Those who are acquainted with the Faust of Goethe (and who is not?) cannot fail to have observed the influence which it has exercised over several of our contemporary poets. We do not infer that those poets have exhibited any signs of slavish imitation, or that any other than an honourable influence has been exerted over their minds. Before them also nature and thought lay open; they too have had their philosophy—their own mode of solving, or stating, the problems of human life; and of the great German himself, as perhaps of all men of genius, it can only be said that he felt more strongly, and reflected more vividly than others, the common spirit of his age—the spirit of bold inquiry, of discontent, of aspiration, and of doubt. We would merely infer that, in their writings, there is much, either in the tone and temper, or the structure of the composition, which irresistibly reminds us of the master-piece of Goethe.

In one respect, however, our poets have been far from imitating the great German. They share with him, more or less, in the daring spirit of philosophical speculation, and in those views of human life, which are expressed either in the poetic desperation of Faust, or the withering sarcasm of Mephistopheles. They have also adopted his admixture of various styles and metres, suited to a changeful theme discussed by various speakers. But in this apparent freedom and bold diversity of styles, whether ballad, or satiric couplet, or mournful blank verse, the German is always the consummate artist. His verse is, on each occasion, all that the verse should be—polished, refined, correct, according to its manner and its order. Native critics assure us, and a foreign ear feels the truth of the criticism, that the Faust is as remarkable for its mastery of language, and perfection of style, as for any other and higher qualities of poetry. But this merit some of our English bards seem to have despised, as utterly superfluous. They seem to contemn the labours of the artist. The control which the poet exercises over his own mind, in order that he may not allow the fervour of imagination to carry him wide beyond the pale of common-sense, or the frenzy of his passion to bear him far away from the sympathy of all other mortals; the survey and revisal in a calmer moment of what had been poured forth in the excited hour of original composition: the blotting out, the compressing together, the shading down, the removal of all stumbling-blocks to clear apprehension—all those labours, in short, by which language is made translucent and harmonious—made to serve its double purpose of use and luxury, of meaning and delight—they throw aside as an antiquated, absurd, unnecessary, and slavish toil. They will retain nothing, own nothing, but the "torrent rapture" of original composition. The consequence is evident and unavoidable. It is a very brief and imperfect rapture they afford their readers. Theirs is a very summer torrent, resembling what one often meets in a bright day, in the real landscape—very little stream, much stone, and a great scar in the earth left dry, glaring, and barren.

What are our "latter-day" poets dreaming of? Is the end of the world reckoned to be so near at hand that they think it folly to build for endurance?—idle to erect their "monument of brass," when it and the earth will so soon be swept away together? Or has the poet's old dream of an immortality of fame died out with the superstitions of a by-gone age, and no one in this philosophic era proposes to himself so visionary an object as a posthumous renown? We cannot think that poetic genius is wanting. Of all explanations, this is the last we should be disposed to admit. We could undertake to furnish from poems sinking rapidly into decay and oblivion, many a passage, and many a page, which would do honour to the highest names in the calendar of our muse-inspired men. We seem to have amongst us good poets still, but they have ceased to produce good poems. We have much genuine poetry diffused through our literature, and not a new work of art added to our possessions.

But if our men of genius are contented to be known in future times (if known at all) by some brilliant extracts only from crude, hasty, and forgotten works, could they not contrive to write extracts—now—for us—and leave the works alone? If they have but a few finished pictures to give us, if this is all their patience or their talent enables them to bring to perfection, must they really build, each one of them, a huge, rambling, misshapen edifice, that they may paint them here and there upon the walls? It is not absolutely necessary to build a new house for every new picture; although, in the infancy of the arts, such an idea was probably entertained. Those never-to-be-forgotten Chinese, immortalised by Charles Lamb, who, in the earliest stage of the culinary art, thought it requisite to burn down a house every time a sucking pig was to be roasted, very likely entertained this kindred idea. No doubt the artists of that period always built a wall before they painted a landscape. Happily all these matters have been simplified, and our poets should remember this. They should remember that, in none of the arts is it necessary to alarm the whole country by a conflagration, in order that some dainty morsels may be gathered out of the ruins.

Of all the poems which have lately come under our notice, there is none to which these remarks are more applicable than to Mr Bailey's Festus. It is the most extraordinary instance which our times, or we think any times have produced, of the union of genuine poetic power with utter recklessness of all the demands of art, or indeed of the requisitions of common-sense. It is "chaos come again," but chaos, withal, with such lightning flashes of real genius as compel us to look into it. Were it not for these abrupt and brief, but undoubted displays of genius, we certainly should not be induced to notice a work which so often degenerates into a mere poetic rant, a mere farrago of distracted metaphors, and crude metaphysics, and bewildering theology; where reasoning and imagination both run riot together; where the logic is as insane as the maniac fancy that is dancing with its flaring torch about it. Criticism, if it has any office, or duty, or voice left in the world, must protest against a species of literature which would set aside all the claims of good taste and good sense, in favour of a bold, original, reckless and unregulated imagination. Assuredly it ought not, in such a case, as it appears to have done, lavish unqualified encomiums.

Is the book worth reading?—is a summary question often put, and with some impatience, to the critic. Put here, we answer decidedly, Yes. Read it by all means, and with the pencil in your hand; for the probability is, that you will not work your way through it twice, and there are many things in it which you will not be content to have caught a glimpse of only once. Read it by all means. But this summary question, and its answer, do not decide the matter. If the author, by longer study and greater labour, could have made it worth preserving as well as reading, worth reading many times—if the state of opinion in the literary world is such that it encourages the publication of hasty and immature performances—there is something wrong here—something which ought, if possible, to be rectified.

In his poetic temperament, Mr Bailey will frequently remind the reader of Keats. He shares the same ardent imagination and uncontrollable fancy—the same, and perhaps stronger passion—the same breathless haste of composition which Keats manifested in his first production;—such haste, as if the writer feared to check himself a moment in his head-long career, lest the pause should be fatal to his inspiration. As Mr Bailey frequents a profounder region of thought than Keats had entered, he attains, in his happier moments, to a higher strain of poetry than his less reflective predecessor. On the other hand, his poetic sins are of a deeper dye, greater in number and in magnitude. That luxuriance of metaphor, that perpetual festival of the imagination, by which Keats is distinguished, are classic purity and abstinence itself, compared to the excesses of this kind in which the author of Festus indulges.

Mr Bailey has the true poetic fervour in him. This, no one capable of enjoying the literature of imagination will hesitate to acknowledge. Mr Bailey is a poet. But this poem of Festus? Criticism looks aghast at it—cannot possibly give it welcome—looks at it with dismay and perplexity. Genuine gold in it, you say. Good. But what if a whole hogshead of the precious mud of the Sacramento, fresh from its native bed, unwashed, unsifted, is rolled to your door! Confess that the present is somewhat embarrassing. A single handful of the bullion would have been so much better.

In dissecting the plot, and analysing the materials of this poem, a critic might find innumerable occasions for satire and for ridicule. We shall not avail ourselves of any such opportunities. Perhaps we have no calling for this part, and are resisting no temptation in refusing to be satirical. But, indeed, the critic is not properly the satirist. The satirist is already there—in the outer world; he exists in every man of keen sense in whom judgment preponderates over those feelings to which the poet applies himself. The critic steps in between this satirist and the poet—steps in to mediate. He tells the shrewd and intelligent man of the world, prompt to detect the ridiculous aspect of things, that if he really has no sympathy with a class of feelings based much upon imagination—if he has no admiration, approaching to enthusiasm, for the beautiful in the visible, and for the tender and heroic in the moral world—the page of the poet is not for him: instead of sneering and condemning, he has but to shut up the book and depart. On the other side, he tells the poet that he does not write for his own solitary heart, or for the ears of two or three of peculiar and kindred temperament, who will forgive everything, so that some favourite chord be touched. He tells him that he will mould his verse to little purpose, if he fail to secure the attention of judicious, as well as gentle and imaginative readers; and that it is unwise in him wantonly to incur the ridicule of men whom a little more sobriety of thought would have added to his listening and admiring audience. He tells him that imagination ought not to be divorced from sense, and that distracted metaphors ought not to be seen wandering about, with nothing to illustrate; that it is not well to write with wilful obscurity; nor to torture the ear with discord; nor perplex, and weary, and unfit for the enjoyment of what is really excellent, by a perpetual exaggeration which borders, if it is not quite within, the region of hyperbole.

One must be pardoned for repeating the very rudiments of criticism to some of the headstrong writers of our day. A lucid, correct, harmonious, style—they have forgotten what it means—what virtue there is in it. They speak, or think, of it as of some matter of antiquated prejudice—of stale, conventional observance. It is no matter of convention; it is the living source of a calm perpetual gratification. It is the music of the printed book. It is that which makes reading a delight, as well as a necessary task. It is that which makes another's thought, to the mind, what the visible object is to the eye—seen without effort, and seen clad with beauty, as well as distinguished by form and position. Whether the subject of the poet be of a calm and gentle, or of a grand and sublime description, this charm of beautiful composition ought always to accompany it. The theory is false which separates beauty from sublimity. The wing of the eagle is not less graceful than that of the smallest bird which flutters from bough to bough, or from flower to flower; nor is his flight less smooth, in his stormy altitudes, than the slow sailing of unruffled swans in their peaceful element. And as the pleasure attendant upon distinct and melodious language is of itself of the calm and graceful order, so also some degree of calmness and self-possession should pervade the mind of the poet who is to produce it for us. Not always must the thought flow torrent-like. Let it gush with what precipitation it will from the smitten rock, but let the waters subside and tranquillise a little before the prophet invites us to dip our thirsty lips into the stream. Let the hour of reflection follow at due interval. Not always is the poet to be in the full tempest of original composition;—as, however, Mr Bailey seems to think, both by his practice and the advice he gives in his drama to the Student—

Poets who give and follow such advice as this, grow to have a horror of distinctness of thought. They shrink from examining their own ideas, lest these should turn out to be no ideas at all; or perhaps very good and sensible ideas, but shockingly true and commonplace. They leave them, therefore, with the bloom of obscurity upon them, and lapse into the conviction that a certain degree of indistinctness is inseparable from subtlety and refinement of thought. A great mistake. Your subtle and refined thinking, if it be worth anything, if it be really thinking, must be distinct to those who have the ability to perceive what is subtle and refined. The thinnest gossamer that floats upon the air, if it is to be seen, must have an outline as well defined as if it were part of a ship's cable. But it is in vain to preach this doctrine to such writers—vain to argue that the imagination, in its most ethereal exercise, should still have an alliance with sense—we do not say with common sense, but with some intelligible thought: they have a direct interest in believing the contrary. What! sacrifice this image!—silence all this thunder!—throw away this new word we have just coined to express our else unutterable conceptions!—impossible!

If these remarks of ours appear to be of a very elementary character, the fault lies with those who render their repetition necessary. Mr Bailey, in his composition, has contrived to commit all the oldest sins in the newest kind of way. He has not only, by the aid of German metaphysics, become transcendently obscure, but he also emulates Messrs Sternhold and Hopkins, in the baldness and ruggedness of his verse.

Who would imagine that this was a line of poetry? It is, however; and forms the commencement of a speech of Lucifer's. The whole speech follows in the same style of composition:—

We give another specimen. It is a lyrical effusion delivered by the Angel of the Earth. We must give a lengthy and continuous sample, lest it should be said that it is we who, by omitting some portions, have made nonsense of the rest.

In these days, when it is said that verse has hard matter to keep its ground, and is thought to be going altogether into disrepute, is it wise to give us such verse as this? Or was it well to conjure up angelical or supernatural persons to repeat it? Or, again, is it wise of one, who really has poetic power, to abuse it in such rant and hyperbole as the following? We quote from a part of the poem where the author is dealing with the most popular and favourable subject a reflective poet could select. Festus, under pretence of giving an account of another, describes his own early emotions at his first intercourse with nature and with life—those emotions which made a poet of him. Our extract leads off with a noble line, as happy as it is bold—"All things talked thoughts to him;" and we would wish to rescue from apparent censure the fine expression for the sky—"The blue eye of God." For the rest, it is what we have attempted to characterise as poetical rant—imagination grown raving and delirious.

The same most favourite subject—of the early feelings of a poet—he encounters in another scene of the drama, where he meets the very Muse herself. We prefer to select from these parts, because, though more extraordinary passages might be found elsewhere, yet on those occasions the extraordinary or unsuitable nature of his theme may be thought to have betrayed him into the violent style of writing we have to condemn. Festus meets the Muse in some one of the happy planets that he visits. She speaks in rhyme. We give a part of her address, and part of the answer of Festus. But first we must premise, that the Muse had that morning watched a particular ray of light, as it travelled from the sun to the earth—had "listened" to this ray, and reports what it said upon its unwilling journey downwards. She then sees this ray enter a cottage where a young poet is sitting, and in this original manner introduces her description:—

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We do not attempt to analyse these passages, it would take up too much space; and the reader, if he thinks fit, can do it for himself. Neither have we, except on one or two occasions, resorted to the usual expedient of marking in italics all we would censure, for almost the whole of our extracts would then have been printed in italics. Of course there is something better than this in the poem, or we should not have given it such praise as we have; but there is also a great deal that is worse. The various specimens we have presented are no bad average of what constitutes a very large portion of the book. Yet this is the poem which, we are told, has been received with most applausive welcome, both by the public and the critics! In the edition we have before us—the third, and, we believe, the latest—there is appended at the conclusion a series of laudatory extracts from Reviews and Magazines, and also of opinions, most eulogistic, given by men of literary celebrity. In what shape these last were originally expressed, whether in print or in private letter, we are not informed. If extracts from private letters, though doubtless published with the writer's permission, their publication strikes us as a novelty, even in these advertising days. Mr Tennyson is set down as saying—"I can scarcely trust myself to say how much I admire it, for fear of falling into extravagance." Sir E. Bulwer Lytton speaks with more caution—"A most remarkable poem, of great beauty, and greater promise. My admiration of it is deep and sincere." Ebenezer Elliott exclaims—"It contains poetry enough to set up fifty poets." The ladies are still more enthusiastic. Mrs S. C. Hall outbids Mr Elliott. "There is matter enough in it to float a hundred volumes of the usual prosy poetry. It contains some of the most wonderful things I ever read." Eulogistic extracts from Reviews, and Magazines, and newspapers, follow in abundance; it is a universal clapping of hands and shout of triumph. The whole vocabulary of applause is exhausted. An American critic "classes it with the Iliad, and Macbeth, and Paradise Lost!"—a classification not quite so lucid as it is flattering. Our more sober and Dissenting brethren seem to have pardoned all its heresies, or not to have seen them, in the dazzling and unintermitting blaze of its genius. Its critics catch the tone of their applauded poem, and speak in hyperbolics, as the only language capable of expressing the intensity of their admiration. "Who," exclaims one, "that has ever read Festus, has forgotten that prodigious poem? You find in it all contradictions reconciled—all improbabilities accomplished—all opposites paired—all formulas swallowed—all darings of thought and language attempted"—a rapture of criticism, which took us with much surprise, when we saw the respectable authority attached to it.

Well, let the reader now turn back to the specimens we have given him—or look into the poem itself—he may take up whole handfuls of the same description. Has all sincerity, all truth and candour, died out of criticism? Or, because it stands on record that some judgments too severe were lately passed on the first efforts of youthful genius, has criticism become all at once exceeding timid, quite tame, humbled, and subdued? Are we so afraid of being thought blind to novel and original displays of genius, that we are all resolved to praise—to do nothing but praise—as the only safe course to pursue? Some have entertained angels, it seems, unawares, and entertained them but rudely; therefore, henceforth, let us do homage to every new comer—the more mysterious, the more homage. Such a stir, it appears, has been made about the obtuseness of reviewers to the more subtle or sublime beauties of poetry, that the poor critic dares not use his own eyes—nor tell what he sees with them—nor whisper what he does not see.

Hans Andersen, in one of his tales for children, tells an admirable story, how two rogues pretended to weave for the royal person a tissue of gold and silk, of a novel and most beautiful description. It had, however, this peculiar property—it was invisible to fools. Of course, it is needless to say that every one at court saw and was charmed with its surpassing beauty. The rogues had a pleasant time of it: pensions from the crown, applause from all the world. They threw an empty shuttle through an empty loom, and the connoisseurs and critics looked on with intense delight, and out-rivalled each other in extolling the growing splendours of this exquisite fabric. Wonderful! Prodigious! Poetry for fifty! Poetry for a hundred! Prodigious! Wonderful!

But we have not, all this time, given any account of the plot or purpose of Festus. It is a hard task, but it must be undertaken. In imitation of the Faust of Goethe—or say, adopting, like it, the proem to the Book of Job—the drama opens with a scene in heaven, wherein Lucifer appears, and asks permission to tempt Festus. The mortal whom the Spirit of Evil here selects for his especial temptation, has the thirst for knowledge, and the contempt for human life, which distinguish the whole family of the Fausts. But whereas the German poet adopted a philosophical indifferentism as his position, or standing-point, from which to survey the scene of human life and of human thought, Mr Bailey has a positive and very intricate creed to enunciate, and has made his poem a vehicle for teaching a dogmatical system of theology, which, if not altogether orthodox, certainly does not fail from the paucity, or the too great simplicity, of its doctrines. Instead of doubt, we have a heresy. A most extraordinary medley of Christian tenets and transcendental or Hegelian metaphysics, is taught, and chiefly by the devil himself! Lucifer, who assumes at first something of the mocking vein of Mephistopheles, proves to be a learned professor of GÖttingen or Berlin, and the preacher of a very refined and spiritual, though somewhat heterodox, Christianity. When we add that—interweaving, as it were, some scenes from quite a different drama, on the loves of the angels—Mr Bailey has represented his great Spirit of Evil falling desperately in love with a mortal maid, Elissa—"sighing like furnace"—outheroding mere human lovers—yet jilted, and suffering (as it seems in a most genuine manner) the pangs of despised passion—our readers will be prepared to agree with us that never was so strange a Satan conceived or delineated, either in prose or verse.

The drama opens, as we have said, in heaven.

This ultimate salvation of all mankind, and of all peccant spirits, is a conspicuous doctrine of Mr Bailey's. The law of universal necessity is another. One might suppose that this announcement of the decreed salvation of Festus would nullify the permission given to Satan to tempt him, and induce that spirit to relinquish his hopeless scheme. But the second doctrine of philosophical necessity assists us in explaining the conduct of Lucifer. He, being a consistent and enlightened Necessarian, knows that he must fail in his attempt, but knows also that he must make it—knows that he must act according to his nature, and incessantly strive to ruin, vitiate, and destroy.

The next scene brings us down to earth, and introduces us to Festus. And here the reader naturally expects a series of temptations on the part of the Evil Spirit, of struggles, lapses, and repentances on the part of the mortal. But no such thing. The strangest relationship imaginable is established between the two. The Spirit of Evil reveals to Festus all manner of profound knowledge, metaphysical and theological; carries him up into heaven, where he learns that his own name is written in the Book of Life; conveys him through all space, into the sun, the planets, hell, Hades, and even invests him with the privilege of ubiquity; performs, in short, every service which so potent a spirit could render to an ambitious mortal. With respect to moral delinquency, the only blemish in the character of Festus is a certain inconstancy in love. His passion is of a tender, imaginative, and ennobling character; but he transfers it from one beauty to another with unpardonable levity. He is a sort of poetical or sentimental Don Juan: Angela, Clara, Helen, Elissa, by turns kindle his amorous devotion. But this faithless and too redundant worship of woman's beauty, is not brought about in any manner, by the instigation or the aid of Lucifer. This inconstant temper he had already manifested, and given the worst example of, before his acquaintance with the great tempter. The saddest fault he is chargeable with, his abandonment of Angela, has been already committed. Nay, this inconstancy in love is manifested on the last occasion much to the annoyance of Lucifer, who is driven, by the superior attractions of his pupil, from the affections of Elissa. We hear Festus very magnanimously pardoning the Evil One for having tempted him; but it appears to us that Lucifer had more reason to complain of his friend Festus, than Festus of Lucifer. At the very close of the drama, Festus is placed, we know not how, on the throne of all the world!—an elevation dangerous enough. But he holds it only for a single day. He has no opportunity for the abuse of power, and his aspirations for possessing it have been of the purest description. Just before his elevation, he has most devoutly exclaimed—

The Spirit of Evil has asked permission to tempt Festus, but he occupies himself with teaching a system of divinity, an improved and transcendental Christianity. He does all in his power to elevate the thoughts of his pupil, and to enlarge the bounds of his knowledge—enables him to explore the whole universe, and solve the most profound mysteries. His talk is wild at times; he retains a diabolic taste for conflagrations, and the burning up of worlds, which, in this civilised epoch, he might have laid aside, with his horns and tail; but, upon the whole, he appears in the light of a most edifying companion, and a most serviceable spirit. Any young gentleman who, not satisfied with seeing the world, should be desirous of travelling through the universe as well, might reasonably congratulate himself on such a guide and companion. The title of some of the Scenes will alone show what glorious revelations await those favoured mortals whom the Devil thinks proper to tempt. We have Scene, the Surface; scene, the Centre; scene, Space; scene, Heaven; scene, Hell; scene, the Skies; scene, Elsewhere; scene, Everywhere! These localities, if such they are, could not possibly be described with a more sublime contempt for detail.

One of the earliest scenes, however, of the drama, takes place in the humbler precincts of a Country Town, and strange enough is the part which Lucifer and Festus enact before a number of people gathered together in the market-place. Lucifer delivers a sermon to them in the style of Maw-worm; and Festus performs his part in this divine service, by delivering a long, and apparently a serious prayer, which, for aught we see, might be adopted by any Dissenting minister desirous of varying his extempore effusions. If there is any heresy, there is, at all events, no poetry in it which he would find it necessary to omit. But both these speakers soon ascend to higher regions of speculation, and to higher regions of the universe. They ascend into heaven—Lucifer still being able, it seems, to act here as master of the ceremonies.

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The various scenes of which the drama is composed follow in no intelligible order; it is rarely that one seems to lead to the other. Festus, after this extraordinary visit into heaven, is the same Festus that he was before. He descends to earth to make rapturous love to Helen, or he wanders through all the worlds of space, the same discontented and mystified mortal. At length, after having explored the whole universe, and apparently escaped from Space itself, he is suddenly elevated by Lucifer to the throne of this planet earth.

In this wonderful position he does nothing, nor has time to do anything. He has no sooner assumed his throne than his subjects all die off. The world has come to an end.

Then follows a millennium, and, after that, Judgment Day. All mankind are saved, and not man only—Lucifer and all his host are re-admitted into Heaven. To Satan, his former throne—which has been preserved vacant for him—is restored, together with all his pristine glory. The drama ends in universal and eternal felicity.

Having said thus much of the plot, we may look a little closer at the philosophy and poetry of this strange performance. We shall touch as lightly as possible upon that admixture of Hegelian metaphysics and evangelical divinity, which, as we have said, constitutes the speculative portion of the work. It occupies, however, no inconsiderable space in the poem. On one occasion Festus pours into the ear of his mistress, in an unbroken harangue of about nine hundred lines, the profound knowledge he has acquired from his supernatural resources. Love is proverbially patient, and Helen listens—at least does not interrupt. Here are some fragments that will show how severely he must have tasked her apprehension. A spirit is speaking in one of the innumerable visions which everywhere obscure the poem.

It is very tantalising to be so near the source of wisdom, and utterly unable to avail ourselves of it. How it fared with Helen we do not know; but for ourselves, it is in vain we are told,—

These "fruitful glories" are to us mere darkness. We can just gather where some of these "clouds," by no means "golden" to our vision, came from. As, for instance, when we hear that—

Or, further on, when this world-spirit thus enlightens us:—

And so we are landed in the Absolute of Hegel; and in that insufferable jargon of his, by which, (confounding the laws of thought with the nature of things,) he proves, because we cannot think of existence without a reference to non-existence, nor think of non-existence without the contrasted idea of existence, that therefore existence itself includes non-existence, and non-existence includes existence, and they are identical—(sein = nicht sein.)

We cannot compliment Mr Bailey on the skill he has displayed in his combination of Hegelian philosophy with his theological doctrines. In the following extract Lucifer is the spokesman:—

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Here we have it stated that evil results from, or is synonymous with, imperfection; and all creature-minds are necessarily imperfect, inasmuch as they are inferior to God. But in the lines printed in italics, God is represented as having "no attributes;" for that would mix or liken Him with what He creates. There is, therefore, no room for comparison between the creature and the Creator, there can as little be inferiority as equality. He first finds an argument, such as it is, in the inalienable perfection of God's attributes, and then—embracing the Absolute of Hegel, (to us a mere shadow)—denies that God has attributes.

The contradictory doctrines taught in this poem, by different speakers, or the same speaker at different times, are to be explained, we presume, by the dramatic exigencies of the piece. We throw out this supposition, as a possible ground of defence or explanation; but to us it seems that we are taught the most contradictory dogmas by speakers of equal authority. The generally received doctrine of future rewards and punishments is asserted at one time, and exploded, very positively, and with very little reverence, at another. The Scriptural tenet of redemption is generalised into a law of the universe, and the Son of God is always suffering to redeem guilty planets. Nay, as he bore suffering for man, we are told that he bears sin for the salvation of fiends:—

Yet, if all creature-minds are necessarily imperfect, and therefore necessarily evil, it is difficult to understand in what the action of redemption can consist; or how any creature can be redeemed from evil, since evil belongs essentially to it, as a creature.

Though regretting what to us must seem the errors of Mr Bailey, we have no disposition to censure him very severely for any heterodox opinion he may have ventured to express. As times go, and as poets write, Mr Bailey is remarkable for the plenitude of his faith, and the piety of his verse. We would only, if it were possible, take from his hands certain edged tools which he is playing with too fantastically, and the due command of which he does not seem to have acquired. We would merely express our regret that views which have been dictated by, or are in accordance with, the highest sentiments and aspirations of the human mind, should not have been rendered more harmonious with themselves—more distinct, consistent, and intelligible.

We extricate ourselves as soon as possible from these thorny discussions, and turn from the philosophy, to some concluding remarks on the poetry, of Festus. And here we can now vary our task, and relieve our page, by selecting some of those brilliant fragments and admirable passages which, as we have said, abundantly prove the genius of Mr Bailey, and which make us regret that an imagination so bold and original has not been allied to a more disciplined intellect. Nor is it only in the more daring efforts of imagination that he displays his power; occasionally there are touches of true pathos; and from time to time a charming picture, the product of a playful and tender fancy, will flit past us in the dreary mist which too often hangs over the scene.

There is much beauty and passion scattered through the love passages of the drama. Clara says—

Then changing his mood, with a very natural versatility, Festus says—

The name of the fair one changes—it is Helen instead of Clara that he now idolises; but the passion is the same—the intense love of beauty. There is a festival; he crowns Helen queen of the festive scene, with these gay and joyous lines:—

As this displays the bounding gaiety of love, so the following extract reveals some of the delirium of the passion:—

There are many songs introduced in this, which may be described as the more terrestrial portion of the drama. They are not, in general, commendable. The substance of them is no better nor higher than love songs and drinking songs are very properly composed of, whilst the verse is destitute of that polish, grace, and harmony, which trifles of this description ought to possess. We select one stanza, as the happiest specimen which occurs to us of this kind of composition. Helen is singing:—

In his description of nature, and especially of night, the stars, the moon, the heavens, our poet often breaks upon us with a truly noble and poetic imagination:—

Of the moon he is a most permissible idolator:—

This is of the full moon: what follows is addressed to her when she passes as the young moon, and brings her fresh bright crescent of light into the sky:—

Here are some scattered fragments which pleased us very much, but which cannot be introduced under any formal classification. Describing his desertion of his first love, Angela, Festus says,—

Of books, he says,—

Here is a charming picture,—

Speaking of men of genius, he says,—

The vague aspirations of one living in his ideas is thus expressed,—

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He says finely,—

Of a young poet,—

These two following quotations may be also put very well together, though taken from different parts of the poem,—

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The following are some of the expressions of the mingled tide of passion, and of thought as it flows through the troubled bosom of his hero,—

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We have not yet given any favourable specimen of those more hardy and adventurous flights of imagination—those shadowy grandeurs—which may be said to be peculiarly characteristic of Festus. Selection is not easy. As, in illustrating the exaggerations and deformities of the work, it is difficult to quote many lines together without encountering something really fine, and which would be felt as such, if it could be removed from its unfortunate neighbourhood; so also it is equally difficult to cite any moderately long passage, for the purpose of justifying admiration, without being suddenly arrested by something very grotesque and absurd. We shall, however, make two selections from these bolder portions of the drama: the first shall be his description of Hell; the second, one of those dreams or visions in which our poet so much delights:—

The Dream is one which Elissa relates—relates to her lover, Lucifer. It must be acknowledged to be very like a dream in a certain vague horror which pervades it. The image of Decay is a grand conception:—

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But here we must break off. What follows is too wild to be excused even by the privileges of a dream. A hand comes and tears off—Yet we may as well, perhaps, continue the quotation; it will show as fairly as any other instance how ungovernable, and all but delirious, the excited imagination of our poet is apt to become:—

We had something more to say of the many wild extravagancies which with Mr Bailey have become habitual, but we will not fatigue the reader by a recurrence to this topic. He has probably seen enough of the glaring faults of this poem—faults which, with us, he must have learnt to regret, from the examples we have given of the great genius which is here undoubtedly combined with them.

After what has been said and exemplified of the poetic licenses in which the author of Festus indulges, it seems a very little matter to add that he coins new words at discretion, as "bodies soulical," and the like; and sometimes uses old ones in a new sense, to the complete baffling of our apprehension, as when he speaks of a "dream of dress" and a "tongue of dress." He also revives obsolete words, without any apparent reason. Is there any peculiar pathos in the word "nesh?" Does it signify some exact degree of moisture which our familiar expressions cannot convey? Or does it add to the gratification of a reader to be sent to his dictionary?

In the use of metaphorical language, we are not disposed to lay down any strict canons of criticism. But there are certain general rules, which, even without stating them to himself, every man of taste adheres to. The great use of metaphorical language is to convey, or to aggravate the impression or sentiment which an object creates. If one has to praise the locks of a fair lady, one does not hunt all nature through for an exact match, settling at once their precise colour. Mr Bailey speaks of

Just that shade of brown! Still less, in describing circumstances or feelings of a pathetic nature, does any one use a metaphor decidedly grotesque. Yet Mr Bailey, in alluding to the most pathetic of all topics, the hour when two lovers parted for ever, can describe it as—

We hope we shall not be accused of putting fetters upon genius, by refusing to admire this use of metaphorical language. Neither can we approve of a very manifest incongruity of ideas, as when night "blushes" to hear her praises, or when "clouds" are endowed with "fibres." We protest, too, against that class of cases where the metaphor becomes a species of conundrum. We are told that one thing is like another, and have to puzzle ourselves, as in a riddle, why it is like: as when, in a passage already quoted, the words of men of genius are said to be "like wind in rain," and we ask ourselves why like wind in rain, any more than like rain in wind? In the same passage we are told that men of genius, disseminating truth, are like the soldiers who "lotted the garb of God." Here the simile seems to be as unlike as possible, for the lot could fall only upon one.

We require, also, that when the metaphor is extended into an allegory, that the meaning of the allegory be apparent; and this we more particularly insist upon, when the allegorical detail or circumstance, viewed by itself, without reference to the meaning it typifies, is monstrous and absurd. As, for example, when Mr Bailey marries the sun and the moon, and, for what hidden purpose we know not, conducts them through the wedding ceremony.

And we are told—

We have already alluded to the strange caprice and incongruity of representing Lucifer at one time as the grand Personification of the Principle of Evil, and, at another, confining him down, a very slave to the passions of an amorous swain. Here, too, there may be some profound meaning symbolised. But we see it not. To the reader it seems as if Mr Bailey had here brought upon the scene all the powers and prerogatives of Satan, merely to emblazon the triumph of love; just as Dryden, and the French tragedians whom he imitated, delighted to represent an amorous monarch, because they could throw him, with his crown and kingdom, at the feet of beauty. Those who have not read the poem will scarce credit our account of this portion of it, without seeing some extracts. They are the last we shall give to show the extreme wildness and extravagance which deface the drama of Festus.

We first see Lucifer as the happy lover, speaking to his Elissa just as other happy lovers:—

There is a great deal of this delighted rapture. He departs, however, leaving Elissa in charge of his friend Festus. When he returns, he finds that Festus has supplanted him. His agony is quite piteous; if we could believe there was any sincerity in this love-afflicted devil, it would be impossible not to compassionate him. He calls up all his grandeur, and reveals all his power, only to add weight and dignity to his reproach. He even hints at the reformation that would have taken place in his character, had Elissa been but true. Elissa faithful, and Lucifer would have become the very saviour of mankind.

And again, in another scene, he says, reproaching her for her inconstancy—

Certainly a most noble Paladin. But here we quit Mr Bailey—repeating again our sincere admiration of his poetic genius, and our regret, equally sincere, that it has not been united with better judgment and with better taste; and that he had not waited till his own opinions, theological and philosophical, had settled into something approaching to consistency and harmony, (in a poem we ought perhaps to require no more,) before he had planned this elaborate drama, in order to promulgate them. Those who seek for the beauties, and those who are in search of the monstrosities of literature, may both apply themselves with success to Festus: we wish we could say that the former would be likely to reap the more abundant harvest.

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