Mr. Praed has an exquisite poem, "Memory;" and we had nearly passed by a song by Mr. T. Moore.
Alone beneath the moon I roved,
And thought how oft in hours gone by,
I heard my Mary say she loved
To look upon a moonlight sky!
The day had been one lengthened shower,
Till moonlight came, with lustre meek,
To light up every weeping flower,
Like smiles upon a mourner's cheek.
I called to mind from Eastern books
A thought that could not leave me soon:
"The moon on many a night-flower looks,
The night-flower sees no other moon."
And thus I thought our fortune's run,
For many a lover sighs to thee;
While oh! I feel there is but one,
One Mary in the world for me!
The illustrations are almost unexceptionably good; the gems in this way being Mrs. Siddons, as Lady Macbeth, by C. Rolls, after Harlowe: the face is perhaps the most intellectual piece of engraving ever seen; the sublime effect in so small a space is truly surprising. A Portrait, by W. Danforth, after Leslie, ranks next; and the beauty and variety of the remainder of the prints are so great as to prevent our individualizing them to the reader. Taken altogether, they form one of the finest Annual Galleries or Collections.
THE KEEPSAKE
Without going into a dreamy discussion on the literature of this work, we venture to say it has rather retrograded from, than improved upon the volume of last year. Great and titled names only furnish the gilt: and this fact is now so generally understood, that readers are no longer deceived by them, in the quality of the gingerbread. Mr. Watts is so convinced of this fact, that he has given the cut direct to many titled authors; and, for aught we know, he has produced as good a volume this year as on any former occasion. The proprietor of the Keepsake appears to think otherwise; and his editor has accordingly produced a book of very meagre interest, though of mightier pretensions than his rivals. Months ago we were told by announcement, paragraph and advertisement, of a tragedy, The House of Aspen, by Sir Walter Scott, which now turns out to be as dull an affair as any known in these days of dramatic poverty and theatrical ups and downs. Sir Walter, in an advertisement of great modesty, dated April 1, says, that "being of too small a size of consequence for a separate publication, the piece is sent as a contribution to the Keepsake, where its demerits may be hidden amid the beauties of more valuable articles." The piece has been adapted to a minor stage with some effect, but nothing higher than a melodrama. We have neither room nor inclination to extract a scene, but one of the metrical pieces has tempted us:
Sweet shone the sun on the fair Lake of Toro,
Weak were the whispers that waved the dark wood,
As a fair maiden bewilder'd in sorrow,
Sigh'd to the breezes and wept to the flood.
"Saints from the mansion of bliss lowly bending,
Virgin, that hear'st the poor suppliant's cry,
Grant my petition, in anguish ascending.
My Frederick restore, or let Eleanor die."
Distant and faint were the sounds of the battle,
With the breezes they rise, with the breezes they fail,
Till the shout, and the groan, and the conflict's dread rattle,
And the chase's wild clamour came loading the gale.
Breathless she gaz'd through the woodland so dreary,
Slowly approaching, a warrior was seen;
Life's ebbing tide mark'd his footstep so weary,
Cleft was his helmet, and woe was his mien.
"Save thee, fair maid, for our armies are flying;
Save thee, fair maid, for thy guardian is low;
Cold on yon heath thy bold Frederick is lying,
Fast through the woodland approaches the foe."
Two of the best stories are The Bride, by Theodore Hook, and the Shooting Star, an Irish tale, by Lord Nugent; and a Dialogue for the year 2310, by the author of Granby, has considerable smartness. The scene is in London, where one of the speakers has just arrived "from out of Scotland; breakfasted this morning at Edinburgh, and have not been in town above a couple of hours. The roads are dreadfully heavy now: conceive my having been seven hours and a half coming from Edinburgh to London." Killing between four and five thousand head of game in one day is shooting ill; and one of the party has a gun which would give twenty-seven discharges in a minute, and mine would give only twenty-five. I really must change my maker. Have you seen the last new invention, the hydro-potassian lock?" Hunting machines, that would fly like balloons over a ten-foot wallA candidate for the Circumnavigation Club, who has been four times round the world in his own, yachtA point of bad taste to make a morning call by daylightDining at twelve P.M.A spring-door with a self-acting knocker, which gives a treble knock, and is opened by a steam porter in liveryA chair mounting from the hall, through the ceiling, into the drawing roomTalking to a lady two miles off through a telescope, till one's fingers acheA callisthenic academy for the children of pauper operativesAn automaton note-writerA lady professing ignorance of Almack's, "a club where Swift and Johnson used to meet, but I don't profess to be an antiquarian""Love and Algebra," one of the common scientific novels thumbed by coal-heavers and orange-women, very well for the common peopleEvery thing is taught them now by means of scientific novels: such as "Geological Atoms, or the Adventures of a Dustman"Doubted very much whether English wheat is fit for any thing but the brute creationDark times of the 19th centurySix-hourly and half-daily newspapers"apropos, as the hackney-coachmen say"Turkey, one of the southern provinces of RussiaHis Majesty Jonathan III. of WashingtonThe Emperor of IndiaThe Burmese RepublicEnglish the language of three-fourths of Asia, nine-tenths of North America, half Africa, and all the insular states in the South Seasand England, that little kingdom, with a population of not more than forty millions, has had the honour of colonizing half the globe; but "these countries are our colonies no longer." Such are a few of the wonders of 2130! In the Dialogue is an admirable joke with a scientific street-sweeper and a learned beggar, who pleads necessitas non habet legem, and "embraces the profession of an operative mendicant." But here is a morceau:
Lady D.Ah! Lord A.! Mr. C.! most unexpected persons both! I heard only yesterday that one of you was in Greenland, and the other in Africa. What false reports they circulate!
Lord A.The reports were true not long ago, and I believe we returned about the same time. You, Lady D., have been also travelling, I believe.
Lady D.Yes, we were out of England in the winter. Our physician commanded a warmer climate for Lord D. so we took a villa on the Niger, and afterwards spent a short time at Sackatoo.
Mr. C.I suppose you found it full of English?
Lady D.Oh, quite fulland such a set! We knew hardly any of them. In fact, we did not go there for society. We met a few pleasant people, Australians; the Abershaws, the Hardy Vauxes, and Sir William and Lady Soames.
Mr. C.Did you go by the new Tangier and Timbuctoo road?
Lady D.Yes, we did, and we found it excellent. By the bye, Lord A., to digress to a different latitude, how did you succeed in your last excursion to the North Pole?