Chance your conductor; midnight for your mantle; His death alone can save you: Thank your God! I did so. Werner (abruptly). But Hear me ! I will not brook a human voice -scarce dare Deem yourself safe, as young and brave: but learn An instant a mere motion- the least impulse- • Werner. [He pauses. Me he hath ever known, And hunted through each change of time More patient? Ulric! - Ulric! there are crimes Made venial by the occasion, and temptations Which nature cannot master or forbear. Ulric (looks first at him, and then at Josephine). My mother! • Werner. Ay! I thought so: you have now Only one parent. I have lost alike But stay! [Werner rushes out of the chamber.' Perhaps this scene is the best in the play; and its length, together with the preceding quotations, will afford a satisfactory specimen of the dialogue and language, on which we have already intimated an animadversion, and must now speak more particularly. The numerous productions of Lord Byron have amply shewn his disregard of the minuter accuracies and finer polish of style, in competition with the more essential qualities of strength and effect: but we need scarcely REV. DEC. 1822. Dd observe observe that this preference may be carried too far; and that not only one essential merit in the composition of a finished work may thus be changed for an exposure to censure, but that the English language itself may suffer by those frequent deviations from beauty and correctness which such writers as Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott betray, and render fashionable. We shall cite a few sentences from the play before us, as examples of prosaic tameness and the absence of all metrical harmony taking the liberty of printing them as prose, (but without making any other alteration,) that the reader may try whether he can throw them into the same portions of soi-disant poetry into which they have been measured off by the noble writer himself: Who would read in this form the high soul of the son of a long line? (P. 11.) Even now I feel my spirit girt about by the snares of this avaricious fiend.' (Ib.) Well, I am glad of that; I thought so all along; such natural yearnings played round my heart. Blood is not water, cousin ; and so let's have some wine, and drink unto our better acquaintance: relatives should be friends.' (P. 15.) I may prepare to face him, or at least to extricate you from your present perils.' (P. 73.) I mean it; and indeed it could not well have fallen out at a time more opposite to all my plans.' (P. 130.) Ulric, this man, who has just departed, is one of those strange companions whom I fain would reason with you on.' (P. 142.) 'Tis vain to urge you: nature was never called back by remonstrance.' (P. 144.) The thanksgiving was over, and we marched back in procession.' (P. 162.) The Baron lost in that last outrage neither jewels nor gold.' P. 168.) For instances of actual bad grammar, besides such as appear in our extracts, we have everywhere scarce for scarcely, except in p. 76., where the metre has for once been consulted in unison with grammar: p. 145. you wed for love,' instead of wedded; and if for whether in half-a dozen cases, as you 'I will retire To see if still be unexplored the passage.' (P. 39.) and I have my doubts if he means well,' p. 40.; where also we find the vulgar expression, How come you to stir yourself in his behalf? P. 134. I would be yours, none else's;' and p. 142. the bad jingle, (whether intended or not for a quibble) whom he has made great and ungrateful. So also, For the cup's sake, I'll bear the cup-bearer.' (P. 25.) Again, all grammatical construction, as well as, intelligibility, is occasionally violated by those harsh and forced ellip ses which are so blameably characteristic of the Scottian and Byronian schools: ex. gr. 6 Ignorance And dull suspicion are a part of his Intail will last him longer than his lands.' (P. 82, 83.) 'He is of that kind Will make it for himself.' (P. 126.) Also ; The honor of the corps Which forms the Baron's household, 's unimpeach'd.' (P. 49.) Stalwart, a favorite Scottian word, offends us in the supposed conversation of Germans, (p. 60.) though speaking English, because it is not English; and Go to, (pp. 90. 156, &c.) we think, had much better go out. Besides all these examples of inelegant or unpoetic diction, we could cite above fourscore lines which terminate most unmajestically and unmetrically with propositions, adverbs, conjunctions, or other monosyllabic "small fry" of language; cutting through a line most needlessly and barbarously, where no division ought to be made on account of emphasis or construction or sense, but because the foot-rule has been supposed to mark off a sufficient quantity of syllables; and yet this Procrustean measure is often elsewhere disregarded. We shall adduce a few examples in addition to those which occur in our previous quotations. Kept his eye on me, as the snake upon Of that which lifts him up to princes in Entailing, as it were, my sins upon I parted with him to his grandsire, on All Silesia and Lusatia's woods are tenanted by bands.' (P. 23.) These eyes. (P. 32.) - (P. 55.) To save an unknown stranger In an as perilous but opposite element.' (Ib.) Ay, Sir; and, for Aught that you know, superior; but proceed- I do I do not ask for hints, and surmises, And circumstance, and proofs; I know enough Pursue me to the death, except through shame, All sanction of their insolence: thus much You owe to the unknown, who asks no more, And never thought to have ask'd so much.' (P. 77.) This last passage will read almost unobjectionably when written as prose. 'I Can vouch your courage, and as far as my Own brief connection led me, honour.' (P.78.) 6 So is the nearest of the two next, as The priests say; To-morrow I will try the waters, as The dove did.' (P. 93.) Enough; and too much. All this cannot be poetry, worthy of the English press, of the name of Lord Byron, of the patronage of the public, or of the mimicry of the innumerable servile herd who live by imitation, and who imitate faults more readily than beauties, because, though they perhaps appreciate neither, the former are more adapted to their powers. In a composition which should be finished, and which no imperious circumstances prevent from being finished, that writer gains but half his praise who is contented with the eulogy of being supposed equal to any thing, and will not take the trouble of effecting all. What artist, when he has painted a noble picture, is careless of the additional effect which may be given to it by a superb frame, though so absolutely extraneous to his own labor; or what gentleman, when he has written an agreeable or sensible letter to his friend, increases its merit or his own by folding it up in a slovenly manner? Yet what is this to the finish or the negligence of a cabinet-picture, or a literary work, and a POEM, too!-intended for the public and for posterity? The The noble author tells us that this tale contains the germ of much that he has since written.' How little was Miss Lee aware of the responsibility which she incurred by publishing it, and of the direction, or at least the encouragement, which seems thus to have been given to a mind and a genius like those of Lord Byron! We trust that its influence is nearly or quite exhausted; and we exhort his Lordship not only to let his muse wing her airy and lofty flight unrestrained by such leading-strings, but to determine, when her noble course has been achieved, to lay it down on the chart with graphic accuracy and beauty. ART. X. 1. Application au Parlement de la Grande Bretagne, &c. 2. Pétition, au Parlement Britannique sur la Spoliation d'un Savant Etranger par le Bureau des Longitudes de Londres, 8vo. 3. Supplément à l'Adresse au Bureau des Longitudes. 8vo. 4. Sur l'Imposture Publique des Savans à Privileges. Trois Lettres à Sir Humphrey Davy. 8vo. 5. Deposition made under Oath, by an Ecclesiastic, to attest the Spoliation of a learned Foreigner by the British Board of Longitude. 8vo. 6. A Course of Mathematics, Part I. By Hoëné Wronski. 4to. E have had on our table for some time several of the WE papers which we have above enumerated, some of them in French and others in English, but have deferred our notice of them from an unwillingness to make any observations that might be injurious to the author, a foreigner, and a sojourner in this country: but so much notice has been lately drawn to these questions by the various pamphlets that have been published, that we cannot allow ourselves any longer to refrain from adding a few observations to our former accounts of this writer's tracts, particularly his Address to the Board of Longitude, (mentioned in our Number for March last,) and enlarging some of our previous intimations respecting him. M. Hoëné Wronski is we believe a Pole by birth, but was for some years a resident in Paris, and known to most of the savans of that capital. The first hopeful task which he undertook was to convince M. La Place, M. La Grange, and in short all the most distinguished members of the Institute, that they were but mere children in science; and that he, M. Wronski, had discovered the supreme law of mathematics, which comprehended in one single formula the entire circle of all human knowlege, if not of human happiness; in which Dds latter |