Mr. Robert Montgomery is fond of personification, and belongs, we need not say, to that school of poets who hold that nothing more is necessary to a personification in poetry than to begin a word with a capital letter. Murder may, without impropriety, bare her arm, as she did long ago, in Mr. Campbell’s Pleasures of Hope. But what possible motive Rebellion can have for weltering in her storm, what avenging crime may be, who its spirits may be, why they should burst from their bonds, what their bonds may be, why they should battle with the time, what the time may be, and {208}what a battle between the time and the spirits of avenging crime would resemble, we must confess ourselves quite unable to understand. “And here let Memory turn her tearful glance On the dark horrors of tumultuous France, When blood and blasphemy defiled her land, And fierce Rebellion shook her savage hand." Whether Rebellion shakes her own hand, shakes the hand of Memory, or shakes the hand of France, or what any one of these three metaphors would mean, we know no more than we know what is the sense of the following passage: “Let the foul orgies of infuriate crime Picture the raging havoc of that time, When leagued Rebellion march’d to kindle man, Fright in her rear, and Murder in her van. And thou, sweet flower of Austria, slaughter’d Queen, Who dropp’d no tear upon the dreadful scene, When gush’d the life-blood from thine angel form, And martyr’d beauty perish’d in the storm, Once worshipp’d paragon of all who saw, Thy look obedience, and thy smile a law." What is the distinction between the foul orgies and the raging havoc which the foul orgies are to picture? Why does Fright go behind Rebellion, and Murder before? Why should not Murder fall behind Fright? Or why should not all the three walk abreast? We have read of a hero who had “Amazement in his van, with flight combined, And Sorrow’s faded form, and Solitude behind." Gray, we suspect, could have given a reason for disposing the allegorical attendants of Edward thus. But to proceed, “Flower of Austria” is stolen from Byron. “Dropp’d” is false English. “Perish’d in the storm” means nothing at all; and “thy look obedience’’ means the very reverse of what Mr. Robert Montgomery intends to say. {209}Our poet then proceeds to demonstrate the immortality of the soul: “And shall the soul, the fount of reason, die, When dust and darkness round its temple lie? Did God breathe in it no ethereal fire, Dimless and quenchless, though the breath expire?"