"GENIUS," said an eloquent lecturer on a rustic poet of Scotland,f whose fame is made to shine gloriously through a sometime darkness by the united efforts of Carlyle, Lockhart, Peterkin and Cunningham, each of whom has caused the world to bow to the true stamp of intellectual royalty; "genius is capacity, subject to the laws of truth and beauty." So far as it goes, this definition may answer its purpose, but the idea is not explicit, and, as it now stands, is capable of conveying to the understanding a wrong impression of the power of this godlike quality. If the lecturer had said talent is capacity, subject to the laws of truth and beauty, he would have approached nearer to correctness, there being as much difference between genius and talent as there is between taste and truth, and that both of these are often strangely confounded is a fact which a slight consideration, unaided by a very acute philosophy, will surely teach us. Capacity of mind exists in degree-is found more or less in every man-and only according to its extent can it appreciate truth and beauty, or be subject to their laws. Thus is it that genius is so seldom possessed, though "men of talent," or "men of good capacity," as we term them, are known in every circle, are found almost around every fireside. The laws of truth and beauty are ever the same, and not to be graduated by any standard of mere taste or fancy; their standard is their own and changes not, and the mind cannot be subject to it except only as the capacity is capable of observation, comprehension and thought. Truth is permanent in its very essence; and true beauty, of nature and art, of character and conduct, has but one standard in creation-this is immutable, it changes not with the revolving seasons.

These remarks may seem dry, trite, and unwarranted, but we are presently to consider the genius of a poet whose writings no less than his name being little known in our country require to be examined with caution and delicacy-an attention due to his unpretending merit, and the innate modesty of his character. "I would," says he to a friend, to whom he dedicated his book of poems; "I would I could apply to it the title of an old poetical miscellany, and characterize it as 'a posie of gelly flowers, eche differing from the other in color and odor, yet all swete.' But this may not be." Alas, the too frequent fate of genius! Like the most fragile of the flowers that he loved, Motherwell sunk early to the tomb. heather of his native soil is no longer pressed by his footstep, and the hills of Scotia no longer vocal with his song. Then let us deal kindly with him-gently as we would tread upon his grave. In the beautiful language of Scott, "On the wild hill

Let the wild heath-flower flourish still."

The

To possess capacity is not to possess genius, unless this capacity be instinctive and powerful! neither is capacity always to be considered as talent, unless it be conceptive and elevating. "Genius," says Dr. Blair, "is the power of executing," and, says another critic, "a man may possess talent without this power; he may execute too, but not

Poems, Narrative and Lyrical, by William Motherwell. Second American Edition. W. D. Ticknor, Boston. † Robert Burns.

to perfection." There are degrees of genius and of talentshades of difference to be sure that are as nice as the spider's web, and which vary according to the finer sympathies and ennobling faculties of man's nature, those high attributes which are "as verdure to the soul." As these exist, mind becomes purified and exalted, and the creative power which essentially belongs to genius is refined and etherealized, strengthened too and made mighty even by the quickening of the inward spirit. Re-productive we think the highest quality of genius, by which, we mean that faculty which seems as a simple thing, but which experience teaches us is by no means a common one-the power which re-produces in the reader's mind the precise idea of the writer, and so distinctly, too, as to make him glow with the same feeling-to see, as it were visually, the picture drawn in the mental eye of the author, and painted with life-giving truth, and a thorough instinct of the beautiful.

Were there an exact medium between genius and talent, in such a rank should we place William Motherwell. To say that he possessed the first order of genius, would be too lavish praise for our sincerity, and to put him in the first rank of talent would be too little commendation. That he had genius is indisputable, the versatility of which added to his variety of thought, his facility in numbers and his harmony of verse, all demand for him a high position amongst the radiant list of British poets. And yet he sought not nor even dreamed of fame. That he understood its insufficiency for even earthly happiness, is apparent in the following lines:

What is Fame? and what is Glory?
A dream-a jester's lying story,
To tickle fools withal, or be
A theme for second infancy.
A visioning that tempts the eye,
But mocks the touch-nonentity;
A rainbow substanceless as bright,
Flitting forever

O'er hill-top to more distant height,
Nearing us never ;

A bubble blown by fond conceit,
In very sooth itself to cheat;

The witch-fire of a frenzied brain;
A fortune that to lose were gain;
A word of praise, perchance of blame;
The wreck of a time-bandied name-
Ay, this is Glory!-this is Fame!

"Nearing us never," he says, as if thinking of the present life and little dreaming of what might be in futurity. Immortality is, however, near to immortality, and the soul which "soared aloft" in its simple melody has now become immortal. So with his fame. It will rise gradually even as his poems have slowly reached from Scotland to America, and his verse attaining an immortality which his modest muse never aspired after, will have "neared" the spirit of the departed.

The first mention we ever remember to have seen of the poems of Motherwell was in the "American Monthly Magazine," of 1837 or 8-a periodical which soon after ceased its existence, but which was then published in the city of New York. The editors seemed not to have appreciated the genius of the poet, for they simply notice "a very neat volume of poems, printed at Glasgow," and with little other comment than the remark that "the work

has not been republished in America," go on to transcribe "an exquisite set of verses," and some "strangely musical stanzas." We confess our indebtedness, however, to these same editors for even this brief notice. It introduced us to the author, and we hoped at once for a better acquaintance. Time has gratified our desires, and in 1841 we first renewed our knowledge of a sweet and versatile poet, and one of no mean genius. In the language of the preface to the first American edition of these poems, "how so genuine a literary treasure-so rare an exotic should have been until now neglected in the daily indiscriminate transplantation of so many fruit-bearing and barren trees-of choice flowers and unsightly weeds, is difficult to explain; but so it has been."

The first portion of the volume contains several excellent imitations of the ancient Norse poetry-a kind of writing unfamiliar to us in this country, except so far as Longfellow has made us acquainted with it by his own productions and translations, amongst which we recollect "The Luck of Edenhall," "The Elected Knight," and "The Skeleton in Armour"-the latter being an imitation inferior to those of Motherwell, and the two former being translations from the German and Danish. In justice to the versatility of our poet we shall not be able to give more than one specimen of his Norse poetry, having selected for this purpose "The Wooing Song of Jarl Egill Skallagrine." He could not have entered more perfectly than he has done into the bold, untutored and dauntless spirit of the warrior-" a character," he says, "which is entirely a creation, and nothing of it historical except the name of the Skald, who I think could not have wooed in a different fashion from that I have chosen."

Bright maiden of Orkney,
Star of the blue sea!

I've swept o'er the waters
To gaze upon thee;

I've left spoil and slaughter,
I've left a far strand,

To sing how I love thee,
To kiss thy small hand!
Fair daughter of Einar,
Golden-haired maid!

The lord of yon brown bark

And lord of this blade;

The joy of the ocean,

Of warfare and wind,

Hath borne him to woo thee,

And thou must be kind.

So stoutly Jarl Egill wooed Torf Einer's daughter. That the Orkney maiden was a fitting bride for her warrior lord, hear what he says of her:

In Jutland, in Iceland,

On Neustria's shore,

Where'er the dark billow

My gallant bark bore,

Songs spoke of thy beauty,
Harps sounded thy praise,

And my heart loved thee long, ere
It thrilled in thy gaze.

And then how he wooed her:

He skills not to woo thee
In trembling and fear,
Though lords of the land may
Thus troop with the deer.
The cradle he rocked in
So sound and so long,
Hath framed him a heart
And a hand that are strong:
He comes then as Jarl should,
Sword belted to side,

To win thee and wear thee
With glory and pride.

Setting aside the little romance of the sea connected with this Norse wooing song, the Skald is a pattern for even our modern knights in love and bravery. A man can pay no greater compliment to a true woman, than when morally conscious of intrinsic worth and superiority himself, he devotes it all to her, as "a stout maiden of mould," whom his honest pride teaches him is deserving of the priceless treasure of a noble mind. But no wooing with "the smooth flattery of a honeyed tongue." "Bold hearts love the bold," sang Jarl Egill, and true hearts love the true, say we, for they link to each other in sympathy. Of what a glorious love is this high affinity the creation, and what a blessed futurity of happiness is raised from the strong super

structure.

All the specimens of verse in this collection written in Scottish orthography and phraseology are distinguised by pathos and beauty; there is a tender sensibility about them

which is exquisitely expressed in the versification he has chosen, and the thought is true to human nature and a knowledge of the heart. Had Robert Burns written "Jeannie Morrison," or " My heid is like to rend, Willie," the whole race of critics would have been thrown into an ecstasy of admiration, and the pieces themselves would have been regarded as gems of rare value. These stanzas are better known in this country than any others in the volume, a circumstance for which we are principally indebted to Mr. Dempster, that delightful Scottish balladsinger, who set them to music, and has, in this way, given them a deserved popularity.

The heart-felt earnestness which the poet betrays in the pathetic little poem, "My hied is like to rend, Willie," is as unsurpassable as it is natural. We cannot better describe its character than by saying that it might have been placed by Scott in the mouth of the unfortunate Effie Deans, so nearly it sings her sad story.

The specimens we have given of the Norse poetry of Motherwell breathe the pure love of manly bravery and feminine devotion; in a manner, too, which shows a thorough understanding of the laws of beauty. Our poet had, however, higher thoughts. Listen now to a different melody, and see him in the midnight hour with the bright moon above, and stars, "the imperial jewelry of Heaven," calling forth in him the very spirit of the worshipful and filling him with adoration. In the piece entitled "Midnight and Moonshine" we observe his religious sentiment:

All earth below, all Heaven above

In this calm hour are filled with Love;

All sights, all sounds have throbbing hearts,

In which its blessed fountain starts,

And gushes forth so fresh and free,
Like a soul-thrilling melody.

And then how well he describes the sound of the rip

pling waters heard in the quietude:

Like living things, their voices pour
Dim music as they flow.

Sinless and pure they seek the sea,
As souls pant for eternity;-

Heaven speed their bright course till they sleep
In the broad bosom of the deep.

Observe the beauty of the following:

High in mid air, on seraph wing,
The paley moon is journeying

In stillest path of stainless blue;
Keen, curious stars are peering through
Heaven's arch this hour; they dote on her
With perfect love; nor can she stir
Within her vaulted halls a pace,
Ere rushing out, with joyous face,
These Godkins of the sky

Smile, as she glides in loveliness;
While every heart beats high

With passion, and breaks forth to bless
Her loftier divinity.

And now the hushed silence of the city-how graphic is the description:

And lo! even like a giant wight
Slumbering his battle toils away,
The sleep-locked city, gleaming bright
With many a dazzling ray,
Lies stretched in vastness at my feet;
Voiceless the chamber and the street,
And echoless the hall;-
Had Death uplift his bony hand
And smote all living on the land
No deeper quiet could fall.

O God! this is a holy hour :-
Thy breath is o'er the land;
I feel it in each little flower

Around me where I stand,—
In all the moonshine scattered fair,
Above, below me, every where,-

In every dew-bead's glistening sheen, In every leaf and blade of green,And in this silence grand and deep, Wherein thy blessed creatures sleep.

"The Madman's Love," one of the longest of his poems, evinces the creative fancy of Motherwell; and, that he could enter so vividly into the very mind of the maniac as to make us shudder and sympathize-to quail with horror, and to weep for his desolation, is another evidence of his power of executing-that power, which to possess, is GENIUS. Going mad for love we know is not an uncommon theme of the writers of romantic poetry, especially of song; but here we are made to realize the feelings of the heart which faithlessness has wrecked for. ever, and which still loves on even in its sadness-consecrating anew the leafless tree and the murmuring stream where the false vow was plighted. Hear the madman exclaim in his agony:

Ho! Flesh and Blood! sweet Flesh and Blood
As ever strode on earth!
Welcome to Water and to Wood,-

To all a Madman's mirth.
This tree is mine, this leafless tree
That's writhen o'er the linn;
The stream is mine, that fitfully
Pours forth its sullen din.

Their lord am I; and still my dream

Is of this tree,-is of that stream."

Hear him again break forth in the wildest sweetness, as he thinks the rustling of the woody trees is a chant to "cheer his solitude :"

Hush! drink no more! for now the trees

In yonder grand old wood,

Burst forth in sinless melodies

To cheer my solitude;

Trees sing thus every night to me,

So mournfully and slow,

They think, dear hearts, 't were well for me,

Could large tears once forth flow

From this hard frozen eye of mine,

As freely as they stream from thine.

And, when he thinks that the bright lunar orb of heaven pities him, how pathetically he continues:

And she goes wandering near and far
Through yonder vaulted skies,
No nook whereof but hath a star
Shed for me from her eyes;-
She knows I cannot weep, but she
Weeps worlds of light for love of me!

Is not the whole conceit of these lines exquisitely beautiful? The story, too, that the madman tells of his love is exquisite in tenderness-he has just found "life's sum of bliss-to love and be beloved again," when Fate severs the twain, and he becomes "a wanderer on the faithless sea." How vivid to the imagination is the poet's picture: Our vows were passed, in Heaven enrolled, And then next morrow's sun Saw banners waving in the wind, And tall barks on the sea: Glory before, and Love behind, Marshaled proud chivalrie, As every valor-freighted ship Its gilt prow in the wave did dip.

For this poem of "The Madman's Love," we claim originality, conception, beauty, vigor and strength-all those qualities which we have realized as we read it, and which are more obvious in this one piece than in whole rivers of rhyme flowing from other sources.

But we do not claim perfection for our author. In Jean Paul's words, he is occasionally wanting in "that polish and labor lime which contents reviewers," and he sometimes protracts his subject to a tedious length. Of this kind, are "Elfinland Wud," an imitation of the ancient Scottish Romantic Ballad, "True Love's Dirge," and "Halbert the Grim." In the latter, as well as in the "Demon Lady," there is too much of the supernatural to

be pleasing- too much for the genius of the poet, which, as we have seen, exhibits itself with more force and beauty

whilst depicting the true and natural.

"A Sabbath Summer Noon" seems the outpouring of the quiet feelings of the author, attuned to holiness and devotion by the recurrence of the day which God has blessed. It speaks for itself to the heart, though some of the stanzas are less perfect in rhythm and force than the usual run of his poetry. In it, we see again the great beauty of his religious sentiment:

It is a most delicious calm

That resteth every whereThe holiness of soul-sung psalm, Of felt but voiceless prayer!

With hearts too full to speak their bliss, God's creatures silent are.

They silent are; but not the less,

In this most tranquil hour

Of deep, unbroken dreaminess,

They own that Love and Power Which, like the softest sunshine, rests On every leaf and flower.

So, even now this hour hath sped
In rapturous thought o'er me,

Feeling myself with nature wed,—
A holy mystery,-

A part of earth, a part of Heaven,
A part, great God! of Thee.

Freshness, that most desirable quality for the poet, and that which, more than any other, is a charm to the reader, peculiarly belongs to Motherwell. His versatility is indeed wonderful; he is always pleasing, and sometimes grand and elevating, but never the same. From the maiden's bower, where he sung of bravery and love, he goes forth to battle with the Covenanter and the Turk; from the great world of Nature where he notes all the wonders of Earth and of Heaven, he looks up with reverence to Nature's God, and, conscious that man was made for more than humanity, he exclaims with fervor:

'T were time this world should cast
It's infant slough away,

And hearts burst forth at last

Into the light of day;

'T were time all learned to be

Fit for eternity!

aside,

Seek silent hills, or rest thyself where peaceful waters glide;

Or, underneath the shadow vast of patriarchal tree,
Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in rapt tranquillity.

Our poet well understood how to walk abroad and smile with Nature. He knew too that "life is not all joyousness;" he knew that change is ever at work round and about us that heart-strings could snap, and life itself decay even in a world that his own pure thoughts sometimes likened to a garden of flowers and fruitfulness. Thus he gives us another variety of verse and idea, in "A Monody," from which we make a short extract:

Hour after hour,
Day after day,
Some gentle flower
Or leaf gives way
Within the bower
Of human hearts;
Tear after tear

In anguish starts,
For, green or sere,
Some loved leaf parts
From the arbene

Of human hearts;The keen winds blow; Rain, hail, and snow Fall every where !

The latter part of this volume is occupied with a collection of songs, all of them beautiful, and all, with one or two exceptions, discovering a sprightly delicacy and an eloquence of fancy, which, to borrow an appropriate phrase, may be described as "airily elegant." We have protracted our review, however, so far, that we are seriously alarmed for the patience of our readers, and refrain from giving any specimens of this style. Suffice it to say, that his harp is never struck save with notes of melody-never awakened into harmonious life but with the pathos of deep feeling.

By the extracts we have now made from the poetical writings of William Motherwell, we trust we have exhibited their author as he should be, in the bright light of his own genius-a light so diffusive that it reflects on all its rainbow hues, and so clear withal, that we see by it into the very soul of the writer. We have not placed him, however, in the first rank of poets, though we doubt not that he would have attained this eminence had he lived yet a little longer. His genius is not Homeric, Shaksperian, or Miltonic; he never wrote an epic or a tragedy, but his lyrics are as sweet as the odes of ancient Greece, with the spirit of Pindar, the harmony and propriety of Horace, and the tenderness of Dodsley or Gray. He is the child of Nature, and his genius is inherited from that generous mother, who supplies those of her children who "shut not their eyes that they may not see," or their "ears that they may not understand" with such divine food as the bards of old fed and strengthened on-the beauty and grandeur of her works that moral beauty which is the morning twilight of Heaven.

As we cherish the moss rose-bud presented by the hand that we love, preserving it sacredly even after its life has departed-so shall we cherish the memory and the writings of Motherwell. His life is like the moss-rose in beauty and sweetness; and even as the angel of the flow. ers, according to the poetical conceit, bestowed the veil of moss to add yet another grace to that which before was fairest in the bright parterre, so did the angel of God bestow upon our minstrel-bard that veil of modesty, which, while he lived, kept him "unknown to fame." Rend asunder this veil, and the rose expands itself; it is odorous with fragrance-a bright creation from the "Giver of every good and perfect gift”—a thing of life and beauty!

There are some authors whose writings and conduct we do not applaud or condemn by any fixed "laws" of taste or propriety. They are free of the "Principles of Rhetoric." They are allowed to sing and sin, of their own sweet will, without regard to Doctors Blair and Whateley. At first they are ridiculed and denounced, but, after the time-honored tortures of criticism have been rigorously applied to discover whether their peculiarities are ingrained or merely affectations, they are allowed to practice whatever verbal gymnastics and pyrotechnics they please. Their idiosyncrasies are so prominent that what is affected in others is natural in them. Critics gradually grow weary of stretching them on the rack, or branding them with the hot iron. Readers, after a few petulant remonstrances, silently assent to the claims of their individuality. Conservatism nods its sullen acquiescence. And thus literary radicals, whose first sallies brought down upon their heads the most scorching satire, are soon seen side by side with the legislators and scrupulous Pharisees of letters, and their praise is echoed from lips which once curled in polite disgust at their outrages. It is discovered that there is originality, perhaps genius, in their singularities of thought and diction, and that a man may write agreeable works without taking the "best models" for bis pattern.

Leigh Hunt must be considered, on the whole, to belong to this class. In spite of his faults, there is something quite bewitching in his character and poems. We hardly judge him by the same laws we apply to other poets; we are willing to take him as he is. The same errors and fooleries which would be insufferable in another, alter their aspect if not their nature, as observed in the easy impudence of his chirping egotism. No man has been more severely attacked, no man is more open to censure, yet we feel that none can bear it with a more careless philosophy. The true object of punishment is to reclaim, and Hunt was past reclaiming before critics began to punish. All severity is lost upon him. He is what he is by virtue of his nature. The jauntiness, the daintiness, the vanity, the flippancy, the accommodating morality, which look upon us from his life and writings, and which, in their rare combination in one peculiar mind, made Byron call him an honest charlatan who believed in his own impostures, would be disgusting if less in harmony with the character of the individual; but, considered as part and parcel of Leigh Hunt, and of him alone, they are often pleasing.

Hunt has had bitter enemies and warm friends, but, from his position as a liberal, his enemies have possessed the advantage of arraying against him the prejudices of party, as well as skillfully availing themselves of the weak points in his transparent nature. For many years he was pursued with the fiercest animosity of political and personal hatred. His name has been used by a clique of unscrupulous tory writers as a synonyme of every thing base, stupid, brainless and impudent. His poems have been analyzed, parodied, misrepresented, covered with every epithet of contempt, pierced by every shaft of malice.

of satire and ridicule, have heaped together all phrases and images of contumely, to destroy his reputation, and render him an object of universal scorn. It must be confessed that the faults of his mind and manner, the faults of his taste and conduct, the presumption with which he spoke of his eminent cotemporaries, the flippancy with which he passed judgments on laws and government, laid him open to animadversion, and were, in some instances, apologies for the malice and severity of his adversaries. For a number of years he was so pertinaciously attacked in Blackwood's Magazine, in connection with his friends, Keats and Hazlitt, that it almost seemed as if the prominent object of that flashing journal was to crush one poor poet and his associates. He was stigmatized as the founder and exponent of the "Cockney school of poetry." His poems were held up as a strange compound of vulgarity and childishness-as a sort of neutral ground between St. Giles and the nursery. His style was represented as a union of all in expression which is coarse and affected, with all that is feeble and babyish. Byron, who pretended at one time to be his friend, says, in a letter to Moore"He believes his trash of vulgar phrases, tortured into compound barbarisms, to be old English ;" and adds, of the "Foliage," that "of all the ineffable centaurs that were ever begotten by self-love upon a nightmare, I think this monstrous Sagittary the most prodigious."

That this cruelty, and, in numerous cases, elaborate dishonesty of criticism, practiced by men of talent and influence, has produced no apparent change in his disposition, has never led him to correct or alter any of the besetting sins of his style, and has not diminished his popularity, is a singular fact, and one calculated to illustrate how small can be the influence of malignant criticism, both upon the mind of the object, and the taste of readers. The friends of Hunt have borne patiently all the attacks which their association with him have provoked, and those who have suffered most by the connection have been the most uncompromising of his advocates. There must be much frankness and genial kindness in his nature; there must be much in him to love, or he could not have numbered among his friends men so opposite in taste and opinion as Shelley, Talfourd, Lamb and Proctor. Shelley, at one time, gave him £1400 to extricate him from difficulties.

The character of Hunt is so closely connected with all he has written, that it is difficult to consider them apart. "Rimini" is the most popular of his poems, and it contains qualities which will long sustain its reputation. Its excellences and its faults are both individual and peculiar, and we hardly know of a poem more open to criticism. The subject itself is not pleasant to contemplate, and it requires the nicest tact and most cunning sophistry to reconcile it to the moral sense of the reader. We are required to confound misfortune with crime, and express pity instead of indignation at unnatural wrong. The morality, separated from the poetry, is pernicious. There may be solitary instances where the greatest injury that can be inflicted on a husband may be performed by a brother, and the heniousness of the crime be modified by circumstances which seemed to mitigate its enormity, but it is dangerous