No. 920.] OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. VOL. XXXII. THE STATUE OF EARL GREY, NEWCASTLE. X [PRICE 2d. THE STATUE OF EARL GREY, ON THE ABACUS OF THE DORIC COLUMN, NEWCASTLE. THIS statue, executed by E. H. Bailey, Esq., R. A., represents the Noble Earl in a standing position, attired in his robes of state. It was placed upon the column which had been built to receive it, August 24th, 1838. The bells of the churches ringing a merry peal, which was continued at intervals during the day. The height of the column to the top of the figure is 133 feet, and the diameter of the shaft, 9 feet 11 inches. The order of the architecture is Roman Doric, and, like all Doric columns, has no base: there is a staircase, consisting of 164 steps to the top of the abacus of the capital, from which there is a fine panoramic view of the town and the surrounding country. The column was prepared after a design by Messrs. John and Benjamin Green, of Newcastle. The statue is a faithful representation of the noble lord,—and esteemed a fine imaginative work of art. It is gratifying to witness the increase, of late years, of public columns in England, in honour of men eminent for their talent, their virtues, or their bravery; among them may be mentioned the Anglesey column, erected in commemoration of the battle of Waterloo and the noble earl of that name, in the island of Anglesey. The column at Shrewsbury, erected in commemoration of the same event and of another noble general, Lord Hill. The Nelson columns at Yarmouth and in Dublin. The Wellington column at Trim, in the county of Meath, Ireland, &c. The British parliament, when they voted the magnificent palace of Blenheim to the great Duke of Marlborough, also erected a triumphal column in the park, and his statue is upon the abacus, supported by figures of eaptured enemies, and surrounded by trophies. There is a colossal statue now erecting to the memory of the late Duke of Sutherland, at Benraggie, in Scotland; and another will shortly embellish the town of Edinburgh, in honour of Sir Walter Scott. In the most ancient times, says Mr. Elmes, columns of wood were the most usual, as being the most practicable. In countries like Egypt, where timber fit for their construction is scarce, and stone abundant, the latter became the principal material for columns. The Greeks used marbles of the finest kind for their columns, with which their country abounded. Columns are also often used for monuments as well as for architectural supports; like the Trajan and Antonine columns at Rome, and that called the monument at London. Rome, which abounded in columns, had astronomical, chronological, funeral, zoophoric, heraldric, commemorative, and various other columns.-The most ancient column in Great Britain is the one near the Valle Crucis Abbey, North Wales. MORNING.-A FRAGMENT. THE morn is mild, and like a child at play Enchanting mau with its sweet carolling: Whilst countless insects morning anthems sing; And everything is blest; whilst majesty Is crested on each flower, is seen in earth and sky. A low dim sound is heard—a speechless hum Comes flitting by upon the joyous air; Which speaks that though the orators are dumb, Yet still they love to greet the morning fair: Sly reynard wanders from his secret lair; Who could be silent on so glad a morn? Fit day to smooth the heavy brow of care, And bid the sluggard wander where the corn Is smiling like some face of beauty newly born! E. J. HYTCH. TO A SPARROW CAUGHT IN MY HALL, } (From the German of Bürger.) Good day, my Lord!-Look at him well! And fly about ou every side, I have the power to do with thee: And scare thee o'er the room. Sh! sh! No! no! no tyranny for me! Tait's Edinburgh Magazine. OLD POETRY. (For the Mirror.) By HENRY INNES, Esq., Lecturer on Poetry, &c. WHEN We look back to the early history of any nation, we uniformly find that the first development of genius is in song. All science requires initiatory study and preparation; but poetry is the overboiling of the natural passions, or of the fancy, in the admiration of beauty, or in the contemplation of what is grand in the external world, or heroic in action. Confining ourselves to Britain, we find the ancient Welsh,-we find them with their Merlin, their Lewarch, their Meilor, and their Taliessin, breathing songs, full of passion and patriotism, inciting the wavering to battle, and scattering the incense of praise over the ashes of departed worth. The works of the early Scottish poets of the hills in part remain; but the names of those who produced them have long ago perished in oblivion. The more we peruse these exquisite effusions of nature, the more does art suffer in our estimation. Truly are these "The voices of the dead, and songs of other years." To these relics of the olden days succeeded the poetry, provoked by the impetus of chivalry; and as knights fought, bards multiplied. Yet of the ancient chroniclers how few specimens are preserved, and how little even in these specimens is worthy of preservation. During these early times, letters were confined to a few; ballad-makers and beggars were synonymous; and several English statutes were enacted, in which the former were classed with vagabonds and sturdy mendicants. In an old ballad, of the time of Elizabeth, there occurs the following : "When Jesus came to Jairus house, He turned the minstrels out of doors; It is owing to this circumstance that the anonymity of almost the whole of the splendid old ballads is owing; for almost on no other ground is it accountable, that these beautiful outpourings of natural genius should have been left in separation from the name of him to whom they owed their birth. To oral tradition may be readily imputed the cause of the various readings and texts which so many of them present. Indeed, it is much to be feared that, had another century been allowed to elapse, by far the greater number of them must have been lost. For, notwithstanding the diffusion of the typographical art, not a few of the most touching and beautiful among them were taken in our day from the lips of old people, with whom they must certainly have perished. The following beautiful ballad is offered to our readers, divested of those peculiarities of diction with which antiquity clogs some of the brightest gems in the coronet of Bri. tish poesy : EARTHLY JOY RETURNS IN PAIN. In early Lent, when sought his way O man! remember that thou must Since earthly joy abideth never, All earthly joy returns in pain. tive muses languished in England throughWhile, in the fifteenth century, the na out several reigns, the annals of Scotland were illustrated by some of the brightest names that the early poetry of the country can boast. The chief of these was William Dunbar, born at Salton, in East Lothian, about 1465. He became a noviciate of the Franciscan order, and travelled into England and France. The moral vigour and tenderness of Dunbar are even more remarkable than the fertility and beauty of his invention, when the period at which he wrote is considered. His diction far outstrips the age in force and happiness, and his phraseology is singularly copious and free. DUNBAR'S DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS THROUGH HELL, is a bold and spirited sketch of the personified vices, mixing the comic with the grotesque and horrible, in a manner more wild than agreeable. It was Addison who, in the Spectator, first turned popular attention to the beauties of our ballad poetry, in his fine analysis of "Chevy Chase," that admirable heroic old strain, which Sir Philip Sydney was wont to say, roused his heart like the sound of a trumpet. A collection of the fugitive poetry of the Elizabethan age would, at this era of our literature, be not only very curious, but very valuable. It would open up to us the popular chamels of thought, and many of the peculiarities of the public mind. In the early times of all, it is only the giant mind which can overcome the multiform barriers about it, and exhibit its elevation above temporary mediocrity, by the outpouring of song, "which will not die :" it is otherwise in days of civilization and refinement. It is only the gigantic effort which achieves the summit of Parnassus; but there are multitudes of clamberers along its shelving sides and flowery slopes, whose minds are characterized by elegance and taste, rather than by originality and vigour. The following little lyric we transcribed some years ago: there is a wild sweetness in it worthy of preservation,- but who its author is we cannot say. BALLAD. Wake, all you dead! what ho! what ho! On the decks of the world, in the storms of love, No whisper there, no glance can pass In every grave, make room, make room, The state is now Love's foe, Love's foe, But oh! sad chance-the judge was old, Lovers go woo the dead, the dead, Lie two in a grave, and to bed-to bed. The exquisite tenderness, and delightful simplicity of these old ballads, which seem to breathe the feelings of poetry in the glow of its first love, have never been equalled; the frolic grace, and Anacreontic vivacity of some of the older English lyrics, have not been surpassed in what we call polished times. As Mr. Johnston observes, in his "Lyrical Specimens," "In the first era of English poetry, the expression, the diction, the music, the structure of the verse, all we mean by style and art in execution, were as much the creation of our greatest poets, as were their fictions, thoughts, and images. The one was without prototype, the other without model." The triumph of art in our early poets-if art it can be called-was overpowered by creative genius. They acknowledged no ordinary rule, they bowed to no tyranny of criticism,in fact, they knew no tribunal of criticism; - their thoughts were not fashioned like other men's, as the aim is now-a-days-but they were such as did Voluntary move harmonious numbers. This was the secret of their art of poetry :unhappily it is incommunicable. THE sixteenth century must universally bé allowed to have brought about a very mate rial and all important change in the scientific annals of Great Britain; and in the number of celebrated mathematicians and philoso phers which it produced, to have far exceeded the productions of any previous period, parti. of such distinguished men as Dr. John Dee, cularly while we behold in its list, the names Saville, and Thomas Allen, the subject of our Harriot, Warner, Nathaniel Torporley, Henry memoir. Mr. Thomas Allen, the "Coriphæus" of the mathematicians of his time, was born on the day of St. Thomas the Apostle, A.D. 1542, at Uttoxeter, in Staffordshire, being a descendant of Henry Allen, or Alan, Lord of the Manor of Buckenhall, in the same county. He was, to use the language of Anthony Wood, in his "Atheniæ Oxonensis," the "Father of all learning and virtuous industry, an unfeigned lover and furtherer of all good arts and sciences;" in fact, he may with justice be considered as one of the brightest constellations of the scientific world in which he lived. His talents for literature were soon developed, and occasioned his being sent to Trinity College, Oxford, where he was admitted, as appears from the register, June 4th, A.D. 1561. This was the field in which his distinguished merit was to meet with its due reward; and in the year 1565 he was made a 1567. He had a singular aversion to taking fellow of his college, and a master of arts in holy orders, but his greatest pleasure consisted in the retirement and solitude of a life little better than that of a hermit. And here let me remark, on looking over the page of history, how many men of such transcendant powers of mind, have devoted themselves to entering at once upon the immense arena of a gloomy, secluded mode of living, instead of the world, where those splendid talents might meet with that applause and encouragement they so undoubtedly merited; and yet this is hardly to be regretted when we consider, that if they had mingled more in the society of their fellow-men, they would not have had remain imdelible monuments of their fame to leisure for perfecting those works which now posterity. Thomas Allen, in this spirit of seclusion, But to return to my subject; left his fellowship and College about the year 1570, and retired to Gloucester Hall, where he made deep researches in mathematics, antiquities, and philosophy, the fame of which gained him the patronage of several eminent literary characters, by whom his company and friendship was eagerly desired. When Albertus L'Askie, Prince of Sirade, in Poland, came to England in 1583, he requested Mr. Allen to accompany him to his native land, offering him at the same time all the ease and luxury which he could procure him. But these inducements did not prevail upon him to quit that retirement in which he had ever found such delights. He soon after became acquainted with Henry Earl of Northumberland, and Robert Earl of Leicester, the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, who exerted themselves greatly for his promotion. The latter would have created him a bishop, but for his refusal to accept that honour; and it is said that no persons lived on such intimate terms with the Earl as Mr. Thomas Allen and Dr. John Dee; two individuals who will reflect a lasting ray of glory on the age in which they lived. Great men are, however, seldom free from calumnies, and so it proved with Allen, for there were many who consi. dered him as nothing better than a conjuror; entitled "Leicester's Commonwealth," says, on which account the author of the work that those (whom he styles Atheists,) used the art of figuring and conjuring in order to facilitate the Earl's wicked and unlawful designs. But the efforts of malevolence did not effect much against the character of a man whose reputation was so firmly established, and whose merit was so universally known. It is very certain that Mr. Allen was the right hand and principal assistant of the Earl while he was at the University; in fact, no affair of weight or importance was carried on there without previously asking his advice and opinion. Among his numerous friends and acquaintances, we find the names of Bodley, Saville, Camden, Cotton, Spelman, &c., who all respected his worth, and admired his learning. It would be impossible here to enter into any further detail of his various labours in the paths of literature; suffice it to say, that after a life devoted to the pursuit of learning, he died September 30th, A.D. 1632, and was interred in the chapel of Trinity College, Oxford. A funeral oration to his memory was spoken at the grave by Mr. Burton, and speech by Mr. George Bathurst. He gave a portrait of himself to the master of his College, one to the Cottonian Library, and one to Dr. Clayton, of Pembroke College, whose son, Sir Thomas, afterwards became its posIn his lifetime he collected a great quantity of MS.S., which he bequeathed to Sir Kenelm Digby, who afterwards presented them to the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, where they are now preserved. T. J. sessor. OUR NATIONAL LITERATURE. No. VI. (For the Mirror.) THE same age in England was the most scientific, the most learned, and the most poetical that has occurred since the revival of letters, namely, the age of Elizabeth. Poetry sprang at once into life; in all the maturity of manhood, as in Italy under the genius of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. But in Italy all the fine arts, Painting particularly, sprang into existance also:-why did they not do so likewise in England? The answer is obvious: the art arose amongst us, when the great protector and promoter of it fell, namely, the Roman Catholic Church. Yes, poetry, painting, and the fine arts generally, enjoyed a day of glory, which still irradiates its present degradation. In England, howbroke the chain of superstition; and gave enduever, its more favoured inhabitants struggled, and by the blessing of Divine Providence, rance to those principles, civil and religious, in comparison of which, poetry, painting, and the like, are as the dust in one scale against the massive ingot which weighs down the other in the balance. Of the contemporaries of Shakspeare, Massinger approached him in dignity: Beaumont and Fletcher rivalled him in depicting female character; and Ben Jonson excelled him in learning and erudition. Shakspeare's genius and Jonson's acquirements, raised the literature of the stage to dignity and perfection. Jonson first practised, and inculcated the dramatic canons; which by his influence were adopted. Unlike the "child of nature" and giant of his age, Jonson came, as Dryden in his prologue expresses it, "Instructed from the school To please by method and invent by rule: Cold approbation gave the lingering lays, For they who durst not censure, scarce could praise." Until the stage was suppressed by the Puritans, the drama continued to be cultivated, as the most popular species of literature, in the works of Ford, Marston, Shirley, and many others, some named before. Another poet requires to be disposed of, and mentioned with all becoming reverence and delight: the Author of the Faery Queen, one of the most charming poems in our language. No writer ever found a readier way to the heart and the affections than did Spenser; and no writer has such power as he possesses, in awakening the spirit of poetry in others. Several of our bards have acknowledged their personal inspiration to have been generated at the font of Spenser's genius;-as Cowley, Thomson, and others. With the author of the Faery Queen, the world is a vast scene of enchantment; and every object in nature is ethereal. "He paints nature," says Thomas Campbell, "not as we find it, but as we expected to find |