"Qualis Demissus curru lævæ post præmia sortis "As when, dismounting from his car, after the award of the luckless lot, the warden of the shades, the last sharer of the world's inheritance, grew pale as he entered Tartarus, and felt that heaven was lost." Mr. Merivale has observed with much justice that Statius is a miniature painter employed by the caprice of a patron or his own unadvised ambition on a great historical picture. Such exaggerations as his are indeed the fruit of weakness quite as often as of ill-regulated strength. The commonplace aspects of a monstrous story may be seized by any quick apprehension, and reproduced by any fertile fancy: it is only high genius that can render them human and credible. Dryden1 compares Statius to his own Capaneus engaging the two immortals, Virgil and Homer, and reaping the fruit of his daring. We would rather compare him to his own Atys,2 the plighted husband of Ismene, who is slain by the mighty arm of Tydeus. The love of his Theban bride leads him into war; he challenges the champion of the field, and falls at the first shock; and he lies in death pale and bloody, yet in the pride of youthful beauty and golden armour. 1 "Discourse on Epic Poetry," prefixed to the Eneid. Kilmahoe, a Highland Pastoral. 169 ART. VI.-Kilmahoe, a Highland Pastoral: with other Poems. By JOHN CAMPBELL SHAIRP. Macmillan and Co. 1864. IF romantic scenery and romantic traditions were the main conditions of poetic inspiration, the names of Scotch Highlanders would probably have been as common among the ranks of eminent British poets as they are in the lists of eminent British soldiers. If Scotland, as her greatest son has said, is indeed the "meet nurse for a poetic child," and if there is any intimate connexion between the nature of our country and the genius of our people, the romance of our national literature might have been expected to arise from the stern wildness of our northern and western scenery, rather than from the tamer beauties or sometimes dreary ugliness of our Lowlands. Even in the present day, the most commonplace sportsman or tourist feels that he has passed into a new atmosphere--that he has come under the influence of an entirely new set of feelings-when he first reaches his moor, or starts over the mountains on a walking excursion. A sense of the more immediate presence of nature, in her lonely grandeur and loveliness, mingles unconsciously with the passion of the salmon-fisher and the deerstalker; while it is consciously and vividly enjoyed by the man of modern culture, who visits our country under no other attraction than the love of natural beauty. As a remarkable instance of the impression produced by our Highland scenery on a highly-gifted stranger, we would remind our readers of the late Mr. Clough's pastoral, The Bothie of Toper-na-vuolich, which deserves to be read and remembered by every Scotchman. But in addition to this influence of nature, which may be felt as strongly perhaps by a stranger as by a native of the district, the latter is more likely to feel a special interest in the life and character of the people, and in the wild traditions which are still preserved amongst them. We should thus have expected to find the poetry of the Highlands sung by a Highlander. But whatever may be the merits of Gaelic bards and Sennachies, the Highlands have not yet produced a poet of their own. The romance of their history and the poetry of their scenery have been sung and celebrated by Lowland Scotchmen or by Englishmen. The interest which the world feels in the past history of the Highlands is due almost entirely to Waverley, Rob Roy, and The Legend of Montrose; while the very "genius" of the land seems to find a voice in the "Solitary Reaper" and the “Glen Almain" of Wordsworth. Mr. Shairp has selected as the subject of the poem which gives its name to this volume, the real life of a family living in the Western Highlands, during the quiet generation midway between the eventful times of the '45 and the rapid changes of the present day. He has endeavoured to preserve the memory of a kind of life which is now passing or has passed away, but which deserves not to be unremembered or unhonoured. His aim seems to have been not to shape some idea into poetic form, but to record what has actually been, and to show what a charm and beauty, and what a source of moral and spiritual strength there was in the plain every-day life of a simple Highland household. He brings before us in a series of poems the memories and impressions of this early home in Cantyre, as moulding the character of one of its inmates from a bright and happy childhood to a peaceful and beautiful old age. The record of this life forms the main stream of the poem of Kilmahoe, but with this main stream others intermingle. Thus, the traditions and history of the whole district are introduced as the source of the romantic feeling which blended with a character chiefly remarkable for its simple goodness, piety, and strength of affection. From his love of his subject, and his determination to treat it exhaustively, Mr. Shairp seems to us to overlay it too much with detail; to introduce more particulars not sufficiently varied from one another, and to dwell longer on many of those particulars than is necessary to produce the impression which he wants to leave on the reader's mind. And this appears to us to be the chief defect in the conception of the poem. His object might have been better attained by greater compression of his materials, and by leaving more to the imagination of the reader. But, on the other hand, the poem has this great merit, that it does leave on the mind a very real, consistent, and worthy impression. As we read its several parts, the author's conception seems gradually to gather shape and completeness in our minds. We fancy that we see the life which he wants us to see; we realize its deep charm and its deeper worth; we recognise once more the truth of which Wordsworth was the great preacher, that the materials for poetry lie everywhere around us in the familiar aspects of Nature and of human life, if we only had the eye and feeling to observe them. The reader, who once feels his interest in the subject of this poem awakened, will often return to it; he will find it thoroughly in harmony with his best and healthiest thoughts; if it does not aim at giving him new ideas, it gives him many new and genuine impressions, both from the outward and the inward world. Mr. Shairp can hardly, indeed, expect that his subject will have for all readers the same intense interest that it has for himself. The strong local colouring which he gives to it, while National and Poetical feeling of the Author. 171 it will enhance its interest to those who are familiar with Highland scenery and with the old Highland life, can scarcely be expected to awaken a corresponding enthusiasm in the hearts of more distant readers. Mr. Shairp appears to be a man not only of more fervent patriotism than the majority even of his countrymen; but he seems to attach a peculiar value to every memory and association, connected with the ancient traditions of Scotland, even to the Gaelic names of places, and to all the turns of expression in our ancient ballads. We are sometimes inclined to think that his hearty feeling carries him too far in this direction; but it is pleasant to meet with only the more poetical and more generous side of our national enthusiasm in this volume. He is never tempted into any ebullition of that vain boasting and silly impertinence which has more than once, in recent times, made sensible Englishmen laugh at us, and sensible Scotchmen feel ashamed. His national and local enthusiasm acts in a much worthier way. It inspires him to throw his whole soul into his subject, to vivify it with all the strength of his natural feeling, and to adorn it by the labour of his intellect. In this devotion to his task, he fulfils the first and most indispensable condition by which "The world is wrought To sympathy with things it heeded not." The specially poetical gift, which we seem to recognise in this volume in a greater degree than in most of our recent poetry, is the power of feeling and drawing out the peculiar "genius" of different kinds of scenery. This power of conveying the sentiment as well as the outward features of particular aspects of nature, is exhibited in many of the smaller poems, --for instance, "The Moor of Rannoch," "The Last of the Forest," "The Bush aboon Traquair," as well as in "Kilmahoe." What this sentiment is, what its source and what its meaning, how far it is the result of old associations, how far it arises spontaneously out of the mysterious sympathy which the spirit of man has with the spirit of Nature, are questions constantly suggesting themselves, and very difficult to answer. Few people, however, who are capable of enjoying something of the charm both of nature and of poetry, but are sensible that certain places affect them in a way peculiar to themselves, not by their mere beauty or grandeur, but by a power which comes more home to human sympathies; and this way of looking at nature they find in some poets-in Wordsworth, for instance, and in Scott-much more than in others. Mr. Shairp appears to us to possess this kind of poetical sensibility in a very high degree; and in him it seems to result from the union of his love of nature with his love of his own country. With every place that interests him he connects some associations, either in the past or the present, which deeply move his personal affections and sympathies. He imparts to the strange and rugged names of Highland mountains or passes, or to the more familiar names of Border hills and rivers, the hearty feelings of pride and admiration with which he regards the loyalty and gallantry of the Highland clans, or the piety and sterling worth of the old Scottish peasantry. Thus, in the poem of Kilmahoe we find not only the grandeur and beauty of nature, as displayed in our Western Highland scenery, presented to us as they are in Mr. Clough's Bothie, but we seem to feel also the personal ties by which these features of nature have bound themselves to the many generations of men who have lived within their range. The poem has evidently been carefully planned and executed. It seems to be the result of permanent feelings and convictions, and much thought and pains appear to have been bestowed on its style and rhythm. It is written in a great variety of metres, which have been selected-in general very happily-in harmony with the feeling, whether grave or gay, which they are intended to convey. In this respect, though in no other, the poem has an outward resemblance to Maud; but notwithstanding the great variety of metres which the author handles, there are very few of them which recall the tones of any of our recent poetry. The rhythm is, on the whole, good and true: if it occasionally sounds abrupt or irregular, this obviously arises from no failure in musical ear, but from the wish to break the monotonous smoothness of a long poem composed in rhyme. The style is also very pure and good: plain and homely, where a plain and homely treatment is appropriate; grave and dignified where it appeals to our more serious feelings. Though its notes are in many places cheerful and joyous, there is a quiet and sober undertone heard throughout. One fault we find occasionally in the style, the result of what seems to us a caprice in taste, not certainly inadequate power of expression. It arises from the author's love of everything Scotch, and especially of Scotch ballads. Thus it happens not unfrequently that the effect of long passages written in very noble English is suddenly marred by the introduction of some, perhaps not ignoble, but certainly incongruous, Scotch words. The English style in this volume is very pure and excellent; so too is the Scotch; in fact we know of no recent poetry in which the old dialect of our best songs and ballads is used so happily and with such absolute freedom from mawkishness or vulgarity; but even Burns himself could not make a happy combination out of the high-strained diction of English poetry, and the simple pathos of his native dialect. In the |