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the most one can expect from the Eisteddfodau is the publishing of some old MSS. which not one in a thousand would read; nor, if they did, would understand. No, no; the meridian of the Welsh, both people and language, is gone by, never more to return,

fuimus Cambri, fuit Wallia, et ingens Gloria Cambrorum

There are subjoined two discourses in Welsh, displaying the same unaffected piety, and creating the same interest in the breast of the reader as the others. In the latter, as in the whole book, which, in these days, is a rare quality indeed, we do not think there is a single line calculated to produce any thing approaching to religious disputation.

The Last of the Sophis. A Poem. By C. F. Henningsen, a Minor. London: Longman and Co., 1831.

THIS is, indeed, an age fertile in the production of poetry. In all ranks of life are to be found literary men, and amongst these a great number are professed poets, or the rather, according to our ideas, makers of verses, measurers of epigrams, perpetrators of acrostics; with not a few whose delight would appear to consist in the most servile imitation of the lamented Byron, whose excellencies these literary toad-eaters cannot understand, but whose defects are lauded by them as beauties, and, consequently, are the more glaringly exhibited; as the faults of a manufactured article are more easily discoverable when mounted in tinsel, than when set in gold.

We will not here enter into a discussion of what may be the causes of the dearth of sterling poetry amongst us; though, in our opinion, many things combine to keep down and enslave the glowing spirit of the British muse: for be it remembered that although she sleeps, she yet is mighty, and must, ere long, exhibit a glorious resurrection. Possibly not the slightest obstacle, to any great poetical fame, among the votaries of the art in England, arises from the commercial calculating habits of the people, who are led to believe that every thing which is not deducible from the rules of arithmetic, double and single entry, barter, drawback, profit and loss, is, as a matter of course, unworthy the slightest attention of a lucid understanding: so long as this shall be the case, so long shall we be destitute of any thing like the fervour and grandeur of those writers who once shed a lustre on their age and country.

Poetry flourishes not in the busy haunts of men, but lives and moves and has her being amid the mountains, the vales, the rocks, the woody dells, the streams. She is ever sweet and condescend

ing, as she is lofty and noble: the halo of her glory is seen hovering not only o'er

"The cloud-clapp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,"

but things less dazzling, though not less interesting, share her capacious heart, and are fostered by her maternal care. Poetry, like sleep, may be truly called "nature's soft nurse:" dear to her is the cry of the infant, the bleating of the lamb, the song of the birds, the chime of holy bells, beneath whose towers

"The pealing anthem swells the note of praise;"

dear the milkmaid's lovelorn ballad, and the village song of honest heartfelt mirth, "the gun fast thundering, and the winded horn," the low lament of rustic wo, heard 'mid the shaded oaks, where suffering age is seen with tottering steps, mourning o'er the bier of virgin innocence, its prop and stay,-its hope and pride. All these, and ten thousand other objects, are called up before the magic wand of poetry, who reigns and revels in the abundance and beauty of the universe.

Thanks be to God there are some even in the present day (and the author of "The last of the Sophis" is amongst them,) who are alive to these inexhaustible stores, and who have evinced that they are so, by the production of poems that will perpetuate their names. Byron was a wonder, a giant who far surpassed all his contemporaries, as they themselves are ready to admit; yet was the light he shed, however brillant, but a coruscation, taking a course wild and eccentric as that of the chariot of Phœbus under the mad direction of Phaeton. Vain, indeed, are the regrets of his fondest admirers, that his genius did not blaze with a flame steady as it was great and wonderful. After him come the names of Campbell, Wordsworth, Scott, Wilson, Crabbe, and James Montgomery: the first of whom is indeed a bard of the heart, and the rest are worthy of an honorable place in the temple of the goddess. Besides these, we have our Cambrian queen of song the delightful Felicia Hemans, and proud are we to acknowledge her fame as shedding honour on the loved land of our fathers. We have also her of the lofty strain and pastoral lay, Mary Russell Mitford. We have James Hogg, the untutored and highly gifted bard of Caledonia; and though last, not least, we have the forest minstrels William and Mary Howitt who, husband and wife, live together according to God's holy ordinance, and write their sweet verses under the fervid sympathy of their united inspiration.

But the stirring nature of our subject is leading us away from a new and young aspirant to poetic fame, whom we would not, neither could we feel disposed to, neglect.

The poem of "The last of the Sophis" will possibly induce our

Cambrian friends to ask why we have introduced it to their notice; we will tell them: the scene of the poem is laid in Persia and Tartary, and our Welsh subscribers are too well versed in antiquity not to know that the ancient Britons were originally an Asiatic tribe, the descendants of Japhet, who peopled the whole of Western Europe, including the British Isles; and that, therefore, when we place before them a poem founded on historical facts, relating to the history of Persia, we are giving them an account of the soul-stirring actions of those who are connected with them by blood. But this is not our only reason: the inhabitants of Wales, we take it, possess as great a proportion of intelligence as those of any other part of the world, and therefore cannot but feel a great interest in any literary production of general interest; added to which, we will venture to assert that the poem before us possesses very superior claims to their attention, not only from the manner in which it is executed, but from its being the production of a youth not yet seventeen years of age. We must confess that, generally speaking, we have an aversion to precocity, whether it be exhibited poetically, scientifically, or otherwise, inasmuch as we have seldom or never known that the flattering promises of very early genius have been fulfilled in riper age; and did we not see, in the volume before us, indications of strong and masterly intellect, together with an extent of attainment that we sincerely believe will, in future, bring forth the worthiest fruit, we would not have entered into its examination.

The scene and action of the poem is in the time of Nadir, better known by the name of Kouli Khan, who, though sprung from the lowest origin, effected by treachery, murder, and every crime, the summit of human ambition, viz. a throne. He has driven from the country Mandano, the last of the line of Sophi, or Sephi, who seeks an asylum amongst the Daghistan Tartars, where he attains high rank and honours, and becomes enamoured of the daughter of their chief, the darkly beautiful Zuleyda. Kouli Khan having, meanwhile, overrun Asia, turns his arms against the hordes of Daghistan, which event, unfortunately, delays the intended marriage of Mandano and Zuleyda. By the cunning and violence of a pretended dervise, Mandano is robbed of his betrothed bride. This event, and his natural hatred towards the usurper Kouli Khan, give rise to incidents of the story, which are fearful in the extreme, and altogether full of that wild and romantic interest, which is so plentifully scattered through the records of the Fast, and a knowledge of which gave rise to the equally romantic actions of chivalry in Britain, first evinced, be it remembered, by the renowned King Arthur of Wales. But we must lay before our readers a few specimens of our young author's powers, or we might feel inclined to go, in our prosing critical mood, into the pith and marrow of his story, which would be, as regards the sale of the book, ex

tremely unfair. We prefer therefore to give, in fairness, a few pages at random.

The first and second stanzas run thus:

"I long had paused-my lonely lyre
Had ceased to swell to notes of fire,
For age, with cold pervading chill,
Had passed upon its magic thrill.
But come! again thy murmuring chord
Must sing that vanished desert horde,
And lend thy melody, to tell
A tale o'er which I've loved to dwell,
Till every sound that left thy strings
Was soft as that the west wind brings
From Eden, on its airy wings.
It was the earliest morning hour,
That dawning down o'er rocky tower,
And minaret and pinnacle,

The gazer's eye might form at will,
Mid masses rude, round every hill,
As if those fairy things had laid
The shapeless rocks around the glade,
And each in wild confusion strewed-
To mimic man-in playful mood:
And as the wave rolled clear and still,
The mist rode o'er it thick and chill,
In distant clouds above it twining,
As if to hide the bright orb shining,
And yet in vain the flashes play
With many a mingled tint and ray,
As if within that deep sunshine
The trace of something more divine
Were left, and that it seemed to say,
Thus, through the mist of earth and clay—
The soul will mix with brighter day!

Far o'er the flashing waters, mark
The Tartar's homeward-veering bark,
Which dash to dash above that sea
Darts like the wild swan merrily,
And shoots, beneath the skilful hand,
Like sea-bird to the distant land;
But he must struggle hard as yet
Who guides it, ere his foot is set
On shore, for breaking round the bay,
Where many a rock projecting lay,
High dashed the shivered waves in spray,—
An instant, and the stranger drew,
With stalwart arm, his frail canoe
The danger of the breakers through,
And moored it in a silent creek,
That fitted well such light caïque.
Both slight was he, of make and form,
Yet dusk-like hues before the storm,
When mingled dark and light on high,
Sweep slowly changing o'er the sky,

His raven eye glanced full and free,
And yet it spoke all haughtily,

When glancing through those long silk lashes—
As lightning through the forest dashes,-
Dark too his brow, and mingled there

Were passion's furrowing hues of care,
And high adventure in his air.

Too haughty he for Tartar race

In mien, and features of the face;

His eye more wild, his glance more bold,

Had deemed them else of Persian mould." P. 7.

The casual reader will, doubtless, remark that the style of Mr. Henningsen is an imitation of the Giaour, or Bride of Abydos of Byron; but let such an individual read, as we have done, the poem carefully through, and he will then see that, however the author may occasionally have fallen into this favorite school, there are, in other places, strong proofs of a full, rich, and original vien of poetical ore, which it will require only time and study to develope and display. At the same time, Mr. Henningsen must bear in mind that we are against any continuance, in his future labours, of an imitation of even so great a poet as Byron; who, although he is to be studied, yet it must be rather with the intent of analyzing the singular construction of his powerful genius, and fathoming the depths of his extraordinary mind, than for the purpose of imitating him, however successfully. We do not mean to say that the latter has been the object of our youthful writer; but we think it not out of season to caution him against falling into an error, which has frequently been a stumblingblock to the progress of poetical powers, which would otherwise have met with their due meed of fame. We will further tell him that he has no need to copy even the first of our modern bards. He will find, or we are much mistaken, when he shall have had the experience of a few more years, that close study, and looking abroad into the great book of nature, will effect for him what all the imitative powers in the world could never secure. We are the more inclined to this opinion as even, already, he has evidently studied and reflected in a manner that would do credit to a riper age, as appears by the following stanza.

"Well, I have wondered oft how man
Will shorten life's contracted span,
To call himself, perchance, the lord
Of some unruly tribe or horde;
But, such the passion, such the rage,
Till chills ambition's fire with age;
Himself the offspring of an hour,
Forgotten, like the trampled flower
We prize when fresh and bloomingly
Its hue and odour meet the eye;

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