Shall we fairly confess that the Pelican Island' is no favourite of ours? that with all its beautiful pictures-not more remarkable for their minute fidelity and truth, than for the beauty of their poetical expression ;-with some passages of solemn reflection and meditation, scarcely unworthy of Milton and Wordsworth, its plan (for such we must suppose it has, though to us as yet a mighty maze') seems to oppose an insurmountable barrier to its ever becoming a popular poem. As a play of imagination,- a framework in which are to be enchased a thousand fairy pageants (not without an indirect purpose and significance, since all are made the means of awakening the reflection that

The glories of our earthly state

Are shadows, not substantial things),'

we can admire it; but why might not the purpose of the poem be attained by simpler means? What moral idea is meant to be developed by an ascending series of created things, of which the pelicans seem to be the perfected representatives, since they certainly are represented in a far more captivating light than their human successors? These are questions which, as Sir Thomas Brown cautiously says, would admit of a wide solution;' and which we cannot, with any satisfaction to ourselves, pretend to elucidate. It would be unfair, however, to forget, that as yet the work is apparently but a fragment; and that much which seems at present to be obscure, or even repulsive, may, when it assumes its completed form, appear in a different light. At present the enigma has been but propounded, and it perplexes and confounds us; but before forming an opinion, we are contented to wait for its solution at the hands of the author.

Though in these longer and more elaborate productions, Mr Montgomery has certainly displayed many of the higher qualities of poetry, it will be generally admitted, we think, that the result produced by the whole is less striking and satisfactory than might have been anticipated from the finish and perfection of many of the parts. They neither possess the interest of plot and incident, nor that arising from the developement of a system of opinions. They are mainly a series of historical sketches and allusions, embellished by touching and beautiful reflections, but connected by scarcely any other tie than that of succession-a gallery of separate portraits, not a picture. The field on which Mr Montgomery appears to most advantage,-where his beauties are most prominently brought into view and his defects most concealed, is in his shorter lyrical effusions. The constitution of his mind is, in fact, essentially lyrical. He seems to possess

little or nothing of dramatic power and variety, and but a slender portion of the epic or narrative. But in these brief and soul-felt effusions which come welling forth from the depths of the heart, as from a fountain, at the touch of every gentle emotion which troubles the waters, the whole man speaks-his deep devotion, his love of his brethren of mankind, and of all that is beautiful or venerable in the world of nature or of man, of wisdom and divine philosophy,' of order and tempered liberty, the cheerfulness which looks beyond the troubles of life, or finds in them only new proofs of love and new motives to exertion. Each bears the stamp of some strong and recently felt emotion, which, long cherished in the heart, and called into action by some external influence, has sought a vent in this poetical formflowing out almost involuntarily without apparent art or design, yet each complete in itself, and embodying, perhaps in two or three simple stanzas, matter in which the thoughtful mind may find matter of endless meditation. While his longer poems, once read, are generally laid aside, and only occasionally resumed to refresh the memory with the recollection of some of those pas sages to which we have alluded, his smaller poems are in the memories and mouths of all.

The present little volume (consisting, as Mr Montgomery states in his modest preface, of miscellaneous and fugitive pieces which with many others had been collecting on his hands during a period when no recollection of past success could ' embolden him to attempt greater things') will not disappoint the expectations raised by its predecessors. It has all their distinguishing qualities—sincerity of feeling, great beauty of poetical expression, and a power of lending novelty even to reflections and images with which we are most familiar. He never shrinks from the plainest and most familiar illustration where it seems to be the simplest and most forcible for his purpose; and the effect is almost always good. Take, for instance, a stanza, from the present volume, in his lines on a passage in Timothy.

Of this form of illustrating the simplest themes by language

and images, at once homely and poetical, the short poem entitled 'the Field of the World,' affords a good example.

• Sow in the morn thy seed,

At eve hold not thine hand;

To doubt and fear give thou no heed,
Broad-cast it o'er the land.

Beside all waters sow,

The highway furrows stock,
Drop it where thorns and thistles grow,
Scatter it on the rock.

The good the fruitful ground,
Expect not here nor there;

O'er hill and dale, by plots, 't is found;
Go forth, then, every where.

• Thou know'st not which may thrive,
The late or early sown;

Grace keeps the precious germs alive,
When and wherever strown.

And duly shall appear,

In verdure, beauty, strength,
The tender blade, the stalk, the ear,
And the full corn at length.

• Thou canst not toil in vain;
Cold, heat, and moist, and dry,
Shall foster and mature the grain,
For garners in the sky.

Thence, when the glorious end,
The day of God is come,

The angel-reapers shall descend,

And heaven cry-" Harvest home."'

If Mr Montgomery never hesitates, from the fear of employing language or a train of illustration too homely, he seems to be still less anxious to avoid such illustrations merely because they have been used before. If they have suggested themselves to himself, and appear to harmonize with the thought which he is endeavouring to embody, that is enough. There is not, perhaps, in the following stanzas, any image that is new; yet we cannot but think that they possess an antique charm, with something of the melodious simplicity of Withers.

HUMILITY.

The bird that soars on highest wing,
Builds on the ground her lowly nest;
And she that doth most sweetly sing,
Sings in the shade when all things rest:
-In lark and nightingale we see
What honour hath humility.

• When Mary chose "the better part,"
She meekly sat at Jesus' feet;
And Lydia's gently-opened heart

Was made for God's own temple meet;
-Fairest and best adorn'd is she,

Whose clothing is humility.

The saint that wears heaven's brightest crown,

In deepest adoration bends;

The weight of glory bows him down,

Then most when most his soul ascends;
-Nearest the throne itself must be

The footstool of humility.'

It is, indeed, the perfectly natural and unaffected manner in which Mr Montgomery's mind turns every thing around him into food for high and holy thoughts,-connecting the simplest flower, the slightest incident, with the ideas of infinity and eternity,— that imparts, perhaps, their greatest charm to these lyrics. In most, that mood of mind is but a garb seldom worn, and soon thrown aside; but, in Mr Montgomery it is the habitual dress and garment of his mind, and to part with this sad-coloured raiment for a lighter and gayer array would be to do violence to its moral constitution. While he sees the sun-flower beneath the fervour of noon-day, still turning towards the source of light and heat, it suggests the wish that he, too, like the sun-flower, though rooted in earth may live in an element of light, and have for his prospect heaven: if a flash of winter lightning illuminate the gloom for a moment to leave the darkness more intense, it calls forth some sweetly solemn strain of musing, such as this:

The flash at midnight!-'twas a light
That gave the blind a moment's sight,
Then sunk in tenfold gloom;
Loud, deep, and long the thunder broke,
The deaf ear instantly awoke,

Then closed as in the tomb :
An angel might have pass'd my bed,
Sounded the trump of God, and fled.

In a like spirit are the lines which follow. The idea of the voyage of Life is, perhaps, of all others the most hackneyed. Yet here it almost assumes an appearance of novelty; partly from the truth and sincerity of feeling with which the parallel is pursued, partly from the fearlessness with which it is followed out into minutiae on which his predecessors had seldom ventured. The crowding sails, the shrouds, the lighthouse, give a reality and air of originality to the picture.