Hester, the Bride of the Islands. A Poem. By SYLVESTER B. BECKETT. Portland: Bailey & Noyes.

Mr. Beckett is evidently an admirer of Walter Scott; and it is not the least remarkable fact in connection with "Hester," that an author with the good sense to propose to himself such a model, disregarding the more elaborate poets of a later date, should have proved himself so utterly unable to follow that model, except in a few phrases, which were quite appropriate as Scott used them, but are ludicrously out of place in his own verse. In adopting the brief lines and irregularly recurring rhymes of Scott, he has taken a hazardous step. The curt lines are excellent with Sir Walter's liveliness and dash; but when dull commonplaces are to be written, their feebleness would be more decorously concealed by a longer and more conventional dress. The cutty sark, so appropriate when displaying the free, vigorous stops of Maggie Lauder, is not to be worn by every lackadaisical lady's-maid of a muse. In the moral reflections, with which "Hester" abounds, there is a most comical imitation of Scott,—as if the poem were written as a parody of "The Lady of the Lake," by Mrs. Southworth, or Sylvanus Cobb, Junior.

Mr. Beckett closes some very singular stanzas, entitled an Introduction, with the following lines:—

"Give it praise, or blame, Or pass it without comment, as may seem To you most meet; with me 'tis all the same. I hymn because I must, and not for greed of fame."

These lines incline us at first to let Mr. Beckett "pass without comment," considering, that, as he says, he cannot help writing; but we are finally decided to observe him more closely, inasmuch as he says it makes no difference to him, thus relieving us of the dreadful fear of wantonly crushing some delicate John Keats (always supposing we had him) by our severe censure.

Instead of entering into a philosophical examination of "Hester," we shall present some specimen pearls, making our first extract from the 21st page:—

"The very desert would have smiled In such a presence! yet despite Her dimpled cheek, her soft blue eye, Her voice so fraught with music's thrill, The shrewd observer might espy The traces therein of a will That scorned restraint, the soul of fire That slumbered in her tacit sire."

"The traces therein." Wherein? Not in the cheek, eye, or voice, clearly; for it was "despite" all these that he would make the discovery,—they are obstacles, entirely outside of the success. It is necessarily, then, in the "presence," in which the unthinking desert would have smiled unsuspecting, but in which "the shrewd observer might espy" a good deal that was ominous of trouble. Now it is obvious that the writer intended to refer "therein" to the cheek, eye, and voice, a reference from which he barred himself by the word "despite." As it happens, luckily for him, there is a word to refer to, so that his grammatical salvation is secured; but the result is sad nonsense.

Page 23,—

"Indeed, it was their chief delight, When combed the far seas feather-white, To steer out on the roughening bay With leaning prow and flying spray, And gunnel ready to submerge Itself beneath the flaming surge!"

Page 28,—

"nor gave He heed to aught on land or wave; As if some kyanized regret Were in his heart," etc., etc.

"Kyanized regret" is good, as Polonius would say; but we would humbly suggest that Mr. Beckett substitute, in his next edition, "Burnettized," as even better, if that be possible.

Page 72,—

"in hope, perchance (Like arrant knight of old romance), That some complacent circumstance Would end her curiosity."

Page 94,—

"Thereafter, she but knew the charm Of resting on her lover's arm, And listening to his voice elate, As he betimes went on to state The phases in his own strange fate, Since last they met."

Page 100.—Speaking of "those of thoughtful mood," he says,—

"With whom I oft have whiled away The dusky hour upon the deep, Which most men wisely give to sleep."

There is in this last line a dark, grim, sardonic appreciation of the advantages which common minds have over those that, like the poet's own, have to endure the splendid miseries of genius,—a dark moodiness, like that of a tame Byron remorsefully recalling a wild debauch upon green tea,—that is deliciously funny.

Page 230.—The heroine, who is less poetical by far than her rough servitor, says,—

"Carl! not for all the golden sand Of famed Pactolus, would I hurt Thy feelings; 'tis my wont to blurt My humour thus."

Page 298.—The hero, who is hardly more romantic than the heroine, has married his own sister:—

"Lord Hubart gazed with steady eye And arms still folded, on old Carl— 'Here is, i' faith, a pretty snarl To be unwound'—but his reply Was cut short," etc., etc.

In fact, the great objection to Lord Hubart, as may be inferred from the above-quoted passage, is, that he is hopelessly vulgar. We are loath to say so, because of our respect for English aristocracy; but English aristocracy, truth compels us to observe, cuts no great figure on our American stage or in our American literature.

In short, this is a very silly book. It abounds in trite moralizing, for instances of which we will merely refer the reader to pp. 65, 131, and 299. The author remarks exultingly, in his Introduction, that his is comparatively an uncultivated mind, We can only say, we should think so! Ignorance is plentiful everywhere, but it really seems as if it were reserved for some of our American writers to display in its finest specimens ignorance vaunting its own deficiencies. There is a great deal of nonsense talked about "uncultivated minds": some men are eminent in spite of being uncultivated; but no man was ever eminent because he was uncultivated. Some instances of a lamentable misuse of language in "Hester" we give below.

Page 16,—

"They would have won implicit sway."

Page 53,— "By the nonce!"

Evidently thinking of the phrase, "for the nonce,"—meaning, for the occasion. In the text, "by the nonce" is an oath!

Page 71,—

"And he some squire of low behest."

Page 221,—

"and when is won At last the longed-for rubicon."

Page 256,—the use of the word "denizens."

Page 262,—

"None may their evil doing shirk! That wrong, in any shape, will bring, Or soon or late, its meted sting."

Page 313,—

"as gnats, which sometimes sting Their life away when rankled."

Another fault is the senseless use of certain words and phrases, which a good writer uses only when he must, Mr. Beckett always when he can. We give without comment a mere list of these:—maugre, 'sdeath, eke, erst, deft, romaunt, pleasaunce, certes, whilom, distraught, quotha, good lack, well-a-day, vermeil, perchance, hight, wight, lea, wist, list, sheen, anon, gliff, astrolt, what boots it? malfortunes, ween, God wot, I trow, emprise, duress, donjon, puissant, sooth, rock, bruit, ken, eld, o'ersprent, etc. Of course, such a word as "lady" is made to do good service, and "ye" asserts its well-known superiority to "you." All this the author evidently considers highly meritorious, although the words are entirely unsuitable. His notion seems to be, that these are poetical words, and the way to write poetry is to take all the exclusively poetical words you can find. The occasional attempt to make his verses familiar and natural by the use of such abbreviations as "I've" or "can't" is as much a failure as the effort of an awkward man in a ball-room to make everybody think him at his ease by forcing an unhappy smile and a look of preternatural buoyancy.

From the beginning to the end of "Hester," there is one unerring indication of an uncultivated mind and an unpractised pen. This is the writer's fondness for well-worn phrases, which authors of a severer taste have long discarded as suited only to the newspapers, but which Mr. Beckett has picked up with eager delight, and, having distributed them liberally throughout the poem, contemplates with a complacency to be matched only by his satisfaction with the success of his expedients for filling out his rhymes, some of which are certainly ingenious and startling,

The plot is a jumble of improbabilities, to which we would gladly attend, for it passes even the liberal bounds of poetic license, but we have already spent all the time we can upon the New Poem, and we must decline (in Mr. Beckett's own impressive language) any further "to distend the title."

* * * * *



NOTE

TO THE ARTICLE ON "MODEL LODGING-HOUSES IN BOSTON."

Although the proposed act establishing a Sanitary Commission for the City of New York was defeated in the last State Legislature, some of its provisions were engrafted on a bill passed on the nineteenth of April, amending a previous "Act to establish a Metropolitan Police District, and to provide for the Government thereof."

By article 51 of this new act it is made the duty of the Board of Metropolitan Police to set apart a Sanitary Police Company, which by article 52 is empowered "to take all necessary legal measures for promoting the security of life or health," upon or in boats, manufactories, houses, and edifices. Article 53 gives power to the board to cause any tenement-house to be cleansed at any time after three days' notice, and provides means for meeting the expense of this and other similar operations.

These powers may, perhaps, if wisely exercised, secure a great improvement in the health of the city. We trust that the duties imposed by them will be thoroughly and efficiently performed, and we are gratified to see that a good beginning has already been made; but our regret is not diminished that the more complete proposed Sanitary Act failed to pass.

The annual report on "The Sanitary Condition of the City of London" has just been published. By this report it appears, that, during the year ending on the 31st of March, 1860, the rate of mortality in London was 22.4 per thousand of the population, or 1 in 44; in all England, the average rate is 22.3; in country districts it is only 20; in the large towns, 26. "Ten years ago," says Dr. Letheby, the author of the report from which we quote, "the annual mortality of the city was rarely less than 25 in the thousand.....Our present condition is 19 per cent. better than that, and we owe it to the sanitary labors of the last ten years." In another part of the report he says,—"7233 inspections of houses have been made in the course of the year, of which 803 were of the common lodging-houses, and 935 orders have been issued for sanitary improvement in various particulars."

Compare these facts with those given in our article concerning the rate of mortality in our cities. The spirit of emulation, if no other, should force us into energetic measures of reform. Boston with a death-rate of 1 in 41, New York of 1 in 27, and London of 1 in 44!

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