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A
man must serve his time to every trade
Save censure: critics all are ready-made.
In
olden times, say when Jeoffrey was at the head
of the "Edinburgh" it was something
to be a critic; now it is nothing. In this
age when writers are as numerous as the potato
bug, critics may be named Legion. He who
can successfully criticize a grilse regulation
or the stump speech of a county councillor, can
also of course criticize a poem, and he can judge
the same upon the canons of art, though he has
never learnt the difference twixt a dactyl and
a spondee, or learnt how to scan a line by finger
or eye. "Smartness" in writing
and a natural gift of gab does well enough dealing
with the smelt fishery or some other subject not
bounded by the rules of art, and in such writing
the illiterate penster appears to as much advantage
as the scholar; but in criticizing a poem abounding
in allusions to the siege of Troy or the wanderings
of Ćneis, the knack of writing smart things will
never supply the ignorance of the rules upon which
poetry must be judged, or of the incident or incidents
which may be the groundwork of the poem.
When an illiterate Yankee once visited the picture
gallery at Florence, everything he saw brought
forth the same exclamation "Isn't it just
lovely," and when he saw the tortures of
Laocoon made immortal in marble he exclaimed "O!
but doesn't he feel bad!"
However
we can't reform in the world, or stamp out presumption;
for despite all we may say
"Fools
[will] rush in where angels fear to tread."
Mr.
Roberts must pardon us for our rather lengthy
prologue, and now with his permission a word on
the little volume before us. First and formost
it is a credit to the printers, Lippincott &
Co., of Philadelphia. The paper used is
the best, the typographical appearance and the
binding are to a high standard. The book
is offered for one dollar. It contains a
number of poems, many of which have appeared in
Scribner, in the Canadian News—one
appeared in the Fredericton Star—ballad
to the Kingfisher. The first poem, and properly
the best in the book is
[Jupiter,
Neptune, and Mercury were once travelling through
Bśotia, and being tired and hungry late at evening
went into the house of one, Hyrieus a peasant.
The peasant treated them to the best his hut afforded,
not knowing they were gods; and the deities so
struck with his piety promised him to give whatever
asked. He asked a son: and a few months
after he dug and in the skin of a victim offered
to the gods he found ORION. He named him
"Urion ab urine," the word by the corruption
of a letter becoming Orion: or as Ovid says, "Perdidit
antiquum littera a prima sonum." Orion
grew to be a mighty man, and it is said Diana
fell in love with him. But Śnopian king
of Chios became jealous of his stature, and when
the hunter asked the hand of the kings daughter,
the fair Merope, the king refused conditionally,
"Rid my land of wild beasts," he said,
"and she shall be yours." This
Orion did, but on the evening he was to claim
his bride, the king gave him intoxicating drink,
and poured poison upon his eyeballs. His
eyes were destroyed, but next morning from a high
mountain he looked towards the suns rising place,
and the gods restored his sight. After death
he was placed in Heaven and become one of the
constellations.—ED. STAR.]
This
beautiful poem is written in heroic verse—the
iambic pentameter. The action of the poem
begins on the eve when the stately Orion claimed
his bride of King Chios her father. This
scene is described true to very nature by our
young poet, commencing thus:
"Two
mighty arms of thunder cloven rock
Stretched ever westward to the setting sun
And took into their ancient scarred embrace
A laughing valley and a crooning bay.
* *
* *
* *
* *
*
* * Amidst the slope
Three sacred laurels drooped their dark-green
boughs,
About a high-piled altar."
It
was here Śnopian swayed his sceptre o'er the "dwellers
in the steep-shored Chios." The king
stood praying looking out upon the deep, and his
servants prepared a sacrifice to Apollo.
The victim was—
*
* a tawny wolf
Blood-stained, fast bound in pliant withes
* * * *
* * * *
* * * *
His red tongue lolling from his fanged jaws,
His eyes inflamed.
Meanwhile
Orion appears upon the scene. The very description
of his garb and mien is enough to give our young
poet a life-long reputation. |
