from the failure of her husband's mercantile speculations, and the brutality and fraud of lawyers and guardians, who cheated her of a provision for her large family; and her domestic sorrows are very touchingly told in the prefaces to the different editions of her poems. Aware, therefore, that her melancholy is no poetic fiction, though often very affectedly expressed, we can read her sonnets without that sickening sensation which is excited by the false and ridiculous sensibilities of the Della Cruscan School. These little poems are not constructed on the Petrarchan model, and have no right to the title of sonnets, unless every poem in fourteen lines may be said to belong to that species of composition. But fourteen lines or three quartrains, and a concluding couplet, do not make a sonnet, if Petrarch and Dante in the Italian, and Milton and Wordsworth in our own language, are to be taken as authorities. We shall not, in this place, enter into a discussion upon the subject, but shall simply observe, that in the metrical construction, and in the unity of design peculiar to the sonnet, these little compositions are all palpably deficient. But if they are not legitimate sonnets, several of them may be characterized as, at all events, very pretty and pleasing poems; for, though we once thought far more highly of them than we now do, we can still see something in them to admire. They have a feminine pathos, and a delicacy and tenderness of sentiment, that ought to save them from oblivion. Though the liquid smoothness of the versification, and the languid elegance of the diction, may not suit an ear accustomed only to the vigour and variety of later poems, we can remember that they highly gratified us in our younger days, and have still a kind of charm for us that we are almost ashamed to acknowledge. Perhaps early associations, a reference to the feminine qualities of the fair author's mind, and a sympathy for her distresses, make us willing to be pleased in defiance of an increased experience and a maturer judgement. We have no doubt that it was a perusal of these sonnets, (for such, as a matter of courtesy or convenience, they must be called,) that suggested those of Bowles, which are written in much the same strain of feeling, and perhaps with no great superiority, in point of strength and originality. The versification is rather more varied, and the metrical arrangement is, in some respects, a little closer to the Italian model, but they have met with much the same fate as those of Charlotte Smith. They as speedily ran through the same number of editions, and were almost as speedily neglected. A great Poet too, the author of Christabel, with whose own style they are so strikingly contrasted, has praised them with the same enthusiasm as did Cowper those of Charlotte Smith. Little dependence it seems is to be reposed on the individual judgments of poets upon each other, whether favorable or adverse. Waller saw nothing in Milton, but an old blind School Master, who had written a dull poem. Wordsworth and Coleridge think Gray's Elegy in a Country Church-yard a very meagre and commonplace production; and Byron insinuated that Pope was a greater poet than Shakespeare, and spoke very contemptuously of Spenser. When Doctors disagree, the general voice must decide upon disputed points, though even then we have no final judgment, for the public is often as fickle as a child. This is very perplexing to the poet, whose life is one dream of ambition. His only consolation is the hope that posterity will be more calm and constant, and that when varying winds of contemporary opinion shall have died away, his bark may reach its destined haven, and rest securely upon the still stream of immortality. It is melancholy, however, to reflect how many who have once enjoyed a flattering popularity, and who have looked forward with a proud confidence to such a consummation, have passed from the memories of men like a summer cloud. Charlotte Smith, elegant and refined, as she is, is rapidly sinking into oblivion, and in a very few years will no doubt be utterly forgotten. In the mean time, as we have spent a pleasant half hour over her little volume, let us show our gratitude to her gentle spirit, by such praises as we can conscientiously award her, and refresh the memory of our readers with a few favorable extracts. The following little poem has been quoted by Bowles and Leigh Hunt, (poets of very different tastes and habits,) with considerable praise:- Sighing I see you little troop at play, By sorrow yet untouched, unhurt by care; Lights their green path, and prompts their simple mirth, Oppress my heart and fill mine eyes with tears. Mrs. Smith's knowledge of botany, to which by the way she has addressed a Sonnet, is displayed in a very pleasing manner in several of her poems, and she rarely speaks of flowers without a minute fidelity of description, and the use of very graphic epithets. The following couplet is a specimen of the curious felicity of her botanical allusions. From the mapped lichen, to the plumed weed; From thready mosses, to the veined flower. The "Sonnet written at the close of Spring" offers further illustrations of this peculiar character of her verse. The garlands fade that Spring so lately wove, Each simple flower, which she had nurs'd in dew, The primrose wan, and harebell mildly blue. *This is a sad sacrifice of grammar to rhyme.-Ep. No more shall violets linger in the dell, And dress with humid hands her wreaths again. Are the fond visions of thy early day, Till tyrant passion, and corrosive care, Another May new buds and flowers shall bring; Mrs. Smith's study of flowers led her much into the open fields, and she has shown herself to be a very minute and delicate observer of external nature. The following brief passage taken from one of her sonnets is extremely picturesque. And sometimes when the sun with parting rays Gilds the long grass that hides my silent bed, A tear shall tremble in my Charlotte's eyes. It reminds us of a very beautiful touch of Coleridge's pencil in the annexed lines. But the dell, Bathed by the mist, is fresh and delicate As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax, When through its half-transparent stalks at even, The level sunshine glimmers with green light. There is a happy expression in the following line, which has been borrowed by a living poet. The night-flood rakes upon the stony shore. Bowles, in describing a night scene (in his Grave of the last Saxon), says: all is silent, save the tide that rakes At times the beach. The following address to the North Star has more vigour than Mrs. Smith usually displays: TO THE NORTH STAR. To thy bright beams I turn my swimming eyes, Now nightly wandering 'mid the tempests drear Through the swift clouds-driven by the wind along: So o'er my soul short rays of reason fly, Then fade-and leave me to despair and die. The following verse, is at once forcible and melodious : Oh! my lost love! no tomb is placed for thee And no memorial but this breaking heart! We quote the next sonnet, for the sake of the neat turn of its concluding couplet: TO FANCY. Thee Queen of shadows! shall I still invoke, We will give one more extract, and close the volume. TO NIGHT. I love thee, mournful, sober-suited Night! May reach-though lost on earth-the ear of Heaven! It will be seen, we think, from these extracts, that though not to be placed in the first class of English Female Poets, Mrs. Smith deserves more attention from the public than she is now likely to obtain. She is not to be compared to the Lady Minstrels of the present day, (to the powerful Joanna Baillie, the wild and fanciful L. E. L. or the refined and spirited Hemans,) but her poems may, nevertheless, be occasionally referred to with pleasure, as the effusions of a chaste and cultivated mind. STANZAS, WRITTEN IN THE FIRST PAGES OF AN ALBUM, PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR. What shall be written here? What in these pages shall the weak hand trace? Dark shadows flit along Fitful across the white, unsullied page! What shall the Minstrel sing ?-he hath no song What shall be written, then, Where measures sweet and soft should find a place; Mine is a wretched store, The beggar's banquet of unsavoury things Love is no theme for me There is a frenzy in the very name; It points to blood-and death-and agony,- Friendship!-alas, alas! One month ago, and I could for it twine Garlands of song and praise. Joys swiftly pass, And now I scatter incense on its shrine ! And Fame? Oh, hearts may feel, (When hopes are bright, and youth is burning high,) But they-like other joys-the wretched fly. What shall be written here? Who shall the wreaths of song in sunshine twine? But leave the book for lighter lays than mine. August 1830. R. CALDER CAMPBELL, |