them away, Laid Paris in dust,-now bids Paris be gay! But thy beauty, Helēna, no more is confest, For to see thee, kind Saint, is indeed to detest; Thy charms, fair Helēna, laid monarchs in chains, Now, Helēna, but one in thy fetters remains; He doom'd to thy bosom, all loathsome and bare, To pestilence wedded, and watch'd by despair, To hate thee, to curse thee, to loathe, and abhor, To languish for freedom, but find it no age. more. ESOPUS. THE VAMPYRE, AND PETER BELL. THERE is no saying how far the impudence of the press will go. Here are two atrocious fellows who are palming their unconscionable nonsense upon two of the greatest poets of the Lord Byron could certainly never write any thing so intensely stupid as the Vampyre, nor Mr Wordsworth any thing so very infantile as Peter Bell, although we are not quite so sure of the imposition in the latter case as in the former. There is no doubt the Poet of the Lakes, with all his great endowments, is, at times, given to singular vagaries, and most certain it is, "Mr Wordsworth's new poem" has been announced, in a very for mal advertisement, in these words: "Peter Bell, a Tale in verse, by William Wordsworth, Esq., in 8vo, to match the Lyrical Ballads. Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees," &c.Then there follows a long list of the poet's other works, in prose and verse, to be sold by the same publishers. Now, Peter Bell has actually come into our hands, and we have held up these same hands in amazement, on the supposition that it should possibly, in the nature of things, be a genuine composition of Mr Wordsworth. He thus prefaces it: Of Peter Bell I have only thus much to say it completes the simple system of natural narrative, which I began so early as 1798. It is written in that pure unlaboured style, which can only be met with among labourers; and I can safely say, that while its imaginations spring beyond the reach of the most imaginative, its occasional meaning occasionally falls far below the meanest capacity. As these are the days of counterfeits, I am compelled to caution my readers against them, "for such are abroad." However, I here declare this to be the true Peter; this to be the old original Bell. I commit my Ballad confidently to posterity. I love to read my own poetry: it does my heart good. zas. W. W. The following are a few of the stan- Hark! the church-yard brook is singing Peter Bell is laughing now, He is stooping now about O'er the grave-stones one and two; O'er the grave-stones, three and four, Hark! the voice of Peter Bell, We think this last verse is an internal evidence of the fabrication, for Mr W. would scarcely speak of his own poetry in so irreverent a manner. The concluding stanzas, too, seem to prove the same thing. Groping among the tombs in which all Mr Wordsworth's heroes and heroines, Martha Ray, Betty Foy, Simon Lee, Harry Gill, Goody Blake, Alice Fell, and a long et cætera,—are represented as reposing, Peter at last lights upon one, of which The letters printed are by fate, Who never more will trouble you, trouble you:" The old man smokes who 'tis that died. He quits that moonlight yard of skulls, And as he creepeth by the tiles, He mutters ever- W. W. Upon the whole, then, we do consider this as an impudent imposture, and we recommend it to Mr Wordsworth to prosecute his publishers, who have announced the tale of Peter Bell, and have not scrupled to put his distinguished name in full length (not merely W. W.) to their advertisement. We are pretty sure that Lord Byron will be too indolent to prosecute the publishers of the Vampyre, and it would be, therefore, a really patriotic action in Mr Wordsworth to see an exemplary punishment inflicted on the authors and abettors of such literary forgeries. The least penalty that can be exacted from the author himself, if he is discovered, is to be set in the pillory, with Peter Bell hung about his neck. The Vampyre is a more innocent forgery, as it is impossible to suppose for a moment that Lord Byron has any hand in it, although his name is announced with equally impudent boldness as its author. In point of composi tion, it is not at all superior to many sixpenny tales of horror which we used to see hawked about in baskets, after the good old ballads went out, and before the histories of conversions came in. Itis, indeed, fit for nothing else but the class of readers who resort to said baskets for their literary viands. A young Lord Ruthven, who turns out to be a vampyre, kills the girl of whom the youth was enamoured by sucking her blood, is at last killed himself, but comes to life again, and marries his friend Aubrey's sister, whom he dispatches on the first night of the marmad. Can any thing be more monriage, and poor Aubrey himself goes strous and silly? Perhaps the best written thing in this performance is the description of Janthe, a girl in the neighbourhood of Athens, whom the young man fell in love with,— which really has something of Lord Byron in it, because it is directly borrowed from his description of Leila in the Giaour. This convinces us the more that his Lordship is quite innocent of this abomination, (as mush, at least, as Mr Wordsworth, of the Peter Bell above quoted,) for we do not think Lord Byron a person at all likely to copy from himself; or, if he should be so far reduced, we are certain that he would never transmute his own spirited poetry into heavy and man travels over the world with a Never more will trouble you, trouble you." bombastic prose. ANOTHER PETER BELL! THIS is a great deal too bad! We thought we had put Mr Wordsworth on a way of discomfiting the machinations of his enemies, but we are now satisfied that there is a much more widely ramified conspiracy than we were at all aware of, and we see nothing for him, but to "sit like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief." We had just sent our last notice to the press, when, to our horror and amazement, a parcel arrives, containing this other Peter Bell! We wonder there was not another Vampyre too; but Lord Byron is not so vulnerable to the little malicious wits of the age, who seem to have a peculiar satisfaction in buzzing around this more sensitive poet; and whenever they see him wince, or imagine him so to do, that instant they renew their teazing attack. We are shocked at this malignity, but where is it to stop? A new Peter Bell will come out every month for a twelvemonth to come,nay, here are two in one month!-We cannot now open a parcel without shuddering. The very name of Bell, when our eyes happen to fall upon it, as they do very often, throws us into a cold sweat. is a little pamphlet come to us called "The Wrongs of Children," by Dr Andrew Bell. Is that a quiz too? In short, our literature has got into that state, that "all is delusion, nought is truth." The most downright bounces are delivered with the most serious air of veracity; and when we, "good easy men," are fully per There * It must be an enemy who hath done this. A ludicrously long title-page precedes a pamphlet of 16 pages, which begins with the following droll sentence. "More than two years ago, when I was engaged in a scholastic tour on the continent, a fellow traveller and myself had each a book in hand. After a while we exchanged books."-&c. &c. In the course of the pamphlet, the pseudo-Dr Bell pretends to have discovered a new organ of mind, or intellectual power, which had escaped the research of every eye, and of every country! A notion like this could never have entered into the head of the real Dr Bell, who is a most ingenious and meritorious man, and one who cannot be too lavishly rewarded for his great services to his country and to the church. But such is the shockingly licentious state of the press! VOL. IV. suaded of what we read, and sit down to give a plain matter-of-fact account of it, lo! and behold! it turns out to be have not the heart to go through with "the baseless fabric of a vision." We this new Peter Bell,-but from the slight glance we have given it, we are quite satisfied it is no more written by Mr Wordsworth than the former. If, indeed, we were forced to give any of them to him, we should certainly stick to the true Peter, the old original Bell." The character of that Peter is really Wordsworthian: the repose and still life about him are even more fully brought out than in any of Mr Wordsworth's own pictures, and it is in such pictures that this great master so much excels. We must quote a few more little de licate touches of this kind. old man, He hath a noticeable look His only action is wonderfully pic- is like a solemn sermon ; The little flea severely fares; The degree of learning, too, which the poet gives him, has an air of most affecting simplicity, You never saw a wiser man, Peter Bell he readeth ably, But" look you now what follows."A second Peter," like a mildew'd ear blasting his wholesome brother." Indeed, in this " counterfeit presentment of two brothers," the last is a perfect demon, and, as far as we have formed a notion of him from reading a stanza here and there, he is much liker one of Mr Crabbe's heroes than any of Mr Wordsworth's. The first part of the poem, (for this Peter has the enormous fault, in addition to his other misdemeanours, of consisting of three 31 All by the moonlight river side, Tis come then to a pretty pass," We are told afterwards, The meagre beast lay still as death, This outery on the heart of Peter, This last stanza proves to us distinctly, that the present Peter is the work of a very feeble imitator of the former. Seems like a note of joy to strike,- Not a brother owneth he, The whole jet of this poem, as far as we have a notion of it, drives at a inuch coarser joke than the former. It is bad enough to make Mr Wordsworth commit suicide,-but the author of this gross piece of impertinence (we are ashamed to mention it) fairly writes him down-an 4ss! It is very evident to us, that he means to adumbrate Mr Wordsworth himself under that character. By Peter he must have in view some" fiendlike, vulture-souled, adder-fanged critic" or other,-(we use the words of W. W. in his preface to the true Peter.) The allegory cannot be mistaken. Thus it proceeds: Across that deep and quiet spot, "No doubt, I'm founder'd in these woods, There's nothing to be seen but woods, His head is with a halter bound ; Then Peter gave a sudden jirk, And so it goes on in the strain of We most un doubtedly looked for a portrait of Mr Wordsworth; but (will the lowness of the scurrility be credited?) this portrait turns out to be a representa tion of the Ass! In the prologue, there is an attempt to imitate Mr Wordsworth's more sublime and mystical style, but, we think, a very impotent, or rather impudent, one.-Could that poet write any thing quite so irrational as what follows? There's something in a flying horse, Fast through the clouds my boat can sail, But if perchance your faith should fail, Look up, and you shall see me soon! Up goes my boat between the stars, The Crab, the Scorpion, and the Bull, The towns in Saturn are ill built, But he will be back to the earth poet?] for it first saw the light in the summer of 1798. During this long interval, pains have been taken at different times to make the production less unworthy of a favourable reception; or rather, to fit it for filling permanently a station, however humble, in the literature of my country. This has, indeed, been the aim of all my endeavours in poetry, &c. &c. Is it possible, after all, that this second Peter should be the true one, -the real Simon Pure? If he is, we are heartily sorry that his younger brother came first in disguise, and carried away our blessing. We cannot help ourselves now, or recover at once from our shock and surprise. But before our next number, we shall make a point of discovering the truth, and, if this is really a poem of Mr Wordsworth, we pledge ourselves to beauties, for many beauties, in that make our readers acquainted with its case, it must have. It requires no mighty effort of wit, in truth, to turn this singular poet into ridicule, and there are times in which it is scarcely possible, even for his best The boat gets angry at him, and friends, to avoid doing so; but still speaks. "Shame on you," cried my little boat, Was ever such a heartless loon, &c. &c. Ohe! satis jam! The dedication to Robert Southey, Esq. (against whom, by the way, there is a side wipe, for P. L. is put in ridiculously large capitals after his name,) is also an attempt to caricature the self-complacency of Mr Wordsworth's prose, and has a wonderful resemblance to the preface quoted in the preceding article. MY DEAR FRIEND, The Tale of Peter Bell, which I now in troduce to your notice, and to that of the public, has, in its manuscript state, nearly survived its minority; [Is this meant as a hit at Lord Byron when he was a minor We are happy to find that Lord Byron's publisher, Mr Murray, has expressiy disclaimed the Vampyre, which is now owned by a Mr Polidori. We never heard of this gentleman before, unless he be the same person (with his name a little modernized) of whom Virgil has made such honourable mention in the beginning of the third Æneid. Very like, very like," as Hamlet says, for Virgil's Polydorus, from the quantity of blood in his body after he was dead and buried, seems evident. ly to have been of a Vampyrish constitu when he is in the vein, who can write like William Wordsworth?-We en-' elevated genius, and the pure mind of tertain a most unfeigned respect for the that highly-gifted man; and we can assure our readers, whatever they may imagine from the light strain in which we have now indulged, that he has few more cordial admirers than ourselves. |