cannot give up the stars and the sea-no poet can-without ceasing to be a poet. The starry night, the sea, love, friendship, and the like, are the largest entities in the real world and in real experience; they bear the largest proportion in bulk to the whole real universe; why should they bear a smaller proportion in the universe of the poet? Whoever does not think, ay, and speak, more of the stars than of roses, that man's soul lives in a conservatory; whoever does not think and speak more of the sea than of his inkstand, that man's soul lives in a counting-house. Part of the greatness of the old Greek poets, as compared with some modern poets, consisted in this, that they had a more proportioned eye for the objects and presences of nature, speaking less of the wings of insects and the interior of blue-bells, and more of the sky, the hills, and the roar of the Egean. Let not Mr. Smith mind the critics very much in this matter. If they plague him much more on the point of his topics," we advise him to retaliate by a satire. If what the critics have said, however, shall have the effect of inducing him to extend the list of his "topics," so as to diminish somewhat the impression of sameness in his imagery, well and good. For our part, though we think the world has had more splendid men in it than Marc Anthony, we withdraw our veto on the use of that Roman's name, whenever it may be poetically convenient to mention him. Only we suspect Mr. Smith's liking for Anthony proceeds from a latent longing for the society of Cleopatra. Proceeding in the order of our theoretical exposition we should now have to say something on these three points relating to Mr. Smith as a poet-his prevalent moral mood or emotional key; his style as a writer; and his versification. The passages we have quoted, however, will already have conveyed a distinct impression on each and all of these points. Mr. Smith, it will have been observed, is no calm unperturbed poet, with imagination lax, cold, and leisurely, weaving together sensuous phantasies for the mere pleasure of the exercise. Nor is he a contemplative poet, like Wordsworth. He is a poet highly impassioned, touched with fire and feeling, and allegorizing a state of mind natural to strong and manly, and yet unsatisfied youth. A discontent, a sorrow not untinged with sarcasm, breathes through his verse. Yet he is never ungenial, never entirely Byronic. Nor, in any true sense, is Mr. Smith's poetry morally unhealthy. It was unfortunate that some lines of his which came first before the public created a wrong impression in this respect. Better founded than any such charge against his moral tone, might be an attack on his taste in style, and on his versification. That Mr. Smith can write clearly, simply, powerfully, and beautifully, and that he has an ear for what is noble and musical in verse, the passages we have quoted are sufficient to prove. But that he is sometimes rough, crude, unpolished, and unmelodious, may be seen also from the same passages. Other passages, too, we might quote, showing that he is not unfrequently guilty of positive inelegance, of positive bad taste both in thought and in style. Other critics, however, have done this for us; and the task is not a gracious one. On the whole, then, we think Mr. Smith a true poet, and a poet of no common order. We place him on the slope of Parnassus within sight of Keats and Tennyson, as our two latest and best of preceding poets. We say "within sight" at present, because he has written but little, and we do not wish to be too sure in anticipating the future. He has some of the characteristics of each of these poets; but he is not like either. He is, we believe, thoroughly original in the style of his genius, and his originality may yet carry him far. He will have plenty of advice; which will do him all the more good that he will not take it. To "prune," and to "study the best models," are advices at least as old as Jeffrey. Interpreted by each one for himself, they are very good advices yet. For ourselves, our advices to Mr. Smith, in addition to the mere general advice to take his own way, and to get on as fast as he can in it, would be-that in any future poem he may write, he should preconceive and preconstruct the plan or scheme as a whole, more thoroughly than he has done in the present; that he should extend his range of circumstance as widely as possible, cultivating skill in physiognomy, in incident, and in character, as well as in scenery, and power over the real as well as power in the ideal; and, lastly, that he should give his days and nights to the attainment of perfection in literary form. In this last respect Tennyson will be his best model. With what fastidiousness does this great poet mould his language and polish his verse! Let Mr. Smith imitate so good example. Even such an art as that of punctuation is not to be despised. We do not know whose fault it is, but the present volume is very badly punctuated. Our Colonial Empire, and our Colonial Policy. 345 ART. II.-1. The Colonial Policy of Lord John Russell's Administration. By EARL GREY. London, 1853. 2. An Essay on the Government of Dependencies. By GEORGE CORNWALL LEWIS, Esq. London, 1841. 3. Charters of the Old English Colonies. By SAMUEL LUCAS. London, 1850. THE volumes which stand first on our list are, on many accounts, a production of deep interest and of peculiar value. They contain a clear, condensed, dispassionate review of the system pursued in the government of our Colonial Empire in the five years between 1847 and 1852-a statement of the principles adopted by the ministry as those which should guide the conduct of the mother country in the management of her dependencies, and of the mode in which those principles were carried out. The work is narrative rather than controversial; it is written, for the most part, in the calm and dignified tone of a State Paper, and will do much, we think, to raise and to clear the reputation both of Lord Grey himself, and of the cabinet of which he was a member. It is a matter of no slight importance, on a subject like that of our colonial policy, which is so little understood and so much misrepresented, to have an authentic and comprehensive statement, from the highest and most reliable source, of the condition and prospects of our various dependencies. It is a great thing to find collected into the space of two readable volumes a mass of varied knowledge, brought down to a very recent date, on points of the greatest interest, as to which the newspapers give us only fragmentary, imperfect, and distorted information, and with reference to which the most deplorable ignorance and the most mischievous misconceptions prevail among the general public. It is interesting, too, to see a minister of the Crown-one especially who, of late years, has been the object of peculiar unpopularity-come forward and appeal to the country, not with an exculpatory pamphlet, but with a grave history, anxious to furnish his fellow-countrymen with full means of forming a judgment on his political career, and satisfied that his best and surest vindication will be found in a succinct and impartial narrative of all that he has done, and the reasons why he did it ;-and those who have gathered from the journals the prevalent impression as to Lord Grey's infirm temper, obstinate spirit, and imperious will, will be not a little surprised to find in these volumes much generous forbearance towards opponents, an entire absence of fretful egotism, and not a few frank acknowledgments of error. VOL. XIX. NO. XXXVIII. Lord Grey takes each colony in succession; he shews the state in which he and his colleagues found it, and the state in which they left it; the disputes and embarrassments which they inherited from their predecessors; the mode in which they dealt with these, and the extent to which they were able to mitigate or to dispose of them; the various knotty questions which were forced on their attention, and the principles which they applied to their solution; the irritating and menacing discussions which were almost daily arising with one or other of our colonies, and the mingled firmness and conciliation by which these had to be met and allayed. He explains how they found one war raging at the Cape, and how they terminated it only to bequeath another and still more formidable one to their successors; and he traces out the causes-whether mistakes at home, mismanagement and faction in the colony, or unavoidable misfortune to which these calamities are, in his judgment, to be attributed. He explains the acrimonious disputes which embittered the feelings, and hazarded the prosperity of British Guiana, with details which will astonish not a little those who had gathered their impression of that quarrel from the partial statements of colonial letters, or the diatribes of opposition newspapers. He shews how a party among the planters, exasperated by their commercial losses, hampered the action of the Colonial Government, and at length stopped the supplies, cut off the revenue, and endangered the safety of the colony, with a view not of enforcing the remedy of grievances within their reach, but of compelling the mother country to rescind that free trade policy which she had adopted after the fullest consideration, and with a view to the interests of the whole empire; and he narrates the manner in which these unhappy differences have been appeased by the firmness of the Governor, and the returning good sense and good feeling of the colonists. He draws a plain, but sad picture of the same disputes still agitating Jamaica, retarding its improvement, and imperilling its very existence as a civilized abode, and shews what a fearful curse an injudicious and clumsy constitution may be to an unfitted people. In treating of Australia, the vexed questions of Transportation and the disposal of waste lands, are discussed with great temper and sagacity; while, in New Zealand, we have a graphic account of what may be done by a governor of first-rate administrative ability, deserving and enjoying the unbounded confidence of his chiefs at home, towards remedying the errors of his predecessors; conciliating and subduing an irritated and powerful nation of aborigines; reducing to something like order a most formidable complication of confusions, and laying, broad and deep, the foundations for permanent and rapidly advancing prosperity, guaranteed by such really Spirit and Effect of Lord Grey's Book. 347 free but cautiously framed institutions as Englishmen require, and the heterogeneous elements of an anomalous and infant State can bear. In the case of Western Africa, we are shewn what a wide influence for good may be exercised by a civilized race, cognizant of its high vocation and true to its solemn responsibility, by mere juxtaposition with barbarous tribes over whom it holds no legal or acknowledged sway, and how well worth while it may be, in the interests of the human race, for this country to maintain distant dependencies which yet are an annual charge upon its treasury, and cannot, perhaps, ever be expected to be to it a source of direct emolument or power. Finally, the chapter which is devoted to Canada is peculiarly interesting, as depicting the gradual growth of a colony in independence and self-government, and its arrival at that complete and final stage which all our offsets must look to as their ultimate development, when all annoying interference is withdrawn, and it forms, in fact, one federated but integral unit of a great empire. Altogether, we think the publication of these volumes ought to do, and will do, much towards allaying the irritation, partly reasonable, partly unfounded, and generally exaggerated, which has at different times been felt by most of the colonies at the conduct of the mother country:-Partly reasonable, we say; for it cannot be denied that the progressive but not perfectly consistent advance of Great Britain in the direction of commercial freedom has, in the first instance, and during its inauguration, inflicted considerable losses and caused much confusion, both in the West Indies and in Canada. Neither can it be denied that the spectacle which has been so often seen in Parliament of the pettiest party concerns at home overriding and taking precedence of the most momentous colonial questions; of minute British topics, often mere personal squabbles, exciting the warmest interest, and drawing the fullest houses, while matters intimately affecting the vast empire of our dependencies were discussed by few Members, and to thin and inattentive audiences-was calculated to arouse the just indignation of the colonists. But, in the work before us, they will see one of the principal ministers of the Crown devoting his whole time and thought, with the most conscientious industry, to the comprehension of their wishes and the furtherance of their welfare; listening with respectful and patient attention to all their representations; explaining fully the grounds of his difference of opinion, where he is compelled to differ; referring back to them for reconsideration such questions as they seem to have decided hastily or passionately; forbearing towards their irritation, in consideration of their distance and dependence, and their natural inability to look at subjects from an imperial point of view, and not unfrequently yielding to their strongly |