wish, as Mr. Watts's chosen subjects are of a domestic character, he had let us into some secrets that are carefully concealed. We have no wish to penetrate the mystery which hides the names of the "Nine Sisters," to whom the first poem is addressed, still less to learn their age; but we should wish to know his own. We wish the poems had been given dates, that, as we are to have the poet's own individual mind, and own domestic circle as our subject, we should find a biographical interest in the volume; but this is concealed from us; and whether the nine divinities or humanities were addressed by a stripling, or a middle-aged man, who had been already writing pathetic addresses to the first grey hair, or not, is one of the things of which we know nothing. We are afraid that our friend, however, must be regarded as grown somewhat old. "Time," in the third stanza, is not easily intelligible, except on this supposition: an engraving by Greatbach, from Stothard, gives us the ladies; the eldest of the nine is probably still in her teens; indeed, of the whole group, little can be said on this delicate subject of age, as the artist has made them all of very much the same time of life. Each, as the judicious matrons say, is the same age as other young ladies. Beauty and youth are the gifts of the painter: the poet has something better in store for them. 66 Painting, mute and motionless, steals but one glance from time." But the poet dares to tell of change that has already come, and of change that is yet to be. We had thought of quoting but a few stanzas from the poem, but it refuses to be broken into parts. It is one, and it is perfect. "TO NINE SISTERS. To Sisters all have dubbed 'divine;' With goddesses too fine for earth, "A wild Folian lute, whose strings By nature swayed, no sounds impart, Save when some fitful feeling flings Its breeze-like impulse o'er my heart; But waking gentle echoes oft, Where prouder strains might fail to move; Fond, brooding thoughts, and visions soft, Of fireside peace, and home-bred love. VOL. XXXVIII.-NO. CCXVII. "In years long past, when life was new, Ere Time or Care had touched my brow, My earliest songs were given to you; Come back and be my Muses now!— Now that my heart is faint and worn With many a vigil dark and long, And bade my lyre responsive thrill, "The bounding pulse, ingenuous glee, That spring-like, rich, romantic gleam, A summer day, of deep delight, When not a threatening cloud is near, When all is beauty to the sight, And all is music to the ear! "And such my life when Hope was young, And the bright world before me lay, And visions of enchantment flung Their glories on my lonely way. The strains that wreathed your names "Ye, too, are changed: the playful child, ways, Is now a child no more;-but moves With slower step, sedater air; With many a grace her Poet loves, But not the smiles she used to wear. "And ye, o'erstepping then the bound 'Twixt girlhood's bloom and woman's beauty, Whose hearts the hallowed bliss have found, Of matron love, and matron duty,— Long o'er your happy circles reign, And watch love's budding flowers unfold; But never can you be again The gladsome band you were of old! "Yet ye shall be my Muses still, By Memory painted as of yore; Still shall my harp responsive thrill To spells it oft hath owned before: The meeter inspiration far Those unambitious chords to move, Whose cherished themes so often are Childhood's sweet smiles and Woman's love. R "Let loftier bards their tributes bring To nymphs of more uncertain mood; Whilst grateful memory bids me sing A fairer, kinder Sisterhood: For them may Faith's bright beacon shine; And be immortal, too, in heaven!" The poem, "Ten Years Ago," we should wish to print, but it has been printed often before. It is of touching beauty, and would almost tempt us to unsay what we have said, and said not without much consideration of the subject, on domestic joys and griefs as the direct subject of poetry. We must transcribe one stanza. "Have we not knelt beside his bed, And watched our first-born blossom die; Hoped, till the shade of hope had fled, Then wept till Feeling's fount was dry! Was it not sweet in that sad hour To think, 'mid mutual tears and sighs, And burst to bloom in Paradise :- "The Painter's Dream" is a poem illustrated by two admirable engravings, one from a sunset, after Claude, by Barrett, and the other from Titian's Mirror of Diana, by Stothard. Both pictures are very beautiful. It may be as well here to mention that the illustrations, though all engraved for this volume, are often but loosely connected with the poems to which they are attached. "Considerable difficulties," says Mr. Watts, "present themselves to the painter who undertakes to illustrate poems of this description, a failure being almost inevitable whenever an attempt is made to identify a design with the incident rather than the sentiment of the poem. It is for this reason that several of the subjects of the engravings are rather emblematical of the poems they accompany than representations of the particular scenes they describe." The Sunset from Claude" not only brings Florence before the poet's eye, but a hundred associations connected with Florence rise up before his mind, and are embodied in words often in themselves pictures. We are not sure whether the state of mind into which the poet passes is properly to be called reverie or not, for his dream seems obedient rather to outward suggestion than to inward impulse-the spell of Claude's Sunset still moulding and controlling his thoughts-but the halls What gloricus triumphs of the days of old Your brightest dreams I see; I have not Some single lines are very happy :— "There Snyders' yelling bloodhounds burst their chain : There gorgeous Rubens' emblemed Triumphs rise; And Vandyck's Charles uplifts his mild, reproachful eyes!" A line which precedes these is probably that which suggested the second illustration "There golden Titian's living beauties glow." Interposed between "a Greek Temple" by Roberts, and "Morning in Greece" by Danby, the last represented by one of the most delicately finished engravings we have ever seen, are some pleasing lines-utterances less distinct than those from which we have quoted-still very graceful, and well worthy of being preserved. "Time cannot chase the glowing forms from earth That people still each valley, hill, and We wish we had room for the Poet's Home," one of the most pleasing pieces in the volume, but it should be read in the book itself, where it illustrates and is illustrated by designs from Stothard and Howard. "Sunset from Richmond Hill" by Barrett, is beautifully engraved. The verses do not quite please us; nor indeed do we think Mr. Watts ever very successful in that class of compositions in which the same expected cadence returns. Every stanza echoes in its last line something about Richmond Hill-"How bright a heaven is Richmond Hill," &c. We have the ear fatigued by recurring sounds, and the Such mind baffled by mere sound. poems should be very short, or rather should not be at all; and the worst of it is, such poems have always something about them that leads us to suppose them favourites with the author. In this instance the picture is far better than the verses. In a scene from Faust by Madame Colin, the verses, in their turn, far surpass the illustrative plate; and we think also the verses entitled "The Youngling of the Flock," are far superior to the infant's head from Sir Thomas Lawrence, which head, though engraved by Lewis, and from Sir Thomas Lawrence, we feel it impossible to look at with pleasure. What cruel step-mother could have thought of getting such an infant's head made thus immortal? Or was it the maternal or grand-motherly passion that actually shaped such features into beauty? and are we insensible to that power of imagination which has sought gratification in such a face? We are told by those who have looked on it longer than we have, that it is a face in which an artist would find beauty. The verses are tuned to that under-song of domestic love in which Mr. Watts excels. "Love and Friendship" is a very pretty painting of two children, one wingless, one with wings. In the list of illustrations prefixed to the volume it is called Cupid and Psyche. A print from Stothard of "Cupids blowing Bubbles," engraved by Greatbach, gave us great pleasure, and has suggested to Mr. Watts some happy lines. "TO A CHILD BLOWING BUBBLES. "Thrice happy Babe! what radiant dreams are thine, To be, like thee, a careless child once more. "To share thy simple sports and sinless glee; Thy breathless wonder, thy unfeigned delight, "To feel a power within himself to make, Like thee, a rainbow wheresoe'er he goes; "Who would not give his all of worldly lore, The hard-earned fruits of many a toil and care,— Thy guileless thoughts and blissful ignorance share. "Yet Life hath bubbles, too, that soothe awhile The sterner dreams of man's maturer years; "Thrice happy Child! a brighter lot is thine; (What new illusion e'er can match the first?) We mourn to see each cherished hope decline; Thy mirth is loudest when thy bubbles burst." We have given to this volume more space than we had originally intended; not more, however, than it well deserves-and we close it with reluctance; not, however, without first se lecting for our readers one of several poems by Mrs. Alaric Watts, which are printed in her husband's volume. The fine lines which follow accompany a print of Amiens Cathedral: "AMIENS CATHEDRAL. "The doors unfold! I gaze with breathless thrill; SEWELL'S HORACE.* "Yonder's foul murder done!" WHEN a translation of Horace, at once literal and rhythmical, is put forth by a scholar of Mr. Sewell's standing, expectation is naturally excited, and many must, like ourselves, in ignorance of its demerits, have added this volume to their already somewhat redundant editions of the works of the little fat bard. Were disappointment the only result likely to follow from perusal, not a word should we have said upon the subject. It would only have been the breaking down of one scholar more, where many had broken before him. But the book is ushered into the world with such peculiar pretensions, veiled under a very equivocal humility; and the name of Mr. Sewell is so likely to carry it into quarters where its influence may be injurious, that we are tempted into a consideration of its claims to the character it professes, of "reconciling the two things, strict accuracy and something of a poetical character." In the preface, we are informed that the translation is a specimen of rhythmical translations from the classics which Mr. Sewell has prepared for the use of his academical students. "It is scarcely necessary," he says, "to explain why such translations of classical poetry should be rhythmical. Without rhythm, poetical phraseology becomes bombast; and the unadorned language which the simplicity of the ancient writers so frequently requires, when stripped of the rhythm, loses all its charm. Moreover, the habit of composing in rhythm forms the ear to a delicate perception of its powers and laws, even in writing prose." All excellent truisms, to which no exception can be taken; but Mr. Sewell has a theory behind of a rather startling novelty. While pupils are learning their Latin Grammars, they are to be exercised in the language, not in Horace or Virgil, but in detailed words, separate phrases, taken out of their con text;" a somewhat dreary exercise, and scarcely such as we should select for quickening the zeal of intelligent boys. But Mr. Sewell proceeds : "The next thing would be to provide for classes, not Virgil, for instance, or Homer, but as accurate, and at the same time as poetical a translation of them as could be procured; accuracy, strict word for word accuracy, being the most essential condition. And then the master, with the original in his hand, should lead them on to write Virgil and write Homer. Every lesson will thus be a lesson in composition, a lesson in grammar, which they cannot but learn when compelled to practise; at the same time an exercise of thought; at the same time an opportunity of acquiring a vast amount of synonyms and forms of expression suggested by the whole class, with the certainty of selecting the best. When in this way boys have composed themselves, as it were, the great compositions of antiquity (in which they will soon acquire an extraordinary facility), they may then be led to read them, not merely construing them literally into English, which, I think, should rarely be required, except upon paper, when they have time to study their work carefully, and arrange their language rhythmically; but reading them off (which is most important) in the original language, and then, with the book closed, giving an account of the meaning of each sentence as it was read." That Virgil, Horace, and Homer should not be put into the hands of boys before they have made considerable advances in Latin and Greek, no one who has seen the distaste engendered by hopeless puzzling over the difficulties they present to unprepared minds, will for a moment dispute. It is a wrong to these great poets, and a greater wrong to those who, but for the dislike occasioned by this ill-advised drudgery, might, in after years, have drunk from these sources unfailing draughts of instruction and delight. Yet this mistaken practice, grievous as it is, but which, as the science of education advances, is happily becom "The Odes and Epodes of Horace, translated literally and rhythmically. Sewell, B.D., Fellow and sub-Rector of Exeter College, Oxford. London. 1850." By W. |