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    for A * ath will *© m « tinft » ooe « r in t »« most unexpected- inexplicable manner under the most trivial operation * . PHmti } ia * e died suddenly just before seme contemplated operation was commenced , and had Chloroform been giveo , it would assuredly have been set down as the fatal agent . Several safeh oases may be found In the pamphlets of Dr . Simpson , two of &em being especial ? remarkable * asHbey ^ by what might be termed a mete accident , narrowly escaped being the first case * in which Chloroform fc * g tried ; death followed a simple punctutt in o « e case , * « i ( S ^ - ^ incision is the other , and . in both without any apparent cause . Had CWorofortn been given to these patients , death would doubtless have been attributed to its influence , and probably its use would have been entirely abandofced . " We have t 6 eftfKQt « a « Wotf in oiv last number , which may hare a determining influence on purchasers . la the review of Trc&KftMAN's Month in England , the prio « is stated to be tea shillings $ the price is six shillings . Ever since &e advertisement duty has been removed , we have consulted the wante ^ f ou ** e » d « fi 8 » and added the prices of boots noticed whenever we could conveniently ascertain them .

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    A DREAM-EPIC . Balder , fart the IPirst . By the author of" The Reman . ' * Smith , Elder , and Co . This is unquestionably a bad poem , and yet it is a poem which more than any we can nwne deserves the critic ' s attention , touching ^ as it does , either directly o * mdifeetly , ail the questions Which philosophic criticism Is called < lrx » n to drscute . It is the work of zpoct , and therefore not to be disregarded , ; it is a mistake , bufc the mistakes « f poets are lessons to critics . It has the one srinfe&ry requisite , the one fundamental < $ haracteristie of aU true fHyems , but at has at tine wane time nearly every vice and every failing which ingenious failure can congregate intoavolome : it is false , foolish , dullobscurevague , purposeless , mcoWent . Harsh words thesebut we

    , * , cannot eolten ^ th < m in presence of so ambitious a iaihire . We have : Wid tfe&t the -author of Bolder is a poet . It is impossible tb open thi » roiiiftjfr « t any page , and not perceive that a genuine faculty is throwing out musical images as a plant throws out its buds and flowers , easily , spofttefieOUBly , abundantly . The creative play of imagination is not to be mistaken . And therefore , if a poem were made of » passages " - ' -if elegattt gttrBets-Were to determine jjuti ^ ent-MtiHUe might say tt BaM&r , as was said xxf Dtt&g J ^ t Booh by Bedttoes , *» Hertels a ftew atttd marvellous poem !" t—and tke extracts would seem to justify such a verdict . It i » n © t 4 o , however i » t is " Quite tiiQ reverse of So . " The rending of this volume is a . labour . TBrouga oa » es of musical imagery and' incontinent splendour ,

    the death agony—a story capable of intense poetic treatment . But Balder uses his crime just as one in a dream would use it—a fantasy leading to no result , colouring no after tlought . He was incontinent of speech before he is incontinent after ; we see no change . The whole volume consists of thousands of lines of unrestricted talk ; metaphors and descriptions , evanescent shades of thought , bold apostrophes , and grand-sounding verses , all linked together by no stronger bond than the suggestion , of the moment , nowhere gathered up into even episodes of substantive unity . We have described the story-of Balder . Slight and fantastic as it is , -the machinery is still slighter . It amounts fco the wearisomely ludicrous to see

    page after page the constant iteration of " Scetw ~~ A Stitdy . Balder solus , " followed as it always is by " Scene—* The vacant study * Through the half open door is heard the voice qfAj / fiy . " The fir ^ t two and twenty scenes , occupying eighty-three pages * of the Volume , are in sober seriousness nothing but an alternation of these two forms . Balder is always solus * either writing or in the attitude about to write ; and Amy is always singing through the half open door—which the impatient reader iain would shut . Now , if there is any " design" under this tediousness , we beg to assure the poet that the design is quite obscure , and not at all cptnpensatory of tfce tediousness . Our business with it is of another kind . We porafcfto it tb stow how unskilful and how thoughtless he lias been with regard to the tissue of his work ; as if embroidery were the all ia all .

    Tried by any test known to us , Balder m an imtoen& mistake . It is very dull ; one reads it with Bevere labour . It is very ^ tWCWfr ift passages . As far as we can understand its drift , the philosophy © f It ia simply foolish . The fault there may lie in us ; "but we have cracked hard niife in our time , and if we fail to understand the poet ' s meaning , it is not immodest . in us to suppose that a vast majority of readers will be in somewhat the 4 » ame condition . Be the ^ tory charged with what meanings it maty , the poet has ttdd > hig stdc $ * so badiy a «< to be both unintelligible and v&interesting , . i . - .. , n * We are obliged to return to our startkxg point : it is «^ dreain *« f > ic .. What dreams are to life , this poem is to poetry . Bat basingthus indicatcil its

    great faults , * let us before concluding dwell upon its undemablo , mea 4 »< . it has dream-activity of thought and imagery— -and dream-beauty too . The poetic faculty—the faculty << sf % &np—is fclser *; : Iisi « gery novel and prodigal , music varied 4 ttd susWueo , power of expression quite r ^ marfc&fele , piWeni our throwing the volume , aside , as its defects , would other wise" Vii ^ ge ^ t . ' "fitt is laborious reading , but ye pick flowers by the way . § Puc $ i asllus pretty thought-so finely expressed : — Murmars music sad and lew , So sad and low as if this tower did ke&p The tnnrtnur of the years us a sea shell The ** . * " - " "' " ' - ¦¦ ' ' ¦ ' - * Orthia : — ¦ ' . •• •

    " As 1 h * earth Revolves , and we behold the vanished stars Of yesteidav-, that-, being fix « d , remain To gladden , lands beyond us , so in thefc . Itn * o )^ lt this our Present ifrondefiligxiomeS . Round to tfie sight of long kttt ParadSe , Atid all tUe primal act . " ' Ortiilsfenioy :- * ** T Bee tfce PofeVs htiart Is but a g « n whereon his woe aoth cut Her image , and be turns upon the world And sets his signet there ia high wild shapes . 1 The necessary convex of' a wound As miserably deep . " Thfe is Very fine : — " Ha * t thotl 06 jgaegs ; Like the dim pictures of a Mind man's bfaia , Or aa altho thou touch me ia the dark . I know the hand is thine . ' This is like a strain from our old dramatists : — " Oft lia ^ e 1 admired . , When th « poor wayfaret on trhotn « he lorikei ^ Clothed in his tattered fortune did take rank A moment in her smile , and could not ask The alms his famine craved ; the passing thief Bad virtue in her service , and . the clown Grace to be hers . The maimed who chanced to meet Her fat-off beauty on the way , aside Drew into shadow till she parsed , nor begged Aught that might turn the light of her Fair £ »< $ ,, Oa the too conscious fault ; and Lazarus Covered his sores with deefer fcehse of ilL " And here is a passage showing how old metaphors are grandly clothed : — "like a . sailing eagle old Which with unwavering ^ 3 aff 8 "outspread and Wide Makes carlin hortebn * in the whvmbrous ait Of cloudless noon and fills the silent heaven With the slow circulationt ) f a course More placid than repose , tils shining still And universal day revolves serewe Around me , hasting not and tmcompellcd . But the tumultuous thdtfglrt Within my h « ad Is a poor captive beast , that to and fro , Wild in the trepidation of mad pain Beats its red bars in blood . Gods ! how it climes This throbbing dungeon , taaps and falls and leaps In strong attempt , and strains a battered faoo Against th « narrow outlets , Fnavrs the holds Of iron and shakos loud with desperate will The adamantine doors . We wilieloso withojio of Amy's quaint wild strains : — , S <; icnu ; II . " Tkt same . From tlve ad / oininff room , through the half-opened door , are heard the rocking of a cradle , and the voice of AMY . " Ami ] . The years they corno , and the years they go Like witidn that blow from sea to sea ; From iJi » rk to durk they come and go , All in the dew-full and Llio rain .

    th& fotagu 6 d « &d baffledttiad move * wit * i 4 sort of exasperation &t the purnoseless tt ^ ilrc ^^ Ibrniing the substance * of the poem . The musician pre » tudes afrciiya , ma ^ etcr pTaysr Hiis fiogets wantletr among tfas ^ hoyds , pred « can ^ BV « ry now a » d theft some fragment of toelttdy so wtvishiag that the greedy e « r Bitsens in expectation , but the tnek > dy is never coriiinueti ; in * « tead of a sym . phony , we have monotonotis fragirients . That the poet ' s imagifiationi is ^ CtiY ^—active to the point of disease—is but too cvMent ; « trd th » se p 6 eti and critic * who talk « o grandly of Imagination- ' air the be ^ all and the end-all" of poetry may see here the recbictio ad abmtfdbim of ihfcir creed . For , fclfchcnigh it is lttdispvitabie that the creative " shaping" faculty 6 ( ftttagufttfoA iithe neceiriary cotnpfement and crown to all ttte poet ' s faculties , it foal to true that the crown without a kiugdom is but a glittering bauble . The pH ) set i « ftot g » at by t * e uttrestticted activity of loragination , but by tne plastic power which « hap « 8 realities into forms of beauty . To make this-clearer , let us glance at dreams * wherein Imagination is

    actively shaping itaages , fantastic and congruous , out of its own eelf-supplied rrtaterials , unreatricted by any ot > nfronta , tion with realities . The same activity prevails in Revjerie . The mind motes alon ^ with « asy swiftnesp through the strangest combiaations , one suggestion iinking itself ott to another in vanishing sequence of thought , not m the sequence of Reality . In proportion to tins oblivion of ^ reality is the uncontrolled easfe of thought . But you do not call dreams poems—you do jiot accept reveries as philosophy I The power of the poet and philosopher is shown not in this Wrren activity of unwedded tnought , but iai the- fecuadity which issues from , the actual embrace of thought with reality . It _ is not in the thinking' —that may be " but an idle waste of thoug h *"—but in the co-ordination of thoughts confronted with realities , that the real value and vigour of the poet and philosopher are shown .

    Balder w » dream-epic . It professes indeed to be the autograph of the poet ' s history : " 1 have lived what I have sung Asa It Shall live . " But men believe in the reality of dreams—until they wake , and then , being sane , they know them to be dreams . This author has not awoke yet ; no , not even in reading over this immense reverie , not even in coldly correcting the proof heefts does be appear to h-ave come to the consciousness of the vague and foolish tissue upon Which he has embroidered such abundant imagery . If we take up Balder as a poem , telling the story of a life , or symbolically unfolding « twno truth , what do we find ? A story that is pitiable , if tafcfen literally , and if taken symbolically , too obscure for interest . Balder is a poet Who has written a new epic—one that shall regenerate the world . He has sounded the depths of ail knowledge , though you wouldn't know it unless

    he told you so ; he has drank experience to the dre # S | if you believe him , which you can't . Only one great experience remains—only one last thing to be known—and thnt is Death . Now , reader , -what do you fancy this Faust-Manfred in his exhaustive wisdom resolves upon as the means of satisfying his huge lust for Death ? Suicide ? That were a common-place . lie has a more cunning scheme . He murders his "baby—and then the wife lie loves . Is it not a true dream-conception ? We do not pause to make the many prosaic objections such an incident suggests as to how murdering his child can bring him nearer face to face with Death , tlirin seeing a chad die in a hospital , or as to wliat more than the experience of murder is to be gathered from such a deed . We only point to it as ; essentially the phantasm of a dream , not the conception of thought impregnating reality . There is a fine and well-krunvn story of a painter who stabbed his friend that lie might paint the actiml lineaments oi

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    Jan-ujutt 28 , 1854 ] 1 THE LEADER . 9 l ' ' "" ll r " ' """ * '" "" ' ' ' ' r rm ' "" ' " " "" i -n- ii ' i-i innnriiiirr uniioMBMPiijii . iniiMjMiiiiiii i . .:.

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 28, 1854, page 91, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2023/page/19/