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holy thoughts and emotions; who have become, in short, part and parcel of himself, and melted into his own being, — Talfourd is almost always a worshipper rather than a critic, but a worshipper equalling in eloquence the idol to which he bends. His description of a writer's power is so warm and kindling, and he claims for him such high qualities, that we are apt to meet with disappointment when we turn to the object of his eulogy, to verify the panegyric; and we often feel a sense of shame come over us, that ideas and images which can awaken in his nature such vivid perceptions of loveliness, power, and grandeur, should often fall into our own

"Like snow-flakes on a river,

One moment white, then gone forever."

Talfourd's sympathy sharpens his intellectual acuteness. The most recondite gleam of beauty in thought, or felicity in expression, he detects with a delicacy and discrimination which none but a poet could employ. His mind darts, with the speed of instinct, to the apprehension of the most subtle idea or allusion which reaches his imagination through his heart. He is almost an epicurean in his appreciation of some classes of poetry. He absolutely feeds on tenderness of sentiment and intellectual beauty. To all writers of the tempestuous school, who come to him with heart-shattering miseries, riotous and noisy in turgid epithets, and demanding the sympathy and commiseration of the whole universe, he seems to exclaim, "Disturb not my peace with your wailings; my balm can assuage none of your pains; you have no imagination, but only a tyrannous sensibility, and a fatal fluency of language; " but to those who come to him with more harmony of tongue and motion,

who are at once “meek and bold,” and who make no unnecessary parade of metaphor and sinfulness, he adopts a different strain of remark, and gives them a home in the inmost sanctuaries of his heart.

The work on which Talfourd has expended the full wealth of his genius is the tragedy of "Ion." Schlegel says, in his observations on Lear, "Of the heavenly beauty of Cordelia, I do not dare to speak." A moral fear of a similar nature should come over the heart of every critic who attempts to "break into parts for separate contemplation" this exquisite creation of our author's mind. A person who reads it in an earnest, sympathizing spirit, and allows the full stream of its harmony to flow at once into his heart, conscience, and imagination, is in little danger of exaggerating its excellence by hyperbolical panegyric. The fine humanity which breathes through it touches the finest chords of the moral nature. Its ideal of greatness and virtue is the same which Christ taught and realized. It teaches that gentleness is power, and self-sacrifice the noblest ambition. The flow of the verse, the exquisite nicety of the language, the picturesque beauty of the imagery, the holiness and elevation of the thoughts, the delicious purity and sweetness of the tone of the composition, and the rare spiritual harmony with which it is pervaded, entitle it to a very high rank among the great poems which no age will willingly let die. The character of Ion is the embodiment of moral beauty. It could have risen from the depths of no soul but one of singular purity and loveliness. It is one of those "things of beauty" which become "a joy forever." It "floats like a lily on the river of our thoughts." Any objections to the work which criticism may raise cannot break one

link in that golden chain by which it is bound to our deepest sympathies and highest imaginations.

Talfourd is the author of two other tragedies, which have less merit and celebrity than "Ion " "The Athenian Captive," and "Glencoe." Both are well written, and if produced by any other man than the author of "Ion," would be justly esteemed as evincing considerable dramatic power, force of thought, and fineness as well as strength of imagination. But their intrinsic excellence is underrated from their being tried by the standard which their elder brother established. "Glencoe," in particular, is a noble drama, replete with grandeur and beauty of sentiment and expression, and displaying much skill in the delineation of character.

The exuberance of imagination and sensibility which Talfourd manifests in all his compositions, seems to indicate that his true vocation is poetry. In kindly feeling, in genial sympathy with his race, in that running over of the heart in the worship of all that is great and good in character and life, in all those qualities which mark the musing and imaginative poet, he is perhaps not excelled by any contemporary. Still, with a nature which seems so singularly fitted for the quiet pursuits of literature, his life thus far must have been somewhat practical. He is a distinguished lawyer and politician. His literary productions have been conceived and executed in the pauses of active professional business. He is one of those authors against whom we never bring the complaint of having written too much. Indeed, we wish that he would abandon other avocations, and devote himself wholly to letters. This wish, as generally applied, we know is nothing more than a sickening expression of mawkishness and hypocrisy; but in the case of

Talfourd, it springs directly from the heart of every reader who has drawn delight and mental nourishment from his writings. We rather grudge the hours which poets of his class devote to more worldly duties. We imagine we have a moral claim upon their souls, and hardly acknowledge their right to give their powers any other direction than what seems at once to be their natural tendency, and to minister to our highest pleasures. If, however, our author should not add one line to what he has already written, his name is sure to be warmly cherished by those to whom his works have been pleasant and profitable companions, with familiar faces ever beaming with benignity and sinlessness; whose love of moral and intellectual excellence he has kindled or elevated; and who can pardon an occasional paradox or fallacy, when it springs from a desire to vindicate the intrinsic nobleness of the poet's vocation, and is associated with such high moral principle, and so many valuable and soul-animating truths.

WORDS.*

WORDS, we are told, are the signs of ideas. This definition, at best, is faulty, and, in a majority of cases, untrue. Nothing is more common than to see words without any sign of ideas at all. Besides, those who understand the nature of language, and wield uncontrolled dominion over all its powers, have been careful to tell us that the true use of words is not to express, but to conceal, ideas. Words, moreover, are of such inherent value in themselves, and in the concerns of the world exercise such untrammelled influence, that it is unjust to degrade them from sovereigns into representatives. It would be much more modest for lovers of definition to say, not that words are, but that they should be, the signs of ideas. The moralist is more philosophical. He distinguishes carefully between qualities and their application. He defines the laws of ethics, and informs us that men should obey them, not that they do.

The true ruler of this big, bouncing world is the Lexicon. Every new word added to its accumulated thousands is a new element of servitude to mankind. We should therefore look sharply at all axioms which seem to fix the signification of these little substantives and sovereigns. The notion that they are the signs of thought can be disposed of without any train of tedious

* American Review, February, 1845.

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