in an ode lately submitted to our perusal by an ingenious and modest young man, in which, about half way To stay thy car upon the Latmos hill, Mar the rich beauties of thy hyacinthine hair. down, he exclaims, as if prophetically, Queen of the tumbling floods! oh lend thine ear 66 READER AWAKE!" There is much smartness in the idea of "two dead eternities." An eternity especially, past with whales, is enough to make the stoutest reader blubber. Do not let John Keates think we dislike him. He is a young man of some poetry; but at present he has not more than about a dozen admirers,-Mr Leigh Hunt whom he feeds on the oil-cakes of flattery till he becomes flatulent of praise,-Mr Benjamin Haydon, who used to laugh at him till that famous sonnet-three engrossing clerks -and six or seven medical students, who chaunt portions of Endymion as they walk the hospitals, because the author was once an apothecary. We alone like him and laugh at him. He is at present a very amiable, silly, lisping, and pragmatical young gentleman-but we hope to cure him of all that-and should have much pleasure in introducing him to our readers in a year or two speaking the language of this country, counting his fingers correctly, and condescending to a neckcloth. Why should Leigh Hunt and John Keates have a higher opinion of themselves, than Barry Cornwall? One "dramatic scene"-even the very tamest and most imitative of them all is worth both "The two dead Eternities" of the Cockneys. We now charge Barry Cornwall, coram populo, with the following hymn to Diana. It is classical, without being pedantic. HYMN TO DIANA. Dian!-We seek thee in this tranquil hour; Which young and travail'd dames adore and fear;) Bend low thy listening ear, And smile upon us, now the long day's toil, And from the withering sun Save thou and bless the perch'd and fainting soil; Or standing, with her mantle haif undrawn, Art wont, 'tis said, at times to look upon Thy own pale boy, Endymion, When calm he slumbers on the mountain's brow: And may no doubt, not care, When thou shalt wish, on nights serene and still To us who seek and praise thee here- Lest that the winds, in sullen fits, Should come, and lift the curling seas on high:- For ever, (dug, 'tis said, by giant men on thy white altar we Lavish in fond idolatry. Herbs and sweet flowers such as the summer uses: Lift their red bells amidst the golden grain :- plains From the fierce anger of Apollo's eye- Pluck by the silver springs of Castaly- Or weave sad garlands for their brows; Before whose moony brow, The rolling planets die, or lose their fires, Orion, mourns with watery glare, Turn hither, then, thy clear and stedfast smile, From all but that so famous pain, He strives, not vainly then, his sweetest song to sing. It would greatly amuse us, to meet in company together Johnny Keates and Percy Bysshe Shelly,-and as they are both friends of Mr Leigh Hunt, we do not despair of witnessing the conjunction of these planets on Hampstead Hill, when we visit London in spring. A bird of paradise and a Friezeland fowl would not look more absurdly, on the same perch. Hear with what a deep voice of inspiration Shelly speaks. MARIANNE'S DREAM. A pale dream came to a Lady fair, I know the secrets of the air, And things are lost in the glare of day, Which I can make the sleeping see, If they will put their trust in me. And thou shalt know of things unknown, At first, all deadly shapes were driven Tumultuously across her sleep, And o'er the vast cope of bending heaven She saw aloft in the morning air, The sky was as blue as the summer sea, There was no sight or sound of dread, The lady grew sick with a weight of fear, Of the blood in her own veins to and fro. There was a mist in the sunless air, Which shook as it were with an earthquake's shock, But the very weeds that blossomed there The Anchor was seen no more on high. But piled around, with summits hid And columns framed of marble white, With workmanship, which could not come From its own shapes magnificent. But still the Lady heard that clang Sudden from out that city sprung A light that made the earth grow red; Two flames, that each with quivering tongue Lick'd its high domes, and over head Among those mighty towers and fanes Dropped fire, as a volcano rains Its sulphurous ruin on the plains. And hark! a rush, as if the deep Had burst its bonds; she looked behind A raging flood descend, and wind And now those raging billows came The waves were fiercely vomited O'er that vast flood's suspended foam, The plank whereon that Lady sate Was driven thro' the chasms about and about, Of the drowning mountains in and out At last her plank an eddy crost, And bore her to the city's wall, Which now the flood had reached almost; The eddy whirl'd her round and round For it was filled with sculptures rarest Of winged shapes, whose legions range And as she looked, still lovelier grew Of his own mind did there endure She looked, the flames were dim, the flood Those marble shapes then seemed to quiver, And their lips moved ;-one seemed to speak, The dizzy flight of that phantom pale, Of her dark eyes the dream did creep, So much for the " Literary PocketBook" 1819. The earth has performed its revolution round the sun, and that number is no more. What would we not give for a reading of Mr Leigh Hunt's Literary Pocket-Book for 1819! Could Messrs Olliers get together a few dozen from villatic and rural manuscribes, they would be very diverting. Put down our names, at random, for a dozen copies. The 66 Literary Pocket-Book" for 1820 is just published. The lists are pretty much the same as formerly— but we believe, both fuller and more correct. In place of the "Callendar of Nature, we have from the pen of Mr Hunt, a Callendar of Observers," or specimens of the greater or less enjoyment which people derive from the world they live in, according to the number and healthiness of their perceptions!" The Observers are six in number. The Mere LoungerThe Mere Man of Business-The Bi got-The Mere Sportsman-TheMere Sedentary Liver, and the Observer of Nature. Mr Hunt tells us, with his usual cleverness, what each of these characters sees in each of the seasons. SPRING. Sees a "The mere Lounger.-Sees his face in the glass, and yawns. Sees his tailor, who informs him that it is spring. Sees several persons, horses, and suits of clothes in Bond Street. Sees some pretty faces. great deal of green and white in the milliner's shops, and thinks the country must be getting pretty. Takes a ride round the Regent's Park, and sees Jones. The Mere Man of Business.-Sees his clerks or apprentices up. Sees his customers come in all day. Sees their money. Sees faces occasionally go by. Sees shelves and bundles all about him. Sees his law. yer and broker. Sees dinner with brief transport, just time enough to get an indigestion. Sees to his accounts in the evening, and endeavours to think himself a happy man. Sees his goods adulterated. Goes to bed, and sees in his dreams a great pale multitude looking at him, whom he sets down for people he has cheated. Sees himself exposed, and wakes in a trepidation. N. B. It is the fumes of indigestion, which in these and other cases inspire a man's dreams with a certain Delphic hor ror. "The Bigot.-Sees the sunshine, and thinks how happy he and his friends will be in heaven exclusively. Sees a party going towards the country laughing, and gaily dressed. Sees in them only so many devoted victims to eternal fire; calls the world a vile world; and sees his debtor sent to prison. Sees the building of his chapel going on, and counts up his profits, monied and eternal. Sees his servant bringing in a green goose for dinner; and says, with an air of delighted regret, that he fears his friend the gun-maker is too late. "The Mere Sportsman-Sees a fox. Sees him several times over. Sees a girl's complexion and ancles. Sees his friends all drunk after dinner. "The Mere Sedentary Liver.-Sees his tongue in the glass. Sees the fine weather, and calls to mind all that the poets have said about it. Takes his first walk this year, and sees numberless things, but all discoloured and half pleasant. Goes home and sees with delight a new packet of books. Reads an account of a man who saw a spectre, and almost sees it himself. Goes to bed, and sees in his sleep a vision shockingly mixed up of oddity and horror. "The observer of Nature.-Sees the first fine spring day and leaps up with transport. Sees a world full of beauty and pleasure even in towns. Sees the young and fair abroad, and sees their lovely countenances and minds. Sees the white pigeons careering round the steeple, the horses issuing forth with new strength and sprightliness, the dog scampering about his master in hopes he is going towards the fields, and hyacinths, narcissuses, and violets in the green markets: and seeing these, he cannot but hasten the faster to see the country. Instead of reading his book at home, he takes it with him, and sees what the poets describe. He sees the returning blue of the sky, the birds all in motion, the glancing showers, the after-laughing sun, the maiden blossoms in the gardens, the thickening leafiness of the hedges, the perfect young green of the meadows, the bustling farm-yards, the far prospects, the near and odorous bowers, the bee bounding forth with his deep song through the lightsome atmosphere, the kids leaping, the cattle placidly grazing, the rainbow spanning the hills in its beauty and power, the showers again, the blue sky again, the sun triumphing over the moisture like bright eyes above dewy lips, the perfumed evening, the gentle and the virgin moon. Going home, he sees every thing again with the united transport of health and imagination, and in his dreams sees his friend and his mistress as happy as himself. SUMMER. "The Mere Lounger.-Goes into the coun try to see Jones. Sees Jones. Sees some horses. Sees little else in the country but the absence of town. Is shown a prospect, and sees in it a considerable resemblance to a scene at the Opera. Sees a storm, and hopes it won't rain next Wednesday. The Mere Man of Business.-Is sorry to see the town so empty. Sees some flowers at the door, but declines buying any, because he will not give the price asked by a half-penny. Sees some new dishes on his table at dinner, and has a remote notion that he enjoys himself. Feels himself half stifled with the weather, the dust, the close shop, and repletion; and sees the pavement before his door watered with a tin canister, in liquid lines of refreshment a quill thick. "The Bigot.-Sees the beauty of the country, but thinks it wrong to be moved by earth. ly delights, and hastens home to his roast pig. Sees nothing in the world after dinner but a fleeting shew. Finds it very hot; sees a fiery kind of horrid look in the sunshine; and is not quite easy in thinking that ninety-nine hundredths of his fellow creatures are to be burnt for ever; thinks it impious however to suppose his Maker too kind to suffer it, and comforts himself with callousness. "The Mere Sportsman.-Sees a hare, Sees a friend in a ditch. Does not see him out. Sees, in a transport of rage, the hounds at fault. Goes to angle, to settle his spirits; and with considerable relief, sees several fish drawn gasping out of the water with a hook in their jaws, and a salmon crimped alive. "The Mere Sedentary Liver.-Sees with delight the flowers in his window, and vows every day that he will go out the next. mirable Crichton. Sees his friend sick in humours in his blood with one walk instead of twenty, and sees it is hopeless to struggle with his disorder. Sees more beauties than ever in his authors, but a great falling off in the world he so admired when a lad. "The Observer of Nature.-Sees the early sun striking magnificently into the warm mists in the streets, as if it measured them with its mighty rule. Sees other effects of this kind, worthy of the pencil of Canaletto. Sees a thousand shapes and colours of beauty as the day advances. Sees the full multitude of summer flowers, with all their gorgeous hues of scarlet, purple, and gold; roses, carnations, and amaranths, wall flowers, lupins, larkspurs, campanulas, golden-rods, orchis, nasturtiums, &c. &c. and the Martagon lily, or Greek hyacinth. And then he sees the world with a Greek sight, as well as his own, and enjoys his books over again. And then he sees the world in a philosophic light, and then again in a purely imaginative one, and then in one purely simple and childlike; and every way in which he turns the face of nature, he finds some new charm of feature or expression, something wonderful to admire, something affectionate to love. Sees or fancies in some green and watery spot, the white sheep-shearing. Sees the odorous haymaking. Sees the landscape with a more intent perfectness from the silence of the birds. Sees the insects at their tangled and dizzy play; and fancies, what he well knows, how beautiful they must look, some with their painted or transparent wings, others with their little trumpets and airy-nodding plumes. Sees the shady richness of the trees; the swallows darting about like winged thoughts; the cattle standing with cool feet in the water; the young bathers trailing themselves along the streams, or flitting about the sward amidst the breathing air. Sees the silver clouds which seem to look out their way, far through the sky. Sees the bees at work in their hurrying communities, or wandering ones rushing into the honied arms of the flowers. Sees the storm coming up in its awful beauty, to refresh the world; the angel-like leaps of the fiery lightning; and the gentle and full rain following the thunder, like love ushered by mightiness. Divine Nature! And thou, when the touch of sympathy has made thee wise, diviner human nature! how is he stricken dumb who would attempt to record the smallest part of the innumerable joys of VOL. VI. your intercourse! He becomes as mute as your own delight, when mind" hangs enamoured" over beauty. There can be no doubt that this is very lively, but is the classification a H pher, Poetry, Politics, Metaphysics, Mathematics, Criticism, Travels, Bon Mots, and Cookery." We expect to see this in the Literary Pocket-Book for 1821, and thenceforth evermore. But we had almost forgotten Mr Hunt's account of the mere Sportsman. It is plain that he knows nothing of Nimrod. A tallyho would break the tympanum of his ear. Were we to imagine one thing more ridiculous than all the other ridiculous things in this world, it would be the Examiner a steeple-hunting. John Gilpin must have looked a Castor in comparison with the author of Rimini. Pray, who ever heard of following a pack of hounds in Summer? Mr Leigh Hunt might as well go a butterfly-hunting in the dead of winter. For shame, ye Cockneys! to pursue, unto the death, poor puss and her infant family during the dog-days. And is it, indeed, customary, as Mr Leigh Hunt asserts in this his Literary Pocket-Book, for Cockney sportsmen "to fly into a transport of rage" when the hounds are at fault? a mere sportsman is the last man in the world to do that-he-but now he is "a pike in a doublet.” is quite cool on such occasions, and uses the whip with alacrity but discrimination. Then, ye gentlemen of England, what think you of angling for salmon in the middle of summer, on a sultry afternoon, by way of refreshing yourselves after harriers? and what think ye of crimping on the spot the salmon you thus miraculously ensnare? Oh! Leigh, Leigh, thy lips utter a vain thing, and thy heart conceiveth foolishness! You and other literary men-poets, critics, and politicians it is who are, in verity, the crimpers of salmon. The mere sportsman does none of these things. He despiseth the fish, and eateth him not. Thou art the crimper. You say that angling is not a manly amusement. Why, there is no virility in sitting in a punt, with your head bobbing over the side, and your nose in the water, laying plots against perches, and revelling in the massacre of minnows. Angling is but a sorry pastime in the New River. But come down to Scotland next autumn, when we pitch our tent on Loch Awe side, and you will then know whether or not angling be a manly amusement. We will put a twenty-foot-rod into your hand, with fifty fathom of line, and a reel as large as a five gallon cask. We will hook a fish for you-and back him for his life against the Examiner. It is four miles from Loch Awe to the Salt Sea of Loch Ericht.The banks of the river Awe are pretty precipitous-and ere you, Mr Leigh Hunt, have been dancing five minutes over the crags, you will have bitter occasion for all your virility, and devoutly wish that the salmon were crimped, so that he were but off the end of your line. What do you think of swimming arms of lakes-and fording foamy torrents neck high-and crossing wide moors up to the middle in heather-and scaling mountains girdled with granite-and driving your solitary way through blind mists, or roaring blasts, or rain deluges—of returning at midnight to a sheeling on the hill laden with spoil, and bowed down with the weary weight of many savage and dreary leagues? This is the nature of Scottish angling-indeed, of all angling that deserves the name. As to old Isaac Walton, honest man, he used to be a most particular favourite with Mr Leigh Hunt . The secret cause of all this raving against angling and anglers is, that we are anglers. Several admirable angling articles have appeared in this Magazine, and, therefore, Mr Leigh Hunt cannot endure angling. This is quite pitiful. But it is true. Enough of Mr Hunt for the present, so let us turn to "Walks round London, No I." a very easy, graceful, and amiable little composition, which could almost suspect to be from the pen of Mr Cornwall. we WALKS ROUND LONDON. "If we were to judge by the number of handsome country residences, which, within a few years, have risen like exhalations" on the different roads, the south side of London would be pronounced the favourite quarter for the citizens to retire to. But here, as in many other matters of taste, they do not seem to have chosen the better part." On the north of the great city, and at no greater distance, there are more situations which partake of the true country aspect. A few at random may be mentioned and let a "Suthron" match them if he can. The road from Hampstead to Hendon ; the rural district all round the feet of Hampstead and Highgate; the neighbourhood of Hornsey, Muswell-hill, Crouch-end, Colney-hatch, Southgate ;-the region about Walthamstow, Wanstead, Highbeach, and Seward |