'Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, 66 Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden boreTill the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden boreOf Never-nevermore."" But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing She shall press, ah, nevermore! 'Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor. Respite-respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore! 6.66 Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!-prophet still, if bird or devil!— Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchantedOn this home by Horror haunted-tell me truly, I implore Is there is there balm in Gilead?-tell me tell me, I implore!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore.” "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil-prophet still, if bird or devil! "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!-quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." 'And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming; And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted-nevermore!' 6 We do not propose to enter into the accuracy of the numerous investigations which Mr. Poe appears to have instituted into the publications of his brother and sister authors. To say the truth, we do not estimate his powers as a critic very highly. His essays on Criticism were, we imagine, written on the spur of the moment, without much consideration, and were more than sufficiently imbued with those prejudices with which he was so apt, we are told, to view the works of contemporary writers. Some of his essays are very slight and brief; some flippant; some distinguishable for that remarkable power of analysis which he carried into all his productions. His review of Barnaby Rudge,' in the third volume of this collection, is an extraordinary instance of his subtle and discriminating research into the very elements of fiction. It is impossible to trace out with greater nicety the very germ of a plot, and the finest artifices of invention. But here the interest of Edgar Poe's criticisms stops: few of them enter into the question of the peculiar genius of the author reviewed, of the class to which he belongs, of the way in which education and events have moulded him, of his habits or every day life, or of those impulses or physical circumstances which have impelled his intellect to assume that particular shape in which it presents itself before the world. Without entering into some such considerations, the critic can scarcely place his author fairly on his pedestal. We feel, even in the case of Mr. Poe, that it would have been most desirable if a fuller biography had accompanied his works. Honest and able, as far as it goes, and glancing upon the more prominent events of his life, it leaves us without information on many matters from which much might have been gathered to form an accurate judgment. Perhaps we are, after all, copying the deformities only of the man, at a time when we are anxious to submit all that was good as well as bad to the reader's judgment. The roughnesses that were so conspicuous on the surface of Poe's character would naturally attract the notice of his biographers in the first instance. But, underneath, was there nothing to tell of? -no cheeriness in the boy-no casual acts of kindness no adhesion to old friendships no sympathy with the poor or the unhappy, that might have been brought forward as indicative of his better nature? Even he himself has done nothing to help us. His sketches and stories are singularly deficient in all reference to his own private life. It is strange that a man who did and suffered so much should have left nothing for the historian's hands! The petty acts are indeed before us, but perhaps the greatest is behind. For no man is thoroughly evil. There must be slumbering virtues-good intentions undeveloped, even good actions, claiming to have a place on the record. Generosity, sympathy, charity have often their abodes in lowly and unexpected places in poor, thoughtless, humble bosoms - in the hearts of those who have deeply sinned. - 6 The influence of his faults was limited, and the penalty (such as it was) he only had to bear. But the pleasure arising from his writings has been shared by many thousand people. In speaking of himself personally, we have felt bound to express our opinions without any subterfuge. But we are not insensible that, whilst he grasped and pressed hardly on some individuals with one hand, with the other he scattered his gifts in abundance on the public. These gifts are by no means of a common order, and on balancing the account of the author with posterity, he ought to have credit for their full value. 6 Fortunately for Edgar Poe, his personal history will be less read, and will be more short-lived than his fictions, which will probably pass into many hands, unaccompanied by the narrative of his personal exploits. For one reader who carefully weighs the actions of an author's life, there are a hundred who plunge into the midst of his works without any previous inquiry. The sempstress revelling in The Mysteries of Udolpho' neither knows nor cares anything about the comfortable, domestic Mrs. Radcliffe. And the young man, intent on cheering his leisure hour with the adventures of Mrs. Amelia Booth, or Mr. Abraham Adams, has never heard perhaps that Henry Fielding (the noblest member of the house of Denbigh) was as often reduced to shifts as one of his own heroes, and that he died poor, and in a foreign land. ART. VI.-Speeches on Social and Political Subjects, with Historical Introductions. By HENRY LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S. 2 vols. 12mo. London and Glasgow: 1857. per MANY are the claims of Lord Brougham upon the respect and gratitude of his countrymen; and many are the titles by which he will be known to posterity. As a philanthropist his name is imperishably associated with those of Clarkson and Wilberforce in their efforts for the suppression of the Slave trade, and he has given the chief impulse to the great cause of the Education of the people. As a statesman, he has taken a leading part in counselling and carrying some of the most important political measures of the nineteenth century. As an advocate whose zeal for his client scorned consideration of sonal advancement, he will be known, if for nothing else, yet for his immortal defence of Queen Caroline. As a lawyer, his name is inscribed in the list of Lord High Chancellors of England, and he bounded to that lofty dignity from the ranks of the Bar, without having previously filled one of the subordinate law offices of the Crown. As a legislator, the country owes to his perseverance some of the most important improvements in her civil laws, and we allude more especially to the radical changes that have been effected in the law of Evidence. He is not only a great speaker, but an able writer, as our own century of volumes will testify; not only a politician, who has fought like a gladiator for fifty years in the arena of party strife, but a man of letters, and a mathematician of no mean attainments. We remember when it was the fashion for those who cannot conceive the possibility of excellence in more than one department of knowledge, to sneer at Lord Brougham as no lawyer.' But this is best answered by the fact, that in hardly a single instance were his judgments in the Court of Chancery reversed on appeal by the House of Lords; and we will venture to say, that although there have been lawyers like Buller, and Holroyd, and Bayley and Littledale, more versed in the technicalities of their craft and the mysteries of special pleading an abomination now well-nigh swept away, few have been more profoundly imbued with the principles of the Common Law. Rare, indeed, have been the examples of an intellect so vigorous and active. His energy throughout life has been astounding; and even now, at a period which in other men would be called old age, it shows little sign of diminution or decay. Mentally, his eye is not dim, nor his natural strength abated; for he still prosecutes the cause of Law Reform with an ardour which might put to shame the efforts of younger men; and year after year he presses upon the Legislature measures of which the object is to simplify the machinery, and lessen to the suitor the costs of our courts of justice. We do not intend to go over the wide field which a life so spent presents; but we propose in the present article to confine our attention to Lord Brougham as an Orator. It is by his speeches that his influence was most felt in the generation now fading from amongst us, and by them, more than anything else, his colossal reputation has been built. Although there is, unhappily, something evanescent in those great efforts of the human tongue which have so often roused and ruled the passions and the intellect of the senate and the nation, their results belong to history, and Lord Brougham will leave no monument behind him more worthy to be held in lasting remembrance than these Orations. For he has laboured to become a master in his art, and we see in the arrangement of his topics, the structure of his periods, and the choice of his language, the skill, and in its proper sense, the artifice, of the consummate rhetorician. Upon the subject of oratory a lamentable misapprehension seems to prevail, and we are not sorry to have an opportunity of saying a few words about it. No one can deny that eloquence at the Bar and in Parliament is just now at a low ebb. It is often positively painful to enter a court of justice and hear the addresses to which juries are condemned to listen, from men who occupy the place where once stood an Erskine and a Brougham. No doubt there have been of late years brilliant exceptions, but we do not hesitate to say, that the general character of forensic oratory at the present day is far below what might be expected from the education, the opportunities, and the intellectual vigour of the age. Nor is the state of things much better in the House of Commons. We do not of course expect that a country gentleman should be a good speaker because he has carried the county; nor that merchants or railway directors should study Demosthenes in their counting-houses, and come forth as orators as soon as they have been returned for a borough; but how few of the practised debaters of the House ever rise to anything which approaches to the name of oratory, how few are able to realise the idea of one whom Cicero describes: qui jure non solum disertus sed etiam eloquens dici possit! It has indeed been the custom of late to decry oratorical powers, as tending rather to dazzle and mislead than instruct and edify; and to praise the |