We usually leave criticism to the _grey-beards_, or such as have passed
the _viginti annorum lucubrationes_ of reviewing. It kindles so many
little heart-burnings and jealousies, that we rejoice it is not part of
our duty. To be sure, we sometimes take up a book in real earnest, read
it through, and have _our say_ upon its merits; but this is only a
gratuitous and occasional freak, just to keep up our oracular
consequence. In the present case, we do not feel disposed to exercise
this privilege, further than in a very few words--merely to say that Mr.
Robert Montgomery has published a volume of Poems under the above
title--that the poems are of unequal merit, and that like Virgil, his
excellence lies in describing scenes of darkness.
The "Universal Prayer" is a devotional outpouring of a truly poetical
soul, with as much new imagery as the subject would admit; and if
_scriptural_ poems be estimated in the ratio of _scriptural_ sermons,
the merit of the former is of the first order.[2]
From the other poems we have detached the following beautiful
specimens:--