reads her bard's description of the storm, and particularly of the frothy dust that hung in quivering clusters from his locks, be reminded of the following lines, which rapt Dryden into ecstasy, when he was a boy

Now, when the winter's keener breath began

To crystallize the Baltic ocean;

To glaze the lakes, to bridle up the floods,

And periwig with snow the bald-pate woods,' &c.

We have dwelt upon Mr. Eustaphieve's obeisances to the imperial pair, in order to convey to our readers at once, an idea not only of his genius as a poet, but of his spirit as a politician. It should be noted, that these orisons to the earthly divinities, are uttered almost in the same breath with the exclamation

To thee, O God! from whom all wisdom flows,

To thee, alone, my prayers ascend!'

To speak more seriously on this subject: if we are out of humour with so miserable a caricature of our heroic verse, and the egregious rashness of the author, we are, and are entitled to be, as Americans, absolutely offended at his making our press the censer of this fulsome tribute to a despotic throne. We are not, certainly, inclined to find fault with a Russian for cherishing the highest admiration of the character of Alexander, and the virtues of his consort, which may, for aught we know, deserve the esteem of all the world. We have no right, and feel no disposition to quarrel with any foreigner sojourning among us, for continuing to be a loyal subject of the absolute government to which he may happen to belong. If he be here in an official capacity, we consent without a murmur, that he should, in his official papers, employ, with respect to his sovereign, the style, which is of the courtesy, or servility of his own country, be it as obsequious or hyperbolical as it may. Should he even supererogate a little in this respect, with a view to his private interests, it would be no cause of umbrage, though it might be of disesteem. No man, indeed, of real dignity or independence of mind will go even thus far, and no subject of a monarchical system, if he be a person of sound discretion and perfect breeding, will fail, when among a republican people, to be tender, on every occasion, of their prevailing sentiments, although he may consi der them as prejudices. We should prescribe the same rules, mutatis mutandis, to a republican in a monarchical country, thoroughly convinced as we are, however, of the exclusive consonance of an erect port and simple address to the honour and welfare of hu

man nature.

But the case of Mr. Eustaphieve is widely different from that of the use or abuse of an official formula. He flouts our republicanism with his oriental devotions to their czarinian majesties; he arrays himself, as it were, in our costume to perform his genuflections, and supplicate imperial smiles; he struts before us unbidden, in his chains, and clanks them exultingly in our ears. By committing this outrage upon our feelings as citizens, by thus braving our antipathies, he has forfeited all title to the indulgence

which we, as polite critics, having to do with a stranger's lay, might have thought ourselves bound to extend to his monstrous imagery and uncouth dialect.

The plot of this first part of Demetrius baffles our limited powers of attention and analysis. As far as we have been able to follow the incidents and characters, we have found them either insipidly commonplace or revoltingly extravagant. The action seems to be arrested and clogged, from page to page, by drawling, witless dialogues and monologues, and stops at length like the story of Menalcas. In our transverse examination of the volume, we could discover that it contained much about the conflagration of Moscow in 1813,the misdeeds and catastrophe of Bonaparte,-the death of the duke d'Enghein,—the magnanimity of England during the late war, and the degeneracy of her opposition, an unnatʼral brood of vipers;'-the political and social merits of Massachusetts, and something complimentary to our country in general, dashed, however, with a most awful and significant But......* Although these affairs are introduced into a poem, of which the scene is laid in the fourteenth century, it is by direct digression, and not in vision; and the dealing with them so largely and immediately, does not appear to have been considered by the poet as an impediment in the way of the declaration in the Apology, that the present volume is all a fiction.'

There is no point relating to the correct structure of an epic poem, upon which critics have more decidedly pronounced, and generally agreed, than the exclusion of allegorical persons as regular agents. Both Addison and Johnson have denounced Milton's Death and Sin, admirably as these are informed and managed. Johnson remarks on this subject, that 'to give any real employment to such allegorical persons, or to ascribe to them any material agency, is to make them allegorical no longer, but to shock the mind, by ascribing effects to non-entity. We see Death, Violence, and Strength, &c. brought upon the stage in the ancient drama, as active persons; but no precedents can justify absurdity.' Addison holds this language: These imaginary beings are not agreeable to the nature of an heroic poem. It is certain Homer and Virgil are full of imaginary persons, who are very beautiful in poetry, when they are just shown, without being engaged in any series of action. When Homer makes use of them, it is only in short expressions, which convey an ordinary thought to the mind in the most

6

*There was one sprung from Albion's mighty loins,
The star-clad mistress of the new-born world
Of promise rich and fair in beauty's bloom;

Of courage, as of freedom justly proud,' &c.

But.... wherefore raise oblivion's friendly veil?"

It is a great misfortune for this confederation, 'star-clad,' to have incurred, in any respect, the displeasure of her imperial majesty's most devoted, faithful, loyal, and grateful subject;' and it must be regarded as a great felicity by the state of Massachusetts to be told, that he wishes his humble lay' to be immortal for her sake. P. 170.

pleasing manner, and may be rather looked upon as poetical phrases, than allegorical descriptions.'

The author of Demetrius seems to have aimed at invalidating, by the force of his genius, all example and precept on this head. While he has discarded the usual and authorized description of machinery, he has filled his poem with extended allegories. Policy, Intrigue, War, Echo, the Spirit of the Storm, make a great figure in it as actors. The first, particularly, and numberless personages of the class of those who crowd the Pilgrim's Progress, are described and characterized with particular emphasis and minuteness. The prosopopeia is the figure of which Mr. Eustaphieve makes the most frequent, and most preposterous use. A few examples will serve to give the measure of his judgment, and show, at the same time, the felicity of his versification. The following is a part of the account of Policy,' a busy and mischievous fiend, not unlike, in its office, the Appollyon of honest John Bunyan. After describing a 'barren peak'

'High in the viewless regions lost, midway
'Twixt earth and heaven,'

the poet proceeds,

'On this curs'd spot

Where nature, forc'd to be unkind, against
Her own creation plots; on this curs'd spot
A monster fear'd, Ambition's eldest born,
In hell engendered after Satan's fall,
Keeps her most hideous court. ***

This monster, of no sex, and yet of both

Partaking, hatched in mischief's fruitful womb,
Under the name usurped of Policy

Now, like some subtle spirit, works his way
Through the impervious barriers of defence.
And now, a giant swoln, he with one step
Bestrides the world, and with prodigious grasp,
Labours to pull its mighty fabric down,' &c.

Policy being endued with this marvellous contractibility and expansibility, plays, especially after having 'joined her forces' to those of Superstition, many diabolical pranks, for a knowledge of which we refer the reader to various parts of the poem. One of her or his coadjutors, being portrayed at full length, and most fearfully, is thus christened,

War is another of the evil genii, or rather Ogres, and to its character a full page is devoted, with this superb climax:

'Yet strange to tell,

The more this demon feeds, the more he craves,
Insatiate, ravenous; and should the world

Be of its victims drain'd, by hunger urged
And fury, he would prey upon himself!!'

Echo is presented as sleeping in her caves, and anon it is said of

Echo startled in her caves

With maniac terror rushes out, and finds

No refuge on the spacious globe.'

It is the Spirit of the Storm that rouses and bewilders her so eruelly, and this tremendous Spirit deserves to be marked in another of his feats. Being despatched by the Omnipotent, with a high commission,' to the nether regions,' he is soon there.

• Lo! his flight

Is o'er! He stops, and with the waving wand

Strikes Earth's huge swift-revolving orb. He strikes-
And thrilling tremor creeping through her veins,
Convulses all her frame. Scarce 'gainst such force,
Can her vibrating axis hold. She reels,

She groans, and quick, obedient to the stroke,
Opens her wat❜ry stores. * * *

Never but once,

When to the first great deluge she gave birth,
Felt she so great a shock, or was so forced

To drain her genial sources up and bleed

At ev'ry pore.'

Poor mother Earth! this was, indeed, her agony; a most woful travail.

Of the whole phantasmagoria of Mr. Eustaphieve, his favourite monsters and agents we would suppose to be Superstition and Fire, from the superlative wildness and elaborateness of the personification. Super-imposito moles geminata colosso.-The description of fire is sufficient to reclaim any Gheber from his idolatry— 'Quick, spirit-like,

Elastic, whole, though breaking into parts,
With tongue adhering fast, corrosive, dipp'd
In burning Hell, the greedy monster licks

The polish'd walls, by Time's rude hand untouch'd

The sculptor's and the carver's costliest work;

*

*

* He swells, he raves,
He vomits downwards from his belching mouth

The red-hot showers. Wild flares his gristly hair,' &c.
'He rides a thick, dark-crimson, smoth'ring cloud,' &c.

These are not even the boldest strokes of the picture. But having given our readers so much of the terrible, it is time to refresh them a little, and we have the means at hand in an original, dainty love-scene between-Aurora and Phœbus:

*

*

'Meanwhile, uprisen from her dewy bed
Aurora weeps for the delay'd approach
Of her fond bridegroom, radiant god of day.
But soon she feels him nearer, and betimes
His lofty race-way clears of mists and clouds.
* That nothing may she want
To give so great a guest reception fit
And suiting welcome; her preventive care
The costly chamber of the Universe
Nobly prepares: then putting on her rich
And many-coloured robes, with silver wrought
And orient pearls adorned, she wipes away
Each tearful drop not shed from joy, and hastes,

Him, at the blazing portals of the East,

To meet, and vanish in his arms.'

We cannot help thinking of the situation of the poor friend who may have been obliged to con over the manuscript of "Demetrius,' when he reached the passage here quoted. It was truly the sad predicament so feelingly described by Pope

'To laugh, were want of goodness and of grace,

And to be grave, exceeds all power of face:
I sit with sad civility,-I read

With honest anguish and an aching head.'

Extravagant allegories, more or less lengthened, of the sort of which we have furnished specimens, make up a considerable portion of the volume. Such an aggregation of three-piled hyperboles and figures pedantical,' it never has been our misfortune to encounter before, and never, we are sure, will be again, until the second part of Demetrius shall appear in print. Nothing can convey even a faint idea of the chaos of allegories and metaphors into which the reader is plunged, except, perhaps, the famous medley of the Dunciad:

All sudden, gorgons hiss and dragons glare,
And ten-horn'd fiends and giants rush to war.
Hell rises, Heav'n descends, and dance on Earth,
Gods, imps, and monsters, music, rage, and mirth,
A fire, a jig, a battle, and a ball,

Till one wide conflagration swallows all.'

There are licenses and strainings in every page, at which Lee, or Rowe, or Darwin, or Tom Thumb, might stand aghast. Such, for instance, in addition to what we have already quoted, are the following. Speaking of the destruction of 'a stupendous pile' that might have served as a footstool for the Titanian race to storm the seat of Jove,' the poet writes

'It spreads-it fliesIt groans-it raves-it bursts!'

And of the Russian host

'Our warriors, led through million deaths
Scorn'd threat'ning ills, soar'd above hostile fate,
Incessant toil'd, impetuous warr'd, and storm'd
Impossibility's own rocky hold.'

Of the punishment of a traitor by Mamay

*

* 6

So, with prodigious force,
High as an arm can reach, he toss'd him up,
Like some light reed, and, horrid to relate!
With furious energy and malice dire,

He dash'd him on the marble at his feet.

The senseless floor, hard, cold, seem'd yet to feel

The dreadful shock, and to recoil with fear,' &c.

And of an embattled Tartar foe of Demetrius-eclipsing even the Drawcansir, of the immortal Bayes:

'Frightful, tremendous, was the monster's mien,

He look'd a moving tow'r with thousand souls,
With strength of thousand men endow'd,

He seems