The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 19, No. 552, June 16, 1832

 
"Dear is my little native vale,
The ring-dove builds and warbles there,
Close by my cot she tells her tale,
To every passing villager."
 

"Mr. Barton—who he was I never found out—having eulogized this little effusion with a superhuman ecstacy, repeated it right to a line—but not to a word. He gave it us thus—

 
"Dear is my little native vale,
The ring-dove builds and warbles there,
Close by my cot she shows her tail
To every passing villager."
 

"Not a muscle moved in Mr. Rogers' pale and placid countenance, you would hardly have thought he lived; but turning to Luttrell, whose mouth twisted and whose eye rolled at the fun of the mistake, he simply whispered, 'Non tali auxilio, &c.' Barton survived it, and is still alive and merry.

"I perceive that there have been changes at the Admiralty. Dyer, Darch, and Riley superannuated. Hay takes Darch's place as reading clerk. This is right. Hay is a gentleman, and a man of business. Met Sir Francis—which Sir Francis, you would say, for there are two who frequent the Admiralty, the obtuse and the clever. I mean the clever. 'Well, Frank, how goes on the Vernon, and how did she go off the other day? No want of water, I presume.' 'No; thank heaven for that! Why, she went off beautifully, but the lubberly mateys contrived to get her foul of the hulk, and Lord Vernon came out of the conflict minus a leg and an arm.'—'Who had you there?' 'Upon my honour I hardly know. I was so busy paying my devoirs to Lady Graham; she looked for all the world like a mermaid, as she stood by the bows and christened the vessel. Her hair hung down as straight as the lower rigging when first put over the mast heads.'—'I wish I had such a beautiful mermaid for a wife,' replied H–, who had joined and listened to our conversation. 'What a pretty creature is that Miss E–; she looked as fresh as if she had just come out of a shower bath.' 'Well, so she had.'"

"I went to the Opera on Tuesday to hear Mariani. She is splendid—confounded plain, but that's no consequence. That Grisi screams rather too much, although she acts well, and has a pretty person, if it was washed. I believe Brugnoli's toes are made of cast iron. Toe K—g, could make no impression upon them. You know how K—g obtained that name. He is a little puffy fellow, who goes about town, making acquaintance with every body—is endured at watering places for his poodle qualities of 'fetch and carry:' he is very anxious to become acquainted with noblemen, and his plan is to sidle up and tread very lightly upon an aristocratical toe—then an immediate apology, and the apology is followed also with the wind and weather, and the leading topic of the day, a knowledge of his lordship's friends or relations, and a good morning. The next day when they meet, a polite bow from Mr. K—g, and if an opportunity offers he enters into conversation, and thus establishes his acquaintance.

"Such is his EXTREME method of introducing himself, which deserves credit for its ingenuity and exclusiveness. I once knew a man who had only one story, and that was about a gun. His difficulty was to introduce this story, and he at last succeeded, like K—g, by the use of his foot. When sitting after dinner he would stamp under the table and create a hollow sound. Then, God bless me! what's that—a gun? By the by, talking about guns—and then came his story."

THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS

THE MESSIAH

By Robert Montgomery

The subsequent passages exhibit many of the beauties and few of the blemishes of Mr. Montgomery's new poem:

THE WILDERNESS

 
Oh, when hath mind conceived
Magnificence beyond a midnight there,
When Israel camp'd, and o'er her tented host
The moonlight lay?—On yonder palmy mount,
Lo! sleeping myriads in the dewy hush
Of night repose; around in squared array,
The camps are set; and in the midst, apart,
The curtain'd shrine, where mystically dwells
Jehovah's presence!—through the soundless air
A cloudy pillar, robed in burning light,
Appears:—concenter'd as one mighty heart,
A million lie, in mutest slumber bound.
Or, panting like the ocean, when a dream
Of storm awakes her:—Heaven and Earth are still;
In radiant loveliness the stars pursue
Their pilgrimage, while moonlight's wizard hand
Throws beauty, like a spectre light, on all.
At Judah's tent the lion-banner stands
Unfolded, and the pacing sentinels,—
What awe pervades them, when the dusky groves,
The rocks Titanian, by the moonshine made
Unearthly, or yon mountains vast, they view!
But soon as morning bids the sky exult,
As earth from nothing, so that countless host
From slumber and from silence will awake
To mighty being! while the forest-birds
Rush into song, the matin breezes play,
And streamlets flash where prying sunbeams fall:
Like clouds in lustre, banners will unroll!
The trumpet shout, the warlike tramp resound,
And hymns of valour from the marching tribes
Ascend to gratulate the risen morn.
 

PATRIARCHAL TIMES

 
A vision of that unforgotten prime,
The patriarchal age, when Earth was young,
A while oh: let it linger!—oh the soul
It breaketh, like a lovely burst of spring
Upon the gaze of captives, when the clouds
Again are floating over freedom's head!—
Though Sin had witherd with a charnel breath
Creation's morning bloom, there still remain'd
Elysian hues of that Adamic scene,
When the Sun gloried o'er a sinless world,
And with each ray produced a flower!—From dells
Untrodden, hark! the breezy carol comes
Upwafted, with the chant of radiant birds.—
What meadows, bathed in greenest light, and woods
Gigantic, towering from the skiey hills,
And od'rous trees in prodigal array,
With all the elements divinely calm—
Our fancy pictures on the infant globe!
And ah! how godlike, with imperial brow
Benignly grave, yon patriarchal forms
Tread the free earth, and eye the naked heavens!
In Nature's stamp of unassisted grace
Each limb is moulded; simple as the mind
The vest they wear; and not a hand but works,
Or tills the ground with honourable toil:
By youth revered, their sons around them grow
And flourish; monarch of his past'ral tribe,
A patriarch's throne is each devoted heart!
And when he slumbers on the tented plain
Beneath the vigil stars, a living wall
Is round him, in the might of love's defence:
For he is worthy—sacrifice and song
By him are ruled; and oft at shut of flowers,
When queenly virgins in the sunset go
To carry water from the crystal wells,
In beautiful content,—beneath a tree
Whose shadows hung o'er many a hallow'd sire,
He sits; recording how creation rose
From nothing, of the Word almighty born;
How Man had fallen, and where Eden boughs
Had waved their beauty on the breeze of morn;
Or, how the angels still at twilight love
To visit earth with errands from the sky.
 

ISAIAH

 
Terrific bard! and mighty—in thy strain
A torrent of inspiring passion sounds—
Whether for cities by the Almighty cursed,
Thy wail arose—or, on enormous crimes
That darken'd heav'n with supernat'ral gloom,
Thy flash of indignation fell, alike
The feelings quiver when thy voice awakes!—
Borne in the whirlwind of a dreadful song,
The spirit travels round the destin'd globe,
While shadows, cast from solemn years to come,
Fall round us, and we feel a God is nigh!
 
 
But when a gladness from thy music flows,
Creation brightens!—glory paints the sky,
The Sun hath got an everlasting smile,
And Earth in temper'd for immortal spring—
The lion smoothes his ruffled mane, the lamb
And wolf together feed, and by the den
Of serpents, see! the rosy infant play.
 

THE SAVIOUR

 
As o'er the grandeur of unclouded heaven
Our vision travels with a free delight,
As though the boundless and the pure were made
For speculation—so the tow'ring mind,
By inward oracle inspired and taught,
The lofty and the excellent in mind adores.
Then, Saviour! what a paragon art Thou
Of all that Wisdom in her hope creates—
A model for the universe—Though God
Be round us, by the shadow of His might
For aye reflected, and with plastic hand
Prints on the earth the character of things—
Yet He Himself,—how awfully retired
Depth within depth, unutterably deep!
His glory brighter than the brightest thought
Can picture, holier than our holiest awe
Can worship,—imaged only in I AM!
But Thou—apparell'd in a robe of true
Mortality; meek sharer of our low
Estate, in all except compliant sin;
To Thee a comprehending worship pays
Perennial sacrifice of life and soul,
By love enkindled;—Thou hast lived and breathed;
Our wants and woes partaken—all that charms
Or sanctifies, to Thine unspotted truth
May plead for sanction—virtue but reflects
Thine image! wisdom is a voice attuned
To consonance with Thine—and all that yields
To thought a pureness, or to life a peace,
From Thee descends—whose spirit-ruling sway,
Invisible as thought, around us brings
A balm almighty for affliction's hour—
Once felt, in all the fullness of Thy grace
The living essence of the living soul,—
And there is faith—a firm-set, glorious faith,
Eternity cannot uproot, or change—
Oh, then the second birth of soul begins,
That purifies the base, the dark illumes,
And binds our being with a holy spell,
Whereby each function, faculty, and thought
Surrenders meekly to the central guide
Of hope and action, by a God empower'd.
 

THE CRUCIFIXION

 
A God with all his glory laid aside,
Behold Him bleeding,—on his awful brow
The mingled sorrows of a world repose—
"'Tis FINISH'D,"—at those words creation throbs,
Round Hell's dark universe the echo rolls—
All Nature is unthroned—and mountains quake
Like human being when the death-pang comes—
The sun has wither'd from the frighted air,
And with a tomb-burst, hark, the dead arise
And gaze upon the living, as they glide
With soundless motion through the city's gloom,
Most awfully,—the world's Redeemer dies.