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Glorious at first, but lessening by the way,
And lost insensibly in higher day."

"The smiling star, that lights the world to rest,
Walk'd in the rosy gardens of the west,

Like Eve erewhile, through Eden's blooming bowers,
A lovelier star amidst a heaven of flowers."

"From the east the moon with doubtful gleams
Now tipp'd the hills, now glanced athwart the streams;
Till, darting through the clouds her beauteous eye,
She open'd all the temple of the sky."

-"Oft o'er these cliffs the transient storm

And partial darkness lower,

While yonder summits far away

Shine sweetly through the gloom,
Like glimpses of eternal day
Beyond the tomb."

In like manner, the charms and enjoyments of domestic life acquire a new and nameless endearment, when consecrated by religion; and the cause of liberty assumes additional dignity from the express interposition of the God of Justice in its behalf. And even where the effect of an habitual communion with religious thoughts and feelings is not thus palpable, it may be discerned in its collateral manifestations, pervading the whole of the writer's moral system, and diffusing a visible purity and benevolence wherever it extends. Even his melancholy seems transmuted by its influence; deep and perennial as its springs appear to be, it never darkens into despondence or repining; the spirit of hope, and thankfulness, and humble rejoicing, is perpetually breaking forth through the incumbent gloom,

"Turning the dusky veil

Into a substance glorious as her own."

We are reminded of Cowper's description of David in the Wilderness :

"Hear the sweet accents of his tuneful voice,

Hear him, o'erwhelm'd with sorrow, yet rejoice';
No womanish or wailing grief has part,

No, not a moment in his royal heart;
'Tis manly music, such as martyrs make,
Suffering with gladness for a Saviour's sake."

Whether these advantages may not be counterpoised by features of a different nature; whether the influence of this particular system may not be such as to produce an habitual timidity of mind, unfavourable to the full developement of the faculties; or whether, from a certain austerity and over-scrupulousness, it may not circumscribe the poet unnecessarily in his choice of subjects, and hang a dead weight upon his imagination; are points which I do not feel myself qualified to discuss, and which, indeed, I have not time to enter upon; although they form part, as I think, of a curious and interesting subject.

I had prepared to survey the poems before me in various other points of view; my time, however, allows me only to advert in general to what I have more than once noticed already, the noble tenor of his sentiments, in which he has proved himself no unworthy successor of the eminent reformer in poetry and poetical morals, with whom I have in some respects compared him. He has truly said of himself,

No! to the generous Bard belong
Diviner themes and purer song:
-To hail Religion from above,
Descending in the form of Love,
And pointing through a world of strife
The narrow way that leads to life:
-To pour the balm of heavenly rest
Through Sorrow's agonizing breast;
With Pity's tender arms embrace
The orphans of a kindred race;
And in one zone of concord bind
The lawless spoilers of mankind :

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These are the Bard's sublimest views,
The angel-visions of the Muse,

That o'er his morning slumbers shine;

These are his themes,—and these were mine."

Mr. Montgomery's first publication, "The Wanderer of Switzerland," was written to commemorate the gallant resistance of the Swiss patriots to the aggressions of revolutionary France; and is an instance of that true consistency, common to our author with many greater men, who, like him, were in early youth seduced into an acquiescence in the great delusion of the world.

With this poem I am not ashamed to own myself almost totally unacquainted; having perused it at an age when I was incapable of understanding its beauties, and having never since re-perused it. From my indistinct recollections, however, and the opinions of others, I gather that it was brilliant, animated, and enthusiastic, overflowing with high-wrought sentiment and youthful tenderness, and all the luxuriances of heart and intellect, which characterize the productions of a poet whose genius is not yet fully developed. The "Edinburgh Review" entitled it a mixture of the epic, lyric, and dramatic :" this is a description which would more aptly apply to Milman's

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Samor;" it is certain, however, that Montgomery's strong lyrical propensities, as in the case of Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming," gave a tinge to his narrative style. As a lyrical writer, indeed, he is superior to almost all his contemporaries. Of this the poems annexed to the "Wanderer of Switzerland" give signal proofs;

to these, however, as to the work itself, I can only at present refer my readers.

His next poem, "The West Indies," was written on occasion of the abolition of the Slave-trade. This work will be best characterized by observing, that those who read it with the express purpose of being pleased will be greatly disappointed, but that if read as a task, it will afford them much gratification; seeing that the pleasures which we meet with in the performing of a laborious duty, are to us so much clear gain, and have accordingly the more effect. Its great deficiency is a want of plan, and a consequent want of interest: it has less the air of a system than of a succession of parts. Its descriptions are brilliant, its language glowing even to extravagance, and its sentiments generous, though perhaps tinged slightly with ultra-philanthropy. The poems annexed to it are among his most beautiful compositions. The "Harp of Sorrow," somewhat resembling in the thought the first of the Anacreontic Odes, and which is equally appropriate as a preface to the rest, is a fine expression of individual feeling. We extract two stanzas on the Æolian harp:

"Thus o'er the light Æolian lyre

The winds of dark November stray,
Touch the quick nerve of every wire,
And on its magic pulses play;-

Till all the air around,

Mysterious murmurs fill,

A strange bewildering dream of sound,

Most heavenly sweet,-yet mournful still."

I must also recommend to my readers an exquisite little piece entitled, " A Walk in Spring;" "The Dial;" "Bolehill Trees;" a fine ballad on the Loss of the Britannia; and a poem on the death of a young lady, who, in her last illness, had been soothed by the perusal of his poems. One of these pieces, "The Molehill,"

bears a strong resemblance, in the idea, to a piece of Barry Cornwall's, called "The Dream:" in each the poet calls up, in imagination, the forms and scenes in past history, on which his mind has been accustomed to dwell; and the contrast is curious. One surveys the "mighty past" through a medium like that of a cheerful and lightsome summer morning; to the other, the view seems overshaded by a calm and gentle twilight. One calls up the shades of olden love, and beauty, and mirth, the wood nymphs, and youthful gods, and festive monarchs, and heroes who lost all the world for love: the other evokes the legislators, and patriots, and inventors, and poets of old time; and if he deviates from his own course it is in his own way :

"With moonlight softness Helen's charms
Break through the spectred gloom."

The one, when once his vision of life, and joy, and beauty is broken by a sound of terror, wakes and sleeps no more; his view is bounded by the sprightly and happy world before him: the other, as the vision of the tomb" dissolves, looks beyond-his thoughts revert to his own immortal hopes and fears, and he concludes in a strain of pensive hope and humble triumph.

The "World before the Flood" is, we think, the first of Montgomery's performances. The subject is happy; it is connected with high and beautiful associations; the age of the patriarchs, as has been well observed, is one golden age; the beau idéal of simplicity and happiness ; and the spirit of gentleness and affection which the poet has breathed through all his delineations of the domestic life of the patriarchs, imparts to them a beauty which, in its kind, I know not that I have seen equalled. Southey sometimes approaches to it. The Second Canto, in particular, is one piece of chaste and delicious magic

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