imagery. This, we own, is a somewhat vague description, and contains little in it to distinguish him from many other poets of his class, all bearing the same family face. There is, in fact, little distinction among them. Our sagacious readers, however, will be able to form a better notion of Dr. Beaumont from the subjoined extracts, than from any thing we could say. In Psyche" every thing, however slight in itself, is presented in a lively and palpable form. Minute touches are beyond his art, but his colours are gorgeous and glowing, and his figures, though rudely drawn, stand out distinct and striking. His power of language is considerable, and frequently comes in aid of deficient matter.* He had his full share in the prevailing rage for uncommon and far-fetched combinations of ideas, called, in the language of criticism, conceits; that propensity which marred the happy genius of Cowley, and which the sturdy intellect of Donne, unable to escape, contented itself with bending to its own purposes. Such an inclination was not likely to starve for want of food, in so fertile a brain as Beaumont's. Accordingly, his poem is full of the most fantastic conceptions, both in the way of occasional metaphor and detailed allegory; although the gravity of his subject preserves him from falling into the extreme absurdities of some of his contemporaries, and religious passion gives to his conceits a life and meaning of which they would otherwise be destitute. The allegorical fancy-pieces, above alluded to, are among the most elaborate parts of the poem. They are, in general, personifications of evil passions, such as are common in most of our old narrative poets; a species of portrait, of which Ovid, in his description of Envy and Famine, supplied the idea, and Sackville, in his Induction, the immediate model. Those who remember the picture of Cruelty, in Crashaw's translation of Marino, may form a tolerable notion of Dr. Beaumont's style of delineating these subjects. He delights in heaping together images of terror and disgust, and tasks his invention for additional circumstances of deformity. It was among the peculiarities of his school of religionists, not merely to draw a broad and indelible distinction between moral good and evil (a distinction which must exist under every form of religion worthy of the name) but to inculcate the doctrine of a mysterious union between moral and physical good, and vice versa. Hence, the strong and decisive colours which writers of this class employ, when they embody their conceptions, whether of * Pope's remark on "Psyche" is exceedingly characteristic of its author. "There are in it a great many flowers well worth gathering, and a man who has the art of stealing wisely will find his account in reading it." good or evil, in a visible shape. Milton is cited as an example of the contrary tendency; nor can these remarks be better illustrated than by a comparison of Milton's hell, as well as of his Satan, with that of Dante. To Dr. Beaumont, of course, the above observations apply in all their force. With him, whatever is evil, is evil in every way, and in all degrees. We are reminded of the good and bad man in the story-books; or of Swedenborg's definition of hell, as what this earth would be, if all moral good were withdrawn from it, and the evil left to putrefy; or of the sublime conception, on the same subject, in Marlow's Faustus, when all the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell which are not heaven." The most striking instance of this, is the picture of Heresy, in the eighteenth canto, stanza CLXXXV. a piece of combined horror and loathsomeness, too disgusting to be quoted here, and which might be supposed the joint production of Dante and Dean Swift. Our readers, probably, think that we have allotted a disproportionate space to the discussion of Beaumont's merits, and it is not impossible that they may consider us equally unconscionable in the quantity of our extracts. It ought, however, to be recollected, that they are made from a poem of forty thousand lines, and which, from the peculiar cast of the author's talent, abounds with producible passages. The poem opens with a grand infernal council, in which Satan proclaims his designs against Psyche, and arranges the entire plan of the campaign. We quote the description of the infernal palace and its lord. "Hell's Court is built deep in a gloomy vale, High wall'd with strong Damnation, moated round The gate, where Fire and Smoke the porters be, The hall was roof'd with everlasting Pride, Deep paved with Despair, checker'd with Spite, Great Satan's arms stamp'd on an iron shield, There on's immortal throne of Death they see His awful horns above his crown did rise, Two comets staring in their bloody stream, His mouth in breadth vied with his palace gate His grizly beard a sing'd confession made Which, as he op'd, the centre, on whose back Their awed mouths: the silent peers, in fear, Hung down their tails, and on their Lord did stare." Phylax, by way of preparative against the attacks of sensual temptation, relates to his charge the history of Joseph. Joseph's dream is told with much fancy. "When this last night had sealed up mine eyes, And open'd Heav'n's, whose countenance now was clear, A nimble vision me did thither bring. Quite through the store-house of the air I past Here, rain is bottled up; there, hail is cast Hence tow'r'd I to a dainty world: the air But then, arriving at an orb whose flames Fire could have been so mild; but, surely, here It rageth, 'cause we keep it from its sphere. There, reverend sire, it flam'd, but with as sweet An ardency as in your noble heart That heavenly zeal doth burn, whose fostering heat Of But here my guide, his wings' soft oars to spare, On the moon's lower horn clap'd hold, and whirl'd Me up into a region as far In splendid worth surmounting this low world As in its place for liquid crystal here The moon was kind, and, as we scoured by, She holdeth over all the oceans' water: To which a schedule was annex'd, which o'er Now, complimental Mercury was come Next Venus' face, heaven's joy and sweetest pride, (Which brought again my mother to my mind,) Into her region lur'd my ravish'd guide: This strew'd with youth, and smiles, and love we find Then rapt to Phoebus' orb, all pav'd with gold, But I was hurried into Mars his sphere, Whose flame and thunder earth at length must know. Nay, in a corner, 'twas my hap to spy Something which look'd but frowardly on me : Welcome was Jupiter's dominion, where grow : No mitre ever priest's grave head shall crown, At length, we found old Saturn in his bed; Could climb thus high: his house was lumpish lead, Where Discontent, and Sickness dwellers be, Hasting from hence into a boundless field, |