TO IZAAK WALTON.

Thou meek old angler, knight of hook and line!
What glorious reveries methinks were thine,
As 'neath the spreading sycamore you sat,
To find a shelter from the vernal showers;
Or wandered in green lanes, with cheerful chat
Making dull days seem Pleasure's fleeting hours!
Oh, how I love, in "fancy free," to roam
By purling streams in company with thee;
Or, in some "honest alehouse," see the foam
Of nut-brown ale a-mantling merrily

Above the goblet's brim,-whilst thou dost sing
A quaint old song, and all the rafters ring
With merry laughter at each harmless jest,-
For of all wit the innocent is best,

Cleveland Lodge, Stokesley.

NOTICES OF REMARKABLE WORKS.

BY THE EDITOR.

"FESTUS," A POEM BY PHILIP JAMES BAILEY.

As great a sensation as the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (the subject of a former notice) caused in the scientific and orthodox world, did the work to which we shall now call the attention of our readers produce in that circle of persons included in the title, the poetical world.

"Festus" has not had much to fear from ungenial criticism, since no one would have the patience to read it who was not imbued with true poetic feeling, and no other person would understand it. We are sure, however, that many to whom the first aspect of the book is discouraging, if they had a key given them to the outer court of this sanctuary of beauty would find so much to delight and elevate, that they would seek a further acquaintance with the inner shrines and learn more deeply from the author.

The delight experienced in reading a book which gives us an insight into our selves-that most valuable of all knowledge-is near akin to worship-worship not of the author but of the eternal truth of which he is the priest and the apostle. Every true poet is a priest in the temple of truth, a revealer of the language of nature, an interpreter of all those hidden influences which, without his translation of feeling into language, would remain mysteries to us for ever.

The great Emerson says, in one of his profound essays, "Criticism is infested with a cant of materialism, which assumes that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and disparages such as SAY and Do not,-overlooking the fact that some men, namely poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of expression, and it confounds them with those whose province is action, but who quit it to imitate the sayers. But Homer's words are as costly and as admirable to Homer as Agamemnon's victories are to Agamemnon. The poet does not wait for the hero or

the sage, but, as they act and think primarily, so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken, reckoning the others though primaries also, yet in respect to him secondaries and servants; as sitters or models in the studies of a painter, or as assistants who bring materials to an architect. For poetry was all written before time was, whenever we are so finely organized that we can peenetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and a word or a verse, and substitute something of our own and thus miswrite the poem."

The Poet (the true poet. not the man of mere rhyme and metre) is only the utterer, the revealer, the interpreter. He being admitted by "his finer organization of mind" into a nearer and deeper and more inner communication with nature, comes forth as the priest from the holy of holies and gives a blessing to the people in the message of love which he brings. His presence is lovely, for "the glad tidings of great joy," and all the world, who retain any part of the better angel in their nature must, per force, love the poet. "The birth of a new poet," says Jerrold, "is an epoch in the world, and chronology would employ herself much better by emblazoning in her records the advent of genius than by announcing the births and deaths of thousands of warriors and kings." Man still watches constantly for the arrival of a brother who can hold him steady to a truth until he has made it his own, and this brother he findeth in the true poet, to whom "all nature's creatures are a picture language," and who uses common things in such sort that they become beautiful and of high value, " as the carpenter's stretched cord, if you hold your ear close enough, is musical in the breeze." The Poet, then, is Truth's high priest in the temple of nature. This is his high and solemn office and the gospel which he teaches is Love and Beauty. Such and so holy is the mission of the poet.

We have indulged in this digression for the purpose of explaining how much we mcan when we say of "Festus" that it is really a POEM, or an inspired utterance. It reveals to the student harmonies of nature and beauties of spirit which he knew not heretofore, and clothes the meanest things in a rich garment of idea; for it is the attribute of the Poet not to speak of marvellous new things only but to make old familiar objects new, by revealing the flowing robe of beauty which our untaught eye could not perceive enveloping them. Thus, in "Festus," not a page can be glanced over that does not sparkle with jewels of beauty fresh from the sanctuary of truth :and the quotations of nature, in exquisite similies, come so quick and fast that the mind almost saddens to think that it cannot hoard up in its treasury (memory) all these precious pearls cast forth for it.

The story which is the ground-work of "Festus" is a great fable. By the word "fable" we do not mean to convey any ignoble idea. All histories with morals to instruct us are "fables," and many facts are more useful to us, and in that sense more true to us as fables than as facts. We will illustrate our meaning by a scriptural instance. It is of no direct importance to us whether the history of the Israelites' sojourn in Egypt be true or not as a fact, it makes no difference in our condition here at this present moment, but as a parable it is full of teaching and reveals to us many important truths. As Pharoah is recorded to have commanded that the Israelites should make brick without straw, knowing well that the bricks there in use could not be so made,-so in all time have men in power, "jacks in office," required certain things to be done without affording the means of doing them. We ourselves have seen in our own day some among the rulers of the people order the punishment of men who could not be virtuous, because they were ignorant of virtur, all education having been denied them by those same rulers' foolish prejudices. These modern Pharoahs required the people to make good moral characters, without education which allegorically written is-"to make brick without straw."

Again, it is of small import to us now in this 19th century, whether a just retribution overtook the Egyptians for their oppression and cruelty, or whether the Israelites finally spoiled their oppressors, and led them to destruction. If the account were to be omitted, it would make little difference to our present comfort; but as a parable or fable it affords us a great lesson, which it becomes slave-holding communities to consider thoughtfully. It has been truly remarked, that " Fiction hath a higher end than fact," for history is philosophy teaching by examples, as Christ taught by parables. This mode of instruction has been sanctioned by the greatest authorities and experience has proved it to be a true method. Poetry in its simplest form is a VOL.10 No. 2-X.

teaching by fable. Upon the truth of this method are founded especially the use of those works of imagination which are of the dramatic form-which are acted fablesor parables which speak their own moral by conversation or supposed action. Of this form is Festus; but to entertain a proper conception of the dignity of the fable which is its foundation, we must now proceed to notice the parable which is the basement of this beautiful palace of imaginative teaching,-this temple where the priest of Beauty reads in a voice of Music the lessons of Truth from the book of Nature in the language of Imagination.

It is a remarkable fact, that one fable or parable has existed in all nations, and has been made by most of them a household story. The Jews embodied it in the book of Job, and most of the oriental nations have somewhat similar traditions, in which the burden of the story is how a man naturally disposed to good is tempted by an evil spirit, and how this Satan or adversary (as the word should be translated) offers every temptation to his victim, for the purpose of ultimately ruining his soul or gaining possession thereof. This parable is the history of the trials of every good man this meaning is common to all the traditions; they only differ in one respect, viz. how the subject of trial is affected by his evil angel. In some he comes out "like gold purified in the fire," and is restored to all happiness, as is recorded of Job; in others he dies under his afflictions, but is rewarded by a happy immortality; in others he is overcome by temptation, and becomes the victim of his seducer in an eternal damnation of hopeless torment. What Job was to the Jews, Faust was to the Germans, and Festus is to us in the poem now under consideration.

However wild and improbable may appear a story like that of "The Devil and Doctor Faustus," which afforded Marlowe the ground work and material for his tragedy, it is a great parable in which the life of every man is shadowed forth. Viewed aright, it is a piece of the finest psychology or soul-history, revealing a kind of universal history of our inner man, with whom this adversary still walks about and says to each of us" Give me thy soul. Thou shalt have gaudy pleasures, and vanities and riches if thou wilt only sacrifice this foolish love of virtue, this self-respect, and love of truth." Each one of us is a new "Festus," and our avarice, passions, selfishness and vices, may be poetically embodied into a companion Satana Mephistophiles to our Faust -a Devil to our Doctor Faustus, or a Lucifer to our Festus. Each reader of Festus should read the poem mentally thus: for "Lucifer" read "my temptations to evil,” and for "Festus" read "I, myself."

The book commences with a Pröem or poetical preface, in which we discover the genius of the writer and his conception of the dignity of his office before we have read more than half a dozen lines:

True fiction hath in it a higher end
Than fact; it is the possible compared
With what is merely positive, and gives

To the conceptive soul an inner world,

A higher, ampler Heaven, than that wherein

The nations sun themselves. In that bright state

Are met the mental creatures of the men

Whose names are writ highest on the rounded crown

Of Fame's triumphal arch; the shining shapes

Which star the skies of that invisible land,

Which, whosoe're would enter, let him learn;

'Tis not enough to draw forms fair and lovely,

Their conduct likewise must be beautiful.

The author then proceeds to explain that the book is written with a religious

purpose, chiefly to show how God

Loves to order a chance soul,

Chosen from out the world, from first to last.
And all along it, is the heart of man

Emblemed, created and creative mind.

It is a statued mind and naked heart
Which is struck out-

The religious views of the author are those usually considered most orthodox, the doctrinal peculiarities of which are somewhat too often dragged before the reader in the work. This, however, is more than compensated for by the devotional beauty which envelopes all those passages which those who differ in opinions may consider not to be introduced with the best taste. The doctrines to which we allude are what are termed by other sects Trinitarian: they overlie the poem, but are not offensively interwoven with it, and have little or nothing to do with the progress of the action. Before we leave this remarkable Proem, there are a few passages which we cannot refrain from quoting.

Nothing can be antagonist to God.
Free-will is but necessity in play.

Necessity, like electricity,

Is in ourselves and all things.

Evil and good are God's right hand and left.

If evil seem the most, yet good most is.

"Twere less toil

To build Colossus than to hew a hill

Into a statue.

We shall now proceed to the poem itself, and follow the narrative of it as a boat floating down the stream upon which it floats; and as we pass along we shall ever and anon pluck some of the beautiful things that grow like flowers upon the banks, or sparkle like jewels from the depths or which float like water lilies on its surface.

The first scene is laid in Heaven, and the majestic dialogue commences between God the Father and his Son. The former announces his determination that the world shall end, and a chorus of Seraphim and Cherubim is introduced. Lucifer then speaks, and after a soliloquy upon his fate he addresses himself to God, and beseeches to be heard.

The guardian angel singing a hymn of praise, introduces a sketch of the history of the soul to be tempted, who is named

blest

Festus. He is described as being

With all the sacred ties of life;-
Prosperity, and health and ease, the aids
Of learning, social converse with the good
And gifted, and his heart all lit with love.

Before Lucifer departs upon his errand of temptation, he utters the following lines in answer to the Guardian Angel of Earth :

LUCIFER. Tis earth shall lead destruction, she shall end.

The stars shall wonder why she comes no more

On her accustomed orbit, and the sun

Miss one of his eleven of light; the moon,

An orphan orb, shall seek for earth for aye,

Through time's untrodden depths, and find her not;

No more shall morn out of the holy east
Stream o'er the amber air her level light;

Nor evening, with her spectral fingers draw
Her star-sprent curtain round the bead of earth;
Her footsteps never thence again shall grace
The blue sublime of heaven.

In the second scene we find Festus alone beside a lake in a wood at sunset. We find him in a melancholy reverie upon himself, his nature, his unhappiness and God. From thence, he passes to the difficulty of making good aspirations and desires into

acts.

While we wish, the world turns round

And peeps us in the face-the wanton world;

We feel it gently pressing down our arm,

The arm we had raised to do for truth such wonders

We feel it touch and thrill us through the body,

And we are fools, and there's an end of us.

After a desire for power to make all the world happy, Lucifer appears and causes Festus some terror, upon which Lucifer remarks

His hellish majesty then explains his errand and offers the earth and all power, and to make Festus as mighty as himself. These are despised, and Love only is the desire of Festus. Speaking of it, Lucifer says:—

Some souls lose all things but the love of beauty;

And by that love they are redeemable,

For in love and beauty they acknowledge good,
And good is God, the great Necessity.

Festus then, fully confident that God will not suffer him to fall, consents to go with Lucifer.

In the next scene a conversation occurs, in which Lucifer endeavours to shake the faith of Festus, and partially succeeds. Festus requires his dead love to be recalled to earth, and his wish is granted :-Angela appears and vanishes again; after which Lucifer promises that she shall again be seen, and shall tell Festus where she dwells.

LUCIFER. And she, then, was the maiden of thy heart?

Well, I have promised. Ye shall meet again.

FESTUS, I loved her for that she was beautiful,

And that to me she seemed to be all nature