racter of Sardanapalus ? Did that conception not come up to his own -to his own formed before Byron wrote? Did Byron follow the old historians, and picture the last Assyrian King as a drivelling, disgusting, idiotic sensualist?" If not, how did he picture him, and what and who is he on that immortal page? Why, all the mortal men in the wide world know that the Sardanapalus of Byron is just such a character as a dull, commonplace, philosophical Theophrastus like Mr Atherstone has described in the above scientific passage. The fact is, that Mr Atherstone, but for Byron, would never have troubled his head about such a man as Sardanapalus at all-and slurred him over in the Universal History without note or comment, taking him as he found him, with a painted face, and in petticoats, mounting the funeral pile. But no sooner does a great genius reconcile Fiction to Truth, and in the fabulous romance of history discovers, and reveals, and illustrates, the real romance of nature, as in his glorious Drama Byron has done, than out come from their brown studies, where they have been reading the Universal History, and, if we are mistaken in thinking our copy an unique, Lempriere's Classical Dictionary, and with the coolest intrepidity, and most undaunted assurance of face, begin playing the Mocking Bird to the Muse, with a monotonous mouthiness, however, that cannot deceive a schoolboy; while, to prevent the charge of plagiarism being flung into their jaws, they play a prelude, in the shape of a preface with notes, as if it belonged to another tune entirely -whereas it is the divine original air murdered, massacred, Burked, and Knoxed, till there is not in its body any more breath than sufficient for a squeak or a squelch. Witness Shakspeare's Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the paws of the Cockneys. Witness Lord Byron's Sardanapalus in the hands of a pedant pretending to be setting right old Rollin. All the characters of any consequence are the same in the Drama and in the Epic; any little variation introduced by Mr Atherstone being miserably for the worse. All he had to do was to make each of them fifty times more prosy; to omit as many of the fine sayings and doings in the Drama as his imitative propensities would al

low, and to substitute in their room all the commonplaces his memory could suggest. Now and then he changes a proper name, as Yarina, the queen, into Atossa, and Myrrha, the concubine, into Azubah. And by thus altering the nomenclature, he fancies he has given the world a new Poetry. But the world is not so simple as she seems; and, from her infancy, the old lady has been kept upon her guard by those warning words, written in large chalk characters on walls-" Beware of Counterfeits."

Do dunces, acting in this way, know that they are attempting to im pose on others, or do they merely succeed in imposing on themselves? It is hard to say, there are so many modifications, measures, and degrees of literary dishonesty and literary self-deception. Now, Mr Atherstone is not, in the ordinary and vulgar sense of the word, a dunce. But in the extraordinaryand philosophical sense of the word, which we have not time formally to explain, he is a dunce. His Sardanapalus is just such a copy of Byron's as we might suppose a poor painter to take of some glorious portrait by one of the great old masters, without the original being absolutely at the time before his eyes, but daubing away from memory, with colours of his own vile mixing-on which perhaps he opines he has made some beautiful improvement, unknown in the common world of art. He pretends to forget-for it must be pretence-that he ever saw the Leonardo da Vinci-or the Murillo-or the Velasquez-or any other of the Dons of the Director General. And by the distortion and discoloration of a feeble and treacherous memory, the dauber certainly does produce an Appearance which, had he the sense to give it another name, never could be observed by the most cunning connoisseur to be a caricature, say-to shew our knowledge, or ignorance— of either of the Caracci, Annibal or Ludovico. Still the dauber deserves to be damned-for the same is a thief and a robber.

Now Mr Atherstone, worthy man as he seems to be, and not wholly without talents, stands rather in this awkward predicament. He may obtest the skies, but his Sardanapalus is not an original. It is a bad copy

of a Byron, and worth neither more nor less than-the canvass.

But Mr Atherstone is totally incapable of managing his stolen Sardanapalus. He wishy-washes him, at one time, down into tenfold intensity of old-womanism, and at another, furbishes him up into a male warrior of such extreme glitterance, that you get blind by looking at his golden majesty. That Sardanapalus swigged almost incessantly, we can well believe; therefore, why inform us of that fact ten thousand times? Put him into situations where we know he is swilling like a salmon; but oh! why announce every goblet? It is as irrational, because as needless, as it would be, during a Noctes, to inform the world, fifty times over, that Odoherty was in the act of replenishing his tumbler. Hear how Mr Atherstone keeps harping on one thing!

"From ruby cups,

"And drank unmeasured draughts," &c. 'Bring wine-one draught To take the weight from these uncustom'd arms,

He said, and drain'd the cup."

"But far from thee, O king, the winecup hold!

For to thy wound 'tis poison." "My lost force to gain

This goblet give me, for new strength is there,

Prate as thou may."

"And on a couch His languid limbs outstretching-call'd for wine."

This eternal ringing of the bell for the waiter is most wearisome. We become incredulous of Sardanapalus' fair-drinking-suspect that he shirks-and is addicted to the base habit of emptying his glass upon the floor below the table.

But how can an Epic Poem be like a Tragic Drama? We answer in the words of Wordsworth, "alike, but oh! how different!" Similitude and Dissimilitude is a very difficult

gold,

The sparkling wine they quaff'd."

"All the day

Drunken with pride and wine."! "Remember'd he the wine-cup, and quaff'd deep."

"Music and love and wine this night I'll have."

"Music and love and wine his heart

inflamed."

"Fill for me a brimming goblet, for my heart is vex'd.

But don't thou falter-nay, a larger cup, And fill it to the brim."

"Himself fill'd up With ruby wine a goblet to the brim.

like as peas-yet the fathers and mothers of the respective peas were two distinct couples. The performances were by different artists; nor was the one even in any way a copy of the other, or in any way hinted or suggested by the other. This is but one part of the puzzle. Another, and the more puzzling part of the puzzle of the two, is, that many people see no similitude in the peas whatever, but maintain that they are as unlike to each other, as a pea and a bean mutually; while the most puzzling part of the puzzle of all is, that the peas,

thought by some to be a double Ideality, are each by themselves respectively esteemed the most dissimilar objects in the whole range of animated nature-and you would, in all probability, be murdered by the one pea, and sold by the other for dissection, were you to breathe in their hearing the most distant allusion to their being in your opinion, and to the best of your belief, if not a double pea, yet certainly two peas, which, put in a pod, confound you if, in shelling it, you could divine, unless by inspiration, which was which; and all this and much more being the casethough perhaps too concisely stated to be perfectly clear-Mr Atherstone must not be surprised, much less angry with us for holding, unto our dying day, that the two Sardanapaluses are but one Sardanapalus-his Epic another man's Drama-and Mr Atherstone himself-which he must be happy to hear-a singular sort of ocular spectrum, which, no doubt, agreeably to the laws of optics-a branch of physical science which we, for our single selves, have for many years too much neglected-has been on our retina cast from the Eidolon of Byron, yet wandering and wailing among the shades of earth.

We owe no apology either to Mr Atherstone or our readers for these free-and-easy philosophical observations; for they refer to a great public evil. Each popular poet of the day has not merely a Double-as the handsome Duke of Hamilton had his -(poor Montgomery, killed by Macnamara; for a shade, it seems, is not impalpable or impassible to a pistol 'bullet, but mortal as itself's substance)-but say, five score shadows who precede, follow, (that is droll,) and surround him in the sun with a frequency that must often be insufferable to a man at all fond of solitude. He is tormented by his Tail; and, indeed, they are at once his Tail, and the teasing insects which a Tail is intended by nature to sweep off from poets and other ruminating animals. A popular poet is thus almost always in a very pitiable plight. People bow to him who never saw him in their lives before, supposing that he is one of the " old familiar faces" of his shadows. Poems are laid to his charge-which he may, indeed, deny, but nobody will be

lieve him; for the bantlings are the very images of his own children; and the most he can do, is to excite a suspicion in the minds of his accusers, that the brats are at least illegitimate, and are allowed to remain unowned and anonymous, for fear of the just rage of his lawfully-wedded Muse, who would never forgive him, were she to know, by such squalling proofs, that he went after strange

women.

But Mr Atherstone is a most ambitious mimic. For, besides catching the trick of Byron, he takes offwho do you think?-Homer and Milton! We are no great Greek scholars ourselves, but by help of literal Latin and English translations, we can in about an hour or so after " ad aperturam libri," contrive to stumble our way through one of the shorter and easier passages of the Iliad, in the original Greek. We doubt if Mr Atherstone can do as much; but he has been a careful student of poor Cowper's bald version, and believes that he thus knows the "Tale of Troy divine!" Homer, Horace himself hints, sometimes sleeps; but if he walks in his sleep, it is not upon stilts. A man fast asleep, striding along on stilts, with eyes and mouth wide open, and all the while spouting a spate of blank verse, presents, no doubt, an imposing spectacle, especially in dubious twilight; and such a man is the author of Nineveh. Describing, at each right-legged and each leftlegged sweep a semicircle, he necessarily gets over the ground but slowly, and though highly elated, nevertheless he goes near the ground, and thus his pace is by no means safe; but the stilt stumbles against the smallest obstruction of grass-tuft or pebble, so that he ever and anon comes to the ground with a thunderous thud, and flies abroad with his machinery in all directions. To recover your feet after a severe fall is often no easy matter; but to recover your stilts is always difficult, and sometimes impossible. Perhaps one or both are broken, or away over a hedge, quickset and impenetrable, and then there is nothing for it but walking like your neighbours. But we defy you to walk like your neighbours, for you have never made the attempt since you were in leadingstrings. People stare as you go by,

and vainly conjecture your complaint. They can make nothing of it. But there is a more absurd spectacle even than this in the world of nature and art. What think ye of a man walking in his sleep on stilts, and also in leading-strings? Mr Atherstone, thou art the man. The Epic Muse-we forget her name— (Clio? Erato?)—a motherly old body -trots after her braw bairn, handling the ribands tied round his waist and with alternate or mingled cries of endearment and reproach, cheers or upbraids her long-legged charge, as he strides along without a stumble, or shews a perverse disposition to kneel down among the stones to say his prayers. Affectionate creature! she is not happy till she sees him at the end of his journey; when, instinctively awakening, he dismounts, and with appropriate gestures intimates a desire for din

Pursued, and mind depress'd."

This, no doubt, Mr Atherstone thinks nobly, we think ludicrously, Miltonic. If by antiquated be

meant ancient or antique, Nineveh is an antiquated theme; if by antiquated be meant obsolete or worn out of memory, Nineveh is no more an antiquated theme, nor can it be deemed such, than any other famous old city of the Oriental world. Whether the theme be deemed dull or not, depends solely on him who treats of it; for nobody in this age supposes that Nineveh herself was a dull city.

Universal credit is given to her for vivacity and animation; and pray what manner of man may Master Edwin Atherstone be, who sneers at this age of ours for being so very gay and flowery that it will deem Nineveh an unseasoned (unseasonable?) theme? Was Nineveh a city of Quakers? Was Sardanapalus a Moravian? Why, my good sir, the age of your hero was so gay and flowery, that in Nineveh you could purchase a ton of rose-leaves for twopence, with a load of lilies into the bargain. Dancing and drinking, according to your own account of the matter, with all their usual accompaniments, were the order both of day and night all the year. Why, therefore, may not we of this gay and flowery age delight in a Tale of Nineveh, and of all the dissipation of the royal roué? Master Edwin Atherstone, we think you are a pretty considerable ninny for inconsistently accusing a gay and flowery age like ours of deeming dull an age a thousand times more gay and flowery than itself. And why afraid to approach old Nineveh? 'Tis but a dream! Then what the better, pray, could you have been of pondering upon one of the most populous cities that ever underwent a census, in solitude, far from busy cities and from the throng of men? There again you are very silly. Why, Milton wrote his Paradise Lost in London, as perhaps you may have heard-and Christopher North edits Maga in Edinburgh-Maga, of whom nobody in and flowery age can say, gay "Theme antiquated, haply, deem'd, and dull."

this

But nothing will satisfy you but to ponder upon Nineveh in country quarters-away from enemies indeed -but who cares for enemies?-and uncheered by friends, save few; whereas, in a large town, friends would have been dropping in upon you every night, and relieving you from the labour of your magnum opus by dragging you away nolens volens to Ambrose's-to the Feast of Shells. But now for a long quotation.

"Nor vainly quite, So thou, Great Spirit, whatsoe'er thy name, Muse, Inspiration, or Divinity, Who the blind bard of Ilium didst support,

And him yet favour'd more, that Paradise,

fail;

Not all shall I be earthly, cold, and dark!"

That is by no means badly expressed; and had you been one of the Great Poets, and if the passage had not been written before by one

of the Great Poets, the Invocation

would have been rather a little or so sublime. But unluckily you are no poet at all—and the passage, though you have taken care to alter all or most of the words, is the property of a blind man, one John Milton. You think you are writing poetry, while you are only playing at cribbage.

Allow us to make a single remark on poetical Invocations. When a poet, conscious of the possession of the divine gift of genius, and about to commence a great work, which he humbly hopes may, when consummated, redound to the glory of God and the good of his creatures, implores inspiration from above to support him in his song, he performs an act of worship, and all the nations join with him, as it were, in prayer. In such a mood did Milton invoke Urania as he stood on the threshold of the Poem of Paradise. Now, we go no farther-for our present purpose let this one instance suffice. But how few men may call on the Holy Spirit of Heaven, "unblamed," to aid them in the composition of poetry? Divine genius meditating a divine theme for a divine end, we believe to be directly inspired and sanctified by communion with its Giver. The invocation it then breathes or pours is sincere, and sacred as any of those Psalms sung to his harp by the Shepherd King; and the poem

seems to arise out of it like a creation, or rather like a blessed boon granted to a supplicant.

Considered in this light, invocations, like that of Milton's, are the same as vows and prayers offered up to heaven by men about to attempt any great achievement-to face some event, of which the issues are, in the hour of awful emotion, more fervently than at other times, felt to be in the hands of the Most High. The achievement hoped and prayed for,. and before our eyes accomplished, gives an august grandeur to the pious strain in which Genius asked that power from heaven, which heaven, we have seen, did so prodigally bestow.

The descent from Milton to Wordsworth is great-yet Wordsworth resembles Milton in this, that he has devoted, with a sublime singleness of spirit, his great and good genius to the service of God, Nature, and Truth. He is, indeed, in one blessing, happier than Milton. The only man of this age, or perhaps any age, to whom Providence has allotted a life free, from all its rising to all its setting suns, blamelessly and gloPreface to the Excursion there is a riously free to poetry. Yet, in the passage, from the First Book of the Recluse, (the great poem to which the Excursion belongs,) which seems to us of doubtful propriety, even from the inspired pen-the inspired lips-of such a true poet as Wordsworth. After enumerating the subjects of that lofty strain, he says of

them: