We should be glad to know what the word "For" means here. If it is a preposition, it makes nonsense of the words, "Thy mercy tempers." If it is an adverb, it makes nonsense of the words, "Thy cares provide."
These beauties we have taken, almost at random, from the first part of the poem. The second part is a series of descriptions of various events, a battle, a murder, an execution, a marriage, a funeral, and so forth. Mr. Robert Montgomery terminates each of these descriptions by assuring us that the Deity was present at the battle, murder, execution, marriage or funeral in question.
And this proposition which might be safely predicated of every event that ever happened or ever will happen, forms the only link which connects these descriptions with the subject or with each other.
How the descriptions are executed our readers are probably by this time able to conjecture. The battle is made up of the battles of all ages and nations: "red-mouthed cannons, uproaring to the clouds," and "hands grasping firm the glittering shield."
The only military operations of which this part of the poem reminds us, are those which reduced the Abbey of Quedlinburgh to submission, the Templar with his cross, the Austrian and Prussian grenadiers in full uniform, and Curtius and Dentatus with their battering-ram. We ought not to pass unnoticed the slain war-horse, who will no more "Roll his red eye, and rally for the fight"; or the slain warrior who, while "lying on his bleeding breast," contrives to "stare ghastly and grimly on the skies." As to this last exploit, we can only say, as Dante did on a similar occasion, "Forse per forza gia di' parlasia Si stravolse cosi alcun del tutto Ma io nol vidi, ne credo che sia."
The tempest is thus described:
"But lo! around the marsh'lling clouds unite, Like thick battalions halting for the fight;
The sun sinks back, the tempest spirits sweep Fierce through the air and flutter on the deep.
Till from their caverns rush the maniac blasts, Tear the loose sails, and split the creaking masts, And the lash'd billows, rolling in a train, Rear their white heads, and race along the main" What, we should like to know, is the difference between the two operations which Mr. Robert Montgomery so accurately distinguishes from each other, the fierce sweeping of the tempest-spirits through the air, and the rushing of the maniac blasts from their caverns? And why does the former operation end exactly when the latter commences?
We cannot stop over each of Mr. Robert Montgomery's descriptions.
We have a shipwrecked sailor, who "visions a viewless temple in the air"; a murderer who stands on a heath, "with ashy lips, in cold convulsion spread"; a pious man, to whom, as he lies in bed at night, "The panorama of past life appears, Warms his pure mind, and melts it into tears": a traveller, who loses his way, owing to the thickness of the "cloud-battalion," and the want of "heaven-lamps, to beam their holy light." We have a description of a convicted felon, stolen from that incomparable passage in Crabbe's Borough, which has made many a rough and cynical reader cry like a child. We can, however, conscientiously declare that persons of the most excitable sensibility may safely venture upon Mr, Robert Montgomery's version. Then we have the "poor, mindless, pale-faced maniac boy," who "Rolls his vacant eye To greet the glowing fancies of the sky."
What are the glowing fancies of the sky? And what is the meaning of the two lines which almost immediately follow?
"A soulless thing, a spirit of the woods, He loves to commune with the fields and floods."
How can a soulless thing be a spirit? Then comes a panegyric on the Sunday. A baptism follows; after that a marriage: and we then proceed, in due course, to the visitation of the sick, and the burial of the dead.
Often as Death has been personified, Mr. Montgomery has found something new to say about him:
"0 Death! thou dreadless vanquisher of earth, The Elements shrank blasted at thy birth!
Careering round the world like tempest wind, Martyrs before, and victims strew'd behind Ages on ages cannot grapple thee, Dragging the world into eternity!"
If there be any one line in this passage about which we are more in the dark than about the rest, it is the fourth. What the difference may be between the victims and the martyrs, and why the martyrs are to lie before Death, and the victims behind him, are to us great mysteries.
We now come to the third part, of which we may say with honest Cassio, "Why, this is a more excellent song than the other." Mr. Robert Montgomery is very severe on the infidels, and undertakes to prove, that, as he elegantly expresses it, "One great Enchanter helm'd the harmonious whole."
What an enchanter has to do with helming, or what a helm has to do with harmony, he does not explain. He proceeds with his argument thus:
"And dare men dream that dismal Chance has framed All that the eye perceives, or tongue has named The spacious world, and all its wonders, born Designless, self-created, and forlorn;
Like to the flashing bubbles on a stream, Fire from the cloud, or phantom in a dream?"
We should be sorry to stake our faith in a higher Power on Mr. Robert Montgomery's logic. He informs us that lightning is designless and self-created. If he can believe this, we cannot conceive why he may not believe that the whole universe is designless and self-created. A few lines before, he tells us that it is the Deity who bids "thunder rattle from the skiey deep."
His theory is therefore this, that God made the thunder, but that the lightning made itself.
But Mr. Robert Montgomery's metaphysics are not at present our game. He proceeds to set forth the fearful effects of Atheism "Then, blood-stain`d Murder, bare thy hideous arm And thou, Rebellion, welter in thy storm:
Awake, ye spirits of avenging crime;
Burst from your bonds, and battle with the time!"