Perhaps we are hardly correct in calling the temper and spirit we have here alluded to Byronian; they are common to all ages and to many minds, though signally developed by that poet, and in our own epoch. Probably the future historian of this period of our literature will attribute much of this peculiar exhibition of bitterness and despondency to the sanguine hopes first excited and then disappointed by the French Revolution. He will probably say of certain regions of our literature, that the whole bears manifest traces of volcanic origin. Pointing to some noble eminence, which seems to have been eternally calm, he will conjecture that it owed its elevation to the same force which raised the neighbouring Ætna. Applying the not very happy language of geology, he may describe it as "a crater of elevation;" which, being interpreted, means no crater at all, but an elevation produced by the like volcanic agency: the crater itself is higher up in the same mountain range.
There still remains one other small volume of Mr Taylor's poetry, which we must not pass over entirely without mentioning. The Eve of the Conquest, and other Poems. The chief piece here is of the nature of a dramatic scene. Harold, the night before the battle of Hastings, converses with his daughter, unfolds some passages of his past life, and vindicates himself in his quarrel with that William the Norman who, on the morrow, was to add the title of Conqueror to his name. But as it will be more agreeable to vary the nature of our quotations, we shall make the few extracts we have space for from the lyric poems which follow.
The "Lago Varese" will be, we suspect, the favourite with most readers. The image of the Italian girl is almost as distinctly reflected in the verse as it would have been in her own native lake.
"And sauntering up a circling cove,
I found upon the strand
A shallop, and a girl who strove
To drag it to dry land.
I stood to see – the girl looked round – her face
Had all her country's clear and definite grace.
She rested with the air of rest
So seldom seen, of those
Whose toil remitted gives a zest,
Not languor, to repose.
Her form was poised, yet buoyant, firm, though free,
And liberal of her bright black eyes was she.
The sunshine of the Southern face,
At home we have it not;
And if they be a reckless race,
These Southerns, yet a lot
More favoured, on the chequered earth is theirs;
They have life's sorrows, but escape its cares.
There is a smile which wit extorts
From grave and learned men,
In whose austere and servile sports
The plaything is a pen;
And there are smiles by shallow worldlings worn,
To grace a lie or laugh a truth to scorn:
And there are smiles with less alloy
Of those who, for the sake
Of some they loved, would kindle joy
Which they cannot partake;
But hers was of the kind which simply say,
They came from hearts ungovernably gay."
The "Lago Lugano" is a companion picture, written "sixteen summers" after, and on a second visit to Italy. One thing we notice, that in this second poem almost all that is beautiful is brought from the social or political reflections of the writer: it is not the outward scene that lies reflected in the verse. He is thinking more of England than of Italy.
"Sore pains
They take to set Ambition free, and bind
The heart of man in chains."
And the best stanza in the poem is that which is directly devoted to his own country: —
"Oh, England! 'Merry England,' styled of yore!
Where is thy mirth? Thy jocund laughter, where?
The sweat of labour on the brow of care
Make a mute answer – driven from every door!
The May-pole cheers the village green no more,
Nor harvest-home, nor Christmas mummers rare.
The tired mechanic at his lecture sighs;
And of the learned, which, with all his lore,
Has leisure to be wise?"
With some verses from a poem called "St Helen's-Auckland" we close our extracts. The author revisits the home of his boyhood: —
"How much is changed of what I see,
How much more changed am I,
And yet how much is left – to me
How is the distant nigh!
The walks are overgrown and wild,
The terrace flags are green —
But I am once again a child,
I am what I have been.
The sounds that round about me rise
Are what none other hears;
I see what meets no other eyes,
Though mine are dim with tears.
In every change of man's estate
Are lights and guides allowed;
The fiery pillar will not wait,
But, parting, sends the cloud.
Nor mourn I the less manly part
Of life to leave behind;
My loss is but the lighter heart,
My gain the graver mind."
Poetry is no longer the most popular form of literature amongst us, and the drama is understood to be the least popular form of poetry. If this be the case, Mr Taylor has the additional merit of having won his way to celebrity under singular disadvantages. But, in truth, such poetry as Mr Taylor's could never appeal to the multitude. Literature of any kind which requires of the reader himself to think in order to enjoy, can never be popular. It is impossible to deny that the dramas we have been reviewing demand an effort, in the first instance, on the part of the reader: he must sit down to them with something of the spirit of the student. But, having done this, he will find himself amply repaid. As he advances in the work, he will read with increased pleasure; he will read it the second time with greater delight than the first; and if he were to live twenty years, and were to read such a drama as Philip Van Artevelde every year of his life, he would find in it some fresh source of interest to the last.
As we have not contented ourselves with selecting beautiful passages of writing from Mr Taylor's dramas, but have attempted such an analysis of the three principal characters they portray as may send the reader to their reperusal with additional zest, so neither have we paused