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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:

Be men who hold its many blessings dear,
Wise, upright, valiant, not a venal band,
Who are to judge of danger which they fear,
And honour which they do not understand."

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
When full of play and childish cares,
What power hath e'en his wildest scream,
Heard by his mother unawares :
He knows it not, he cannot guess:
Years to a mother bring distress,
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 small birds twitter,
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,
And the dish ran away with the spoon."

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 drawings, we shall be told, would not permit such an arrangement: but as to the drawings, they are not in general to be admired as specimens of the art; and several of them, as we have been assured by eye-witnesses of the scenes which they describe, do not compensate for their mediocrity in point of execution, by any extraordinary fidelity of representation. Others, indeed, are more faithful, according to our informants. The true reason, however, for this costly mode of publication is in course to be found in a desire of gratifying the public passion for large margins, and all the luxury of typography; and we have before expressed our dissatisfaction with Mr. Gell's aristocratical mode of communicating a species of knowledge, which ought to be accessible to a much greater portion of classical students than can at present acquire it by his means: - but, as such expostulations are generally useless, we shall be thankful for what we can obtain, and that in the manner in which Mr. Gell has chosen to present it.

The former of these volumes, we have observed, is the most attractive in the closet. It comprehends a very full survey of the far-famed island which the hero of the Odyssey has immortalized; for we really are inclined to think that the author has established the identity of the modern Theaki with the Ithaca of Homer. At all events, if it be an illusion, it is a very agreeable deception, and is effected by an ingenious interpretation of the passages in Homer that are supposed to be descriptive of the scenes which our traveller has visited. We shall extract some of these adaptations of the ancient picture to the modern scene, marking the points of resemblance which appear to be strained and forced, as well as those which are more easy and natural: but we must first insert some preliminary matter from the opening chapter.