to the vibration of the pavements, or any other movement. Thirdly, in England, the wiseacres who swallow fiery brandied Port, stained with logwood, think pure and delicate Burgundy unwholesome. The Burgundies of the finest class, rank thus:-1. Romanée Conti. 2. La Tache. 3. Chambertin. 4. Romanée St. Vivant. 5. Richebourg. 6. Nuits. 7. St. Georges. 8. Clos Vougeot. 9. Premaux. 10. Vosnes. 11. La Perriere. Of white, Mont Rachet, Goutte d'Or, and Genevrieres of Meursault. The longest duration of the finest Burgundies does not exceed twelve or fifteen years: after that time they decline: they attain their perfection from the second year. The system of making is not so perfect in Burgundy as in Champaigne. The wines of the Rhone are in the department of the Drome. The vineyards of Valence are the most important. The wines of Tain are exclusively bought up for Bourdeaux. Of the Hermitage grown in Valence, the average is about 2700 hectolitres; it is grown on a hill with a south aspect near Tain-the soil granite, gravel, and sand. This is the richest coloured wine the French have, but it will not keep more than twenty years. In bottles, the best sells for about four francs less than our abominable Port. The white Hermitage is made of white grapes only. This is the finest white wine France produces. It will keep above a century : but its taste and perfume undergo a change: its taste is very peculiar ; to us it has a flavour as if cedar wood had been immersed in it. The Er.. mitage Paille is a rich sweet wine. Red Hermitage is produced from two plants called little and great segros; a tradition is current, that this grape was brought from Shiraz by one of the hermits of Bessas. White hermitage is produced from the Rousanne grape. * (To be concluded in our next.) COLERIDGE'S POETICAL WORKS. VOL. I, II. PICKERING, 1834. "WHY is the harp of Quantock so long silent?" was the affectionate expostulation of one who remembered its early melodies, and who lamented that they were so prematurely suffered to expire. But why, being a poet, it may be asked, did not Mr. Coleridge delight continually in his high calling? Did he feel no pleasure in the exercise of his art ?-how quenched he the fire of inspiration?-how sealed his prophetic lips? In short, why, being a son of Apollo, did he cease to sing? We do not know that we are authorised even to suppose the cause; but in our days at least, we think it as much as even men highly gifted can expect, if they are enabled to rise to eminence in any one accomplishment or art; and though the mind is enriched and supported by fullness and variety of attainment, yet undoubtedly there are some studies that exercise apparently no favourable influence on the cultivation of others. We suppose no great mathematician was ever a great poet. Now, it is perhaps possible, that Mr. Coleridge's profound investigations, various and splendid acquirements, remote speculations, recondite reasonings and disquisitions, may have carried his mind away from those trains of thoughts which poetry calls her own, and have given it other associations less favourable and native to it. Perhaps the reason is to be referred to other causes. To the engrossing nature of the important questions connected with the constitutional and religious welfare of the country. Something to the demands of society and distractions of conversation: something to the reluctance which all occasionally feel to write, when they can indulge in the luxury of spreading the thoughts of others before them, and feeding at will on the fruits of their rich imaginations, and gazing on the magnificent creations of their genius or lastly, perhaps, the public mind has been slow in appreciating the value of Mr. Coleridge's poems, has visited them with neglect, has met them with ridicule, and has found itself incapable of duly estimating their merit. We presume that this latter cause may not be without reason advanced by us. Mr. C. has profoundly studied the principles of poetry; he has rigidly adhered to those principles in the execution of his art, and he has left to the public the free choice of approbation or neglect. He has not, as other poets have done, supplicated their favour, followed their direction, bowed to their caprices, and pandered to their desires. Mr. Coleridge has studied, till study has led to well-grounded love and highest admiration, the elder poets of his country he has recognized the justness of their views, the excellence of their execution; and he has been aware upon what deep and extensive basis they erected the imperishable edifice of their art. But in the meanwhile the public taste had followed far behind him; it had gradually been vitiated and impaired; it had lost its healthy desires and appetites; and became insatiably craving after a different kind of food. There was no lack of supply, when such was the demand; and its pampered gluttony was for ever seeking after new provocations. This has been the case with the poetic taste of the country for many years; and this at once accounts for the long neglect of those who were patiently working on the solid and assured principles of nature and truth, while others, more highly favoured, were throwing off their glittering corruscations before admiring crowds, and supplying with eager rapidity every vicious demand as it arose. Now the effect of all this has been to bring the public mind to a poetical taste and feeling which is decidedly incorrect, and opposed to the best models, ancient or modern, and to the most established rules and precedents. All the different and distinct provinces of poetry have been confounded, which had been so carefully, jealously, and properly guarded and separated. The deepest tragic passions, the most violent emotions, the most terrific inflictions, the most awful catastrophes, peculiar to that domain over which Melpomene presided, have been transplanted into those provinces which had been previously held sacred to feelings of a softer nature, more flexible, more various, more closely associated with the ordinary habits of life, with our habitual trains of thought, and with the associations and impressions which are moderated and subdued, and mingled, when the mind is in a state of health natural to it. Inordinate passion, fierce, uncontrollable resolves, inexorable destinies, and heart-rending catastrophes, have swept away before them every gentler feeling, every diversified incident, every mingled motive, every calmer desire; and all that constitutes the general character, that forms the common nature, and that makes the mingled yarn of which the life of man is woven. From this class of poets, from their erroneous views, and strange creations, and perishable theories, we turn with pleasure to the pruductions of Mr. Coleridge's muse. There we meet with natural thoughts clothed in becoming and appropriate language, with fine picturesque imagery, rich fancies, and delicate modulation of language. While we candidly and unreservedly assert, that we do not think Mr. Coleridge successful in the delineation of the higher passions of tragedy; and that there is in his dramatic productions too much pomp of language, and a want of clear, distinct, and forcible character in his persons; while even in some other of his Poems, we still think that the gracefulness of his step is encumbered by the stately magnificence of his drapery; in many, or most of his lyrical productions, we acknowledge with delight their great and various excellence. The Ancient Mariner, Christabel, and Geneveive, are the productions of a truly poetical mind, combining original genius, with a knowledge of the Muse's art, and with a command over the collected treasures of the realms of Parnassus. The thoughts which are conceived are expressed in the truest and most appropriate language, while the imagery that surrounds them is never wanting in harmony, and in fulness of effect. These Poems, however, are well known to the general reader, and safely inshrined in the hearts and heads of all the lovers of song. We will give therefore a fragment of one previously unknown to us, which seems to possess many of Mr. Coleridge's peculiar excellencieselegant in its design, and chaste in its execution. THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE. A Fragment. Beneath yon birch with silver bark, And drops and swells again. Up the castled mountain's breast, Oh! wherefore can he stay? She springs, she clasps him round the She sobs a thousand hopes and fears; Her kisses glowing on his cheeks, She quenches with her tears. The Knight made answer to the Maid, The stateliest in the land. The fairest shall be thine. "Wait only till the hand of Eve, Hath wholly closed yon western bars, And through the dark we two will steal Beneath the twinkling stars." "The dark? the dark? No! not the The twinkling stars! How, Henry, how? He pledged his sacred vow. Shall lead me from my mother's door, Sweet boys and girls all clothed in white Strewing flowers before. "But first the nodding Minstrels go; With music meet for lordly bowers; "And then my love and I shall pace- The leading quality of Mr. Coleridge's poetry is not to be sought in the moral sublimity, the deep emotion of his great contemporary, the poet of Rydal Mount; nor is it in the pensive tenderness, the thoughtful affection of the Laureate's song; but it consists in a high imaginative power,—in a fancy throwing its brilliant and grotesque lights even over the shaded abodes of sorrow--in a feeling of the picturesque, the romantic, the supernatural-in a playful seriousness, dallying with its griefs; sometimes delighting to dwell among the fables of enchantment-amid the pageants of chivalry, in masque and tournament-sometimes in the wild and savage solitudes of natureanon in gilded palaces, among the breathing forms of art-then is it to be seen fetching from the colder and far off dwellings of philosophy, subtle speculations, and fine analogies; and then again all these are intermingled and fused by the Genius of Poetry, and one of our bard's beautiful and singular creations starts up before us. We have only room for one more specimen, which we shall make, of a little poem that has we think a very pretty and pensive kind of beauty of its own, encased in a tuneful and elegant versification. YOUTH AND AGE. Verse, a breeze mid blossoms straying When I was young! "When I was young?"-ah! woeful "when!" Ah! for the change twixt now and then! Flowers are lovely-love is flower-like, Ere I was old! "Ere I was old?"-ah! woeful "ere" Which tells me youth's no longer here! Oh, subtle youth for years so many and 'Tis that thou and I are one. When we are old. That only serves to make us grieve DIARY OF A LOVER OF LITERATURE. 1806. Nov. 30. Read circumstantial details of Mr. Fox's illness, containing many interesting anecdotes of that illustrious statesman, whose reputation after all transcends-I blush to disclose it-any proofs I bave ever been able to discover of his ability. Burke he appears to have estimated more highly than I expected. What he says of "his eloquence casting a shadow over the wisdom it enshrines," Mackintosh repeated to me as his own idea. Fox was evidently a Deist; but he believed in the immortality of the soul, and appears to have derived much succour from this persuasion in his latter moments. Dec. 2. Read Franklin's works-by some very judicious remarks it appears that Franklin saw clearly enough that population will mount up to the means of subsistence, and must be increased by increasing those powers; but to Malthus still remains the originality of distinctly consider ing its nisus to mount higher, and the physical and moral checks by which this effort is repressed. Dec. 13. Went to the Opera. Semiramide-Catalani's first appearance of highest excellence-asserted her pre-eminence at the first outset. Her voice of prodigious compass, sweet, clear, brilliant, and powerful through its whole extent; running the most rapid, intricate, and extensive divisions with the utmost precision and veracity, ascending and descending for two octaves through every chromatic interval articulately, with the speed of lightning, equally great in the delicate, the graceful, and the sobbing, as in the impassioned and bravura style; combining in an exalted degree the voice of Mara, the execution of Billington, and the pathos of Banti, but infinitely superior to all. I have no conception of higher excellence in the art-the house overflowing and transported with delight Dec. 14. Spent the day with Ellis in pleasant chat. "It runs merrily," said Fox, "when the water gushed out at the first tapping." Said to Lord R. Spencer in an early stage of the negociation, "Buonaparte's views on the Continent are, I fear, not yet completed, and therefore I am afraid peace is at present hopeless." A friend of his related from a conversation which passed between Parr and Fox, that the latter was a Christian of this, however, I much doubt, though certainly it was most abhorrent to Fox's nature to dissemble. Jan. 10, 1807. Read the last volume of Sir Charles Grandison, for the most part a heavy appendage. Richardson, though destitute of higher invention, is very happy in minute details, where he does not indulge too much in the natural effeminacy of his mind. One would think he had been bred up among women.* After all, I am afraid that the tendency of such works is less to amend the heart and conduct, than to disgust one with real life; and this not so much from the characters described, as from the issues ascribed to these actions. A Sir Charles Grandison might surely be found, if such consequences would flow from such principles, feelings, and deportment; but, oh! how such a man in real life would be chafed and tormented. Yet the solace to the mind from these fictions for the time is sweet, and I part with regret from the dramatis personæ as from au old and valued acquaintance. Feb. 1. Looked over the Prolegomena to Hughes' edition of Spenser's Fairy Queen. He has a very neat image in his Essay on Allegorical Poetry. "The art of framing allegories, like that of painting upon glass, he observes, is now little practised, and in a great measure lost. Our colours want richness and transparency, and are either so ill-prepared, or so unskilfully laid on, that they more often sully the light which is to pass through them, than agreeably tincture and beautify it." Feb. 22. Looked over Beloe's Anecdotes of Scarce Books; giving me a perfect surfeit of these literary rarities; the collectors of which rank, in iny estimation, not a degree higher than butterfly-hunters. March 19. Began Loudon on Country Residences. His theory of taste with which he sets out, is too contemptible for criticism. How far will fancy go, when he gravely asserts, that a well-proportioned female figure placed erect, assumes nearly the form of two cones united at their bases, and that the breasts are also each a cone! March 24. Began an Abridgment of Abraham Tucker's "Light of Nature From Richardson's Correspondence, published subsequently to the time when this observation was made, Mr. Green's remark proves true. |