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    natural faculty for the ornate and splendid ; we have no doubt he has a real sensitiveness to forms of beauty , a genuine perception of whatever is gorgeous and sensuously striking : ; but he has the most ill-ordered and one-sided S we have ever beheld reflected m a collection of verses . The utter absence of harmony and repose-tbe entire want of self- control-the lack of intellectual power of thought and of spirituality - the reckless , purposeless ! and insane heaping up of gorgeous images , sometimes good in themselves , more often bad , and generally without any other meaning than mere display ( as the City tradesman loads his fingers with an armour of jewelled rings , meX that he may flash and glitter in the eyes of his flunkeyO-all this renders Mr . Bradbury ' s volume a painful monument of perverted cleverness Wfe read of stars moons , sunsets , and sunrises-of jewels , gems , gold , and silver -of roses , hlies , and flowers in general-of odours , blushts , azure skies billows of the sea , dew , rainbows , wine , feasts , nectar , music , birds , angels * young ladies , lore , languors , swoons , fire , and flame — of crimson aud SSfi * am L fine linea ~ of gleamings , and glittering ., and sparkling , aiuuiugs ot t

    issued : biy Holyoake and Co ., and called Shadows of the Past , by Lionel H . Holdreth . Coming from the office of the Reasoner , and claimed by the tttiasoner as the poetry of Secularism , it is liable to an interpretation . which would , scarcely be correct . Mr . Holdreth , as we conceive , is Theistical in his final tendencies ; but there is a painful alternation , throughout his slim verse pamphlet , of doubt and belief , as if he had had no other object in writing than to record his own inner conflicts . The effect , therefore , is morbid and depressing , as all such self-anatomy must be . Yet it is not without a redeeming nobility of sentiment . A certain dramatic unity—though not very easy to understand or define—seems to run through the whole brief collection , so that the last poem appears to suggest an obscure comment on the first , and to be its natural completion ; and the moral of the book is that

    duty is better than pleasure , and that the brilliant creations of fancy , while proper to the morning of life , should in time give place to the heroic determination to combat life ' s realities , for the sake of final truth . The moral , however , is incomplete , since the discbarge of duty is not necessarily antagonistic to enjoyment , or to a keen perception of , and delight in , the celestial world of ideality . Still , there is a noble suggestion of self-sacrifice in Mr . Holdretb ' s verses which gives them a sweet , sad grace , and religious calm . Their faults are , want of health and heart-sunshine , and a consequent faintness and flaceidity . The power to enjoy , and to be merry—to eat , drink , and laugh—is one of the essential elements in all sterling poetry ; and Mr . Holdreth would be all the better for quaffing a little of the cordial wine of Chaucer and Shakspeare , and thinking less of the disappointments of the world after this fashion : —

    We err , and suffer , and grow wise ; Through suffering borne , and errors proved . Shame on the coward heart , thai ; cries " I would that I had never loTed . " Who hath not loved hath never known The training of a manly soul , To suffer and to stand alone , And wait Life ' s signal at the goal . But 'this—to lean against the ga-jfce , And . watch the scene with passion rife ;—Aimless and objectless to wait , , - ¦ And live to earn . the . means of life ; ' ¦ ' To see the ruin of the Right , The triumph , of the wrong I scorn , To watch and not to aid the figlt ;—Was it for this that 1 was born ? If nob for this , for-what ? I ask . No answer comes , nor ever will . And can it be , my earthly task - ' . la but to suffer , and be still ? Through all the future doth miue eye Range , seeking rest , and findeth none . It is so full of vacancy I « annot bear to look "thereon . Though life be dark with grief and crime , Though virtue wait and suffer long ; Yet , ere the end , the lapse of Time Confirms the right , confounds the wrong . Truth , must prevail . ' Meanwhile , endure . Of worldly peace let worldlings boast ; Amid the sfcorms of life , be sure , Tlie loftiest spirits suffer most . Albionia : a Pilgrimage . Canto the First . By Henry Brown . ( Charles Fox . ) —Here is a voice from Mile End , speaking to us , like the two preceding voices , about the people , their hopes and aspirations . The poem , which il rSlf " . ^ S penserian stanza , affects Spenserian allegory ; and we have no « v , l , ^» WhliOm / amJ " erst ' " and " eftsoons , " and " certes , " and ycleped . However , in the midst of all this old phraseology , we learn some new things , as that the English worker lias

    earn d a proud and lasting name , - ¦ And many a bold , enduring trophy won— - ™~ T w ? y ° U suP P ° Well you'll never guess ; so read and learn at once , w liy _ , . ' in * he regions of the stars and sun . This is very interesting . We are also told that

    TIie mind of man , oh , ' tis a , wondrous thing t It appears , moreover , that the " broadcloth " of the artisan is fashioned into a garb of classic grace " —which we should hardly have suspected from what we have seen in pictures of the ancient Greek and Roman costume , ana jyir . Brown speaks to us of some « beaming " roses , and altogether keeps quite a curiosity sliop , Attached to his great work , Albionia , is a smaller ? ™ ™ ment ~ sorae"Lmeson Visiting the Tomb of the Emperor Napoicon i . —in which we arc promised a wonder in the future , surpassing anyaddfessed—l XperienCed " The shade ° f the Little Cov P <>™ 1 is being And in those coming worlds of time , far looming into name , Voices , yefc unattuued , shall ring with peons ( sic ) to thy fame : 1 Marengo , Pnedland , Austorlitz , Aroolo . Jfina— theao

    .. .. shall be vmmortcU syllables , sounding on ev ' ry breeze . ¦ SSn * if J * ° ' IC not ' If tno Dreeze > m " st become a chatter-box , wo trust he rnm £ t 8 ome 1 thinB pleaaanter . But to Imvo five words , whatever they oTMhS ' t ? A * ln ne < 1 int 0 our eftrs , "a not a pleasant prospect . Mr . Brown , nn < i « rf Jr u ? ' no P » but lie Beenls t 0 write with a good intention , A A V B - ° ll 0 Wd 8 Wtttl Pftrt ' a nSh i w ' ? anotller minstrel of the popular class—Mr . 8 . H . Bradbury , w"S ? K iES * S f ?" mnl » 8 fc > who solaces his leisure hours by lyrical effusions tS «

    —mm no enu nmgs - luscious / ' " mellow , " and " delicious ' » and voluptuous , " -til at length , though many of the said materials for poetry are noble m themselves , we are sick with the indiscriminate surfeit . The Renaissance style in architecture and art , with its morbid appetite for incessant provocatives of ornament , has here met its counterpart in verse . Mr Bradbury has the same love which we have noticed in some other of our modern poetasters of talking perpetually about the stars , which he and his brethren seem to regard in no other light than as a species of golden beads tor the adornment of verse ; and he has likewise ( which we have also remarked m various ultra-modern versifiers ) a disagreeable habit of introducing the name ot the Supreme Being with an undue familiarity , which we are sure is meant for an expression of religious feeling , but which often has an opposite effect . Not only does he load his sense with unnecessary epithets , but half his matter is formed of comparisons . Everything is " like" something else . Thus ? , we are "told of a certain child that "love summered round herlike

    , some young rose , all pale and wild . " The same little lady ' s lips were Like rubied paths of luscious light , A purple season to the sight ! ( The note of admiration is Quallon ' s own— and well may he employ it ) . Moreover , the voice of the same phenomenon " was clear as sparklinsc wine '' and it" flutter'd with music . " & '

    Like to a trembling , moon-kissed vine ! ( Again the note of admiration is the author's own . We may add that he has a tendency to use this point , as if he were perpetually mocking himself ) . Mr . Bradbury , we repeat , has in him some of the materials for poetry ; but as 3 * et he is no more a complete poet than a single wall is a house . The Modern Scottish Minstrel ; or , the Songs of Scotland of the past half Century : with Memoirs of the Poets , and Sketches and Specimens in English Verse of the most celebrated Modern Gaelic Bards . By Charles Rogers , LL . D ., F . S . A ., Scot . In six volumes . " Vol . II . ( Edinburgh : A . and C ^ Black ) . —Poems by Ja . mes Ballantine . ( Edinburgh : Thomas Constable ) . — We feel perplexed in our minds with respect to both these volumes . We ought , by good rights , to obtain a report " From Oui Own Scotchman "—

    but we dp not happen , to be furnished with one . We must plead guilty to sharing Lamb ' s " imperfect sympathy" with Scotch poetry ; and we must also confess that a large part of the volumes before us we are unable to comprehend , owing to the shallowness of our studies in that dialect which some North Britons would have us believe is the onl y genuine English . It is true that Mr . Rogers appends to his collection a brief glossary for the benefit of those who are only in the accidence of their Scotch ; but to boggle our way after this fashion through an impulsive ballad , is very unsatisfactory work . We must therefore be content to call the attention of our Scotch readers ( if that be needful ) , and of our Scotch-loving English readers , to the two books , and to hint our own opinion of them with the modesty of aliens . They seem to us , then , to exhibit the Southern vivacity , and tendency to lyrical

    expression * which are rather singular characteristics of our ultra-North era brethren ; but at the same time to possess in ample measure all that enormity of commonplace , that nauseous superfinery belonging to factitious simplicity of language and sentiment , that wearisome repetition of particular lines in the burden of ballads , that love , of obvious sing-song measures , like the " crooning" of the local bagpipes , and that intense nationality , or provincialism , of sentiment , which we generally observe in Scotch , poetry . Mr . Rogers ' s collection , however , is of value , as a contribution to the literary history of the North j and his translations from the Gaelic are interesting . Perhaps we . ought not to have included the book under the head of " Latter-Day Poetry ; " but it fell in with a number of others .

    Arctic Enterprise . A Poem in Seven Parts . By Clmndos Hoskyns / Vbrahall . ( Hope and Co . )—Behold 137 post octavo pages of heroic couplets ( thirty-four lines to the page ) , followed by seventy-two pages of notes ; the ¦ object of the whole being to celebrate the various expeditions to the Polar regions which terminated in the grand discovery of the north-west passage by Captain M'Clure in LR 53 . There is a strange mixture of the poetical anil the practical in this volume , which , however , acquires a touching interest from being " Dedicated by Permission to Lady Franklin , in admiration of her patience , perseverance , and fortitude , under trials unexampled in the annals of her country . " Tlie verses are not only accompanied by the xiot « s alread

    y alluded to , but by a matter-of-fact list of officers in the Erebus and Terror , and of expeditions sent in search of Sir John Franklin . Mr . Abrahall writes in a style the very opposite of the modern " spasmodic school , " his manner being that which prevailed through the greater part oflast century ; but we fear we cannot say thfit his readers will gain anything by the change . Poems . By W . R . Cassels . —We noticed tins volume in a previous batch , but take the present opportunity of confessing that we did not do entire justice to the author ' s faculty . We remarked that he had intense devotion to poetry combined with imperfect powers of expression . Such ia the fact ; Imt it ia also & fact that , with much that is vvealc , there arc evidences in the volume of real poetical power . w A heap of yerac-volumea yet encumbers our table 3 but wc must postpone any further criticism to another occasion .

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    380 T fi E L E A D E R . rNo . m > Saturday .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 19, 1856, page 380, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2137/page/20/