd to see such sport, On the whole, however, with the exception of the above, and other INNOCENT odes of the same cast, we think these volumes display a genius worthy of higher pursuits, and regret that Mr. W. contines "The plugh-boy is whooping anon, anon," &c., his muse to such trifling subjects. We trust his c., is in the same exquisite measure. This ap- motto will be in future, "Paulo majora canamus.' pears to us neither more nor less than an imitation Many, with inferior abilities, have acquired a loftier of such minstrelsy as soothed our cries in the cra-seat on Parnassus, merely by attempting strains in dle, with the shrill ditty of [which Mr. Wordsworth is more qualified to excel REVIEW OF GELL'S GEOGRAPHY OF ITHACA, AND ITINERARY OF GREECE. [FROM THE "MONTHLY REVIEW," FOR AUGUST. 1811.] THAT laudable curiosity concerning the remains informants. The true reason, however, for this of classical antiquity which has of late years in- costly mode of publication is in course to be found creased among our countrymen, is in no traveller or in a desire of gratifying the public passion for large author more conspicuous than in Mr. Gell. What- margins, and all the luxury of typography; and we ever difference of opinion may yet exist with regard have before expressed our dissatisfaction with Mr. to the success of the several disputants in the fa- Gell's aristocratical mode of communicating a spemous Trojan controversy, or, indeed, relating to cies of knowledge which ought to be accessible to a the present author's merits as an inspector of the much greater portion of classical students than can Troad, it must universally be acknowledged that at present acquire it by his means:-but, as such any work, which more forcibly impresses on our expostulations are generally useless, we shall be imaginations the scenes of heroic action, and the thankful for what we can obtain, and that in the subjects of immortal song, possesses claims on the manner in which Mr. Gell has chosen to present it. attention of every scholar. The former of these volumes, we have observed, Of the two works which now demand our report, is the most attractive in the closet. It comprehends we conceive the former to be by far the most inter- a very full survey of the far-famed island which the esting to the reader, as the latter is indisputably hero of the Odyssey has immortalized; for we really the most serviceable to the traveller. Excepting, are inclined to think that the author has established indeed, the running commentary which it contains the identity of the modern Theaki with the Ithaca on a number of extracts from Pausanias and Strabo, of Homer. At all events, if it be an illusion, it is it is, as the title imports, a mere itinerary of Greece, a very agreeable deception, and is effected by an or rather of Argolis only, in its present circumstan- ingenious interpretation of the passages in Homer ces. This being the case, surely it would have an- that are supposed to be descriptive of the scenes swered every purpose of utility much better by being which our traveller has visited." We shall extract printed as a pocket road-book of that part of the some of these adaptations of the ancient picture to Morea; for a quarto is a very unmanageable travel- the modern scene, marking the points of resemling companion. The maps and drawings, we blance which appear to be strained and forced, as shall be told, would not permit such an arrange-well as those which are more easy and natural: but ment: but as to the drawings, they are not in gen- we must first insert some preliminary matter from eral to be admired as specimens of the art; and the opening chapter. The following passage conseveral of them, as we have been assured by eye-veys a sort of general sketch of the book, which witnesses of the scenes which they describe, do not may give our readers a tolerably adequate notion of compensate for their mediocrity in point of execu- its contents:tion, by any extraordinary fidelity of representation. Others, indeed, are more faithful, according to our "The present work may adduce, by a simple and correct survey o the aland, coincidences in its geography, in its natural pr ductions, and moral state, before unnoticed. Some will be directly pointed out; the fancy or We have it from the best authority that the venerable leader of the Anti-ingenuity of the reader may te employed in tracing others; the mind familia Homeric sect, Jacob Bryant, several years before his death, expressed regret for his ungrateful attempt to destroy some of the most pleasing associations of our youthit. studies. One of his last wishes was-" Trojaque nunc stares," "&c. 1 Or rather, Map; for we have only one in the votume, and that is on too small a scale to give more than a general idea of the relative position of . . The excuse about Forger rap not folding well is trifling; see, for the anor's own map of t with the imagery of the Odyssey will recognize with satisfaction the scenes themselves; and his volume is offered to the public, not entirely without hopes of vindicating the, cem of Homer from the skepticism of those critica who imagine that the Ouy is a mere poetical composition, unsupported by history, and unconnected with the sain of any particular situation, ome have asserted that, in the comparison of places now existing wit the descriptions of Homer, we ought not to expect coincidence in minute details: yet it seems only by those that the kingdoin of Ulyswa or an |