e and enjoyment, when even the gay Taylor
is overtaken by fate? This is a most masterly piece of nature; and I
venture to pronounce that the man who is uninterested by it must have
been born on Caucasus and nursed by she-wolves. I come now to the
characters; and here it is that the chief art of the poet is displayed.
It is wonderful to observe how many and how different characters are to
be found in this short poem. To say nothing of the four and twenty
"fellers" who are admirably characterized by the epithet "brisk;" we
have the mirthful Taylor and the rugged sea-captain, the lady fair and
free, and the lady gay. It may be objected that there is too great a
sameness in the female characters: but no; the lady fair and free is
brave and revengeful; the lady gay is simply gay, a mere insipid
character, and introduced by the poet, no doubt, as a contrast to the
turbulent and busy character of the other lady. The boisterous captain
is a well-drawn and a well-supported character. He is rugged, honest,
blunt, illiterate, and gallant. But it is the character of the hero
Taylor which is drawn and sustained with the most art and nature. In the
first place he is brave, although some have contradicted this, by saying
that he did not go to sea voluntarily but was pressed, and then ran away
the night before the engagement. But I will not believe he was a coward:
no; let the critics remember that Ulysses did not go voluntarily to the
Trojan war, and was always willing to escape when he could; and yet
surely he was a hero. Thus have I proved the bravery of Taylor. He had
also other requisites for a hero: he was amorous, like Achilles and
AEneas, and he deserted his love like the latter. Then he was brisk and
gay. I do not remember any hero exactly of this character. To be sure,
Achilles laughs once in the Iliad, and AEneas in the AEneid; but it does
not appear to have been the general character of either of them, and
especially of the latter, who was a whimpering sort of hero. It does not
appear that Taylor resembled AEneas in piety; but that is a silly kind of
antiquated virtue, of which heroes of modern days would be ashamed, and
which our poet has most judiciously omitted in the catalogue of Billy's
qualities. Again, he resembles the heroes of antiquity in his untimely
end, and in the cause of it--a woman. Thus Achilles was shot in the
heel; Ulysses was killed, though not very prematurely, by his son; AEneas
was drowned like a dog in