THE MISCELLANY.

We propose to establish a place of refuge for small ingenious productions. A short poem, an original thought, a good jest, an interesting fact, a new discovery (in science or art), anecdotes (whether in philosophy, biography, natural history, or otherwise), shall all be welcome. We only stipulate that they shall be good. In a word, we mean to provide for the younger children of the Wits and the Muses, and others, who have been immemorially disabled from sheltering their own offspring. The character of our Miscellany will be brevity,-which is the soul of wit, as every body knows. Independently of this, it will of course be very meritorious. We refrain from saying too much in our own behalf, lest our readers should suppose that we intend to do nothing.

Having premised thus much in a general way, we will proceed to our first article.

"

FRIAR BACON.

THIS gentleman (as Mrs. Malaprop would have called him) was remarkable for something more than his Brazen Head:-not that his own head was made of brass: quite the reverse.' He had a hard head, to be sure, and a deep one, and one that contained a great deal of learning. So much indeed of this valuable commodity had he, that he was taken (by the vulgar) for a conjuror. The silly monks of his own order would scarcely admit his works into their libraries. The Pope "liked not his learning," it is said: but kept him many years in prison on a charge of heresy and magic. He lived, however, to the age of 78, and was buried in the Franciscan church at Oxford. -Bacon was a person of great mind and extensive erudition. He wrote on many subjects,-criticism, chemistry, music, astronomy, metaphysics, astrology, logic, moral philosophy, &c.; and he wrote also (though

One of which things lies hid in the bowels

of the earth. (Gold.)
Another in the sea. (Coral.)
The third creeps upon the earth. (The
viper.)

The fourth lives in the air. (Rosemary.)
The fifth is likened to the medicine which

The

The

comes out of the mine of the noble animal. (Supposed to mean human blood.) sixth comes out of the long-lived aniseventh is that whose mine is the plant mal. (Bone of a stag's heart.)

of India. (Lignum aloes.) This is even more mysterious and quite as unsatisfactory as the semianimated phrase (neither a living language nor a dead one), which obscures the merit of our modern prescriptions. But " Vive la Mystére! -what would men's heads or hearts

look like, if they were stripped as

naked as truth?

he did not believe in what is called the elixir vita) on the "cure of old age, and the preservation of youth." The reader, who is not acquainted with the jealous and ignorant folly of those times, will scarcely credit When Bacon surveyed his various to what straits Bacon was reduced productions, he must have felt a fine in communicating his discoveries. and honourable pride. If he read We will make a short quotation from Horace, he might have quoted, aphis book, adding, in italics, the ex-parently with safety, the planations of certain parts, from the key or notes at the end of the essay. For my own part, being hindered partly by the charge, partly by impatience, and

Exegi monumentum ære perennius ; but he would have been mistaken "The Head's the thing after all. by which he has caught the admira

"

tion of posterity. His studies, his writings, his sufferings in the cause of truth, are nothing,-mere "leather and prunella." He lives in our admiration, enshrined, as the author of the Brazen Head alone.

How ill do people calculate on the deeds by which they are to survive the grave! Petrarch lives in his sonnets, but his more elaborate works are unknown. A pearl added to Cleopatra's fame, and an asp secured it. Canute, the king, is he who gave his courtiers a lesson on the sea-shore. The learning, and the fine qualities of Henry the Second, are little known: he is the paramour of fair Rosamond; nothing more. The pebbles of Demosthenes, and the housewife's cake which our great Alfred burned, are conspicuous facts in their several histories. Sometimes, indeed, the works of men are so huge

and overwhelming as to crush the name or reputation of their founders,-witness the art of printing, and the invention of gunpowder; to say nothing of our friend Cheops and the pyramids of Egypt. Who hewed out the temple in the caverns of Elephanta? Who built the great wall of China? Who carved the great eagle in the Corinthian palace at Balbec? Who lifted the masses at Stonehenge? What poet first wrote nonsense verses? Who was the inventor of toasted cheese?-We pause for a reply.-When these queries are satisfactorily answered,-we can produce more. In the mean time, it is sufficient to say that we are satisfied with our own positions; particularly as our friend, Friar Bacon, is not in the predicament to which we have alluded.

Δ.

We now seem to have arrived at a "Scrap" of poetry. Poetry is-but it should always explain itself. Notes critical, illustrative, biographical, conjectural, and so forth, are well enough for prose, if it be good (otherwise it does not deserve it), and old (otherwise it should not require it). They wipe away the dust of Time as with a piece of diaper. Sometimes they rub out the meaning, and sometimes they make it clear. These may either be offences or good deeds: all depends on the author. But the Muse, as we have said, should speak for herself; and here she is to do so.

TO AN UNKNOWN,

Painted by some Italian Artist.

O QUEEN!-O Amazon !-O lady-knight !-
Or art thou some high crowned cherub,-the proudest
Of all those starry ranks so proud and bright?
Where wast thou at the time of the angels' fight?-
Was't not thy thunder-trumpet spake the loudest
Of all that echoed on that dateless day-

When the fierce Moloch stain'd Heaven's azure way
With blood, and shook the everlasting air
With curses fiercer than the brave could bear?
Or wast thou pity-struck, when he-the king-
Prince of the Morning (whose sweet frown could bring
Enchantinent from her cave, and bend her still,
As the wind sways the cypress, to his will,)
Was lightning-smitten, and had word to go
Through dusk and chaos to bewail his woe?-

Oh! nameless, peerless, beautiful,-what fame
Or nature (for thou hast some complete claim)
Hath chance assign'd thee?-Dost thou not reply?
Didst thou not utter once bright thoughts-and die?
Hast thou not faced the sun-light and sharp air,
And borne, as I have borne, joy and deep pain?-
Or didst thou plunge, like Day, from out the brain
Of some great painter, who for once had gleams
Of Heaven, and failing to surpass his dreams
Perish'd in madness and sublime despair?

B.

OUR next contributor calls his paper " Scraps of Criticism." We think that we know "the fine Roman hand,”—but let that pass. It is enough, perhaps, (for our readers) that the remarks are good, Whether we translate them from the Syriac or Chaldee, or transcribe them from vellum or papyrus, is a question which we cannot now explain. The two first "Scraps" refer to Gray's Poems, and take novel (and, what is better, just) exceptions to two passages which they contain.-Johnson has been abused more, perhaps, for undervaluing the merits of Gray, than for any of his offences against literature. For our own parts, we think that he has been abused unjustly, Were we to cast a stone at him, it would be for his life of Milton. But Gray has, of all poets in the English language, the least right to complain. His reputation is enormously too great for the foundation upon which it rests. No doubt that he had learning, and a pleasant way of commu nicating his thoughts. But his language is, beyond even that of his contemporaries, artificial; and his poems are not remarkable either for original thought or even felicity of expression. His "Elegy" is clearly the first of his compositions: there is a tender vein of melancholy running through it; and the reflections, generally speaking, if not very profound, are graceful and pleasing.-The "Scrap" upon the word "villain" is a very material one; inasmuch as it seems to be the key, or leading word, to the character of Richard, as it is seen on the stage. With regard to "Howell's Letters,"-certainly our friend Howell has taken an odd pro and con view of the same subject. Perhaps he had one eye for the good, and one for the bad-and saw with them alternately. Thus " to wink at a person's faults" is to shut the bad eye.

SCRAPS OF CRITICISM.

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial
fire;
Hands that the rod of empire might have
sway'd,

Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre. Gray's Elegy There has always appeared to me a vicious mixture of the figurative with the real in this admired passage. The first two lines may barely pass, as not bad. But the hands laid in the earth, must mean the identical five-finger'd organs of the body; and how does this consist with their oc

cupation of swaying rods, unless their

owner had been a schoolmaster; or waking lyres, unless he were literally a harper by profession? Hands that "might have held the plough," would have some sense, for that work is strictly manual; the others only emblematically or pictorially so. Kings now-a-days sway no rods, alias sceptres, except on their coronation day; and poets do not necessarily strum upon the harp or fiddle, as poets. When we think upon dead cold fingers, we may remember the honest squeeze of friendship which they returned heretofore; we cannot but with violence connect their living idea, as opposed to death, with uses to which they must become metaphorical (i. e. less real than dead

MONTGOMERY'S "SONGS OF ZION."

WE will now make an extract from a book, which is lying by our side, called the "Songs of Zion." It is written by Mr. Montgomery; who is perhaps the best poet, after Cowper, that the religious classes of society may call one of themselves. They have reason to be proud of him. He is an unaffected, strenuous, and sincere advocate of the cause which he believes to be good. And among the many sneers and objections which we

have heard cast upon religious poets, we have never heard a breath against Mr. Montgomery. This is one of the triumphs of sincerity. He is as free from cant as a pupil of Voltaire can be; and we think that he is at least as well entitled to his own self-respect. We shall extract one of the "Songs of Zion," the 104th; partly because it is one of the most sublime and difficult to be rendered in rhyme, and partly because it is one of those in which Mr. Montgomery may be said to have eminently succeeded. He has failed certainly in one or two instances.

This goodly globe his wisdom plann'd,

is no equivalent for "Who laid the foundations of the earth that they should not be removed for ever;" and the simplicity of "Thou covered'st it with the deep as with a garment," is far beyond the paraphrase of the third stanza. But these are small objections. There is great breadth and spirit in the version. It reminds us, "not to speak it profanely," of Campbell's "Battle of the Baltic" (the best thing he has done). It is a rich and vigorous strain of song. It would become a vast cathedral, and a hundred instruments, harps and dulcimers and choral voices; for it tells finely a tale of earth and the heavens, and of things that shall endure for ever.

PSALM 104.