Author: Opie, Amelia (1769-1853)
Title: Poems.
Date: 1802
Contemporary Reviews of this Volume
Monthly Mirror
Poems by Mrs. Opie. 12mo. Pp.192. London 1802.
“Poems by Mrs. Opie.” Monthly Mirror, vol. 14, July 1802, pp. 39–41.
However fabulous the tale of Hesiod may be deemed, respecting the daughters of Mnemosyne, it cannot be denied, in this out day, that the Muses of Britain are become more numerous than ever the bard of Asera reported of ancient Greece. In the “Poetical Register” for 1801, we found a record of 15 living Poetesses in Albion’s favour’d islen; and we think the number might be extended. Though “last, not least” distinguished, on that Parnassian roll, is the fair authoress of the present publication, which composes an assemblage of heart-emaning effusions on subjects of domestic interest, of classical elegance, or of general philosophy. We shall select a specimen of the latter description, and must refer our readers t the volume itself for farther gratification.
Lines written at Norwich on the first News of Peace
What means that wild and joyful cry?
Why do yon crouds in mean attire
Throw thus their raged arms on high?
In want what can such joy inspire?And why on every face I meet
Now beams a smile, now drops a tear?
Like long-loved friends, lo! Stranger greet-
Each to his fellow man seems dear.In one warm glow of Christian love,
Forgot all proud distinctions seem;
The rich, the poor, together rove;-
Their eyes with answering kindness beam.-Blest sound! Blest sight!-But pray ye pause
And bid my eager wonder cease;-
Of joy like this, say, what the cause?-
A thousand voices answer- ‘PEACE!’A sound most welcome to my heart!
Tidings for which I’ve sigh’d for years!
But ill would words my joy impart;
Let me my rapture speak in tear.Ye patient poor, from wonder free,
Your signs of joy I now survey,
And hope your sallow cheeks to see
Once more the bloom of health display.Of those poor babes who on your knees
Imploring food have vainly hung,
You’ll soon each craving want appease,--
For Piety comes with Peace along.And you, fond parents, faithful wives,
Who’ve long for sons and husband’s fear’d.
Peace now shall save their precious lives;
They come by danger more endear’d.But why do all these transports dead,
Steals yon shrunk form from forth the throng?
Has she not heard the tidings spread?
Tell her these shouts to Peace belong.--‘Talk not of Peace,-- the sound I hate,’--
The mourner with a sigh replied;
‘Alas! Peace comes for me too late,--
For my brave boy in Egypt died!’Poor mourner! At thy tale of grief
The crowd was mute and sad awhile;
But e’en compassion’s tears are brief,
When general transport claims a smile.Full soon they check’d the tender sigh
Their glowing hearts to pity gave;
But, while the mourner yet was nigh,
They warmly bless’d the slaughter’d brave.And from all hearts, as sad she past,
This virtuous prayer her sorrow draws:--
‘Grant, Heaven, those tears may be the last,
That war, detested war, shall cause!’Oh! If with pure ambition fraught--
All nations join this virtuous prayer,
If they, by late experience taught,
No longer wish to slay, but spare,--Then hostile bands on War’s red plain,
For conquest have not vainly burn’d,
Nor then through long long years in vain
Have thousands died and millions mourn’d!
New Annual Register
“Domestic Literature.” New Annual Register, 1802, p. 317.
We turn cor amore to the ladies; and are pleased to receive from Mrs. Opie a little volume of her poetic effusions. They consist for the most part of short pieces in a plaintive and melancholy strain, and are seldom devoid of merit. The Songs, as they are called, form the worst part of the book; they are mere sound and measure, without any appropriate or original idea. We have also received from this lady a well-written “Elegy to the Memory of the late Duke of Bedford.”
British Critic Volume 20 nov. 1802
Longman, and Rees. “Poems by Mrs. Opie.” British Critic, vol. 20, no. 18, Nov. 1802, pp. 553–555.
Art. 18. Poems. By Mrs. Opie. 12mo. 192 pp. 6s. Longman and Rees. 1802.
The poetical talent of Mrs. Opie (formerly Miss Alderson) are generally known; but whatever may have been though of them, either from former proofs, or from the contents of the present volume, we are perfectly convinced, that the perusal of the following Poem will greatly heighten their estimation, with those who are capable of just discrimination.
“The Dying Daughter To Her Mother.”
Mother! When these unsteady lines
Thy long averted eyes shall see,
This hand that writes; this heart that pines,
Will cold, quite cold, and tranquil be.That guilty child so long disowned
Can then, blest thought! No more offend;
And, shouldst tho deem my crimes atoned,
O deign my orphan to befriend:--That orphan, who with trembling hand
To thee will give my dying prayer;--
Canst though my dying prayer withstand,
And from my child withhold thy care?O raise the veil which hides her cheek,
Nor start her mother’s face to see,
But let her look thy love bespeak,--
For once that face was dear to thee.Gaze on,--and thou’lt perchance forget
The long, the mournful lapse of years,
Thy couch with tears of anguish wet,
And e’en the guilt which caused those tears.And in my pure and artless child
Thou’lt think her mother meets thy view;
Such as she was when life first smiled,
And guilt by name alone she knew.Ah! Then I see thee o’er her charms
A look of fond affection cast;
I see thee clasp her in thine arms,
And in the present lose the past.But soon the dear illusion flies;
The sad reality returns;
My crimes again to memory rise,
And, ah! In vain my orphan mourns:Till suddenly some keen remorse.
Some deep regret, her claims shall aid,
For wrath that held too long its course,
For words of peace too long delayed.For pardon (most, alas! denied
When pardon might have snatched from shame)
And kindness, hadst thou kindness tried,
Had checked my guilt, and saved my fame.And then thou’lt wish, as I do now,
Thy hand my humble bed had smoothed,
Wiped the chill moisture off my brow,
And all the wants of sickness soothed.For, oh! the means to sooth my pain
My poverty has still denied;
And thou wilt wish, ah! wish in vain,
Thy riches had those means supplied.Thou’lt wish, with keen repentance wrung,
I’d closed my eyes, upon thy breast
Expiring, while thy faltering tongue
Pardon in kindest tones expressed.O founds which I must never hear!
Through years of woe my fond desire!
O mother, spite of all most dear!
Must I unblest by thee expire?Thy love alone I call to mind,
And all thy past disdain forget,--
Each keen reproach, each frown unkind,
That crushed my hopes when last we met.But when I saw that angry brow,
Both health and youth were still my own;
O mother! couldst thou see me now,
Thou wouldst not have the heart to frown.But see! my orphan’s cheek displays
Both youth and health’s carnation dies,
Such as on mine in happier days
So fondly charmed thy partial eyes.Grief o’er her bloom a veil now draws,
Grief her loved parent’s pangs to see;
And when thou think’st upon the cause,
That paleness will have charms for thee:And thou wilt fondly press that cheek,
Big happiness its bloom restore,
And thus in tenderest accents speak,
“Sweet orphan thou shalt mourn no more.”But wilt thou thus indulgent be?
O! am I not by hope beguiled?
The long long anger shown to me,
Say, will it not pursue my child?And must the she suffer for my crime?
Ah! No;--forbid it gracious Heaven!
And grant, O grant! In thy good time,
That she be loved, and I forgiven!”
We will not attempt to enumerate the beauties of this composition, which occur in almost every stanza; we will not dwell upon the awful moral it conveys; but leave both to their natural and powerful effect upon the taste and feelings of the judicious reader.
Many of the other Poems in this volume have been seen before in periodical publications.
Poetical Register
“Poems by Mrs. Opie.” Poetical Register, vol. 2, 1802, p. 430.
Poems, by Mrs. Opie. Small 8vo. Pp.185.
Among the female writers of the present day Mrs. Opie is entitled to hold a distinguished rank. Her poems cannot fail of giving pleasure to every reader of taste. They are not deformed by any of those meretricious ornaments which are so profusely employed by some persons; but are characterized throughout by elegance, tenderness, and simplicity.
Monthly Review
“Poems by Mrs. Opie.” Monthly Review, vol. 39, no. 37, Dec. 1802, pp. 434–435.
Art. 37. Poems, by Mrs. Opie. 12 mo. 6s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1802.
We have more than once announced and commended the poetic compositions of this lady. Pathos we deem one of her peculiar excellencies; of which the following specimen may be given, from the present collection:
The Mourner.
‘Hence! Cruel Life! Nor more persist
To warm this sad, this broken heart!
When Henry’s claycold lips I kissed,
How welcome, Death! Had been thy dart!‘Speechless, they say, benumbed I seemed
While his last precious breath I caught;
No tears to sooth my sorrow streamed,
And agony suspended thought.‘They tell me, thunders rent the air.--
That vivid lightnings flashed around;--
But I beheld no lightning’s glare,
Nor heard the pealing thunder sound.They tell me that my helpless child
I from my arms with fury tossed;--
It might be so,--for I was wild,--
The mother in the wife was lost.‘They tell me, on th’unconscious corse
At length bereft of sense I fell;--
Ah! Blessed state! of balm the source!
It closed my ears to Henry’s knell.‘But, happy state resembling death,
Why is your balmy stupor flown?
Ah! Why restore a wrtech’s breath?
For I can only live to moan.‘E’en Reason says I justly weep,
And, ah! She says I weep in vain;
My midnight couch with tears I steep,
Then rise at morn – to weep again.‘When to my heart my child I fold,
She only deepens every sigh;
I think, while I her charms behold,
How she’d have pleased her father’s eye.‘And while I from her lisping tongue
Soft childhood’s artless accents hear,
I think, with vain remembrance wrung,
How she’d have charmed her father’s ear.I think – but O forbear, fond heart!
From vain regrets to duties turn; --
Yes, -- I will act a parent’s part, --
I’ll tear myself from Henry’s urn.‘In life I still one charm can see, --
One flower adorns that dreary wild, --
That flower for care depends on me –
O precious charge! – ‘Tis Henry’s child.’
If the reader possesses a heart, the above lines, we think, must have found their way into it.
Edinburgh Review
“Poems by Mrs. Opie.” Edinburgh Review, vol. 1, no. 17, Oct. 1802, pp. 113–121.
Ar. 17. Poems. By Mrs. Opie. 12 mo. London. 1802.
There are, probably, many of our readers who at some fortunate or unfortunate moment of their lives, have been tempted to dip their pen in the fatal ink of publication, and who still remember the anxiety with which they looked forward to the reception of their first work. We fear that we must not appeal to the whole number of these, to confirm a declamation on the evils of success; but we are convinced, as much as persons without the happy experiences can be convinced, that there is a stage of authorship, in which reputation itself is felt as an evil. The young writer of a popular work, in coming forward a second time to public notice, submits his powers to criticism, of which he has already exhausted the indulgence, and which now expects to applaud, rather than to forgive. There is, besides, an innocent selfishness, which magnifies to our pride every past exertion, and persuades as, that success is more difficult of attainment, because we have ourselves succeeded. Nor is the personality, now, the same simple failure, which, in a first attempt, is scarcely disgrace, because it is scarcely known. To the wretched author, with all his vanities about him. It would now have the ignominy of complete degradation; and, amid the variety of possible sentences, there is thus only one to which he can look with desire, because all those less degrees of praise, which would have satisfied his humbler ambition, must now be accompanied with the mortifying ideas, of disappointment in his readers, and of inferiority in himself.
It was probably with feelings similar to those we have described, that Mrs. Opie committed to the world her volume of poems. To a very large number of readers ‘The Father and Daughter’ had already made its appearance a promise of much delight. That is has completely satisfied the expectations which her novel had excited in us, we will not say. It would be, at best, an ambiguous compliment; and preferring therefore an opinion, which has no reference to the past, we are ready to admit, that her volume of poems has afforded us much-pleasure, and that it would have obtained for its author a very considerable reputation, though her former work had been wholly unknown.
But while we thus express our praise of Mrs. Opie’s miscellany, we do not wish it to be considered as applicable to the whole, or even to the greater number, of the pieces of which it consists. These are of very various species of composition, and are perhaps still more different, in merit, than in subject. In the tender song of sentiment and pathos, there is uncommon elegance; but, in pieces of greater length, which require dignity, or even terseness of expression, and an easy development of thoughts, which rise complicated in the moment of fancy, there is a dissimilarity of character, in every respect, which contrasts, without relieving, the sweetness of the simpler pictures. Mrs. Opie’s mind is evidently more adapted to seize situation, than to combine incidents. It can represent, with powerful expression, the solitary portrait, in every attitude of gentler grief; but it cannot bring together a connected assemblage of figures, and represent each in its most striking situation, so as to give, as it were, to the glance of a moment, the events and feelings of many years. When a series of reflections is to be brought by her to our view, they must all be of that immediate relation, which allows them to be introduced at any part of the poem or we shall probably see before us a multitude, rather than a group. She is therefore wholly unfit for that poetry, which endeavours to reason while it pleases; and, powerful as she is in solitary pathos, we do not think that she is well fitted for bringing before us the connected griefs and it is one which excites very high interest: but the merit of that novel does not consist in its action, nor in any varied exhibition of character. Agnes, in all the sad changes of fortune, is still the same: and the action, if we except a very few situations of the highest excitement, is the common history of every seduction in romance. Indeed, we are almost tempted to believe, that the scene in the wood occurred first to the casual conception of the author, and that, is the design of fully displaying it, all the other events of the novel were afterwards imagined.
But Mrs. Opie’s novel is not under our criticism; and the character of her powers may be sufficiently ascertained, in the variety which her volume before us presents. She has attempted the gay Anacreontic; and she has only expressed a very common thought, in a very common manner, p. 47. She has attempted the song of sportive humour; and, if things unexisting could be stolen, she might almost be suspected of having pilfered one of the futurities of Vauxhall, p. 106. She has attempted blank verse, p. 135; but with the real music of blank verse she is wholly unacquainted: From its uniformity of pause, it is nothing more than the regular couplet, with a perpetual disappointment of rhyme. The regular heroic couplet she has also attempted; but a line of ten syllables is too large for the grasp of her delicate fingers; and she spans her way along, with an awkward and feeble weariness, whenever she lays aside the smaller verse. It is in the smaller verse of eight syllables, which requires no pomp of sound, and in the simple tenderness, or simple grief, to which the artlessness of such numbers is best suited, that the power of Mrs. Opie’s poetry consists: And, unsparing as our friendly criticism may have appeared, in its censure of trials which it deemed injudicious, we are happy that she has enabled us to make atonement, by our just praise of those pieces which accord better with the character of her imagination. The verses of feeling, on which she must rely for the establishment of her fame, are certainly among the best in our opuscular poetry. As a specimen, we select the following song, which is scarcely surpassed by any in our language: --
Go, you beloved, in distant glades,
New friends, new hopes, new joys to find!
Yet sometimes deign, ’midst fairer maids,
To think on her thou leav’st behind.
Thy love, thy fate, dear youth to share,
Must never be my happy lot;
But thou may’st grant this humble prayer,
Forget me not! Forget me not!Yet, should the thought of my distress
Too painful to thy feelings be,
Heed not the wish I now express,
Nor ever deign to think on me:
But, Oh! If grief thy steps attend,
If want, if sickness be thy lot,
And though require a soothing friend,
Forget me not! Forget me not!
The first verse of the second stanza is perhaps too much dilated in expression, and rather too feeble in its syllabic flow. But the simple emphasis of the last line of each stanza, and particularly the thought which introduces it at the conclusion of the whole, have a truth of tenderness which will be acknowledged and loved by the rudest, as well as the most cultivated apprehension.
Mrs. Opie, if she have rightly learned her own powers, will forgive us for illustrating, by specimens of an opposite nature, our unfavourable opinion of her heroic verse. The following is a part of ‘An Epistle to a Friend on New-Year’s Day.’
‘But scorn not thou the sorrows of the muse,
A harmless egotist for once excuse,
And from thy brow the rising frown dispeak,
On my own sufferings though I’ve dar’d to dwell:
For, though my filial sorrow can’t impart
A sympathetic feeling to thy heart,
Because thy honoured mother lives to share
Thy fond affection and thy duteous are, --
Reflect, the time may come when thou shalt feel
The deep regrets my mournful lays reveal;
And thy afflicted breast may need from me
The kind indulgence which I ask from thee.
But thou must scorn the lines that bring to view
The self-reproach thy bosom never knew;
Thou, who each hour hast by improvement told,
Must my confession with contempt behold.’ P. 187
Of the Duke of Bedford she says, that, had Mr. Burke lived a few years longer he would have changed his contemptuous opinion, and joined in lamenting His Grace’s death –
Thy “few and idle years” no longer scorn’d,
But as a public loss thy death be mourn’d.” p. 191.
A very charitable society she thus addresses, with much praise, but with little poetry.
‘If Rome to him a civic garland gave,
Who of one citizen the life could save,
What should your grateful country give to you?
What to your patriot services is due?
From you, Society true aid derives;
Your timely bounty saves unnumbered lives.’ P. 168.
That the lines we have just quoted were written by the author of the preceding song, it would not have been easy for us to believe, if we had not known that the powers of poetry and prose are not more different, than the powers which enable a writer to excel in the two great classes of poetry; and it is probably because Mrs. Opie has not succeeded in verses of dignity and reflection, that she has succeeded in the verses of simple feeling. He whose taste has been long habituated to the full majesty of heroic versification, and to all the rhetorical ornaments of figurative poetry, is, by the very circumstance of the pomp to which he has been accustomed, less fitted for the exhibition of a simple thought in numbers as simple; since the humbleness of phraseology and of sound, which he before despised, is now a perfection, which he must studiously elaborate. Such a thought would be to him, what a Scotch or Irish melody is to a bravura singer: In the execution of the one, we should see poetry rather than pathos; as, in the other, we listen to the voice, rather than to the soul. We own, indeed, that many poets have excelled to both species of verse; but many poets have also excelled in prose. We do not say, that the powers necessary to both species are incompatible; we mean only, that, as in the case of the volume before us, there may be considerable excellence in the one, with the total want of excellence in the other.
We must not be so partial, however, to the degree of excellence which Mrs. Opie has shown, as to say that she has yet attained the full command, even of that style of poetry to which her powers should peculiarly attach her. The true artifice of that poetry, which consists in a happy artlessness, she frequently forgets. There are particularly three great faults; her abuse of reflection, of inversion, and of personification; to which, she will accept advice, in return for pleasure received, we wish especially to direct her attention.
We remember, that, in the ‘Father and Daughter,’ we frequently regretted the intrusion of the writer of the take, when we were wholly occupied with the misfortunes of her heroine. Reflections of anticipation are always injurious to the interest excited, as they diminish curiosity; and reflections on the part are superfluous, and offensive to the reader’s vanity, if they state what may naturally be inferred from the circumstances of the tale, and call us away too coldly to reason, when the inference is forced. But, above all, reflection is unnatural, when introduced by a sufferer in the midst of distress, Dear though! Blest thought! Sad thought! &c. are parentheses which we wish to see banished from poetry. Who pauses, in impassioned soliloquy, to determine the classification of his own feelings?
‘That guilty child, so long disown’d,
Can then, blest thought! No more offend.’
A repentant and dying daughter would not have used the interjection.
In forced inversion, Mrs. Opie is often a delinquent, and particularly in her separation of the agent and the action; or, to talk technically, of the nominative case and the verb which it influences. In every other species of poetry, this is frequently admissible, and even requisite; but, in the simple expression of present feeling, it is generally misplaced, because it violates the usual associations of our language. ‘I to thy rays prefer deep gloom,’ strikes us immediately as an artificial construction; and the mourner as immediately becomes a mere poet.
Personification is an ornament so tempting, that the abuse of it is the most frequent, and the most fatal of all errors, in poetry of feeling. There are few pieces in the volume before us, which it has not affected. Guilt of this kind is, indeed, often to be found, even in the coldest productions of age: and more indulgence therefore, must be given to a young and inexperienced writer: but, still, it is indulgence, and not praise, which it must demand. ‘The Despairing Wanderer,’ which is, upon the whole, of bolder execution than Mrs. Opie’s usual manner, is altogether vitiated by the excess of this imagined ornament. Pale Terror leading the shadowy scene, and Fancy listening to a sailor’s knell, and Thunder reading the ear of Night, and rousing the form of pale Affright, are not the images which pass through the mind of mad Despair. Prosopopoeia is more suited to the narrator of such a state, then to the soliloquizer, who will think only of the state of real things, thought the things themselves may appear in much brighter colours, or much darker shade. Miserable and happy men, not Misery and Happiness, are the companions of such a mind, even in the wildest of its musings.
Having dwelt so long on the general character of the volume, we have little room for particular criticism; and we must therefore add only a few observations.
It has become a fashion, in modern verse, to make use of the word ‘ah!’ whenever a syllable is wanting. But ‘ah’ is not an expletive; it is an interjection of distress: and we see no reason that any one should complain, because, with a pleasure which other have not, he enjoys the moon still more in Winter than in Summer – p. 2.
In ‘The Dying Daughter to her Mother,’ with several faults of carelessness, there are many passages of great interest. The lines –
‘And when thou think’st upon the cause,
That paleness will have charms for thee.’ P.9.
--in allusion to the sickness of sorrow on the countenance of her infant, present a very affecting thought, in a very pleasing manner. The phrase, ‘in thy good time,’ in the last verse, is very objectionable, and must certainly have been introduced for the rhyme’s sake. Such a cold reservation might have occurred to a hypocrite, who had been accustomed to repeat, without regard, the phraseology of the pulpit; but it is immediate protection for her child, which alone can be present to the wish of a dying mother.
The first of the two pieces, entitled ‘The Mourner,’ has some real feeling, but more quaintness, particularly in the whole passage about the reverend form of Woe. A mourner is too sad for the fine play of a long metaphor. In the following piece, the situation, at the moment of Henry’s death, is too minutely described. It is not very great proof of love, to be regardless of thunder without, at such a time. But there is the opposite error, in the representation of herself as tossing away her child with fury, which supposes absolute frenzy; and Henry’s death was not sudden, as his bloom is said to have marked him for the grave. The close, however, is more than atonement –
‘When to my heart my child I fold,
She only deepens every sigh;
I think, while I her charms behold,
How she’d have pleased her father’s eye.And while I from her lisping tongue
Soft childhood’s artless accents hear,
I think, with vain remembrance wrang,
How she’d have charmed her father’s ear.I think – O forbear, fond heart!
From vain regret to duties turn; --
Yes, --I will not a parent’s part, --
I’ll tear myself from Henry’s urn.In life I still one charm can see, --
One flower adorns that dreary wild, --
That flower for care depends on me--
O precious charge! – Tis Henry’s child.’ P. 53.
Of ‘The Negro Boy’s Tale,’ from the happiness with which the circumstances of the scene are imagined, much more ought to have been made. His argument on the natural equality of the Negro, and his sarcasms against those who practice not what they preach, are more in the character of the poet, than of the supposed speaker. Even had they been natural, as addressed to any other person, they certainly are not, as addressed to her who had always been his friend.
The song of a Hindustani girl is interesting, chiefly from the circumstances of the story on which it professes to be founded. It concludes with the following verse –
‘Oh! How fast from thee they tear me!
Faster still shall death pursue:
But tis well – death will endear me,
And thou’lt mourn thy poor hindoo.’
The two last lines are affecting; but nothing can exceed, in unnatural absurdity, the measurement of the comparative velocity of Death.
In the little song, p. 104, Mrs. Opie must surely have suffered much from the wretched necessity of a rhyme, before she submitted to the introduction of so formal a word as ‘impart,’ in the sense in which she uses it, into verses of easy conversation. To impart and to confess, are words of very different meaning.
In the ‘Stanzas written under Eolus’s Harp,’ the thought, in the introductory verses, of each woe finding in the varieties of the music its own appropriate plaint, is good; and, if traced out, might have formed an ode worthy of Collins. The stanzas which follow, are merely of the better order of such verses as are usually addressed to Eolian harps.
‘The Orphan Boy’s Tale,’ is, in several passages, affecting by its simplicity. After stating, that he had asked his mother why she called him orphan, it is happily again introduced –
‘Ah! Lady I have learn’d too well
What tis to be an orphan boy.’
But the sudden death of his mother after the question, is, like all sudden grief-strokes, narrative or dramatic, founded on observations so rare in real nature, that, when adopted as poetic incidents, they strike us as made for the poem, rather than as deduced from truth.
‘Symptoms of love,’ is almost a paraphrase on Mrs. Barbauld’s son, ‘Come here fond youth;’ or, rather, both are derived from Sir John Suckling’s song, ‘Honest lover whosoever.’ The symptoms are so very sickly, that they correspond more with the idle fanciful effeminacy of poetic love, which has descended, in exaggerated description, from bard to bard, than with the manly tenderness of real passion.
In the song, p. 157. The thought of the last verse is put too much in the cold form of a syllogism.
‘Love as the soul of life I view:
Then, if the soul immortal be,
My love must be immortal too.’
How different from the lines of Florian, which it imitates!
Si l’ame est immortelle,
L’amour ne l’est il past?’
The same reasoning is delicately implied, without the formality of a logical demonstration.
Of the song, p. 163, the first stanza is light and elegant. The second is spoiled, by the affectation of something more. The conceit of tones binding the soul in fetters is ridiculously quaint; and the eyes of an expert coquette are certainly not the best in which to trace very feeling as it rises.
The ‘Ode to Twilight’ is in lyrically blank verse; a style so unsuitable to our language, that, instead of the usual ornament which versification gives to thought, the greatest excellence of imagery is necessary to give ornament to the verse. It is unfortunate, too, to write in the measure of Collins, on a subject so similar to his own.
In passing under our review the contents of this interesting miscellany, though the praise which we have given has been the praise of our judgement, as well as of our gratitude, we own, that a little selfishness has been mixed with our censure; as, in correcting the misapplication of Mrs. Opie’s powers, we looked forward to the enjoyment which they must afford us, whenever they are exerted on their proper objects. By her marriage with a celebrated artist, she may be said to have united, in conjugal rivalry, two of the most elegant of arts: and if, as we trust, she will submit to abandon all idle decoration, and to give her whole fancy to simplicity and tenderness, though the pencil of her competitor should even increase in power, ‘ut picture poesia’ will be a compliment, not of flattery, but of truth.
European Magazine
“Poems by Mrs. Opie.” European Magazine, vol. 42, July 1802, pp. 43–44.
Poems: By Mrs. Opie. Small 8vo. Pp.192.
We have formerly had occasion to speak in terms of commendation of this Lady’s talents as a moral Novelist. Of the elegant little volume of poems now before us, the contents are chiefly of the pensive cast; but the subjects are, in general, well=chosen; the style is easy and flowing; and the thoughts have frequently the twofold merit of justness and originality. – We subjoin the following specimen:
Lines written at Norwich
What means that wild and joyful cry?
Why do yon crouds in mean attire
Throw thus their raged arms on high?
In want what can such joy inspire?And why on every face I meet
Now beams a smile, now drops a tear?
Like long-loved friends, lo! Stranger greet-
Each to his fellow man seems dear.In one warm glow of Christian love,
Forgot all proud distinctions seem;
The rich, the poor, together rove;--
Their eyes with answering kindness beam.--Blest sound! Blest sight!--But pray ye pause
And bid my eager wonder cease;--
Of joy like this, say, what the cause?--
A thousand voices answer-- ‘PEACE!’A sound most welcome to my heart!
Tidings for which I’ve sigh’d for years!
But ill would words my joy impart;
Let me my rapture speak in tear.Ye patient poor, from wonder free,
Your signs of joy I now survey,
And hope your sallow cheeks to see
Once more the bloom of health display.Of those poor babes who on your knees
Imploring food have vainly hung,
You’ll soon each craving want appease,--
For Piety comes with Peace along.And you, fond parents, faithful wives,
Who’ve long for sons and husband’s fear’d.
Peace now shall save their precious lives;
They come by danger more endear’d.But why do all these transports dead,
Steals yon shrunk form from forth the throng?
Has she not heard the tidings spread?
Tell her these shouts to Peace belong.--‘Talk not of Peace,--the sound I hate,’--
The mourner with a sigh replied;
‘Alas! Peace comes for me too late,--
For my brave boy in Egypt died!’Poor mourner! At thy tale of grief
The crowd was mute and sad awhile;
But e’en compassion’s tears are brief,
When general transport claims a smile.Full soon they check’d the tender sigh
Their glowing hearts to pity gave;
But, while the mourner yet was nigh,
They warmly bless’d the slaughter’d brave.And from all hearts, as sad she past,
This virtuous prayer her sorrow draws:--
‘Grant, Heaven, those tears may be the last,
That war, detested war, shall cause!’Oh! If with pure ambition fraught--
All nations join this virtuous prayer,
If they, by late experience taught,
No longer wish to slay, but spare,--Then hostile bands on War’s red plain,
For conquest have not vainly burn’d,
Nor then through long long years in vain
Have thousands died and millions mourn’d!
The “Epistle to a Friend: on New Year’s Day 1802, we should gladly select for its poetical merit; but justice to the Author forbids our taking farther liberty in the way of extract. We, therefore, conclude with saying that Mrs. Opie’s literary character will certainly receive additional lustre from the present volume.
Other reviews [unseen]:
“Annual Review.” Annual Review, vol. 1, 1802, pp. 669–670.
“Critical Review.” Critical Review, vol. 36, no. 2, Nov. 1802, pp. 413–418.
“Monthly Magazine.” Monthly Magazine, vol. 14, 25 Jan. 1803, p. 598.
Prepared by Emily Metzger, University of Nebraska, Spring 2018
© Emily Metzger, 2018