Chapter 4

"OnceBegun, work thou all things into thy work,And set thyself about it as the seaAbout the earth,lashing at it day and night."

Poets who give and follow such advice as this, grow to have a horror ofdistinctnessof 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 reallythinking, 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 withcommonsense, 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.

"It is time that something should be done for the poor."

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:—

"Lucifer.—It is time that something should be done for the poor.The sole equality on earth is death;Now, rich and poor are both dissatisfied.I am for judgment: that will settle both.Nothing is to be done without destruction.Death is the universal salt of states;Blood is the base of all things, law and war.I could tame this lion age to follow me.I should like to macadamize the world;The road to Hell wants mending."

We give another specimen. It is a lyrical effusion delivered by theAngel 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.

"Angel of Earth.—Stars, stars!Stop your bright cars!Stint your breath—Repent ere worse—Think of the deathOf the universe.Fear doom, and fearThe fate of your kin-sphere.As a corse in the tomb,Earth! thou art laid in doom.The worm is at thy heart.I see all things part:—The bright air thicken,Thunder-stricken:Birds from the skyShower like leaves:Streamlets stop,Like ice on eaves:The sun go blind:Swoon the windOn the high hill-top—Swoon and die:Earth rear off her citiesAs a horse his rider;And still, with each death-strain,Her heart-wound tear wider:The lion roar and die,With his eyeball on the sky:The eagle scream,And drop like a beam:Men crowd and cry,'Out on this deathful dream!'A low dull sound—'Tis the march of many bonesUnder ground:Up! and they fling,Like a fly's wing,Off them the gray grave-stones;They sit in their biers—Father and mother,Man and wife,Sister and brother,As in life;Lady and lover—Love all over.Their flesh re-appears—Their hearts beat—Their eyes have tears:Woe—woe!Do they speak?Stir? No.Tongues were too weak,Save to repeat'Woe!'But they smileIn a while," &c.—(P. 84.)

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 aspoetical rant—imagination grown raving and delirious.

"All things talked thoughts to him!—The sea went mad,And the wind whined as 'twere in pain, to showEach one his meaning; andthe awful sunThundered his thoughts into him; and at nightThe stars would whisper theirs, the moon sigh hers.The spirit speaks all tongues and understands;Both God's and angels', man's, and all dumb things,Down to an insect's inarticulate hum,And an inaudible organ. And it wasThe spirit spake to him of everything;And with the moony eyes, like those we see,Thousands on thousands, crowding air in dreams,Looked into him its mighty meanings, tillHe felt the power fulfil him, as acloudIn everyfibrefeels the forming wind.He spake the world's one tongue: in earth and heavenThere is but one; it is the word of truth.To him the eye let out its hidden meaning;And young and old made their hearts over to him;And thoughts were told to him as unto none,Save one, who heareth, said and unsaid, all.And his heart held these as a grate its gleeds,Where others warm them.Student.I would I had known him.Festus.—All things were inspiration unto him:Wood, wold, hill, field, sea, city, solitude,And crowds and streets, and man where'er he was;And the blue eye of God which is above us;Brook-bounded pine spinnies, where spirits flit;And haunted pits the rustic hurries by,Where cold wet ghosts sit ringing jingling bells;Old orchards' leaf-roofed aisles and red-cheeked load;And the blood-coloured tears where yew-trees weepO'er churchyard graves, like murderers remorseful."

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 theviolentstyle 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:—

"Muse.A boyish bardSate suing night and stars for his reward.The sunbeam swerved and grew, a breathing, dim,For the first time, as it lit and looked on him:His forehead faded—pale his lip, and dry—Hollow his cheek—and fever-fed his eye.Clouds lay about his brain, as on a hill,Quick with the thunder thought and lightning will.His clenched hand shook from its more than midnight clasp,Till his pen fluttered like a wingèd asp;Save that no deadly poison blacked its lips:'Twas his to life-enlighten, not eclipse;Nor would he shade one atom of another,To have a sun his slave, a god his brother.The young moon laid her down as one who dies,Knowing that death can be no sacrifice,For that the sun, her god, through nature's night,Shall make her bosom to grow great with light.Still he sat, though his lamp sunk; and he strainedHis eyes, to work the nightness that remained.

Festus.Yes, there was a timeWhen tomes of ancient song held eye and heart—Were the sole lore I reeked of: the great bardsOf Greece, of Rome, and mine own master land,And they who in the Holy Book are deathless—Men who have vulgarised sublimity,And bought up truth for the nations—parted itAs soldierslotted once the garb of God;Men who have forged gods—uttered, made them pass;In whose words, to be read with many a heavingOf the heart, is a power,like wind in rain:Sons of the sons of God, who, in olden days,Did leave their passionless heaven for earth and woman,Brought an immortal to a mortal breast;And, like a rainbow clasping the sweet earth,And melting in the covenant of love,Left here a bright precipitate of soul,Which lives for ever through the lines of men,Flashing by fits, like fire from an enemy's front:Whose thoughts, like bars of sunshine in shut rooms,Mid gloom, all glory, win the world to light;Who make their very follies like their souls;And, like the young moon with a ragged edge,Still in their imperfection beautiful;Whose weaknesses are lovely as their strengths,Like the white nebulous matter between stars,Which, if not light, at least is likest light."

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 upfiftypoets." The ladies are still more enthusiastic. Mrs S. C. Hall outbids Mr Elliott. "There is matter enough in it to float ahundredvolumes 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 readFestus, has forgotten thatprodigiouspoem? You find in it allcontradictions reconciled—allimprobabilities accomplished—all opposites paired—all formulas swallowed—all darings of thought and language attempted"—a rapture of criticism, which took uswith 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 doesnotsee.

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 ofFestus. 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.

"God.—What wouldst thou, Lucifer?Lucifer.There is a youthAmong the sons of men, I fain would haveGiven up wholly to me.God.He is thine,To tempt.Lucifer.I thank thee, Lord!God.Upon his soulThou hast no power.All souls are mine for aye."

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 salvationof 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—

"Lord! Thou knowest that the power I seekIs but for others' good, and Thine own glory,And the desire for it inspired by Thee.So use me as I use it."

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 theSceneswill alone show what glorious revelations await those favoured mortals whom the Devil thinks proper to tempt. We haveScene, 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 aCountry Town, and strange enough is the part whichLucifer 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.

"Lucifer.All-being God! I come to Thee again,Nor come alone. Mortality is here.Thou bad'st me do my will, and I have daredTo do it. I have brought him up to heaven.God.Thou canst not do what is not willed to be.Suns are made up of atoms, heaven of souls;And souls and suns are but the atoms ofThe body, I, God, dwell in. What wilt thouwith him who is here with thee?Lucifer.Show him God.God.No being, upon part of whom the curseOf death rests—were it only on his shadow,Can look on God and live.Lucifer.Look, Festus, look!Festus.Eternal fountain of the Infinite,On whose life-tide the stars seem strewn like bubbles,Forgive me that an atomie of beingHath sought to see its Maker face to face,

Forgive me, Lord!God.Rise, mortal! Look on me.Festus.Oh! I see nothing but like dazzling darkness.Lucifer.I knew how it would be. I am away.Festus.I am thy creature, God! Oh, slay me not,But let some angel take me, or I die.Genius.Come hither, Festus.Festus.Who art thou?Genius.I amOne who hath aye been by thee from thy birth,Thy guardian angel, thy good genius.Festus.I knew thee not till now.Genius.I am never seenIn the earth's low thick light; but here in heaven,And in the air which God breathes, I am clear.I tell to God each night thy thoughts and deeds;And watching o'er thee both on earth and here,Pray unto Him for thee, and intercede.Festus.And this is heaven. Lead on.Will God forgive,That I did long to see Him?Genius.It is the strainOf all high spirits towards Him....Come, I will show thee Heaven and all angels.Lo! the recording angel.Festus.Him I seeHigh seated, and the pen within his handPlumed like a storm-portending cloud which curvesHalf over heaven, and swift, in use divine,As is a warrior's spear!Genius.And there the Book of Life which holds the names,Formed out in starry brilliants, of God's sons—The spirit-names which angels learn by heartOf worlds beforehand. Wilt thou see thine own?Festus.My name is written in the Book of Life.It is enough. That constellated wordIs more to me and clearer than all stars,Henceforward and for aye.Genius.Raise still thine eyes!Thy gleaming throne!—hewn from that mount of lightWhich was before created light or night,Never created, heaven's eternal base,Whereon God's throne is 'stablished.—Sit on it!Festus.Nay, I will forestall nothing more than sight."

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.

"Scene. A gathering of Kings and Peoples.Festus(throned.) Princes and Peoples!Powers, once, of earth!It suits not that I point to ye the pathBy which I reached this sole supreme domain—This mountain of all mortal might. Enough,That I am monarch of the world—the world.Let all acknowledge loyally my laws,And love me as I them love. It will be best.No rise against me can stand. I rule of God;And am God's sceptre here. Think not the worldIs greater than my might—less than my love—Or that it stretcheth further than mine arm.Kings! ye are kings no longer. Cast your crownsHere—for my footstool."

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.

"Festus.Hark! thou fiend! dost hear?Lucifer.Ay! it is the death-groan of the sons of men,Thy subjects—King!Festus.Why hadst thou this so soon?Lucifer.It is God who brings it all about—not I.Festus.I am not ready—and—it shall not be!Lucifer.I cannot help it, monarch! and—it is!Hast not had time for good?Festus.One day—perchance.Lucifer.Then hold that day as an eternity.Festus.All round me die. The earth is one great deathbed."

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.

"She spake, I said, the spirit, and at her wordBehold the heavens were opened as a book.I am the world-soul, nature's spirit I,Ere universe or constellation was,System, or sun, or orb, or element,Darkness, or light, or atom, I first lived;I and Necessity, though twain in life,Yet one in Being. Time and life are one.But insomuch as nature is destroyedIn God's assumption to Divine estateOf an especial soul, necessityEnds in extreme original nothingness."

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,—

"Again the world-soul voiced itself, and IDrank in thefruitful gloriesof her wordsAs earth consumes the golden skiey clouds."

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—

"The actual and ideal meet but once,Where pure impossibilities are facts."

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

"She stood and spake intuitive of Heaven,The World-divining Spirit whilom named.Now such as man is to himself is HisDivine idea; but the God which is,Is not the God men worship, not aloneIneffable, but inconceivable;How shall an atom comprehend the Heaven?Two points men occupy in space and time,And half exist of matter and in form:Thus, His existence is their opposite;And all is either God or nothingness,Being with nonbeing identical."

And so we are landed in the Absolute of Hegel; and in that insufferable jargon of his, by which, (confoundingthe laws of thoughtwiththe 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:—

"Lucifer.—All creature-minds, like man's, are fallible:The seraph who in Heaven highest standsMay fall to ruin deepest. God is mind—Pure, perfect, sinless. Man imperfect is—Momently sinning.Evil thus resultsFrom imperfection.

God hath no attributes, unless To BeBe one: 'twould mix him with the things He hath made.Festus.Can imperfection from perfection come?Can God make aught defective?Lucifer.How aught else?There are but three proportions in all things—The greater—equal—less. God could not makeA God above himself, nor equal with—By nature and necessity the highest;So if he make it must be lesser minds—Little and less from angels down to men,Whose natures are imperfect, as his ownMust be all-perfect."

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 Godhasattributes.

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:—

"Son of God.For menI bore with death—for fiends I bear with sin;And death and sin are each the pain I payFor the love which brought me down from Heaven to saveBoth men and devils."

Yet, if allcreature-mindsare 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, ofFestus. 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—

"I wish we had a little world to ourselves,With none but we two in it.Festus.And if GodGave us a star, what could we do with itBut what we could without it? Wish it not!Clara.I'll not wish then for stars: but I could loveSome peaceful spot, where we might dwell unknown,Where home-born joys might nestle round our heartsAs swallows round our roofs, and blend their sweetsLike dewy tangled flowerets in one bed.Festus.The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love;The taint of earth, the odour of the skiesIs in it. Would that I were aught but man!The death of brutes, the immortalityOf fiend or angel, better seems than allThe doubtful prospects of our painted dust.And all Morality can teach is—Bear!And all Religion can inspire is—Hope!"

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

"Here have I lain all day in this green nook,Shaded by larch and hornbeam, ash and yew;A living well and runnel at my feet,And wild-flowers dancing to some delicate air;An urn-topped column and its ivy wreathSkirting my sight, as thus I lie and lookUpon the blue, unchanging, sacred skies:And thou, too, gentle Clara, by my side,With lightsome brow and beaming eye, and brightLong glorious locks, which drop upon thy cheekLike gold-hued cloud-flakes on the rosy morn.Oh! when the heart is full of sweets to o'er-flowing,And ringing to the music of its love,Who but an angel or a hypocriteCould speak or think of happier states?"

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:—

"Festus.Here—wear this wreath! no ruder crownShould deck that dazzling brow.I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;I crown thee Queen of me:And oh! but I am a happy land,And a loyal land to thee.I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;Thou art Queen in thine own right!Feel! my heart is as full as a town of joy;Look! I've crowded mine eyes with light.I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;Thou art Queen by right divine!And thy love shall set neither night nor dayO'er this subject heart of mine.I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;Thou art Queen by the right of the strong!And thou did'st but win where thou might'st have slain,Or have bounden in thraldom long.I crown thee, love; I crown thee, love;Queen of the brave and free;For I'm brave to all beauty but thine, my love;And free to all beauty by thee."

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

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