JOHN HERMAN MERIVALE. JOHN HERMAN MERIVALE was born in Exeter, on the fifth of August, 1779. He was educated at Cambridge, studied law, was a successful barrister, and in 1826 was appointed a Commissioner in Bankruptcy. His "Poems, Original and Translated," were published by Pickering, in three volumes, in March, 1844. The third volume comprises translations from SCHILLER, and appeared simultaneously with Sir EDWARD LYTTON BULWER'S "Songs and Ballads of Schiller," to which it has been generally preferred by the critics. His versions ODE ON THE DELIVERANCE OF EU. ROPE, 1814. THE hour of blood is past; Peal'd the last thunders of the embattled line: The bale-fires blaze no more; But friendly beacons o'er the billows shine, The barks of every port that cut the salt sea foam. "Peace to the nations!"-Peace! Oh sound of glad release To millions in forgotten bondage lying; On shores remote, unknown, Where hope herself, if just sustain'd from dying, Yet sheds so dim and pale a light, As makes creation pall upon the sickening sight. "Peace! Peace the world around!" To myriads more that ne'er beheld her face; Yet handed down her name In faded memory of an elder race, It seem'd some visionary form, Some Ariel, fancy-bred, to soothe the mimic storm. Now the time-honour'd few, May turn their eyes back o'er that dreamy flood, On the remember'd land, Ere yet the sun had risen in clouds of blood, On that vast world of ocean, measureless and dark. And is it all a dream? And did these things but seem The vain delusions of a troubled sight? Or, if indeed they were, For what did nature bear from the Greek, Latin, Italian, and several other languages, are all remarkable for a strict fidelity, but his diction is frequently difficult and inharmonious. One of Mr. MERIVALE'S earliest works was "The Minstrel, or the Progress of Genius," in continuation of Dr. BEATTIE, whose style he successfully imitated. The most perfect of his longer poems is “Orlando in Roncesvalles," a story of the Italian school, suggested by the " Morgante Maggiore" of LUIGI PULCI. He died in London, on the fifth of April, 1844. The long dark horrors of that fearful night? Only to breathe and be once more [shore? Even as she was and breathed upon that former O'er this wild waste of time, This sea of blood and crime, Doth godlike virtue rear her awful form, Only to cheat the sight With wandering, barren light The meteor, not the watch-fire, of the storm? The warrior's deed, the poet's strain, [vain? The statesman's anxious toil, the patriot's sufferings, For this did Louis lay, In Gallia's sinful day, On the red altar his anointed head? For this did Nelson pour, In Britain's glorious hour, More precious blood than Britain e'er had shed? And did their wingéd thoughts aspire, Even in the parting soul's prophetic trance, no higher? Ye tenants of the grave, Whom unseen wisdom gave To watch the shapeless mist o'er earth extending, Of light renew'd, and clouds and darkness ending, Oh might ye now permitted rise, [eyes; Cast o'er this wondrous scene your unobstructed And say, O thou, whose might, Stood forth, the might of Chatham's lordly son; When freedom's ebbing sand almost had run; That each hath seen fulfill'd his latest,earliest prayer. Rejoice, kings of the earth! The trophies ye have won, the wreaths ye wear- Had ne'er achieved these proud rewards ye bear; But, in one general cause combined, [mind. The people's vigorous arm, the monarch's constant Yet that untired by toil, And to the distant goal united press'd; The soldier's bed, the soldier's fare, His dangers, wants, and toils, alike resolved to share. And more-that when, at length, In tyranny o'erthrown, and victory won, Your dancing eyes survey'd The prostrate form of humbled Babylon, Ye cried, "Enough!"-and at the word Vengeance put out her torch, and slaughter sheath'd his sword ANSWER TO A CHARGE OF INCONSTANCY. Oн not that I am faithless say Or that my love's no more the same, If Cynthia once inspired my lay, And then Licymnia lit the flame One goddess only I adore, Although in different forms I woo her; Nor, though she bid me love no more, Could I be e'er inconstant to her. The sailor, midst the dangerous main, Those transient charms he little prizes, My fancy had a mistress drawn, And stamp'd her image on my heart; I roved o'er hill and vale and lawn, That, the sweet smile's bewitching beauty, And every singly winning grace Fix'd for the time my wandering duty. But now 'tis sped-my fancy's flight: Before the shadow of perfection, Has dared avow his soul's election. HORACE SMITH. MR. SMITH was born about the year 1780, | JAMES, who died in the sixty-fifth year of his in London, where his father was an eminent barrister. In 1812 he and his elder brother, Mr. JAMES SMITH, wrote their celebrated "Rejected Addresses," a work which has passed through twenty-five editions, and which is now, after the lapse of more than thirty years, hardly less popular than on its first appearance. They soon afterward published "Horace in London," parts of which had appeared in the " Monthly Mirror," and in 1813 the subject of this notice produced a successful comedy entitled "First Impressions," and subsequently "The Runaway," "Trevenion or Matrimonial Errors," Brambletye House," "Tor Hill," "Reuben Apsley," and several other novels, some of which were deemed not unworthy of the author of "Waverly." In 1840 he published an edition of the Miscellaneous Writings of his brother 66 age, in 1839; and in 1842 his last work, "Adam Brown, the Merchant." Mr. SMITH is one of the most voluminous and popular writers of the nineteenth century. I have seen no separate collection of his poems, but his imitations in the "Rejected Addresses," his parodies of HORACE, and his lyrical contributions to the literary magazines, show him to be not only an admirable versifier, but a possessor of the sense of beauty and a most poetical fancy. His powers are versatile, and he has shown himself able to master any style with which he has chosen to grapple. His works have uniformly been successful, and the reader of his "Hymn to the Flowers," and other pieces in this volume, will not doubt that if he had devoted attention to poetry, he would have won an enduring and enviable reputation as a poet. From rainbow galaxies of earth's creation, Ye matin worshippers! who bending lowly Ye bright Mosaics! that with storied beauty Neath cloister'd boughs, each floral bell that And tolls its perfume on the passing air, Makes Sabbath in the fields, and ever ringeth A call to prayer. Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, ply; Your voiceless lips, O flowers! are living preachers, Floral apostles! that in dewy splendour, "Weep without wo, and blush without a crime," "Thou wert not, Solomon! in all thy glory, In the sweet scented pictures, heavenly Artist! What a delightful lesson thou impartest Not useless are ye, flowers! though made for Blooming o'er field and wave by day and night, From every source your sanction bids me treasure Harmless delight. Ephemeral sages! what instructors hoary Yet fount of hope. Posthumous glories! angel-like collection! Upraised from seed or bulb interr'd in earth, Ye are to me a type of resurrection, A second birth. Were I, O God! in churchless lands remaining, THE HEAD OF MEMNON. IN Egypt's centre, when the world was young, My statue soar'd aloft,—a man-shaped tower, O'er hundred-gated Thebes, by Homer sung, And built by Apis' and Osiris' power. When the sun's infant eye more brightly blazed, Hewn from the rooted rock, some mightier mound, I thought them, like myself, eternal things. Then did I mark in sacerdotal state, Psammis the king, whose alabaster tomb, (Such the inscrutable decrees of fate,) Now floats athwart the sea to share my doom. O Thebes, I cried, thou wonder of the world! Still shalt thou soar, its everlasting boast; When lo! the Persian standards were unfurl'd, And fierce Cambyses led the invading host. Where from the east a cloud of dust proceeds, A thousand banner'd suns at once appear; Nought else was seen;-but sound of neighing steeds, And faint barbaric music met mine ear. Onward they march, and foremost I descried, A cuirassed Grecian band, in phalanx dense, Around them throng'd, in oriental pride, Commingled tribes-a wild magnificence. Dogs, cats, and monkeys in their van they show, Then, havoc leaguing with infuriate zeal, And shuddering Egypt heaved a general groan! The firm Memnonium mock'd their feeble power, Flames round its granite columns hiss'd in vain, The head of Isis, frowning o'er each tower, Look'd down with indestructible disdain. Mine was a deeper and more quick disgrace :Beneath my shade a wondering army flock'd; With force combined, they wrench'd me from my base, And earth beneath the dread concussion rock'd. Nile from his banks receded with affright, The startled Sphinx long trembled at the sound; While from each pyramid's astounded height, The loosen'd stones slid rattling to the ground. I watch'd, as in the dust supine I lay, The fall of Thebes,-as I had mark'd its fame,— Till crumbling down, as ages roll'd away, Its site a lonely wilderness became ! The throngs that choked its hundred gates of yore, Deep was the silence now, unless some vast Or haply, in the palaces of kings, Some stray jackal sate howling on the throne: Or, on the temple's holiest altar, springs Some gaunt hyæna, laughing all alone. Nature o'erwhelms the relics left by time; By slow degrees entombing all the land; She buries every monument sublime, Beneath a mighty winding-sheet of sand. Vain is each monarch's unremitting pains, Who in the rock his place of burial delves; Behold! their proudest palaces and fanes Are subterraneous sepulchres themselves. Twenty-three centuries unmoved I lay, And saw the tide of sand around me rise; Quickly it threaten'd to engulf its prey, And close in everlasting night mine eyes. Snatch'd in this crisis from my yawning grave, Belzoni roll'd me to the banks of Nile, And slowly heaving o'er the western wave, This massy fragment reach'd the imperial isle. In London, now with face erect I gaze On England's pallid sons, whose eyes upcast, View my colossal features with amaze, And deeply ponder on my glories past. But who my future destiny shall guess? To some new seat of empire in the west. Mortal! since human grandeur ends in dust, And proudest piles must crumble to decay; Build up the tower of thy final trust [away! In those blest realms-where naught shall pass MORAL RUINS. ASIA's rock-hollow'd fanes, first-born of time, Wrought by the ceaseless toil of many a race, Are giant ruins in a desert land, Art's masterpieces, awful in th' excess Hallow'd by statued gods which might be thought Time on their altars prone their ruins flings Down from its height the Druid's sacred stone, Prostrating saint, apostle, statue, bust, On these drear sepulchres of buried days Uprear'd their piles, no wonder that decay Ah me! how much more sadden'd is my mood, The rums and the wrecks when I behold, Of all the faiths that man hath ever known, World-worshipp'd once-now spurn'd and overthrown! Religions-from the soul deriving breath, Creeds, canons, dogmas, councils, are the wreck'd Apis, Osiris, paramount of yore, On Egypt's shore, Woden and Thor, through the wide north adored, Jove, and the multiform divinities, Like the world's childish dolls, which but insult Its age adult, Or prostrate scarecrows, on whose rags we tread, Alas, for human reason! all is change, All ages form new systems, leaving heirs The future will but imitate the past, Is there no compass, then, by which to steer No tie that may indissolubly bind To God, mankind! No code that may defy time's sharpest tooth? No fix'd, immutable, unerring truth? AND thou hast walk'd about-how strange a story! In Thebes's streets, three thousand years ago! When the Memnonium was in all its glory, And time had not begun to overthrow Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous, Of which the very ruins are tremendous! Speak!-for thou long enough hast acted dummy, Thou hast a tongue,-come-let us hear its tune! Thou 'rt standing on thy legs, above-ground, mummy! Revisiting the glimpses of the moon,Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures, But with thy bones, and flesh,and limbs and features! Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect,― To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame?Was Cheops, or Cephrenes architect Of either pyramid that bears his name?— Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer?— Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer? Perhaps thou wert a mason,—and forbidden, By oath, to tell the mysteries of thy trade: Then say, what secret melody was hidden In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise play'd? Perhaps thou wert a priest ;-if so, my struggles Are vain,-for priestcraft never owns its juggles! |