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AMONG the many gifted minds who have been influenced by the spirit which Wordsworth infused into the iterature of the present age, there is hardly one who approaches nearer, in the tone and character of his writings, to the bard of Rydal Mount, than Thomas Noon Talfourd, the poet and essayist. He belongs to that class of authors, who manifest so much purity and sweetness of disposition, that our admiration for their talents is often merged in our love for their qualities of heart. Criticism shrinks from a cold analysis of their powers. Wherever they find a reader, they find a friend. A spirit of affectionate partisanship mingles with most criticisins on their writings. All who have partaken of their intellectual companionship have a deep sympathy in their personal welfare. We may be almost said to joy in their joy, and grieve in their grief. If they be not bound to us by the ties of consanguinity, they aro still the brethren of our minds and hearts. Oceans cannot separate them from our love. National differences cannot alienate them from our affections. Wherever they go they have the "freedom of the city." Wordsworth, Lamb, Dickens, Talfourd, Frederika Bremer, allowing for their intellectual diversities, and the differ

* Critical and Miscellaneous Writings of T. Noon Talfourd, Author of "Ion." Philadelphia: Carey & Hart. 1842. 12mo. pp. 354. North American Review, October, 1843.

ent influences which have modified their genius, are all authors who make personal friends wherever their writ ings penetrate.

In speaking of Talfourd as a mental pupil of Wordsworth, we do not mean to say that he is an imitator of his master's manner, or that he closely copies any of his prominent beauties or defects; but merely that the tone and aim of the writings of the two are similar. In the spirit and essence of his genius, and not in its outward form and expression, is he a Wordsworthian. He, indeed, often adopts expressions and images which Wordsworth, in the severe simplicity of his taste, would reject with disdain. His style is richly laden with ornament, and almost monotonously musical in its flow. His thoughts are more often seen in the imperial robes of rhetoric, than in its suit of "homely russet brown." The rich flush of imagination colors his whole diction. At times, he is fastidiously nice in his choice of language, and a fondness for dainty and delicate epithets too often gives to his style an appearance of prettiness. He luxuriates too much in the "nectared sweets" of language and imagery, and is apt to impair the manliness and vigor of his diction by redundant fancies and sugared words. When his own stores of sweetness fail him, he avails himself of those belonging to others. His diction is studded with apt quotations, teeming with richness of sentiment and style. But still he shares in all the essential characteristics of the school of Wordsworth, and gives evidence on every page of that "quiet eye. which sleeps and broods on his own heart." The min gling spirits of meditation and imagination are the inspiration both of his poetry and criticism. His manner is almost always quiet, even when he is severe.

There is

nothing in his general style to interrupt the calm and steady flow of his thoughts and feelings, no glare, no rush, no epigrammatic point, no "agony" and "wreaking" of mind upon expression. His temper is kindly, and averse to any use of sarcasm and denunciation. There is even little evidence in his writings of that directness and dogmatism which sometimes spring from the untrammelled exercise of a sharp, clear intellect, seeing objects in the white light of reason. His logic is often held in bondage to his affections or associations, and accommodates itself to the wishes of his heart. He is apt to consider matters of reasoning and observation as though they were matters of taste. As a logician, he has many of those faults which poets who aspire to the honors of dialectics experience so much difficulty in avoiding. He would probably be a more pleasing writer, if his fine humanity were accompanied with greater strength of passion, or more grasp and independence of understanding.

The prose essays, the title of which we have chosen as a caption for our notice of Talfourd, abound in beauty. Indeed, the author's mind seems hardly to apprehend the mean and the deformed. His heart and imagination flow out in his compositions, and color and consecrate whatever they touch. It is difficult to resist their pleading tones, even when they appear as advocates for critical fallacies. The sophistry of their warm goodness is more pleasing than the logic of passionless reasoning. They seem to have been nurtured on the "selectest influences of creation," and to have been preserved from the "contagion of the world's slow stain." Love, beauty, goodness, sincerity, pure thoughts and fine sympathies, all in human character which is sweet and

gentle, seem to have sprung up in his nature as from celestial seed. An air of inexpressible purity is spread over his compositions. There is not one premeditated line, in his prose or verse, which can be associated with a base or immora. idea. It may be said of him with truth, that, although he has been the source of much pure delight to thousands, he has never made his talents ministers of evil, or sought popularity by pampering depraved tastes. Throughout his works we ever find beauty linked with goodness.

The reprints of what are called the "modern periodcal essayists," including the present collection of the writings of Talfourd, naturally suggest a comparison between the periodical literature of the present age and that which existed in England during the latter half of the last century. No publisher, however enterprising, would hazard a republication of articles extracted from the old European and Gentleman's Magazines, and the Monthly Review. Indeed, until the establishment of the Edinburgh Review, in 1802, there were few, if any, periodicals worthy of comparison with the critical journals of the present day. Before that period, the regular monthly visiters to the fireside and the study were conducted by men of inferior abilities, and rarely contained articles worthy of preservation. Dulness answered to dulness, and weakness worshipped wit. On the publication of any work by an author of reputation, the reviewer tamely and timidly followed the footprints of his opinions and investigations, and rarely attempted more than a meek digest of both. No task can be more severe than to travel through the sterile tracts of period ical literature during the period we have indicated. The very appearance of an old magazine is suggestive of

insipidity and du ness. We can pick up little in it but the dry chips and shavings of thought and knowledge, Letters from country gentlemen about some subject in which none but country gentlemen can be supposed to take any interest,- communications from small antiquarians, on small antiquities, a large number of metrical pieces which no country editor would now dare to publish in his poetical corner, the ambitious struggle of the meanest mediocrity to look like moderate talent, the coquetry of Mr. Robert Merry, the divine poet, with Miss Anna Matilda, the sad poetess, both hailing from Della Crusca,—an infinite number of little epistles on little subjects, devoid alike of forcible thought and vigorous expression,-everything, in short, but things of interest and excellence, composed the material of most periodicals during the last fifty years of the eighteenth century. The reviews, conducted for a short period by Gilbert Stuart and Dr. Smollett, were, by virtue of their rancor and malice, an exception to the stupidity of the mass. But flatness, insipidity, an absence of valuable information and mental vigor, a cringing and creeping deference to established codes of criticism, and a sickening weakness of expression, characterized most monthly journals during that period, when their contributors peopled the mansion-houses of fat-witted country squires, and the attics and cellars of Grub-street. How that unfortunate portion of our fellow-creatures known by the name of the "reading public" could not only purchase, but read, these stupid apologies for literature, is a mystery more puzzling than the debated authorship of Junius. It is impossible to discern the exact point in the descent of literature, when its productions will cease to command the money, and excite the attention, of the

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