The Buccaneer has for its foundation, one of the most remarkable traditions among the people of our coast. It is a story of fearful interest. Its capabilities appear to us understood, and its great points well chosen and well emphacized. The descriptions employed in bringing home to us its several circumstances, are full of truth and beauty. The introduction is a description of the haunt of the Bucca neer: "The island lies nine leagues away. Along its solitary shore, Of craggy rock and sandy bay No sound but ocean's roar, Save, where the bold, wild sea-bird makes her home "But when the light winds lie at rest, The black duck, with her glossy breast, How beautiful! no ripples break the reach, And silvery waves go noiseless up the beach. "Nor holy bell, nor pastoral bleat In former days within the vale; Flapp'd in the bay the pirate's sheet; Curses were on the gale; Rich goods lay on the sand, and murder'd men; Matthew Lee, the pirate chief of the isle, is shortly after introduced in the opening of the story : "Twelve years are gone since Matthew Lee A dark, low, brawny man was he- Beneath his thickset brows a sharp light broke "Cruel of heart, and strong of arm, Loud in his sport, and keen for spoil, Yet like a dog could fawn, if need there were ; The characteristic action with which Lee appears, is skilfully chosen. The villain is not painted up touch after touch. Scarce five stanzas deep in the tale, its hero is before our imaginations. "There's blood and hair, Matt, on thy axe's edge." We arc much struck with the originality of this character; its unity, we think, as remarkable. It seems to be the opinion of some of our modern poets, that truth, however excellent a thing in morals, has no place in art. They seem to be scrupulous about introducing to their readers a villain in his real blackness. They weave in here and there an incompatible virtue, and dress the whole in many agreeable qualities, in hopes that these will make his way in the world for him. Lee is no beau ideal murderer, with dark glancing eye and high pale forehead, shaded by sable curls. We do not find him stealing in one stanza, and breathing a pure and tender passion in another. There is a strong savour of New-England in his manner, which makes us realize him. He reminds us of more than one in actual life, who has made us shudder with the thought of what he might do, if roused or tempted. We are aware, that many object to painting a character so vile, and events so terrific, on the ground that they are frightful and loathsome subjects of contemplation; but an author need not feel much hurt at being attacked by the same censure, which must inevitably condemn most of the great poets who have lived. We could bear most manfully, the shame of seeing our works in the poetical pillory, in company with Othello and Macbeth. But the truth is, we are apt to make little or no distinction between the horrible and the terrific. Wherever mean and revolting objects of sense are brought before the imagination, though associated with all those ideas which maintain the strongest hold on our pity and our love-the mind is engrossed by disgust, and cannot give it sympathy. The dogs gnawing the skulls, under the walls of Corinth, in Lord Byron, are an instance of the horrible, without one spark of poetry. The greater the powers employed on such a picture, the more loathsome is the result, the more evident the bad taste. But the abysses and darkness of a bad mind, are as decidedly the regions of poetry, as the open heaven and light of virtue. The passions and crimes of a villain, his mad career, his ruin, are a noble and moral subject of fiction, in any form; and we call the delicacy that is offended by such a representation, squeamishness and bad taste. We make these remarks, not with the hope of setting in a new light, the effect of this poetry on the minds of the susceptiblestill less of heightening its effect; but with a wish to persuade those, who, in matters of sentiment, resort to reason for instruction, how they ought to feel; the cold and obtuse, in short, to look into their own minds for the defect, when they have no strong pleasing stir of sympathy in reading a tale of fear. Such can have in their minds little of the poetical temperament. A tale of blood, from beginning to end, displeases from its monotony; but how much higher is the art that relieves the mind, by other characters of a more amiable nature, than that which interweaves and confounds virtue and vice, detestable and praiseworthy qualities? The victim of the pirate's cruelty comes before us, in the following beautiful stanzas: "Too late for thee, thou young, fair bride; The lips are cold, the brow is pale, That thou didst kiss in love and pride. Whom thou didst lull with fondly murmur'd sound- "He fell for Spain-her Spain no more; And wait amidst her sorrows till the day Her voice of love should call her thence away." We are unwilling, in giving outlines of the story, and dissections of character, to fill a space in our page, which we think can be occupied to so much greater advantage, by extracts of the finer parts of the poem. We would be to our reader, rather the humble cicerone who shows the way to an interesting object, and leaves the spectator to enjoy and profit by the sight of it, than the antiquarian or connoisseur, who annoys him with his learning and his opinions, and drowns in a torrent of talk all its effect on his mind: "The sun goes down upon the sea; My home, how like a tomb! O! blow, ye flowers of Spain, above his head.- "And now the stars are burning bright; Ye're many, waves, yet lonely seems your flow, "Sleep, sleep, thou sad one, on the sea! He is not near, to hush thee, or to save. The ground is his-the sea must be thy grave. "The moon comes up-the night goes on. Stands that dark, thoughtful man alone? Bethink thee of her youth and sorrows, Lee : "When told the hardships thou hadst borne, With uncheer'd grief her heart is worn.— He looks out on the sea that sleeps in light, And growls an oath- It is too still to-night!" In the description of the scene of murder, we are struck by the choice and accumulation of circumstance, and the meaning of the language: · "On pale, dead men, on burning cheek, Lee look'd. They sleep so sound,' he, laughing, said, "A crash! They've forced the door,-and then From worse than death thy suffering, helpless child! "It ceased. With speed o' th' lightning's flash, Nor hears the stern, loud roar above, Thou soon hast reach'd!-Fair, unpolluted thing! "O, no!-To live when joy was dead; "To look on man, and deem it strange That he on things of earth should brood, To thee was solitude O, this was bitterness!-Death came and prest Thy wearied lids, and brought thy sick heart rest.” The following stanzas relate what happened on the night of the anniversary of the murder, when the pirate and his comrades were assembled to drown remorse in jollity :— "The words they spoke, we may not speak. The tales they told, we may not tell. Mere mortal man, forbear to seek The secrets of that hell! Their shouts grow loud. 'T is near mid-hour of night. What means upon the waters that red light? "Not bigger than a star it seems: And, now, 'tis like the bloody moon: Its light!-'T will reach us soon! A ship! and all on fire!-hull, yards and mast! "And now she rides, upright and still, Around the cove on inland hill, Waking the gloom of night. All breathes of terror! Men in dumb amaze "It scares the sea-birds from their nests. O, sin, what hast thou done on this fair earth? "And what comes up above that wave, The waking dead!) There on the sea he stands- His path is shining like a swift ship's wake; "The spirit-steed sent up the neigh. It rang along the vaulted sky: the shore Jarr'd hard, as when the thronging surges roar. "It rang in ears that knew the sound: And hot, flush'd cheeks are blanch'd with fear. He drops his cup-his lips are stiff with fright. "I cannot sit. I needs must go : The spell is on my spirit now. I go to dread-I go to wo!' O, who so weak as thou, Strong man!-His hoofs upon the door-stone, see, "Thy hair pricks up !-O, I must bear Thou'rt mad to mount that horse! A power within, I must obey-cries, mount thee, man of sin!' "He's now astride the spectre's back, Nor doth he touch the shade he strides-upborne By an unseen power.-God help thee, man forlorn!” We are not sure, but we suppose, that the return of the spectre horse a second and a third time, is one of the improvements of VOL. III.-No. 5. 16 |