antithesis as a counterpart to Heaven. He was, in truth, not so sick of life as of missing its preferments, and was still ambitious not only of converting Lorenzo, but of shining before this utterly worthless and wretched world as a sparkling, sublime and witty poet. Hence his poetry has not the majestic simplicity of a heart abstracted from human vanities, and, while the groundwork of his sentiments is more darkly shaded than is absolutely necessary either for poetry or religion, the surface of his expression glitters with irony and satire, and with thoughts sometimes absolutely approaching to pleasantry. His ingenuity in the false sublime is very peculiar. In Night IX. he concludes his description of the day of judgment by showing the just and the unjust consigned respectively to their "sulphureous or ambrosial seats,' while "Hell through all her glooms Returns in groans a melancholy roar." This is aptly put under the book of Consolation. But, instead of winding up his labors, he proceeds through a multitude of reflections, and amidst many comparisons assimilates the constellations of heaven to gems of immense weight and value on a ring for the finger of their Creator. Conceit could hardly go farther than to ascribe finery to Omnipotence. The taste of the French artist was not quite so bold when, in the picture of Belshazzar's feast, he put a ring and ruffle on the hand that was writing on the wall. Here, however, he was in earnest, comparatively, with some other passages-such as that in which he likens Death to Nero driving a phaeton in a female guise, or where he describes the same personage, Death, borrowing the "cockaded brow of a spendthrift" in order to gain admittance to "a a gay circle." Men, with the same familiarity, are compared to monkeys before a looking-glass, and at the end of the eighth book Satan is roundly denominated a "dunce "-the first time, perhaps, that his abilities were ever seriously called in question. Shall we agree with Dr. Johnson when he affirms of the Night Thoughts that particular lines are not to be regarded, that the power is in the whole and that in the whole there is a magnificence like that which is ascribed to a Chinese plantation-the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity? Of a Chinese plantation few men have, probably, a very distinct conception, but, unless that species of landscape be an utterly capricious show of objects-in which case even extent and variety will hardly possess magnificence-it must possess amusement and vicissitude arising from the relation of parts to each other. But there is nothing of entertaining succession of parts in the Night Thoughts; the poem excites no anticipation as it proceeds. One book bespeaks no impatience for another, nor is found to have laid the smallest foundation for new pleasure when the succeeding Night sets in. The poet's fancy discharges itself on the mind in short ictuses of surprise which rather lose than increase their force by reiteration, but he is remarkably defective in progressive interest and collective effect. The power of the poem, instead of being in the whole, lies in short, vivid and broken gleams of genius; so that, if we disregard particular lines, we shall but too often miss the only gems of ransom which the poet can bring as the price of his relief from surrounding tedium. Of any long work where the character really lies in the whole we feel reluctant When final Ruin fiercely drives to hazard the character by a few short quota- | tinguished, however far it may be from vivitions, because a few fragments can convey no fying the entire mass of his poetry. Many adequate idea of the architecture; but the di- and exquisite are his touches of sublime exrectly reverse of this is the case with the Night pression, of profound reflection and of striking Thoughts, for by selecting particular beauties imagery. It is recalling but a few of these of the poem we should delight and electrify a to allude to his description, in the eighth sensitive reader, but might put him to sleep book, of the man whose thoughts are not of by a perusal of the whole. This character this world, to his simile of the traveller at the of detached felicities unconnected with inter- opening of the ninth book, to his spectre of the esting progress or reciprocal animation of parts antediluvian world, and to some parts of his may be likened to a wilderness without path very unequal description of the conflagration; or perspective—or to a Chinese plantation, if above all, to that noble and familiar image, the illustration be more agreeable-but it does not correspond with our idea of the magnificence of a great poem of which it can be said that the power is in the whole. After all, the variety and extent of reflection in the Night Thoughts is, to a certain degree, inore imposing than real. They have more metaphorical than substantial variety of thought. Questions which we had thought exhausted and laid at rest in one book are called up again in the next in a Proteus metamorphosis of shape and a chameleon diversity of color. Happily, the awful truths which they illustrate are few and simple. Around these truths the poet directs his course with innumerable sinuosities of fancy, like a man appearing to make a long voyage, while he is in reality only crossing and recrossing the same expanse of water. He has been well described in a late poem as one in whom "Still gleams and still expires the cloudy day Of genuine poetry." The above remarks have been made with no desire to depreciate what is genuine in his beauties. The reader most sensitive to his faults must have felt that there is in him a spark of originality which is never long ex It is true that he seldom, if ever, maintains a flight of poetry long free from oblique associations, but he has individual passages which Philosophy might make her texts and Experience select for her mottoes. THOMAS CAMPBELL. [Young was born at Upham, Hampshire, England, in 1684. He received his education at Winchester School and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He obtained a law-fellowship at All Souls' College, Oxford, and in 1719 took the degree of Doctor of Laws at that institution. didate for Parliament at Cirencester, but He was a can He took orders in the Church of England in 1727, was appointed a royal chaplain in 1728, and in 1731 married a daughter of the earl of Lichfield, whom he survived, her death occurring in 1741. Besides Night Thoughts, he was author of several successful satires and dramas and of some volumes of political essays. He died at Welwyn, Hertfordshire, on the 12th of April, 1765.] failed to receive sufficient votes to elect him. WILLIAM FALCONER. ALCONER was born in Edin- | poem, which is just a colored photograph of the adventures, difficulties, dangers and disastrous result of the voyage. In 1751 we find him living in Edinburgh and publishing his first poem; this was an elegy on the death of Frederick, prince of Wales. It was followed by other pieces, which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine. Some have claimed for him the authorship of the favorite seasong "Cease, Rude Boreas," but this seems uncertain. burgh in the year 1736.* He was the son of a poor barber in the Netherbow who had two other children, both deaf and dumb, who ended their days in a poorhouse. He early, through frequent visits to Leith, came in contact with that tremendous element which he was to sing so powerfully, and in which he was to sink at last—which was to give him at once his glory and his grave. While a mere boy he went, by his own achis own account, reluctantly on board a Leith merchant-ship, and was afterward in the royal navy. Of his early education or habits very little is known. He had all his scholarship from one Webster. We figure him (after the similitude of a dear lost sailor-boy, a relative of our own) as a stripling with curling hair, ruddy cheek, form prematurely developed into round robustness, frank, free and manly bearing, returning ever and anon from his ocean-wanderings and bearing to his friends some rare bird or shell of the tropics as a memorial of his labors and his love. Before he was eighteen years of age Providence supplied him with the materials whence he was to pile up the monument of his future fame. He became second mate in the ship Britannia, a vessel trading in the Levant. This vessel was shipwrecked off Cape Colonna exactly in the manner described in the * Other authorities place the year of his birth A. D. 1730. Falconer is supposed to have continued in the merchant-service (one of his biographers maintains that he was for some time in the Ramilies, a man-of-war which suffered shipwreck in the Channel) till 1762, when he published his "Shipwreck." This poem was dedicated to the duke of York, who had newly become rear-admiral of the Blue on board the Princess Amelia, attached to the fleet under Sir Edward Hawke. The duke was not a Solomon, but he had sense enough to perceive that the sailor who could produce such a poem was no ordinary man, and generous enough to offer him promotion if he should leave the merchant-service for the royal navy. Falconer, accordingly, was promoted to be a midshipman on board the Royal George (Sir Edward Hawke's ship)—the same, we believe, which afterward went down in such a disastrous manner and furnished a subject for one of Cowper's boldest little poems. "The Shipwreck" was highly commended by the Monthly Review-then the leading literary organ-and became widely popular. While in the Royal George, Falconer con trived to find time for his poetical studies. | Retiring sometimes from his messmates into a small space between the cable-trees and the ship's side, he wrote his "Ode on the Duke of York's Second Departure from England as Rear-Admiral." This poem was severely criticised in the Critical Review. It has certainly much pomp and thundering sound of language and versification, but wants the genuine Pindaric inspiration. At the peace of 1763 the Royal George was paid off, and Falconer became purser of the Glory frigate of thirty-two guns. About this time he married a young lady named Hicks, daughter of a surgeon in Sheernessyard—a lady more distinguished by her mental than her physical qualities. The poet dubbed her in his verses "Miranda." It is hinted that he had some difficulty in procuring her consent to marry him, and was forced to lay regular siege to her in rhyme. At length she capitulated, and the marriage was eminently happy. She survived her husband many years, lived at Bath, and enjoyed a comfortable livelihood on the proceeds of her husband's Marine Dictionary. When the Glory was laid up at Chatham, Commissioner Hanway, brother of the once celebrated Jonas Hanway (whom Dr. Johnson so justly chastised for his diatribe against tea), showed much interest in the pursuits and person of our poet. He even ordered the captain's cabin to be fitted up with every comfort, that Falconer might pursue his studies without expense and with all convenience. Here he brought his Marine Dictionary to a conclusion-a work which had occupied him for years, and which supplied a desideratum in the literature of the profession. Falconer left his cabin-study with its many pleasant accommodations, and became a scribbler-of-all-work in a London garret. Here his existence ran on for a while in an obscure, and probably miserable, current. It is said that Murray, the bookseller, the father of the John Murray, of Albemarle street, wished to take the poet into partnership upon terms of great advantage, but that Falconer, for reasons which are not known, declined the offer. Falconer had undoubtedly thought the sea a hard and sickening profession, but latterly found that writing for the booksellers was a slavery still more abject and unendurable. He resolved once more to embark upon the "melancholy main.” Often as he had hugged its horrors, laid his hand on its mane and narrowly escaped its devouring jaws, he was drawn in again as by the fatal suction of a whirlpool into its power. Perhaps he had imbibed a passion for the sea. At all events, he accepted the office of purser to the Aurora frigate, which was going out to India, and on the 30th of September, 1769, he left England for ever: the Aurora was never heard of more. Some vague rumors, indeed, prevailed of a contradictory character-that she had been burned, that she had foundered in the Mozambique Channel, that she had been cast away on a reef of rocks near Macao, that five persons had been saved from her wreck but nothing certain transpired except that she was lost, and this fine singer of the sea along with her. along with her. Unfortunate Aurora! dawn soon overcast! Unfortunate poet, so speedily removed! It was that fatal and perfidious bark, REV. GEORGE GILFILLAN. |