Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Beef, is not more natural to an En glishman, than to beat tune to "Steady boys, Steady," and, "Rule Britannia." Our modern authors are of a different cast; some of them roam back to distant and dark ages; others wander to remote countries, instead of seeking a theme in the exploits of a Nelson, an Abercromby, or a Wellesley; others amuse themselves with luscious sonnets to Bessies and Jessies; and all seem so little to regard the crisis in which we are placed, that we cannot help thinking they would keep fiddling their allegros and adagios, even if London were on fire, or Buonaparte landed at Dover.

6

We are old-fashioned men, and are perhaps inclined to see, in the loss and decay of ancient customs, more than can reasonably be traced from them: to regard, in short, that as a mark of apathy and indifference to national safety and glory, which may only arise from a change in the manner of expressing popular feeling. Be that as it may, we think that the sullen silence observed by our present race of poets, upon all themes of immediate national concern, argues little confidence in their own powers, small trust in the liberal indulgence of the publick to extemporaneous compositions, and above all, a want of that warm interest in such themes as might well render them indifferent to both considerations. Lord Wellington, more fortunate than any contemporary English general, whether we regard the success or the scale of his achievements, has been also unusually distinguished by poetical commemoration; and as his exploits form an exception to the train of evil fortune which has generally attended our foreign expeditions, the hearts of those capable of celebrating them, seem to have been peculiarly awakened and warmed at the recital. Probably, many of our readers have seen the superb Indian war-song, which celebrated his con

quest over the Mahrattas: beginning "Shout Britain for the battle of Assay, For that was a day

When we stood in our array,

Like the lion turned to bay, And the battle-word was conquer or die!

We are now happy to find, that another bard has advanced with a contribution to adorn the most recent and most glorious wreath won by the same gallant general. The promptitude as well as the patriotism of the tribute might claim indul gence as well as praise: but it is with pleasure we observe, that although this volunteer has rushed forward without waiting to arm himself in that panoply which is often, after all, found too slight to repel the assaults of modern criticism, neither his adventurous courage nor the goodness of his cause, is his sole or his principal merit.

The battle of Talavera is written in that irregular, Pindarick measure first applied to serious composition by Mr. Walter Scott, and it is doing no injustice to the ingenious author to say, that in many passages, we were, from the similarity of the stanza and of the subject, involuntarily reminded of the battle of Flodden, in the sixth book of Marmion. The feeling, however, went no farther than the perception of that kindred resemblance between those of the same family which is usually most striking at first sight, and becomes less remarkable, and at length invisible, as we increase in intimacy with those in whom it exists. In one respect, the choice of the measure is more judicious on the part of the nameless bard, than on that of Mr. Scott. The latter had a long narra tive to compose, and was necessarily forced upon passages in which the looseness and irregularity of his versification has an extravagant and slovenly appearance. It is where the tone of passion is low, that the reader demands a new interest from regularity of versification, and beauty

of selected diction. On the other hand, in passages of vivid, and especially of tumultuary and hurried description, the force of the poet's thought, and the intenseness of the feeling excited, ought to support his language. He may be then permitted to strip himself as to a combat, and to evince that "brave neglect" of the forms of versification which express an imagination too much exalted, and a mind too much occupied by the subject itself, to regard punctiliously the arrangement of rhymes or the measurement of stanzas. In this point of view, few themes present themselves which can better authorize a daring flight than that which has been selected by the author of Talavera.

The poem opens with the follow ing stanza, of which the first nine lines are an exquisite picture of repose, and the last somewhat more feebly and prosaically expressed.

'Twas dark; from every mountain head
The sunny smile of heaven had fled,
And evening, over hill and dale
Dropt, with the dew, her shadowy veil;
In fabled Tajo's darkening tide

Was quenched the golden ray;
Silent, the silent stream beside,
Three gallant people's hope and pride,

Three gallant armies lay.
Welcome to them the clouds of night,
That close a fierce and hurried fight-
And wearied all, and none elate,
With equal hope and doubt, they wait

A fiercer, bloodier day.
France, every nation's foe, is there,
And Albion's sons her red cross bear,
With Spain's young Liberty to share,

The fortune of the fray."

The attack of the French is then described with all the peculiar circumstances of uncertainty and horrour that aggravate the terrours of midnight conflict. The doubtful and suppressed sounds which announce to the defenders the approach of the assailants; the rush of the former to meet and anticipate the charge; the reflection on those who fall without witnesses to their valour; and all the

a wonders of that gloomy fight,"

are successfully and artfully introduced to impress the dreadful scene upon the mind of the reader. The following lines have peculiar and picturesque merit.

"Darkling they fight, and only know
If chance has sped the fatal blow,
Or, by the trodden corse below,
Or by the dying groan:
Furious they strike without a mark,
Save now and then the sulphurous spark
Illumes some visage grim and dark,

That with the flash is gone!"

In the succeeding stanzas, we have the repose after the action, and the preparation for the general battle of the next day. The anxiety of the British general is described, and a singular coincidence pointed out in the sixth stanza. We shall transcribe it, and "let the stricken deer go weep."

"Oh heart of honour, soul of fire, Even at that moment fierce and dire,

Thy agony of fame! When Britain's fortune dubious hung, And France tremendous swept along, In tides of blood and flame. E'en while thy genius and thy arm Retrieved the day and turned the storm, E'en at that moment, factious spite, And envious fraud essayed to blight

The honours of thy name."

The share which is assigned to lord Wellington in the conduct of the fight, is precisely that which is really the lot of a commander in chief. Generals were painted in armour long after

[ocr errors][merged small]

foolish fashion, which, like every false and unnatural circumstance, tends obviously to destroy the probability of the scene, has been discarded by good taste ever since the publication of Addison's Campaign. The approach of the Gallick army is beautifully described.

"And is it now a goodly sight,

Or dreadful to behold, The pomp of that approaching fight, Waving ensigns, pennons light, And gleaming blades and bayonets bright, And eagles winged with gold; And warriour bands of many a hue, Scarlet and white, and green and blue, Like rainbows o'er the morning dew,

Their various lines unfold: While cymbal clang and trumpet strain, The knell of battle tolled:

And trampling squadrons beat the plain, 'Till the clouds echoed back again,

As if the thunder rolled."

Our bounds will not permit us to quote the opening of the battle, though it contains some passages of great merit. Realizing his narrative with an art, which has been thought

almost irreconcilable with poetry, the author next undertakes to give us a distinct idea of those manœuvres and movements upon which the success of the day depended; and by clothing them with the striking circumstances which hide the otherwise technical and somewhat familiar detail of the gazette, he has succeeded at once in preserving the form and leading circumstances, and "all the current of the heady fight;" and, generally speaking, in presenting them to the fancy in a manner as poetical as they are clear to the understanding. In treading, however, upon a line so very narrow, he has sometimes glided into bombast on the one hand, or into flat, bald, and vulgar expressions on the other. Although, for instance, the word "fire-locks" be used technically, and somewhat pedantically, to express the men who bear them, we cannot permit a poet to speak with impunity of

"Full fifty thousand muskets bright Led by old warriours trained to fight."

Spears, we know, is used for spearmen; but this is a license sanctioned by antiquity, and not to be extended other places, the ardour of the poet to modern implements of war. In is expressed in language too turgid and inflated. But the following stanza may safely be quoted as avoiding, under very difficult circumstances, the extremes of simplicity and bombast; and describing the celebrated charge of the British cavalry with a spirit worthy of those whose gallantry was so memorable on that memorable day:

"Three columns of the flower of France, With rapid step and firm, advance,

At first through tangled ground, O'er fence and dell and deep ravine; At length they reach the level green, The midnight battle's murderous scene, The valley's eastern bound. There in a rapid line they form, Thence are just rushing to the storm By bold Bellona led. When sudden thunders shake the vale,

Day seems as in eclipse to fail,

The light of heaven is fled; A dusky whirlwind rides the sky, A living tempest rushes by

With deafening clang and tread; A charge, a charge,' the British cry, 'And Seymour at its head."

The miscarriage of this gallant body of cavalry amid the broken ground in which the French again formed their column, its causes and consequences, the main battle itself, and all its alternations of success, are described in the same glowing and vivid language; which we will venture to say is not that of one who writes with a view to his own distinction as a poet, but who feels that living fire glow within him which impels him to fling into verse his animated and enthusiastick feelings of exultation on contemplating such a subject as the battle of Talavera. The following description of a circumstance new to the terrours of battle, we shall insert, ere we take our leave of Talavera:

"But shooting high and rolling far, What new and borril face of war,

Now flushes on the sight?
'Tis France, as furious she retires,
That wreaks in desolating fires,

The vengeance of her flight.
The flames the grassy vale o'errun,
Already parched by summer's sun;
And sweeping turbid down the breeze
In clouds the arid thickets seize,
And climb the dry and withered trees
In flashes long and bright.
Oh! 'Twas a scene sublime and dire,
To see that billowy sea of fire,
Rolling its fierce and flakey flood,
O'er cultured field and tangled wood,
And drowning in the flaming tide,
Autumn's hope and summer's pride.
From Talavera's walls and tower

And from the mountain's height, Where they had stood for many an hour,

To view the varying fight, Burghers and peasants in amaze Behold their groves and vineyards blaze! Trembling they view the bloody fray, But little thought ere close of day, That England's sigh and France's groan Should be re-echoed by their own! But ah! far other cries than these Are wafted on the dismal breeze;

Groans, not the wounded's lingering

groan;

Shrieks, not the shriek of death alone;
But groan and shriek and horrid yell

Of terrour, torture, and despair, Such as 'twould freeze the tongue to tell,

And chill the heart to hear, When to the very field of fight, Dreadful alike in sound and sight,

The conflagration spread,
Involving in its fiery wave,
The brave and relicks of the brave;
The dying and the dead!"

We have shunned, in the present instance, the unpleasant task of pointing out, and dwelling upon individual inaccuracies. There are se veral hasty expressions, flat lines, and deficient rhymes, which prove to us little more than that the composition was a hurried one. These, in a poem of a different description, we should have thought it our duty to point out to the notice of the author. But, after all, it is the spirit of a poet that we consider as demanding our chief attention; and upon its ardour or rapidity must finally hinge our applause or condemnation. We care as little (comparatively, that is to say) for the minor arts of composition and versification as Falstaff did for the thews, and sinews, and outward composition of his recruits. It is “the heart, the heart," that makes the poet as well as the soldier; and while we shall not withhold some. applause even from the ordinary statuary who executes a common figure, our wreath must be reser ved for the Prometheus who shall impregnate his statue with fire from

heaven.

FROM THE LITERARY PANORAMA.

Travels through the Empire of Morocco. By John Buffa, M. D. Illustrated with a Map. 8vo. pp. 260. Price 7s. London. 1810.

CENSORIOUS criticks may, if they please, magnify literary vanity into a crime against the peace and the pockets of the publick; but if we punish vanity as capital, we hazard the suppression of much information which may requite attention. What man upon earth would be acquitted, were his motives for appearing before the publick, scrutinized with critical severity? Hu

manity and policy refuse to prosecute a peccadillo, so trifling. We shall not, on the present occasion, oppose their scruples.

What Dr. Buffa has recorded against the late Medical Board, by which he deemed himself oppressed, we pass, with a wish, that oppression may ever be banished from among members of a liberal profession, and from all connected with

the publick service. We consider the doctor simply as a traveller into a country imperfectly known among us; and possessing some advantages as a privileged person by his profession. While waiting for a promised appointment at Gibraltar, he visited Larache; the governour of which place he happily relieved from a dangerous malady. In a second journey, he had the honour of prescribing for his Moorish majesty; for his principal sultana, and others, at Fez. He took an opportunity of travelling to Morocco, etc. further south; and the observations he made during these excursions, form the body of his volume. We regret exceedingly to learn from Dr. B's preface, that the imputation of impoliteness should, with any appearance of plausibility, attach to the venerable sovereign of the United Kingdom, on a charge of not answering a letter addressed to him from the potentate of Morocco; for though written in Arabick, it were scandalous to suppose that none in the British dominions could translate it. The French, to do them justice, would have profited by the opportunity, and would have turned such a correspondence to good account, either now or hereafter. Why cannot John Bull emulate what is commendable in that people, without imitating what is ridiculous or profigate? Leaving the secretary of state to defend his reputation by the best arguments in his power, we direct our attention to the traveller. Dr. B. estimates the importance of Ceuta, as a fortress, very highly. It is now in the hands of our countrymen. He says: "Convoys could collect here in safety, and our trade in this sea be comparatively secure from annoyance."

The following ceremony has something patriarchal in it:

"In passing through villages (which in this part are very numerous, and formed of a much greater collection of tents than those described in a former letter) we VOL. V.

M

were received by a great concourse of men, women, and children, shouting, and making a noise exactly resembling the I was informed, that this was their usual whoop of the North American savages. mode of expressing their joy and mirth, on all great and solemn occasions. A venerable Moor, the chief of the surround

ing villages, accompanied by the military and civil officers, and by the principal inhabitants, advanced to kiss the garment of his excellency. This ceremony was closed by a train of women, preceded by an elderly matron, carrying a standard of colours, made of various fillets of silks; and by a young one of great beauty, supporting on her head a bowl of fresh milk, which she presented, first to the govern our (or, as he is otherwise called, the sheik) then to me, and afterwards to all the officers. This ceremony is always performed by the prettiest young woman of the village; and it not unfrequently hap pens, that her beauty captivates the affections of the great men (sometimes even the emperour) and she becomes the legitimate and favourite wife.”

We do not think much of a Moorish review, as to tacticks; but as a political spectacle, it is, we doubt not, sufficiently imposing. When describing it, Dr. B. incidentally mentions other customs of that people.

"I was at the palace precisely at four o'clock, and in a few minutes the empe rour appeared, mounted on a beautiful white horse, attended by an officer of state, holding over him a large, damask umbrella, most elegantly embroidered, and followed by all his great officers, bodyguards, and a numerous band of musick. He was greeted with huzzas, in the Moorish style, by the populace, and received at all the gates and avenues of the town, with a general discharge of artillery and small arms, the people falling upon their knees in the dust as he passed. The streets were covered with mats, and the road, as far as the plain where the troops were drawn out, was strowed with all kinds of flowers.

"The army was formed into a regular street of three deep on each side, each corps distinguished by a standard; it extended to a great length, through the immense plain of Fez, and presented a grand military spectacle. There were not less than eighty thousand cavalry. This review was finished in six hours, and his imperial majesty was so much pleased with the steady, orderly, and soldier-like appear

« ZurückWeiter »