Notes On Literature, Science And Art.

Castle , & c , and the gates were shut and locked every night with much military parade ; morning and evening guns were fired as a signal when to open and shut the irarrison gates , and pieces of ordnance were p laced upon the turrets situated in different

parts of the fortification . Seldom in ancient days were the gates withoutthe adornment of heads of rebels . At one time , we are told , one of the heads was that of a comely youth with yellow hair , to look at which there came every morning at sunrise , and

every evening at sunset , a young and beautiful lady . It is said that on a Highland regiment passing southward , after the rebellion of 1745 , they avoided entering the city by the Scotch gate , on which the grim and ghastly heads were exhibited . "

Now , had not our reverend Brother Woodford been so busily engaged on his forthcoming Masonic Cyclopaedia , here is a fine subject for a poem from his pathetic pen As it is , will no poet try what he can produce from it ?

The first canto of a poem entitled " Marmaduke Clifford" has reached me . It bears no author ' s name on the title page , but the publishers are Frank and William Kerslake , 13 , Booksellers' Row , Strand , and the price only a shilling . How many cantos there are to follow very probably depends on the sale of the first . The author indeed tells

us'My pen will prove occasionally prolix , " and his style is evidently copied from Byron ' s " Beppo " and "Don Juan , " who had copied from " William and Robert Whistlecraft of Stowmarketin Suffolk . Harness

, , and Collar Makers "—the fanciful nom de plume assumed by the Right Honourable John Hookham Frere , in his " Prospectus and Specimen of an intended historical work , " which was " to comprise the most interesting particulars relating to King

Arthur and his Round Table , " a humorous production which deserves to be better known than it is . " VVhistlecraft is my immediate model , " remarks Byron , in sending " Beppo " as a present to his publisher , Murray « but Berni is the father of that

, « nd of writing , which , I think , suits our language too very well . " How Byron made ™ suit our language soon after in his '' Don vuan , ' no one who has ever read the many

beautiful passages in that too-libertine poem w ill for a moment call in question . But Berni and Byron had not only the free verse , the wit , and the humour , in which Frere was not far their inferior , but they had a story of interest for their

readers ; a matter in which the author of " Marmaduke Clifford" will do well to copy their example . He evidently has the pen of a ready writer , much poetical feeling , and great knowledge of men and manners ; and how he will work out his

story , which so far is promising enough , it is impossible to tell from his introductory canto . In this age men must be deeply interested to read poetry at all , and yet there is more poetry read now in England than in any former age . Wise men learn

wisdom by the failures , as well as by the successes of others , and the author of this hitherto interesting poem will do well to study Whistlecraft ' s failure , as well as the great success of Berni and Byron . ' Although the Italians call this style of jocose

poetry "Poesia Bernesca , " Berni was rather the improver than the real inventor ; for Bnrchiello , Pucci , Bellicioni , and others , had preceded him ; just as there

were , and must of necessity have been , many poets long before Homer . Berni himself , probably , would never have been half so good in his moralising and other digressions from the plot of his stories , had no Ariosto preceded him . Thus the effect

of every true poet is eternal ; no one can see where their influence begins or ends , and woe be to him or her who rashly strike their lyre-strings without lofty thoughts and holy aspirations , calculated to help on the true progress of the human race .

The author of " Marmaduke Clifford "is evidently an ardent admirer of Byron ' s poetry , and in many respects he can have no better model . Let him seek , to imitate , at such distance as he may , the marvellous powers of descriptionand the electrical

, bursts of feeling , which permeate all that great genius has written ; and , whilst he loses none of his intense hatred of all tyranny and all cheatery , let him avoid , as he would the Evil One , that moody selfpride which made Byron not inaptly

termed a fallen archangel . I would neither be a blind idolater of Byron nor Wordsworth ; but be has much to learn who has not yet discovered how infinitely superior