The comparison of a violet, bright with the dew, to a woman’s eyes, is
as perfect as a comparison can be. Sir Walter’s lines are part of a song
addressed to a woman at daybreak, when the violets are bathed in dew;
and the comparison is therefore peculiarly natural and graceful. Dew on
a bramble is no more like a woman’s eyes than dew anywhere else. There
is a very {202}pretty Eastern tale of which the fate of plagiarists
often reminds us. The slave of a magician saw his master wave his wand,
and heard him give orders to the spirits who arose at the summons. The
slave stole the wand, and waved it himself in the air; but he had
not observed that his master used the left hand for that purpose. The
spirits thus irregularly summoned tore the thief to pieces instead of
obeying his orders. There are very few who can safely venture to conjure
with the rod of Sir Walter; and Mr. Robert Montgomery is not one of
them.
Mr. Campbell, in one of his most pleasing pieces, has this line,
“The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky."
The thought is good, and has a very striking propriety where Mr.
Campbell has placed it, in the mouth of a soldier telling his dream.
But, though Shakspeare assures us that “every true man’s apparel fits
your thief,” it is by no means the case, as we have already seen, that
every true poet’s similitude fits your plagiarist. Let us see how Mr.
Robert Montgomery uses the image:
"Ye quenchless stars! so eloquently bright,
Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night,
While half the world is lapp’d in downy dreams,
And round the lattice creep your midnight beams,
How sweet to gaze upon your placid eyes,