293 REVIEW OF WORDSWORTH'S POEMS, 2 Vols. 1807.* (From "Monthly Literary Recreations," for August, 1807.) THE Volumes before us are by the author of Lyrical Ballads, a collection which has not undeservedly met with a considerable share of public applause. The characteristics of Mr. W.'s muse are simple and flowing, though occasionally inharmonious verse, strong, and sometimes irresistible appeals to the feelings, with unexceptionable sentiments. Though the present work may not equal his former efforts, many of the poems possess a native elegance, natural and unaffected, totally devoid of the tinsel embellishments and abstract hyperboles of several contemporary sonneteers. The last sonnet in the first volume, p. 152., is perhaps the best, without any novelty in the sentiments, which we hope are common to every Briton at the present crisis; the force and expression is that of a genuine poet, feeling as he writes: "Another year! another deadly blow! Another mighty empire overthrown! 'Tis well! - from this day forward we shall know * I have been a reviewer. In 1807, in a Magazine called "Monthly Literary Recreations," I reviewed Wordsworth's trash of that time. In the Monthly Review I wrote some articles which were inserted. This was in the latter part of Be men who hold its many blessings dear, The song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, the Seven Sisters, the Affliction of Margaret of possess all the beauties, and few of the defects, of this writer: the following lines from the last are in his first style: "Ah! little doth the young one dream But do not make her love the less." The pieces least worthy of the author are those entitled "Moods of my own Mind." We certainly wish these "Moods" had been less frequent, or not permitted to occupy a place near works which only make their deformity more obvious; when Mr. W. ceases to please, it is by" abandoning ' "his mind to the most commonplace ideas, at the same time clothing them in language not simple, but puerile. What will any reader or auditor, out of the nursery, say to such namby-pamby as "Lines written at the Foot of Brother's Bridge?" "The cock is crowing, The stream is flowing, The lake doth glitter. The green field sleeps in the sun; The oldest and youngest, Are at work with the strongest; The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising, There are forty feeding like one. Like an army defeated, The snow hath retreated, And now doth fare ill, On the top of the bare hill.". "The plough-boy is whooping anon, anon," &c. &c. is in the same exquisite measure. This appears to us neither more nor less than an imitation of such minstrelsy as soothed our cries in the cradle, with the shrill ditty of "Hey de diddle, The cat and the fiddle: The cow jump'd over the moon, The little dog laugh'd to see such sport, On the whole, however, with the exception of the above, and other INNOCENT odes of the same cast, we think these volumes display a genius worthy of higher pursuits, and regret that Mr. W. confines his muse to such trifling subjects. We trust his motto will be in future, "Paulo majora canamus.' Many, with inferior abilities, have acquired a loftier seat on Parnassus, merely by attempting strains in which Mr. Wordsworth is more qualified to excel.* * This first attempt of Lord Byron at reviewing is remarkable only as showing how plausibly he could assume the established tone and phraseology of these minor judgmentseats of criticism. If Mr. Wordsworth ever chanced to cast his eye over this article, how little could he have expected that under that dull prosaic mask lurked one who, in five short years from thence, would rival even him in poetry! -MOORE. REVIEW OF GELL'S GEOGRAPHY OF ITHACA, AND ITINERARY OF GREECE. (From the "Monthly Review" for August, 1811.) THAT laudable curiosity concerning the remains of classical antiquity, which has of late years increased among our countrymen, is in no traveller or author more conspicuous than in Mr. Gell. Whatever difference of opinion may yet exist with regard to the success of the several disputants in the famous Trojan controversy *, or, indeed, relating to the present author's merits as an inspector of the Troad, it must universally be acknowledged that any work, which more forcibly impresses on our imaginations the scenes of heroic action, and the subjects of immortal song, possesses claims on the attention of every scholar. Of the two works which now demand our report, we conceive the former to be by far the most interesting to the reader, as the latter is indisputably the most serviceable to the traveller. Excepting, indeed, the running commentary which it contains on a number of extracts from Pausanias and Strabo, it is, as the title imports, a mere itinerary of Greece, or rather of Argolis only, in its present circumstances. This being the case, surely it would have answered every purpose of utility much better by being printed as a pocket road-book of that part of the Morea; for a quarto is a very unmanageable travelling companion. The maps + and *We have it from the best authority that the venerable leader of the Anti-Homeric sect, Jacob Bryant, several years. before his death, expressed regret for his ungrateful attempt to destroy some of the most pleasing associations of our youthful studies. One of his last wishes was- "Trojaque nunc stares," &c. Or, rather, Map; for we have only one in the volume, and that is on too small a scale to give more than a general |