BLACKIE'S LAYS AND LEGENDS. * A. PLEASANT recollection of some German

lyrical poetry translated. by Professor Blackie and published in Tait's Magazine, many years ago, led us to hope better things from his present volume than on perusal it has yielded. Mr. Blackie supplies another of the now countless examples of men really clever and accomplished mistaking the love of poetry and a certain facility in the employment of its forms for genuine inspiration and the power of producing poems. We thought at first the fault might lie in the choice of subject, and in the lack of other than historical interest that renders the Greek mythology, in our opinion, a most intractable theme for a modern poet. But the latter half of the volume, which is devoted to miscellaneous subjects of general interest, proves that the deficiency is in the writer. And a deficiency in the strict sense of the word it is, not a perverseness of taste ; an absence, not a misdirection, of power ; an incapacity to present a story, a scene, a character, or a mood of mind, with the force, vividness, and completeness, according to the scale of finish intended, which are the essential attributes of poetry, as imagery and rhythm are its natural forms. Professor Biocide is evidently a person of more than average ability, of far more than average moral and intellectual activity ; he has abundance of thoughts about a great variety of subjects; he keenly feels his life, and takes a warm interest in nature and his fellow men : but the objects that excite his sympathy, that throng his brain with ideas and quicken the pulses of his blood, he cannot present to others, except in a faint, dim, perplexed reflection, that fails to rouse any emotion, or to awaken the languid imagination to the effort of distinct perception. He has enough of both the temperament and the faculty of the poet to make his own existence joyous and musical to him, but not enough to sing in the world's ear strains that it will not willingly let die. That he would. have been acknowledged for a true poet if he had written seventy years ago what he has now published, is possible and. probable ; still more probable, nay quite certain, that seventy years ago he could not have so written. For this fluency of clever commonplace is, we may say positively, simply an imitative talent: and. till certain forms of phrase, rhythm, and rhyme, have become commonplace through the action of one or more men of original genius, so delusive a literary phenomenon as is constantly exhibited by the verse-writers of our day, who display marvellous facility over the materials and instruments of their art, would not be possible. It is needless to add, that in painting and music the same law holds, and that generally in art it makes all the difference in the world. whether a work is produced fifty years later or sooner, after or before the advent of some man or school from which a new epoch dates. In the modern treatment of ancient Greek subjects, as of subjects in general which are remote from our own habits of thought and. life, there are three distinct modes, all of which have been used with success by distinguished poets. The attempt strictly to imitate the remains of Greek literature, avoiding all infusion of modernism, as by Goethe in his Iphigenia, (though he has not perfectly carried out his plan,) has a very intelligible interest for scholars, and for the more cultivated public who are not scholars. Or the poet may do as Keats, and. to some extent Shelley, treated their classical subjects, and out of Greek names and scenery and. costume call into existence a region of thought and life that is neither Greek nor modern, but purely imaginary, a projection of the poet's own nature and. feelings. Or, lastly, like Shalcspere in * Lays and Legends of Aneient Greece, with other Poems. By John Stuart Elackie, Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh. Published by Sutherland and Knox, Edinburgh ; Simpkin and 11darshall, Loudon. Troilus and Cressida and in Midsummer Night's Dream he may paint his contemporaries under the mask of antiquity. There is indeed a fourth plan, which is to take some Greek fable and

allegorize it into modern theology and philosophy : but this is too puerile for a man of genius to fall into except by mistake. It is the first of these methods that Professor Blackie has adopted ; but with this important difference, that Goethe not only took his subject from a Greek source but adopted a specific Greek form, of which he had a rich abundance of models in the remains of the

Athenian drama. Professor Blackie simply takes Greek stories

as he finds them, and tells them in a form of which the Homeric Hymns can be considered only a very remote exemplar. He is really imitating not any Greek poetry that we have remaining,

though possibly some such formed the original scattered materials of the Iliad and Odyssey, but Sir Walter Scott eminently, and

other modern poets less noticeably. In fact, he has attempted for some striking Greek legends what Macaulay admirably succeeded in doing for the Roman legends imbedded in Livy's early books. The difference is in the execution. Let this specimen from "Bellerophon," describing the combat of Bellerophon with the

Chimmra, be the justification of our .judgment, both as to the imitation mitation of Scott and the inferiority to Macaulay.

"Upon a steep rock hoar with eld A yawning cave his eye beheld, High-perched; and to that cave no trace Of road upon the mountain's face, But, like an eagle's nest, Sublime it hung. He looked again, And from the cave a tawny mane Shook o'er the rocky crest ; And now a lion's head forth came,

And now, 0 Heaven ! long tongues of flame

Ran wreathing round the hill.

No fear the son of Glaucus knew,

But pricked his forward will, The rock-perched monster to pursue : On right, on left, he sought a clue To thread that steep-faced hill ; Hour after hour no pause he knew ; When night came down with sable hue, It found him searching still.

Hid in the tangled brakes around

Next morn a rugged chasm he found, That oped into an archway wide, Right through the hollow mountain side : Here plunged the knight ; and then, With eager foot emerging, speeds Along a rocky ledge, that leads To dire Chimrera's den.

The monster hears his coming tread, And with a hideous roar Trails forth its length, and shows its head And mouth that dripped with gore. The brave knight drew his sword, and flew Like lightning on the foe, And on its hide of horny pride Dealt ringing blow on blow.

In vain ; that hide, Bellerophon, Dipt in the flood of Acheron, Is proof at every pore ;

And where thy steel doth vainly hack,

A goat's head rising on its back With living fire streams o'er ; And from behind, a serpent's tail, With many mouths, that hisses, Rears round about thee like a flail, To give thee poisoned kisses. The flame, the smoke, the sulphurous breath, Doth choke thy mortal life : Spare that dear life, for only death Can grow from such a strife."

In the following passage our readers may find. what we do not, something that reminds them of the sublime phrensy of the senses and of the imagination consecrated. in the worship of Dionysus— something that a poet who had looked on Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne must have tried to paint in words.

" Ariadne from her slumber Woke and rose, and smiled benignly, Radiant from the rapturous dreams That stirred her secret soul divinely. Round her stood the Mrenad maids, Round her swelled their tuneful chorus ; Round her wheeled their floating dance, To a piping reed sonorous. With them danced a prick-eared crew, Hairy-limbed, with goatish features;

Pans and Satyrs strange to view,

Forest-haunting, freakish creatures. Old Silenus, bald and broad, Stood beside, his bright face showing Wreathed with laughter ; his full eye Brimmed with mirth to overflowing.

Strange ; but Ariadne saw, With strange eyes, a sight yet stranger,— Troops of shaggy fore,st whelps Thronged around, and brought no danger. Bearded goat, and tusky boar, Fox that feasts on secret slaughter, Tawny lion, tiger fierce, Harmless looked on Minos' daughter.

! a spotted pard appears At the feet of Ariadne; Comes and like a prayerful child

Kneels before thee, Ariadne.

Pleased the savage brute she sees lend like sleekest ass demurely ; Mounts the offered seat, and rides On the panther's back securely. Forward now the spotted pare Moves with measured pace and wary ; Then aloft (0 wonder strange !)

Paws the heavenward pathway airy.

Fear thee not, thou Cretan maid, Gods are with thee where thou Sleet; Dionysus waits for thee, Near the throne of Jove the Highest. In Olympus' azure dells Waits the god in ivy bowers, Where for thee immortal Hebe Twines the amaranthine flowers ;

Where the purple bowl of Joy Brims for thee ; where bitter sorrow

Grows not ; where today's keen thrill

Leaves no languid throb tomorrow.

Flourish there, immortal bride, Flourish in the minstrel's story;

Shine, to sorrowing hearts a sign,

High amid the starry glory !"

These two extracts are not perhaps the best that we could have

picked out, but they are above the average merits of the antique portion of the volume, and free from an awkwardness of rhyme and metre which frequently produces a vulgar and ludicrous effect, as throughout the poem of " Iphigenia" and "The Naming of Athens." Professor Blackie seems nowhere to rise to the inherent grandeur, beauty, or pathos of his subjects, but to chatter about them all in verses and rhymes, that too often approach the doggrel, and are hardly consistent with any true imaginative vision of them, or any reflective sympathy with them. If in spite of this he possesses either or both, then it is his art that fails him. Certainly it is not the remoteness of the subject that causes him his want of force and vivid presentation. Few more impres sive spectacles have been furnished by history, few that touch our modern interests and sympathies more closely, than the retreat of Napoleon from Moscow, the rising of Germany, the battle of Leipsic, and the changes that followed for Napoleon and Europe. Yet Professor Blackie could scarcely be more profoundly common place about it if he were Sir Archibald Alison. Hear him, and note the moral, to which the honour of capital letters is assigned by his printer. we is me ! where now be they Thy feats of sounding glory,

War linked to war in grim army, Long lines of crimson story : Land yoked to land to pave thy. path, Limb rudely wrenched from limb, Great kings unmade to soothe thy wrath,

And made to please thy whim? Gone like what shapes the light cloud frames

Floating, fantastic wholly ;

Marengo, Jena, Wagram, names To eternize thy folly ! Ceased are thy terrible thunder-fits, Emptied thy iron quiver, And the sun that shone on Austerlitz Shall shine no more for ever.

" Go ! from the scene that mocks thee, go ! And, on some lonely spot,

Recount the story of thy we

To things that know thee not, We know thee well, too well ; ah, Heaven !

That such a sweet-wreathed smile But to deceive should have been given,

Such goodness but for guile !

Go! on some lonely rock relate Thy tale to the sounding billow,

And spell to men thy freakish fate Beneath the weeping willow—

'My LIFE HATE BEEN A FEVERED RACE, THE PHANTOM FA3IE PURSUING; FALSE FORTUNE WINGED THE EAGER CHASE, AND PRIDE WAS MY UNDOING.'"

One more specimen and we have done. It is a portrait of Pope

Leo X, and one of Martin Luther, from a poem bearing the name of the latter. A nobler historical contrast, a more striking type of two antipodal men, could not be easily found. Here they stand, in words that do not breathe and thoughts that do not burn.

"Alas ! no fervid man is there,

No earnest, honest heart ;

But one who, dress'd in priestly guise,

Looks on the world with worldlino's eyes ;

One who can trim the courtier's -Lite,

Or weave the diplomatic wile, But knows no deeper art ; One who can dally with fair forms, Whom a well-pointed period warms ;— No man is he to hold the helm Where rude winds blow, and wild waves whelm, And creaking timbers start.

"A lonely monk, that loved to dwell

With peaceful book in silent cell—

Phis man shall shake the Pontiff's throne : Him kings and emperors shall own, And stout hearts wince before The eye profound and front sublime Where speculation reigns. He to the learned seats shall climb,, On Science' watch-tower stand sublime ; The arid doctrine shall inspire

Of wiry teachers with swift fire ;

And, piled with cumbrous pains, Proud palaces of sounding lies

Lay prostrate with a breath. The wise Shall listen to his word; the youth

Shall eager seize the new-born truth, Where prudent age refrains."

An accomplished man, whose profession is literature, and who adorns his profession, ought not to fall into such a mistake as this as to the range and scope of his faculties. A hundred thousand volumes of such verse would not make a man even the least among the minor poets of an age like this. Professor Blackie's rank is among the amateurs : it is probably because he does not recognize how much poetry is an art, and what patient devotion it demands, that his success cannot entitle him to the honours of an artist.