? - ? CM\fOIf4^. ^OFCAIIFO/?^ ^c?Aavaani^ ,\V\[UNIVER% ^l( -V O A J ^lOSANCflfj^ vvlOSANCElfj^, "^iiaAiNnawv -^UIBRARYOc. s s ^WEUNIVERS//, PCAIIF0%. ^OFCAIIFO% .\WEl)NIVER% a>:1' 8®l l\®i i!:^i l( LECTURES GENERAL LITERATURE, POETRY, &c. BY JAMES MONTGOMERY, AUTHOR OF " THE WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD," " THE PELICAN ISLAND," ETC., ETC NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 329 & 331 PEARL STREET, FRANKLIN SQUARE. 1855. 5^ :55 85^ PREFACE. Having ventured to lay these papers before the Public, the author dare not go further, in explana- tion or apology, than to express a hope that, what- ever imperfections may be found in them, the candid reader will be more inclined to approve than con- demn what he cannot but perceive has been done in good faith, and in honour of a noble art, which its advocate may have " loved, not wisely, but too well." That ai't he pretends not to teach, but merely to illustrate according to his views of its worth and influence. Claiming the right of an author to borrow from himself, he has adopted a few brief passages, v/iih necessary alterations, from the Introductory Essays to the Chrisiian x^salmist and the Christian Poet, compiled by him for Mr. Collins, of Glasgow. A few larger sections, but entirely new-moclelled, have been taken from critical articles fumbhed by him to a respectable Review, between the years 1806 and 1815. The " Retrospect of Literature," and the " Viev/ of Modern English literature," 6 PREFACE. were printed in the first volume of the " JVfetropoli' tan,^^ edited by Mr. Campbell, after they had been delivered at the Royal Institution. To the noble President, and the honourable Managers of that Institution, as well as to the liberal-minded audiences before whom the whole series was delivered, it is but justice to add, dis- tinctly, that they are in nowise responsible for any thing in these Lectures which was unworthy to be repeated before them. The author would disdain to shelter himself under their sanction from any censure which honest criticism can inflict upon him, in cases where he may have abused their confidence. The Lectures have been anxiously revised, espe- cially those parts which the hmited time allowed for delivery required to be omitted on the spot, but which appeared to be more necessary for their intel- ligence when submitted to cool perusal, than when uttered before indulgent hearers with the living voice. Sheffield, April 24, 1833. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY AMONG THE FINE ABT8. ipologue — The General Claims of Poetry to Pre-eminence — Poetry and Music — Poetry and Painting — Poetry and Sculp- ture — The Comparative Rewards of Professors of the Fine Arts — Poetry compared with Eloquence, History, and Phi- losophy—Permanence of Poetry Page 9 LECTURE II. WHAT IS POETICAL. Truth a Test of Poetry— The Poetical in Objects of Sight— The Poetical in Sounds — The Poetical of Place and Ciicumstance — The Poetical Aspects of visible Nature — The Poetical in Childhood and Old Age , . . 40 LECTURE III. THE FORM OF POETRY. Verse ana Prose — Characteristics of Prose and Verse — Jeremy Taylor — Hebrew Poetry — Greek and Latin Prosody — Modern Metres and Forms of Verse — The Spenserian Stanza and the Sonnet 68 LECTURE IV. THE DICTION OF POETRV. Alliterative Enghsli Verse — RhjTned Verse — Blank. Verse — Poetic Phraseology — Variety of Style — Mr. Wordsworth's Theory of Poetic Diction — Dr. Darwm*s Theory of Poetic ?tyle — Poetic Licenses and Dialects — Scottish Verse — Capa- bilities of Languages 101 ▼Ill CONTENTS. LECTURE V, VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY Narrative Poetry — Allegorical Poetr>' — Dramatic Poetry — Reli gious Poetry — Didactic and Descriptive Poetry — L>Tic Poetry — Metrical Romances — Poetry for the Young — Translated Poetiy 140 LECTURE VL ON THE POETICAL CHARACTER; THE THEMES AND INFLUENCES OF POETRY. The Desire of Fame — Few Universal Reputations — Poetic As- pirations and Pursuits — The Themes of Poetry — The Influ- ence of Poetry— Henry Kirke White— Robert Burns . . 184 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. No. I S22 No. II 247 No. Ill 274 A VIEW OF MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. No. 1 298 No. H 30« LECTURES ON GENERAL LITERATURE, POETRY, &c. JAMES MONTGOMERY. LECTURES ON POETRY LECTURE 1. THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY AMONG THE FINE ARTS. Apologue. Sir Philip Sidney begins his Defence of Poesie in the following manner: — "When the right virtuous E. W. and I were at the emperor's court together, we gave ourselves to learn horsemanship of Gio. Pietro Pugliano — one that, with great commendation, had the place of an esquire in his stable ; and he, according to the fertileness of the Italian wit, did not only afford us the demonstration of his practice, but sought to enrich our minds with the contempla- tion therein, which he thought was most precious. But with none, I remember, mine ears were at any time more loaden than when (angered with our slow payment, or moved with our learnerlike admi- ration) he exercised his speech in praise of his fac- ulty. He said, soldiers were the noblest of mankind, and horsemen were the noblest soldiers. He said, they were the masters of war, and the ornaments of peace ; speedy goers, and strong abiders ; triumphers both in camps and courts : nay, to so unbelieved a point he proceeded, as that no earthly thing bred so much wonder to a prince as to be a good horseman ; , B 10 THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY. skill in government was but pedarderia in com parison Then wor.lc". !ie ^idd certain praises, bj telling what; a peerless bcabt the horse was ; the onlj serviceable courtier without flaitery: the beast of most b3'j'4ty, faithiulncss, courage, and such niore^ that, if I had not been a piece of a logician before 1 came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse. But thus much, with his no few words, he drove into me, — that self-love is better than any gilding to make that seem gor- geous wherein ourselves are parties. Wherein, if Pugliano's strong aflfection and weak arguments will not satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example of myself, who (I know not by what mischance, in these my not old years and idlest times), having slipped into the title of a poet, am provoked to say something unto you, in defence of that myunelected vocation; which if I handle with more good-will than good reasons, bear w^ith me, since the scholar is to be pardoned that foUoweth in the steps of his master." Thus far Sir Philip Sidney. Without assuming or disclaiming any personal application of the foregoing apologue, the writer of the following strictures believes "that he could not more fitly have introduced them to the liberal and enlightened auditory before whom he is permitted to read them ; who will thus be prepared both to expect, and, he trusts, to pardon, no small measure of extravagance in them. The General Claims of Poetry to Pre-eminence. Poetry is the eldest, the rarest, and the most ex- cellent of the fine arts. It was the first fixed form of language ; the earliest perpetuation of thought : it existed before prose in history, before music in melody, before painting in description, and before sculpture in imagery. Anterior to the discovery of letters, it was employed to communicate the lessons THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY. H of wisdom, to celebrate the achievements of valour, and to promulgate the sanctions of law. Music was invented to accompany, and painting and sculpture to illustrate it. I have ventured to say that poetry is the rarest of the fine arts ; and in proof, I need only appeal to the literature of our own country, in which will be found the remains of more than five hundred writers of verse, renowned in their generation, of whom there are not fifty whose compositions rise to the dignity of true poetry ; and of these there are scarcely ten who are familiarly known by their works at this day. The art of constructing easy, elegant, and even spirited verse may be acquired by any mind of moderate capacity, and enriched with liberal knowledge ; and those who cultivate this talent may occasionally hi^ upon some happy theme, and handle it with such unaccustomed delicacj'- or force, that for a while they outdo themselves, and produce that which adds to the public stock of permanent poetry. But habitually to frame the lay that quickens the pulse, flushes the cheek, warms the heart, and expands the soul of the hearer, — playing upon his passions as upon a lyre, and making him to feel as though he were "lolding converse with a spirit; this is the art of Nature herself, invariably and perpetually pleasing, by a secret and undefinable charm, which lives through all her works, and causes the very stones, as well as the stars, to cry out — " The hand that made us is divine." The power of being a poet in this sense is a power from Hsaven: wherein it consists, I know not; but this I do know, that there never existed a poet of the highest order who either learned his art of one or taaght it to another. It is true that the poet com- municates to the bosom of his reader the flame which burns in his own ; but the bosom thus enkind]<'d cannot communicate the fire to a third. In ilu 12 THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY, breast of the bard alone that energy of thought which gives birth to poetry is an active principle; ui all others it is only a passive sentiment. That alone is true poetry which makes the reader himself a poet for the time while he is mider its excitement ; which, indeed, constrains him to feel, to see, to think — almost to be what the poet felt, saw, thought, and was while he was conceiving and composing his work. And this theory is confirmed by the fact, that (hough original genius is wonderfully aided in its development and display by learning and refinement, yet among the rudest people it has been found, like native gold and unwrought diamond, as pure and perfect in essence, though incrusted with basei matter, as among the most enlightened nations. With the first, however, it is seldomer seen, not being laboriously dug from the mine, purified in the furnace, or polished on the wheel, but only occasion • ally washed from the mountains, or accidentally dis covered among the sands. It is a remarkable coincidence, that, with the ex- ception of ancient Rome, the noblest productions of the Muses have appeared in the middle ages, between gross barbarism and voluptuous refinement, when the human mind yet possessed strong traits of its pri- meval grandeur and simplicity ; but divested of its former ferociousness, and chastened by courteous manners, felt itself rising in knowledge, virtue, and intellectual superiority. The poems of Homer ex- isted long before Greece arrived at its zenith of glory, or even of highly advanced civilization. Dante, Petrarch, and Ariosto, in Italy; Ercilla, in Spain; Camoens, in Portugal ; as well as our own Shaks- peare, Spenser, and Milton ; flourished in periods far inferior to the present in wealth, luxury, general intelligence, an-d literary taste ; yet in their re- spective countries their great poems have not since been equalled, nor is it probable that they will here after be surpassed by any of their successors. Till-: PRE-EMINENCK OF POB^RY. 13 To the peculiar good fortune which, in their re- spective countries, and independent of their abstract merits, has secured imperishable pre-eminence to a few early and great names, more particular allusion will be made in another place. Poetry is ni)t only the earliest and rarest, but also the most excellent of the fine arts. It transcends all other literary composition in harmony, beauty, and splendour of style, thought, and imagery, as well as in the vivacity and permanency of its impressions on the mind ; for its language and sentiments are so intimately connected, that they are rememberea together; they are soul and body, which cannot be separated without death, — a death in which the dis- solution of the one causes the disappearance of the other ; if the spell of the words be broken, the charm of the idea is lost. Thus nothing can be less adorned than the opening of " Paradise Lost ;" the cadence of the verse alone redeems the v/hole from being plain prose in the first six lin.es ; but thenceforward it rises through every clause in energy and grandeur, till the reader feels himself carried away by the im petuosity of that " adventurous song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above the Aconian mount :'' and experiences full proof of the poet's power to accomplish his purpose, so magnificently set forth in the crowning lines of the clause : — " That to the height of this gi-eat argument I may assert eternal providence.. And justify the vrays of God to man." Now, let any man attempt to tell to another the subject of Miiton s exordium. This he might do very correctly, and in very apt words ; yet his prose interpretation would be no more to Milton's stately 14 THE0PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY. numbers, than the arjriiment at ihe head of the firpt book is to the discussion of that argument m the poem itself. Poetry and Music. Poetry transcends music in the passion, pathos, and meaning- of its movements ; for its harmonies are ever united with distinct feelings and emotions of the rational soul ; their associations are always clear and easily comprehensible : whereas music, when it is not allied to language, or does not appeal to memory, is simply a sensual and vague, though an innocent and highly exhilarating delight, conveying no direct improvement to the heart, and leaving little permanent impression upon the mind. When, in- deed, music awakens national, military, local, or tender recollections of the distant or the dead, the loved or the lost, it then performs the highest office of poetry, — it is poetry, as Echo in the golden my- thology of Greece remained a nymph, even after she had passed away into a sound. But the first music must have been vocal, and the first words sung to notes must have been metrical. " Blest pair of Sy- rens, Voice and Verse !" exclaims the greatest of our po*^ts (himself a musician, and never more a poet than when he chants the praises of the sister art, as he does in a hundred passages,) — "Blest pair of Syrens, Voice and Verse ! Wed your divine sounds," &c. So sang Milton. Instrumental accompaniments were afterward invented to aid the influence of both; and when all three are combined in solemn league and covenant, nothing earthly so eflfectually presents to our "high-raised phantasy," " That undisturbed song of pure consent, Aye sung around the sappliire-colour'd throne» THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY. 15 To Him that sits tliereon ; * * * * Where the might seraphim, in burning row Their loud, uphfted angel- trumpets blow; And the cherubic hosts, in thousand choirs, Touch their celestial harps of golden wires." But there is a limit beyond which poetry ana music cannot go tog-ether ; and it is remarkable, that from the point where they separate, poetry assuines a higher and more commanding, as well as versatile, character; while music becomes more complex, curious, and altogether artificial, incapable (except as an accompaniment to dancing) of being understood or appreciated by any except professors and ama- teurs. In this department, though very imperfectly intellectual or imaginative, to compose it requires great power of intellect, and great splendour, fertility, and promptitude of imagination. Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, as inventors of imperishable strains, both vocal and instrumental, may be not unworthily ranked with the first order of poets. To be an accomplished performer, however, though it requires talent and tact of a peculiar kind, no more implies the genius to compose music than to be a consummate actor implies the ability to write trage- dies. The mental exercise in each case is essen- tially as different as invention and imitation are. A skilful violinist may lead the oratorio of the Messiali as Handel himself could not have led it : Kemble could not have written the part of Hamlet, nor could Shakspeare have performed it as Kemble did. It may be observed here that the musical and the poetical ear are entirely distinct. Many musicians have disagreeably bad voices in conversation, and chatter in jig-tim.e, or talk in staccato tones, unendur- able to one who has a fine sense of the melody of speech On the other hand, poets and declaimers have frequently had no ear at all for music. Pope had none ; Garrick had none ; yet in harmonious rhythmical composition the poet to this hour is 16 THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY. unexcelled : nor was the actor less perfect in man- aging the cadences and intonations of a voice " aa musical as is Apollo's lute," in the delivery of the most familiar, impassioned, or heroic speeches which the whole range of the British drama impose-j; Irom King Lear to Abel Drugger. It is a common complaint with ordinary conr^': sers, that poets do not write verses suitable 'n m jsic. Though there is some truth in the statemei)-, ^r re- fers to poets of the same class as such cji[\\jiaen themselves are, yet it is the express business of those who set poetry at all to adapt their notes to the pitch of it, whereby their own melodies will be proportionately exalted; not to require that the poet's lay should be brought down to their standard of adaptation, and the nobler art be degraded by con- descending to the inferior. That the most exquisite strains of English verse may be fitted to strains of music worthy of them, we have examples abundant in the present day, from the songs of Robert Burna to the melodies of Thomas Moore. Yet something must be conceded occasionally on the part of the poets, though no more than may, at the same time, improve their lines as verse, while it renders them more obedient subjects for music. Dryden, in the preface to one of his operas, gives vent to his impa- tience at being necessitated to make his noble bul reluctant numbers submit to be drilled and disci- plined to the tactics of a French composer. After enumerating some of his miserable shifts, he says, — " It is true, I have not often been put to this drudg- ery ; but where I have, the words will sufficiently show that I was then a slave to the composition, which I will ntvcr be again. It is my part to invent, and the musician's to humour that invention. I may be counselled, and will always follow my friend's advice where I find it reasonable, but I will never part with the power of the militia.'''' — Inlroduction to Albion and Albanvs. THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY. 17 Poetry and Painting. Poetry is superior to painting; for poetry is pro- gressive, painting stationary, in its capabilities of description. Poetry elevates the soul through every gradation of thought and feeling, producing its great- est effects at the last. Painting begins precisely where poetry breaks off^ — with the climax of the subject, and lets down the mind from the catas- trophe through the details of the story, impercepti- bly soothing it from sublime astonishment into tranquil approbation. Painting is limited to a movement of time and an eye-glance of space ; but it must be confessed that it can make that moment last for ages, and render that eye-glance illustrious as the sun. Poetry is restrained neither to time nor place; resembling the sun himself, it may shine successively all round the globe, and endure till " the earth, and the works therein, shall be burnt up." Painting exhibits its whole purpose at one view, but with a generality of character which requires previous acquaintance with that purpose before the spectator can judge whether it has been eff« cted ; we must know all that was intended to be done be- fore we can comprehend what has actually been done. Then, indeed, if the aim has been success- fully accomplished, the glory of the artist is consum- mated at once ; and while the enthusiasm of admira- tion settles down into calm delight, or spreads itself in patient and interested examination of particulars, the mind goes back through all the difficulties which have been overcome in the management and con- duct of the performance as a work of art, and all the circumstances which must have concurred to bring the story, if the subject be narrative, the scenery if It be landscape, or the person if it be portrait, to that 18 THE PUK-EMINENCE OF FOKTKV. special crisis, light, or aspect which has enabled the inventor to exhibit the sum of his ideas so felici- tously as to imply the various antecedent, accompa- nying, and conventional incidents which are neces- sary to be understood before the beholder can per- fectly gather from the forms and colours before his eye the fine fancies, deep feelings, and glorious com- binations of external objects which pre-existed in the artist's mind ; and out of a thousand of which he has produced one partaking of all and concentrating their excellences, like the Venus of Apelles, to which the beauties of Greece lent their loveliness, and were abundantly repaid by having that part in her which she borrowed from them. Perhaps in portrait alone can painting claim the advantage of poetry ; because there the pencil perpetuates the very features, air, and personal appearance of the individual repre- sented; and when that individual is one of emi- nence, — a hero, a patriot, a poet, an orator, — it is the vehicle of the highest pleasure which the art can communicate ; and in tliis respect portrait-painting (however disparaged) is the highest point of the art itself, — being at once the most real, intellectual, and imaginative. A poem is a campaign, in which all the marches, sufferings, toils, and conflicts of the hero are suc- cessively developed to final victory. A painting is the triumph after victory, when the conqueror, the captives, the spoils, and the trophies are displayed in s>ne pageant of magnificence, — implying, undoubt- edly, all the means, the labour, and diversities of for- tune by which the achievement was attended, but without manifesting them to the uninformed by- standers. Without previous knowledge, therefore, of the subjf'ct, the figures in the most perfect histor ical group are nameless ; the business in which they are engaged is obscure ; wliile often the country, thj> age, and even the class of life to which they be- THi: PRi:-KMINEXCK. OF POKTRY. 19 longed, can be only imperfectly guessed. Of conse- quence, little comparative interest will be excited. The child's question, " Is it true ]" immediately occurs; and just in proportion as we ascertain the facts, the person, the whole story, we are charmed, affected, or surprised by the power of the master. Without the book the wand of the enchanter cannot wori<. the spell. Landscape-painting is that which is most easily understood at first sight ; because the objects of which it is composed are as familiar to our eyes as the words in which they could be explained are to our ears ; so that we recognise them at once, and can judge without commentary of the grouping and per- spective. But the pleasure in contemplating the most exquisite productions of Claude Lorraine, Gas- par Poussin, and other great rnasters, is exceedingly enhanced by consideration of the skill of the artists in creating, what never, indeed, for one moment becomes an illusion, but that which enables the mind within itself to form an ideal prototype worthy of the pictured representation. Even when we know that the scenes are from nature, admiration of the pencil that drew them is the highest ingredient of our delight in beholding them, — unless by local, historical, or personal associations, the trees, the streams, the hills, or the buildings remind us of things greater and dearer than themselves. This, of course, is the most exalted gratification which landscape- painting can offer; yet poetry, which, in distinct delineations of natural objects, is otherwise inferior, has decided pre-eminence here. The following stanzas from probably a hast}^-, but certainly a happy, effusion of Thomas CampbeH's. in the dew and iDlossom of his youthful poetry, will exemplify this fact. Thoy refer to a morning walk, in company with a Russian lady, to a place called " the Fountain of the Thorn," on an emi- nence near Vienna, commanding a view of the city, 20 THE PRK-EMINENCE OF POETRY, the Danube, aijci the neighbouring country to a vast 6xtenl : — * " Ah ' how long shall I delight In the memory of that morn When v,-e climb'd the Danube's height To the Fountain of the Thorn ! '• And beheld his waves and islands _ Fiashincr, glittering in the sun, t'rom Vienna's gorgeous towers To the mountains of the Hua =' There was gladness in the sky, There was verdure all around ; And, where'er it turn'd, the eye Look'd on rich historic ground. ** Over Arpern's.field of gloiy Noontide's distant haze was cast, And the hills of Turkish story Teem'd with visions of the past." What could a painter do with this 1 Assuredly he might produce a landscape as superb as ever ema- nated, in colours of this world, from the pencils of Titian or Rubens. All the elements are at hand. A bird's-eye prospect from a height overlooking a ma- jestic river, studded v/ith islands, "flashing, glitter- ing in the sun ;" the " gorgeous towers" of an im- perial city ; the verdure of woods on every side ; over all, a brilliant sky ; and far away, beneath the haze of summer-noon, long lines of undulated hills, lessening, lightening, vanishing from the view. The canvLSs might be covered with all these ; yet, though they might dazzle the eye, and enchant the imagma- * The introdticfcry and conclii(lin;j; verses, beinp; merely complimentarj', are omitted. The poem iisclf first appeared in thus country in the " Fam- ily Ma-jaziiie oCNqvcinber, I&HO," edited by Mr. Shobcrl, who ackiiow- ledj;es that he coi)ied them from a German periodical ptiblished at Vienna. They were probably written about the year 1802. THE PRK-EMINKNCi: OF POETRY. 21 tion, like a glimpse into fairy-land, — unexplained, tiiey would be mere abstractions, and the picture would be valued solely as a work of art; but let a label be attached with the word Vienna upon it, then, indeed, a new and nobler interest would be felt in the whole, and curiosity to find out every part when we knew that a real city, stream, and landscape were depicted. This, however, would be the extent to which the painter could transport the eye and the mind of hi<3 admirer. Here, then, begins the triumph of poetry, which, while it can adorn, more or less perfectly, all the subjects of painting drawn from visible nature, has the whole invisible world to itself,— thoughts, feel- ings, imaginations, affections, all that memory can preser^ve of things past, and all that prescience can conceive or forbode of things to come. These it can express, minutely or comprehensively, in mass or in detail, foreshortened or progressive, line by line, shade by shade, till it completely possesses the reader, and puts him as completely in possession of all that is most nearly or remotely associated with the theme in discussion. In the instance before us, the poet does this with the fewest possible phrases ; and yet with such brilliance and force of allusion that the reader has only to follow, in any direction, the retrospective avenues opened on every hand. After shedding the glory of sunshine on the "waves and islands" of the river, the green luxuri- ance of the champaign, and the " gorgeous towers" of the metropolis, — in three words he lets in the daylight of past ages upon the scene. His " rich historic ground" calls up the actions and actors of the mightiest events ever exhibited on that theatre; the mountains of the Hun, the field of Aspern, the hills of Turkish story, are crowded Vv'ith armies, flouted with banners, and shaken with the tramp of chivalry and the march of phalanxed legions. They 22 THE PRE-EMIXENCK OF POETRY all " teem with visions of the past," Those who are acquainted with the circumstances of the siege Df Vienna by the Turks, about the middle of the sev- ?nteenth century, and its deliverance by Sobieski King- of Poland, will at once realize the Ottoman oattle-array under the beleaguered walls ; the despair within the city, where all hope but in Heaven was :ut off, and the churches were thronged with pray- ing multitudes ; the sudden appearance of the Poles, and their attack uponi the infidels : the rage of con- flict, man to man, horse to horse, swords against scimitars, scimitars against swords, one moment ' flashing, glittering in the sun," the next crimsoned and reeking with blood; the shouts, the groans, the agonies, the transports of the strife ; till the barba- rians, borne down by the irresistible impetuoj^ity of their Christian assailants, fell heaps upon heaps on '* the field of glory," or fled " to the mountains of the Hun," while Danube, from " the Fountain of the Thorn," rolled purple to the deep, bearing along with .^is overcharged current the turbaned corpses of the nvaders back into the bowels of their own land. That disastrous siege and triumphant rescue v/ere celebrated by a contemporary poet (Filicaja) in three of the sublimest odes which Italy can boast; and which (with the exception of tlie Hohenlinden and the Battle of the Bnltic, by oui'accomplislied countryman whose stanzas I have been discussing) stand unri- valled by any war-songs with which I am acquainted, whether among the few fragments of antiquity, or in the whole armory of later ages. Poeti-y and Sculpture. Sculpture is the noblest, but the most limited, of the manual fine arts; it produces the fewest, but the greatest, effects ; it approaclies nearest to nature, and yet can present little besides models of her living forms, and those principally in repose. Plausible THE PRE-EMINENCIi OF POKTRY. 23 reasons are assigned for the latter spontaiieous re- striction of their art, witli which practitioners in general are satisfied, from the extreme difficulty, and with most of them the absolute impossibility of ex- pressing lively action or vehement passion otherwise than in their beginnings and their results. Tliis is not the place to discuss the question ; yet I know not how it can be doubted that sculpture might legitimately essay, and victoriously achieve, the most daring innovations in this almost forbidden field, into which few besides Michael Angelo and Roubilliac, among the moderns, have set a foot with- out trembling hesitation or ignorant presumption, either of which must have ensured miscarriage. The Laocoon and the friezes of the Parthenon are tro- phies of ancient prowess in this perilous department, which, instead of being the despair, ought to be the assurance of hope to adventurers in a later age and colder clime, among a people more phlegmatic than the gay Greeks or the spirited Italians. When a new Pygmalion shall arise, he will not be content to say to his statue, with the last stroke of the chisel, ''Speak,'' but he v/ill add, " Move.'' Be this as it may, — beauty, intelligence, strength, grace of attitude, symmetry of limb, harmonious grouping, simple, severe, sublime expression, the soul informing the marble, the pers-onal character stamped upon the features, — these are the highest attempts of the highest minds, in the highest of the imitative arts. It follows that mediocrity is less tolerable in sculpture than in painting, music, and even poetry itself. Nothing in it is truly excellent but that which is pre-eminently so ; because nothing less than the most successful strokes of the happiest chisel can powerfully affect the spectator, fix him in dumb astonishment, touch his heart-strings with tender emotion, or stir thought from its depths into ardent and earnest exercise. 1 appeal to all who hear me, whether among a hundred of the monu 24 THE PRE-EMINENCK OF POETRY. ments in our cathedrals, and the statues in our pub- lic places, they ever met with more \iian one or two that laid hold of their imagination so as to haunt it both in retirement and in society, — or most unex pectedly to " flash ■upon that inward eye, Wliich is the bliss of solitude ;" WoRDSWORTk. for even in crowds, in business, in dissipation, what has intensely appealed to our sympathy on first acquaintance will often recur in the image-chamber of the mind. Thus, after the first hearing, will cer- tain strains of music ; thus, after the first sight, some masterpiece of painting; and frequently, far more frequently than either of these, after the first reading, will lines, and phrases, and sentiments of poetry ring in the memory, and play with the affec- tions: but rarely indeed in sculpture does the image presented to the eye become a statue of thought in the mind. This may be principally owing to the paucity of subjects (I mean as the art is now practised), and, to an uninitiated eye at least, the similarity of treatment by ordinary adepts, whether single figures or monumental groups. When, however (to use a strong metaphor), at the touch of some Pro- methean hand, a statue steps out of this enchanted circle, and looks as though it had grown out of the marble in the course of nature, without the aid of hands ; then indeed does the artist enrich the be- holder with one of the rarest treasures that genius can bequeath to contemporaries or posterity ; and for which the willing yet exacted homage of applause will never cease to be paid while his work endures. Such are the Apollo Belvidere, the Venus de' Medici, and other inestimable relics of antiquity ; such the Moses and David of Michael Angelo ; and such (to give an English example worthy to be named with these ; judgmg solely by the power which it exer- THK PRE-IiMINENCE OF POETRY. 25 cises over the purest and most universal of human sympathies, — sympathies which can no more be bribed by artifice than they can help yielding to the impulse of nature) — such, I say, is the simple me- morial, by our own Chantrey, in Litchfield Cathedral, of two children, that were " lovely in their lives, and in death are undivided." Of these specimens, it may be affirmed that they have shown how the narrow bounds of vulgar precedent may be left as far behind as a star in the heavens leaves a meteor in the air. Of the antiques alone, how innumerable has been the progeny generated from creative minds, follow- ing them less by imitation than by rivalry, and bor- rowing nothing from them but elemental principles ; with this grand advantage, v/hich can less strictly be said to belong to models in any other polite art, namely, that what could be done, but not surpassed, had been shown ; leaving not a mere ideal excel- lence to be attained, but the perfect example of all that the eye could desire, the imagination conceive, or the hand execute. Now, poetry is a school of sculpture, in which the art flourishes, not in marble or brass, but m that which outlasts both, — in letters, which the fingers of a child may write or blot, but which, once written, Time himself may not be able to obliterate ; and in sounds which are but passing breath, yet, being once uttered, by possibility may never cease to be repeated. Sculpture to the e^^-e, in palpable materials, is of necessity confined to a few forms, aspects, and atti- tudes. The poet's images are living, breathing, moving creatures ; they stand, walk, run, fly, speak, love, fight, fall, labour, suffer, die, — in a word, they are men of like passions with ourselves, undergoing all the changes of actual existence, and presenting to the mind of the reader, solitary figures, or com- plicated groups, more easily retained (for words are better recollected than shapen substances), and C 26 THE PRE-EMINKNCF, OF POKTUY. infinitely more diversified than the chisel could hew out of "all the rocks under the sun. Nor is this a fanciful or metaphorical illustration of the pre-emi- nence which I claim for the art I am advocating. In proof of it, I appeal at once to the works of the eld- est and greatest poets of every country. In Homer, Dante, and Chaucer, for example, it is exceedingly curious to remark with what scrupulous care and minuteness, personal appearance, stature, bulk, com- plexion, age, and other incidents, are exhibited, for the purpose of giving life and reality to the scenes and actions in v.'hich their characters are engaged. All these are bodied forth to the eye through the mind, as sculpture addresses the mind through the eye. In sculpture, nothing is less impressive than the allegorical personages that haunt cenotaphs, and crowd cathedral walls ; for, however admirably wrought, they awaken not the slightest emotion, whether they weep, or rage, or frown, or smile. In poetry, likewise, as may be shown hereafter, ex- panded allegories are the least effective of all the means by which terror, wonder, pity, delight, or anger are attempted to be excited ; yet with single figures frequently, and with small groups occasion- ally, under the guise of metaphors and similes, poetry of every kind ia peopled more splendidly, beautifully, and awfully than was the Grecian Olym.- pus with gods and heroes, the ocean with nymphs and nereids, and Tartarus with furies, spectres, and inexorable judges. Two or three brief specimens may decide the superiority of verse in this field of competition. How could the image of Fear^ which " to and fro did fly," be realized in marble as it has been by Spenser in rhyme? Colliiis's odes are galleries of poetical statuary, which no art could give to the sight, though perfectly made out in the sensorium of the brain. THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY. 27 ** Dangei-, whose limbs of giant mould, What mortal eye could tix'd behold? Who stalks his round, a hideous form Howling amid the midnight storm, Or throws him on the ridgy steep Of some loose hanging rock to sleep." What sculptor's hand could arrest this monster, and place him in one attitude, which should suggest all the ideas expressed in these wonderful lines ] — his " limbs of giant mould," — his stalking, howling, cast- ing himself prone, and falling asleep ; — with the ac- companiments of the " midnight storm," " the ridgy steep," " the loose hanging rock ;" and above all (perhaps), the mortal " eye" vainly attempting \ofix itself upon his " hideous form V* In the sequel of the same ode we meet with — " the ravening brood of Fate, That lap the blood of Sorrow." The artist might fearfully represent wolves or wild dogs lapping the blood of a slain victim ; but it would require the commentary of the passage itself to make the ^ectator understand,lhat by the former were meant " the ravening brood of Fate," that fol- * Chaucer's description of '^ Danger^' in the Romamit of the Rose is exceedingly spirited, and equally characteristic with that of Collins, though very different, because the fiend is differently exercising himself; Collins presents natural dangers from lightning, {empest^ and earth- quake, — Chaucer, the perils of war, battle, human violence, or arabush ; the last of which is finely conceived in the first couplet ;— " With that anon upstart Dangere Out of the place where he was hidde ; His malice ui his chere was kidde ; (a) Full great he was, and blacke of hewe. Sturdy and hideous, whoso him knewe ; Like sharpe urchins his heere was grow, His ey^s red, sparcling as glow ; His nose frouncid full kirked stoode, (b) He comecriande as he were woode." (c) (a) Was seen in his look. (b) Crooked and upturned stood. ' him in any of the artificial groups amid which he appears in his assumed character, — a mask among masks. Take poetry and history upon the same favourite ground, — war. Homer may not have recorded the actual events at the siege of Troy, and the disas- ters of Greece in consequence of the anger of Achilles; but, with all his noble exaggeration of the strength, speed, prowess, and other qualities of his heroes, the splendour of their arms, and the suraptuousness of their state, he has undoubtedly delineated from the Hfe the people of his own and the age before him ; so that we learn more concern- ing the warriors, minstrels, sages, ladies, and all classes of human society, from the Iliad and the Odyssey alone, than from the most faithful, intelli- gent, and least romantic of the historians of the same and succeeding periods, before the fashions of those strange tunes were passed away. Poetry is thus the illuminator of history, the paths of which, 4 38 THE PRE-EMINENCE OF POETRY. in early times, would have been dark indeed, with- out this " light from heaven." In regard to philosophy and jurisprudence, it may be remarked, that Pythagoras, Solon, Lycurgus, and Socrates himself, occasionally employed poetry to dictate laws, with oracular authority, and to enforce morals with the sanction of a language like that of the gods. Plato was the most poetical of writers in prose, because, it has been said, he could not excel Homer in verse, and at the head of one or the* other species of literature he had determined to be ; thus acknowledging the pre-eminence of that which he did not adopt, by making that which he did approach as near to it as possible. It is true, that he would banish poets from his commonwealth • first, however, crowning them with bays. But there were immunities under his system of polity which rendered it no disgrace for the divinest of human arts to be forbidden ; and in his other works he does honour to himself, by giving to it the honour due. I palliate not the abominations of pagan poetry, many of them too revolting to be named ; but these were the perversions of what in itself is most excel- lent, and in proportion to its excellence most per- nicious when perverted. But pagan poetry, with all its sins, has survived pagan philosophy with alJ its merits. Permanence of Poetry. Poetry, the most perfect form of literature, which s all that I contend for in this essay, is also the most enduring; the relics of ancient verse considerably exceed, in proportion to the bulk of the original materials, tiiose of ancient prose, especially in ethics. Most of the philosophers are but names, and their systems traditions, at this day. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Seneca alone have survived in sufficient bulk, to show what thev were ; giants THE PRE-EMINKNCK OF POETRY. 39 in intellect, but babes in knowledge of the best things (the pure spiritual principles that teach the love of God and the love of man), in comparison with the humblest Christian who can read his Bible, and know, from its influence upon his heart, his con- science, and his life, that it is true. Had all the writings of Greek and Roman moralists been pre- served, they would but have exhibited the impossi- bility of man by searching to find out God, without a distinct revelation from himself. They would nave been, in many respects, splendid piles of error, on which eloquence, argument, all the power, pene- tration, and subtilty of minds of the highest order A'ere expended in comparatively vain speculations ; cesembling their ttmples, — prodigies of human art, science, taste, elegance, sublimity, — all that could show the immortality of man even in his mortal works, but dedicated to false gods, to idols,— the wisest among them not knowing that an idol, whe- ther ideal or material, the idol of tlie sage or of the clown, is nothing in the world. Now, in the sys- tems alluded to, whatever was false and evil was !aid down as true and good, and being mingled with whatever was really good and true, became of more perilous malignity than the extravagances and atro- cities of poetry, which too often did not even pretend to regard good manners ; yet of which the greater part, preserved from the devastations of time, abound- ing, as it does, with faults and errors, contains les- sons without number and unequalled in form and beauty, whereby the mind may be enlarged, the noblest passions moved towards the noblest objects, and the imagination chastened by morality, clear, simple, practical, and radiantly contrasted with the complex, subtle, dark, bewildering notions of most of the philosophers. Here I conclude this rhapsody, as some may deem it, on the pre-eminence of poetry ; asking only for it that indulgence which I should be most willing 40 WHAT IS POETICAL. to grant, for myself, to any champion of music, painting-, sculpture, eloquence, history, or i)hiloso- phy, who, in this place or any other theatre where liberal sentiment may be freely expressed, should plead for the pre-eminence of his favourite art over mine. LECTURE II. WHAT IS POETICAL, The nature, or rather the essence, of poetry, 1 cannot define, and shall therefore not attempt it; but I think that I may illustrate the subject, and show, at least, ivhat is poetical, by examples, which (if I succeed in making mine understood) anybody may multiply at pleasure, and employ them as tests of whatever assumes to be poetry, by its structure, style, or colouring. That which is highest, purest, loveliest, and most excellent to the eye or to the mind, in reference to any object, either of the senses or the imagination, is poetical. Poetry presents the most comprehensive view of all its subjects, in their fairest shape, and most natural symmetry, after having divested them of whatever is little, mean, or unattractive ; softening asperities, blending discordances, sinking superflui- ties, harmonizing all parts, and placing the whole in such connexion, due distance, and convenient hght, as shall at once satisfy the understanding with what is revealed, excite the imaginationtowards that which is hidden, and prompt the curiosity to follow out all that is implied and consequential. For it is not alone the glowing images, the bold conceptions, the felici- tous language, and the sublime, terrific, or delightful ©motions, wilh which the author captivates, enchaii\s, WHAT IS I'oK/ncAi,. 41 or surpris«:.s, both listeners :iud loiterers; jt is not these alone which constitute the charm, and secure the dominion of [)oetry. No; it is principally that secret, undefined, and inconiniunicable art by which «hc author works at once upon the mind of the reader, and sets the reader's mind at work upon itself, witli thick-corning fancies, of which those lent by the poet are but the precursors : so that the longer he dwells, and the oftencr the man of right feeling returns to the strain that first transported him, after the novelty and effervescence are past, he will find his own fancy, his own affections, his own intelligence, exercised anew, and not seldom in a new way, v/ith the theme and its embellishments; which, being nature and truth (however figuratively invested), will no more weary contemplation than the most familiar scenes of the universe tire the sight. For, if there be one characteristic of poetry which exalts it above every other species of literature, as well as distinguishes it from the most refined of manual arts, it is this, — that, whatever it may be in its essence, genuine poetry is, in its effect, the highest of all mental, imaginative, and passionate enjoyments, of which the whole pro- cess is independent of the senses, I hesitate not to affirm, that no external excitement whatever does necessarily contribute towards the pleasure derived from it, for even the metre is rather addressed to the mind than to the ear, and is, indeed, more frequently communicated through the eye (which, however, merely takes in the visible signs of the hidden mean- ing), than either by reading aloud, or hearkening to another who reads. I appeal to those present who are most skilled in the delicacies of rhythmical periods, whether any recitation of verse,' by the most accomplished declaimer, can reach the en- chantment of the numbers of true poetry, which a person of fine nerve and pure taste can conceive in the silence of thought, while he looks upon the page that records them. Do not the harmonies of Sluik- D 42 WHAT IS POETICAL. speare himself ring more melodiously in remem- brance than they were ever made to sound in reality from the lips of a Kemble or a Siddons'' Truth a Test of Poetry. But I am to endeavour, by illustration of what is poetical, to enable those who choose to follow the same course of analogy, to judge for themselves of any composition in verse, whether it can justly lay claim to the former epithet. In the first place, the test of true poetry is the test of truth itself. Two Mongol-Tartar chiefs, from the borders of China, some years ago, came to St. Petersburgh to acquaint themselves with the learning and arts of Europeans ; bringing this recommendation, that they were the best and most sensible men belonging to their tribe. Among other occupations they were engaged to assist a German clergyman, resident in that city, in a translation of St. Matthew's Gospel into their native tongue. This work was carried on for many months, and day by day they were accustomed to collate, with the minister, such portions of the common task as one, the other, or all three had com- pleted; in the course of v»'hich, they would often ask questions respecting circumstances and allu- sions, as well as doctrines and sentiments, contained in the book, which, to be faithful interpreters, they deemed right to understand well for themselves beyond the literal text. On the last day, when the version was presumed to be as perfect as the parties could render it, the two saisangs (or chiefs) sat nilent but thoughtful, when the manuscript lay closed upon the table. Observing something unusual in their manner, their friend inquired whether they had any questions to ask. Tliey answered, " None ;" and then, to tlie delight and amazement of the good man, — who had carefully avoided, during their past intercourse, any semblance of wishing to proseiyte WHAT IS POETICAL. 43 them, — they both declared themselves converts to the religion of that book. So they proved in the sequel, but with that part of the history, though exceedingly interesting, we have not to do at present. One remark which the elder made, and the younger confirmed, has caused this reference to them. He said, " We have lived in ignorance, and been led by blind guides, without finding rest. We have been zealous followers of the doctrines of Shakdshamani (the Fo of the Chinese), and have studied the books containing them attentively ; but the more v/e studied, the more obscure they appeared to us, and our hearts remained empty. But in perusing the doctrines of Jesus Christ, it is just the contrary ; the more we meditate upon his words, the more intelli- gible they become ; and at length it seems as if Jesus were talking with us." Thus it is universally with truth and error. All falsehood is the counterfeit of truth, and superficially viewed may pass for the reality ; but in proportion as it is examined, its pretensions disappear, and the cheat becomes manifest. On the contrary, from our hasty, negligent, or imperfect perception of it, truth may sometimes be mistaken for imposture ; but when resolutely, patiently, honestly searched into, it grad- ually grows clearer, simpler, fuller, and at last per- fect. The bodily eye coming out of long darkness into sudden light, relapses from infirmitjr, — I might say, in self-defence, — into momentary blindness, but, soon accommodating itself *^o the splendour around, all becomes natural, agreer.ble, and right ; while new discoveries of what was utterly hidden, or unsuspected, are made, from instant to instant, till the sight has recovered its strength and penetration to comprehend the whole scene and all its circum- stances. Try poetry by this standard: that which wearies, on acquaintance, is fals^ ; that which ini- px-oves is true. The rule of Longinus, respecting the sublime. 44 WHAT JS POETICAL. sanctions this mode of proof: — "He that hath a competent share of natural and acquired taste may easily distinguish the value of any performance from a bare recital of it. If he finds that it transports not his soul, nor exalts his thoughts, — that it calls not up into his mind ideas more enlarged than what the sounds convey, but, on the contrary, its dignity lessens and declines, — he may conclude, that whatevei pierces no deeper than the ear cannot be the true sublime. That, on the other hand, is grand and lofty, which the more we consider, the greater ideas we conceive of it ; whose force we cannot possibly with- stand, which sinks immediately deep, and makes such an impression on the mind as cannot easily be effaced : in a word, we may pronounce that sublime, beautiful, and true which permanently pleases, and takes generally with all sorts of men." — Long. sect. 10. Smithes translation. We conclude, then, that poetry must be true, natural, and a'ffecting; nay, in its most artificial array, that of pure fiction, it must be the fiction that represents truth, and which is truth, — truth in the spirit, though not in the letter. The illustrations which 1 am about to produce will, 1 hope, show the poetical aspects of certain things, — sufficiently com- monplace to be easily understood, yet capable of the highest ideality, by circumstance and association. The Poetical in Objects of Sight. I begin with an ancient apologue. At Athens, 1 believe, on the completion of the temple of Minerva, a statue of the goddess was wanted to occupy the crowning point of the edifice. Two of the greatest artists produced what each deemed his masterpiece. One of these figures (to use an ambiguous phrase, [or lack of a better) was the size of life, admirably designed and exquisitely finished ; the other was of amazonian Ktature. and so boldly chiselled, that it WHAT IS POETICAL. 45 looked more like masonry than sculpture. The eyes of all were attracted by the first, and turned away in contempt from the second. That, therefore, was adopted, and this rejected, almost with resent- ment, as though an insult had been offered to the judgment of a discerning public. In this, as in similar cases, those who were nearest to both were presumed to be the best connoisseurs of the merits of each ; and as they pronounced very decisively against the one and in favour of the other, the mul- titude in the rear, who saw neither so much symme- try in the minor, nor so much deformity in the major, yielded to authority. The selected image was ac- cordingly borne in triumph to the place which it was to occupy, in the presence of applauding thousands , but as it receded from their upturned eyes, — all, all at once a-gaze upon it, — the thunders unaccountably died away, a general misgiving ran through every bosom, and when it was at length fixed, the mob themselves stood like statues, as silent and as petrified ; for the miniature figure, being diminished to a point, was scarcely recognised, except as an unsightly protuberance. Of course the idol of the hour was soon clamoured down, as rationally as it had been cried up ; and its dishonoured rival, with no good-will, and no good looks, on the part of the chagrined populace, was reared in its stead. This, however, was no sooner done than the rude-hewn mass, that before scarcely appeared to bear even the human form, assumed the divinity which it represented, — being so perfectly proportioned to the dimensions of the building, and to the elevation on which it stood, that it seemed as though Pallas herself had alighted upon the pinnacle of her temple, — in person to receive the homage of her worshippers at its dedication. Now that aspect of the giant-statue, at the due distance from which it was intended to be contem- plated, — that aspect was the poetry of that object 46 WHAT IS POETICAL. In the rough reality there existed the fine ideal of the sculptor's thoug-ht, though the ordinary eye, being too near, could not discern it on the ground, till, being exhibited where the whole could be seen in its whole effect (not piecemeal, or with any necessary imperfections), the immeasurable superiority of the well adapted work over its faultless but inappropriate rival was immediately recognised. Poetry thus places its subjects, whatever be the theme, where all their beauty, grandeur, or excellence may be clearly discovered, and where, at the same* time, all their homeliness and commonplace associations are excluded. This is poetry to the eye. There is also poetry to the ear. Hearken to it. The Poetical in Sounds. I submit the preamble to Dryden's Essay on Dramatic Poesie : — "It was that memorable day, in the first summer of the late war, when our navy engaged the Dutch, — a day wherein the two most mighty and best appointed fleets which any age had ever seen dis- puted the command of the greater half of the globe, the commerce of nations, and the riches of the uni- verse. While the vast floating bodies, on either side, move^ against each other in parallel lines, and our countrymen, under the happy conduct of his royal highness, went breaking, by little and little, into the line of the enemies, the noise of the cannon from both navies reached our ears about the city, so that all men being alarmed with it, and in dreadful suspense of the event ivhich ive kneiu ivas then de- ciding, every one went, following the sound, as his fancy led him ; and leavins^ the town almost empty, some took towards the Park, some cross the river, others down it ; all seeking the noise in the depth of the silence. "Among the rest it was the fortune of Eugenius, WHAT IS POETICAL. 47 Crites, Lisideus, and Neander to be in company together." I dwell not on the magnificent exordium of this passage, or the full organ harmony of period, the manly English, — I had almost said his own English English, so purely, so radically vernacular it is, — which distinguishes the style of Dryden ; I dwell not on these, though, in all the writings of this great master, not less admirable in prose than in verse, there will hardly be found a paragraph of equal power and impression wit^i this, and the context which I shall presently quote : I dwell not on these, but I call the earnest attention of my audience to the simplest phrases in the whole, — " the noise of cannon from both navies reached our ears about the city." The fulness of meaning expressed,* and the unutterable meanings implied, in these few and plain words, cannot be too much admired. " The force of (language) could no further go," to parody a noble line of his own ; yet a Westminster schoolboy of that day, writing to his sister in the country on the occasion, might have used the very same. Examine the sen- tence. Here is " the city," and there are " both navies," out of sight, but giving note of their proximity by low deaf sounds, which would not have disturbed the chil- dren at play in the streets, but which, reaching " our ears," — the narrator is one who repeats what he him self heard, saw, felt, and did, — which, reaching " our ears," threw all the adult population of the metropolis (half a million souls) into anxiety, fear, and conster- nation. Let us proceed : — " All men being alarmed with it, and in dreadful suspense of the event which we knew was then deciding, every one viex\t,folloiv~ ing the sounds as his fancy led him." The latter most picturesque and imaginative circumstance is repeated at the end of the clause, in a new and striking form of words, — "all seeking the noise in the depth of silence." Thus, amid the din and hubbub, the hurry, con 48 WHAT IS POETICAL. fusion, and whirl of men, horses, and carriages, at high noon, at 'change time, a few shght percussions of the air awakened such intensity of interest and curiosity, that the town was, in a little time, left " almost empty." And what occasioned this 1 The inevitable association of ideas ; the poetry of sounds, which, under ordinary circumstances, would have been disregarded by the ear, so that if a man had asked his neighbour whether he heard them, the other would have had to liste7i before he could answer the question. The firing of the Park and Tower guns, on a royal birth-day, made a thousand times louder reports, yet nobody was ever alarmed or startled for more than a moment : now, however, because, by these faint intonations, they knew what an event was " then deciding," but knew not what that decision, or its consequences to themselves, might be, — all the cares, the business, the dissipa- tion of life were suspended ; and the throne of the monarch might be said to tremble beneath him at every repetition of sounds, scarcely more audible than the beating of the hearts of those who were listening to them. Let us seek the result in a few lines of the sequel. " Taking then a barge, which the servant of Lisi- deus had provided for them, they made haste to shoot the bridge, and left behind them that great fall of waters which hindered them from hearing what they desired: after which, having disengaged themselves from many vessels which rode at anchor in the Thames, and almost blocked up the passage to Green- wich, they ordered the watermen to let fall their oars more gently ; and then, every one favouring his own curiosity with a strict silence, it was not long ere they perceived the air breaking about them, like the noise of distant thunder, or of swallows in a chim- ney, — those little undulations ofsound, though almost vanishing before they reached them, yet still seeming to retain somewhat of their first horror, which they WHAT IS POETICAL. . 49 had between tlie fleets. After they had listened till ^achtime as the sound, by little and little, went from them, Eugenius, liftinir up his head and taking notice of it, was the first who congratulated to the rest that happy omen of our nation's victory ; adding, we had but this to desire in confirmation of it, that we might hear no more of that noise which was now leaving the English coast." The power of painting here displayed has aln ist made sound itself picturesque ; and in poetical pamt- ing it may be so ; it is so in those phrases, — " they left behind them that great fall of v/aters" (under the old London Bridge) " which hindered them from hearing what they desired ;" " they perceived the air brealdng around them" in " little undulations of sound, almost vanishing before they reached them ;" above all, that most magnificent and impressive close, concerning " that noise v/hich v/as now leaving the English coasi." Who does not hear the diminishing sounds? Who does not see the defeated enemy sheering off with his ships, and " the meteor flag of England," which had " braved the battle," now " fly- ing on the breeze," in full pursuit ? Every word in the paragraph, like a gun-fire, tells ; every touch of the pencil adds to the graphic representation of the scene, both in and out of sight ; or rather, every new ideii heightens the reality of it : the mysterious mur- murs, their gradual subsidence, and the happy omen, with true British spirit inferred by Eugenius, that the victory 7nust have fallen to his countrymen, are all in the noblest style and the purest taste,— are all poetry in substance, — maiden poetry, — and only not *' Married to immortal verse. E 50 • WHAT IS POETICAL. The Poetical of Place and Circumstance. But we must descend from this elevation. Ima- gine a small seaport town, rank with all the ordi- nary nuisances of such localities, — sights, smells, sounds ; mean buildings, narrow streets ; the uncouth dress, coarse manners, and squalid appearance of a poor, ill-favoured, hard-faring population, likely to be doubled in no long time by the mob of dirty, mis- chievous children, swarming from every corner, and frolicking in every kennel, when the dame's school breaks up at noon. The hills behind are low, unva- rying, and barren ; the few trees upon them stunted and straggling, — you may covmt them three miles off, so lonely do they look ; the harbour occupied by half a score brigs and sloops, one or two-masted ; on the dreary beach (a mile broad at low water) you may here and there descry a fishing-boat waiting for the tide, with weather-beaten, worn-0\it mariners, in tarry jackets, leaning on its flanks, or walking, singly or in pairs, along the edge of the spent waves, that seem scarcely to have strength to return to their flood-mark, or even to v/asli back into the deep the relics of putrid fish that are strown in their way, or the wreaths of dark sea-weed which they left behind when they last retired. But a ship appears, emerging from the ring of the utmost horizon. We must hasten to it and step on board. On its deck stand the collected crew, eagerly, anxiously looking out for land ; for he at the mast- head has already hailed it, — that very line of sand and rock, so little esteemed by us, but the first faint streak of which distinguishable from sky and water makes their eyes twinkle, a-nd their bosoms beat strongly, while for a moment they hold their breath; but then, then the most joyous cry which has been uttered since that vessel left that port bursts spontaneously from every voice, and expresses the WHAT IS POETICAL. 51 most cordial emotion that has been experienced on board during the long^ interval. " This is my dear, my native land !" — '* Yonder's my home, my own sweet home !" Meanwhile, as the vessel nears the harbour, the coast itself almost seems to ad- vance upon the waves to receive it — enlarging, bright- ening, swelling into loveliness and grandeur, while still in aerial perspective, with the hues of heaven and the sea upon it, and hardly appearing of the earth earthy. Now, in the middle distance between the first glimpse and the landing-place, that self-same scene, which we have shown to be so humble and unpre- tending in detail, shines out in fair proportions, without one flaw in colour, form, or grouping that could dis- please the most fastidious painter: without one mean, revolting, or even ordinary object to break the spell whichholdsthe eye of the indifferent beholder himself in charmed gaze. "What seems it, then, to the home- returning mariner 1 His mind dwells solely on what is most dear and precious to his sweetest affections. And these are awakened by every symbol that meets his view; every slight undulation of the outline on shore ; every scattered tree, familiar and endeared by old recollections, — the ruined castle on the low hill, the church-tower at its foot, the small light- house on the jutting pier ; while among the red-tiled roofs and black chimneys, jammed into mass, each one on board strains to single out that for which all the rest are beloved — that which enshrines his soul's treasure, which holds his partner who is his crown, and the children who are their jewels. At this point, this middle distance, the poetry of the scene, both to the eye, the imagination, and the heart, is complete ; for but a little beyond it, a furlong or two nearer the spot, reality becomes too potent ; the unconcerned spectator finds himself there in the vicinity, here in the midst, of a miserable every-day town ; while the transported seaman, first on the shore, the moment 52 WHAT IS Poetical. he laaps from the boat, and afterward at his own fireside, in the embraces of his wife, and the caresses of his offspring — the tears of the one, and the shouts of the other — forgets every thing but present, posi- tive, overwhelming bhss. In the foregoing sketch, the poetry of real life has been exemplified ; for, with all its sorrows, and pains, and sordid anxieties, there is much poetry in real life. All is not " vanity and vexation of spirit under the sun" to him who can honestly and innocently enjoy the commonest blessings of Providence. Who can behold this beautiful world, and imagine for a moment that it was designed to be the abode of mis- erable beings'? The earth, arrayed in verdure, adorned with flowers, diversified with hill and dale., forest and glade, fountains and running streams, engirdled with the ocean, over-canopied with heaven ; this earth, so smiling and fruitful, so commodious and magnificent, is altogether worthy of its Maker ; and not only a fit habitation for man, created in the image of God, but a place which angels might de- light to visit on embassies of love. All nature, through all her forms of existence, calls on man to rejoice with her in the goodness of the universal Parent. The stars in their courses, the sun in his circuit, and the moon through her changes, by day and by night display his glory ; the seasons in suc- cession, the land and the waters, reciprocally distrib- ute his bounty. Every plant in its growth is pleas- ing to the eye, or wholesome for food ; every animal in health is happy in the exercise of its ordinary functions: life itself is enjoyment. Yet in the heart of man there is something which disqualifies him from the full fruition of the blessings thus abundantly dealt around him ; something which has introduced disorder into his mind, and disease into his frame; darkening and bewildering his intel- lect ; corrupting and inflaming his passions ; and hurrying him, by a fatality of impulse, to that excess WHAT .S POETICAL. 68 in every indulgence which turns aliment into poison; and from the perversion of the social feelino^s pro- duces strife, misery, and confusion to families, to nauans, to the world. That enemy, that destroyer, what is it] — Sin! Yet so m)^steriously and merci- fully does God, in his providence, oul of evil educe good, that much of the felicity of life, as it is, arises out of the misery with which it is beset on every hand. This I may have a future opportunity of showing ; but, to return to our imm.ediate subject, it is sufficient to state the fact that poetry finds inex- haustible materials for its most gorgeous and beau- ful compositions in " the ills that flesh is heir to." The Poetical Aspect of VisiUe Nature. " Ye stars, which are the poetry of heaven !" This is one of those rapturous apostrophes of the author of Childe Harold which occasionally hurst, ia fine phrensy, from the impassioned poet, like oracles from the lips of the Pythoness ; unconsciously ut- tered, and seeming, from their very boldness and obscurity, to convey more meaning than intelligible words could express. Had the noble bard been asked what he himself intended by this extraordinary phrase, — to make it clear might have cost him more labour in vain than he was wont to expend, who sel- dom did labour in vain (though he often did worse), for he generally achieved what he attempted, whether it were good or evil. Without inquiring what prompted the idea to that wayward mind, which, in the context, is about consulting them as the rulers of hum.an destinies, — there is a sense in which, ] think, "the stars" may truly and intelligibly be styled " the poetry cf heaven." How 1 — Not, cer- tainly, on account of their visible splendour : for the gas-lamps of a single street of this metropolis out- shine the whole hemisphr^re on the clearest winter. 54 WHAT IS POETICAL. evening : nor on account of their beautiful config urations ; for the devices chalked on the floor of a fashionable ball-room, to the mere animal eye, would be more captivating-. It is from causes having affin- ity to mind, not matter, — to truth, not semblance, — that the stars may indeed be called the poetry of heaven. Among these may be mentioned the time of their appearance, in the solitude, silence, and darkness of night ; their motion, v/ith one consent, from east to west, each kept in its place ; so slow as not to be perceptible, except by comparison, at inter- vals, yet accomplishing an annual revolution of the heavens, by points actually gained on their apparent nocturnal journeys : again, by our knowledge that they have had existence from the foundation of the world, when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy ;" by their use in the firmament, — being placed there " for signs, and •for seasons, and for days, and for years" to man. " Knowest thou the ordinances of Heaven T" said the Lord, speaking out of the whirlwind to Job : " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion 1 Canst thou bring forth Maz- zaroth in his season ] Or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons V' — Here shines out, indeed, " the po- etry of heaven ;" and here we may hearken to the true " music of the spheres :" " For though no real voicenor sound Amid their radiant orbs be found, In reason's "ear ihej all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious voice ; For ever singing, as they shine, * The hand that made us is divine.' " But in a peculiar and, to myself at least, an in- tensely interesting view, the stars are "the poetry of heaven." Iij common with the sun and moon, they are the onbj unchanging and actual objects which all eyes that were ever opened to the light, WHAT IS I'OKTICAL. 55 and lifted to tlie sky, have seei/ precisely as we see them, and precisely as they shall he seen by pos terity to the end of time. Rivers stray from their channels ; mountains are shattered by earthquakes ; undermined by waters, or worn by the stress of ele ments ; forests disappear, and cities rise upon their place ; cities, again, are tumbled into ruins ; all the works of man perish like their framer ; and on those of nature herself, throughout the habitable globe, is written Mutahility. The entire aspect of the earth, whether waste or cultivated, peopled or solitary, is perpetually undergoing transformation. Shakspeare says, " No man ever bathed twice in the same river." It may as truly be said, though the process is slower, that no two generations dwelling success- ively on one spot, however marked its general fea- tures might be, ever beheld the same local objects, in the same colour, shape, and character. The heavenly bodies alone appear to us the identical lu- minaries, in size, lustre, movement, and relative posi- tion which they appeared to Adam and Eve in Par- adise, when, " at their shady lodge arrived, both stood. Both tum'd, and under open sky adored The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven. Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe, And starry pole." Paradise Lost, book iv. They appear to us the same as they did to Noah and his family, when they descended from the ark into the silence of an unpeopled world ; and as they did to the builders of Babel, when the latter pro- jected a tow'^'r whose top should reach heaven. They appear to us in the same battle-array as they were seen by Deborah and Barak, when " the stars in their courses fought against Sisera ;" in the same sparkhng constellations as they were seen by the Pbalmist, corapelling him to exclaim, " When I 56 WHAT IS POETICAL. consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, Lord ! what is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him V Once more, — and. Oh ! how touching is the thought ! — the stars^ the unchanging stars, appear to us with the same placid magnificence as they v/ere seen by the Re- deemer of the world, when, "' having sent the mul- titude away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray ; and when evening was come he v/as there alone," and " continued all night in prayer to God."^ -Matt. xiv. 23. Luke vi. 12. " Cold mountains and the midnight air "Witness'd the fervour of his prayer; The desert liis temptations knew, His conflict and his victory too." Watts. The stars, then, have been the points where all that ever lived have met ; the great, the small, the evil, and th-e good ; the prince, the warrior, states- man, sage ; the high, the low, the rich, the poor ; the bond and the free ; Jew, Greek, Scythian, and Barbarian: every man that has looked up from the earth to the firmament has met every other man among the stars, for all have seen them alike, which can be said of no other images in the visible uni- verse ! Hence, by a sympathy neither afi'ected nor overstrained, we can at pleasure bring our spirits inio nearer contact with any being that has existed, illustrious or obscure, in any age or country, by fixing our eyes — to name no other — on the evening or the morning star, which that individual must have beheld a hundred and a hundred times, " In that, samo place of heaven where now it shines," and with the very aspect which the beautiful planet wears to us, r.nd with which it will continue to smile over the couch of dying or the cradle of reviving day. WHAT IS POETICAL. 57 Dr. Johnson most eloquently and pathetically touches upon those feelings, which local associa- tions are calculated to awaken, in that well knov/n passage from his " Tour to the Western Islands," on occasion of his arrival at Icolmkill, the ancient lona : — " We are now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured ; and would be foolish, if it were possible. What- ever withdraws us from the power of our senses, — whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, — advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such frigid philosophy, as may con- duct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue ! That man is little to be envied whose pa- triotism would not gain force on the plain of Mara- thon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona." True and beautiful, not less than sublime and ten- der, as these sentiments will be acknowledged by every one who has experienced the delight to which they refer, — yet such are the devastations of time, war, and civil changes, that the saints of lona, were they to rise from their graves, would have to search for their churches and colleges among those ruins, in which to us, by the force of imagination, they still exist in their glory; and the shade of Miltiades on the plain of Marathon would hardly recognise the battle-field, where he overthrew Persia, and de- livered Greece. But the stars, by which the fisher- men of the Hebrides, " Placed far upon the melancholy main," were wont to steer their little barks in the days of ^■■'^ WHAT IS POETICAL. "ona's prosperity, — those stars have never missed, ' i\ their appointed rounds, to rise and set with un- diminished splendour upon her desolations. And the very horoscope to which the sentinels of both armies looked up, in the night-watch, v/hile they longed for the morning, — that same horoscope, on the anniversary-eve of the conflict, never fails to be figured in the firmament over " the plain of Ma- rathon." The traveller who then is belated there may well feel " his patriotism gain force," not more from the influence of " local emotion" beneath, than from celestial inspiration above. The ever-altering earth is the abode of generation after generation, each leaving it difl'erent from what they found it. In the perpetuity of heaven, successive generations are contemporary. The only objects which all ages have seen must bring together all ages and kindreds, in a manner which nothing else within the forms of matter or the range of mind can accomplish. No fact in history, no collocation of words in any lan- guage, no form of thought that ever originated in the mind of man, no single spot on the face of con- tinent or ocean, has been, is, or can be, known to the whole progeny of Adam ; but all, without exception, where blindness and imbecility were not combined to cut off individuals from rational communication with their fellow- creatures, — all have either seen or heard of the host of heaven, and, by one bond at least, have been connected with progenitors, contem- poraries, and successors, from the creation to the day of judgment. But these stirring sympathies are not all "the poetry of heaven," composed " In hieroglyphics elder than the Nile." Barbauld. There is yet a higher strain. In the paragraph just quoted from Dr. Johnson, we are tauglit, that "whatever withdraws us from the power of our WHAT IS POETICAL. 59 senses, and makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings." Now this is the very- essence, and to produce it is the end of poetry; in ilkistration of which the stars are pre-eminent. For, by associations of " the past, the distant, and the future," they so withdraw us from the contem- plation of themselves as objects of sense, that they actually compel us, in the idea of a star, to think not so much of what is visible and present, as of what is remote and unapparent, but not less surely real in it. When, therefore, we behold the stars, we regarCi them nol only as the things which they seem, — mere glittering sparks ; nor as marking the returns of seed-time and harvest, summer and winter ; nor as contemporaries with the whole human race, and binding with the only chain of visible connexion all that have been, are, or will be, inhabitants of this globe : but we think of them, either as sister-worlds of our own, peopled, probably with beings of like passions with ourselves, or as fixed luminaries, equal or superior to our sun in bulk and splendour, set in the midst of planetarj^ systems, giving light, and life, and enjoyment to earths and their jnoons, which eye hath not seen, and of which ear hath not heard. If we think thus of them individually, what must we conceive of them collectively, but as the most extensive manifestation of the works of God, which nature can afford to the unassisted eye ? Nor rest we here ; for when optical science lends the means of drawing out of invisible depths a hundred, nay a thousand times their number more, imagination itself sinks under the effort to " find out the Almighty to perfection;" and still the devout worshipper ex- claims, — " Lo ! these are parts of his ways, but how little a portion is heard of them ! for the thunder of his power, who can understand V Joh xxvi. 14. In truth, after turning back, weary, yet exalted, from 60 WHAT IS POETICAL. the most excursive range of telescopic vision, he who sees farthest into the secrets of the universe must confess, " there was the hiding of his power ;" the \-eil behind which He retires from mortal scru- tiny — " Whose throne is darkness in the abyss of hght, A flood of glory, which forbids the sight ;" while yet it shines to the lowest soundings of the sea, throughout the infinite of space, and into the heart of man. Thus, not from what they appear, but from what v/e know that they are, or believe them to be, we look upon these "lesser lights," which require darkness to reveal them, and in return render midnight more illustrious than noon-day, — we look upon these with a delight which purifies, and almost spiritualizes, the senses themselves, as the vehicles of such unearthly revelations. Then, with a meaning more emphatic than the author of the apostrophe himself contemplated, we join our voices with his, in crying, — "Ye stars, which are the poetry of heaven !" But in touching " the lyre of heaven" (to borrow the happy figure of a living poet, in reference to the discovery of the planet Herschel), there is yet an- other note — a key-note, which, with its chords, imbodies the harmonies of all created things, whe- ther visible or invisible, whether they belong to the material or the spiritual world. The sun shining in his strength, the moon walking in her brightness, the stars revolving in their ranks, may all be withdrawn from the scene, and leave heaven empty, — yet theji will be presented to the eye and to the mind, the sublimest spectacle on which the one can look or the other can meditate. There is a brief interval between the first peep of WHAT IS POETICAL. 61 dawn and the flush of mornings, when it is no longer night, and yet not day, but akin to both. Who hath not seen (in boyhood at least), when the moon has gone down, the last star disappeared, and the sun is unrisen, — the deep blue firmament, without a shade of cloud, or a luminous speck to soil its ineffable purity] Who has not seen it swelling from the ring of the horizon into boimdless amplitude above, — deepening in tone as it rises in elevation, till at the zenith its intensity of colour defies the search of human optics ? The longer we gaze, the less we discern ; space, infinite space, recedes, and recedes, and recedes, leaving perfect conviction that we might follow it for ever, yet never reach the roof of that vault, which, to a superficial glance, appears as solid as adamant, and as palpable as the surface of a molten mirror. Then, though no spectacle can be more august and magnificent, none can be more simple and unique. Form, colour, magnitude, all meet in the eye at once ; and the image is so entire that nothing could be added or subtracted without dis- solving the whole. Yet, all this while, we know that it is not what it first appears, — an arch of sapphire ; nor what it afterward might seem, — unoccupied, unpeopled non- entity. The mind goes to v/ork, and, in the ab- sence of every phenomenon that could aid imagi- nation — from memory alone — it arrays that hyaline above in the beauty of morn, the glory of noon, the pomp of evening, and the diversified phases of night ; it darkens the vault with clouds, rends it with light- ning, shakes it with thunder, deforms it with tem- pests ; or brings forth, in season, rain, hail, and snow, vapour, and mist. But recoUective imagination rests not here, in realizing things unseen. All " the poetry of heaven," of which ihe ^iqrs are the symbols, is perused and enjoyed even to transport, in contem- plating the clear, blank, beautiful expanse, — worlds, suns, and systems, numbers without number, pour 62 WHAT IS POKTiOAL. into being-, as they came into it, at the word, " Let there be li^ht." We know that the whole material universe does verily exist within that seeming void, which we are exploring-, at the same instant, with the eye of the body and the eye of thought. Yet more, much more than this is included (in- evitably included) in the association of ideas awa kened by the silent, solitary firmament. We feel that all the invisible world of spirits, disembodied or pure, — I say feel, becguse, abstract them as we may, every idea we can frame of spiritual essences will be crudely material, — we feel that all these must be somewhere within that impenetrable veil, which is itself the only perfect emblem of eternity, and is eternity made visible. But I dare not pursue the flight further ! I must not presume to spy out " the secrets of the desolate abyss," or, " with the deep-transported mind, to soar Above the wheeling poles, and at heaven's door Look in." It is enough to have pointed out the way, which those of my auditory who have nerve and power enough may trace to infinity. Such, I am persuaded, will be more and more satisfied with this conclusion, which I would draw from the whole of the antecedent ex- amples : — It is the natui^e of 'poetry, and the office of the poet, from things that are seen to disclose tilings that are not seen. And hence, to every subject tliat can be the theme of true poetry, the language of Scripture (neither irreverently nor inappropriately) may be extended ; " the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal." For those objects which, by near contact, strongly affect the senses, are the realities of mortal life ; which either perish in the using-, or from which we ourselves must perish, and see, know, suflTer, or enjoy them no more for ever. Yet the same objects, when removed to that due distance which clothes WHAT IS POKTICAL. 63 them with picturesque or poetical beauty, by being thus m.ide ideal, are made immortal, and of the nature of the thinking principle itself, which " secured of its existence, smiles At the drawn dagger, and defies its point : ■ The stars shall fade away, the sun himself Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years , But this shall flourish in immortal youth, Unhurt amid the war of elements, The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds." Addison's Cato. The Poetical in Childhood and Old Age. To come home to our own bosoms and personal experience. I have said, that there is much, very much of what is poetical even in ordinary life. Of this, Hope and Memory constitute the principal ele- ments ; and these, for the most part, are exercised in reference to age before it arrives, and childhood when it is past, — "Till youth's dehrious dream is o'er, Sanguine with hope, we look before, The future good to find ; In age, when error charms no more, For bliss we look behind." There is this difference between rational and brute beings. — that the latter live wholly to the present time and the present scene ; and it is only under peculiar excitement, wdien separated from their young, hurried on by the impulse of appetite, or sud- denly removed to a strange place, that they seem conscious of any objects but those around them, and which press immediately upon their senses. They do not spontaneously call up recollections ; the past, the absent, and the future are alike forgotten, un regarded, or unknown. But man, endowed with intelligence, lives in the present time, chiefly as a 64 WHAT IS POKTICAL. point between that which is gone by and that which is to come, and m the present scene, chiefly as the centre of what is around him. He looks behind and before, above and beneath, and on either hand : but at different stages of the journey of life, his attention !s more especially attracted in contrary directions. The infant, so soon as it begins to think and reason, looks wholly before it, in the pursuit of knowledge and power, while desire increases with what it feeds upon, and hope grows out of every indulgence. Im- patient of control, and eager to exercise over others that authority v/hich it resents when exercised towards itself, though only for its protection, — it longs for the time when it shall be as old and as strong as its brothers, and sisters, and companions, that it may enjoy the same liberties, and assume the same airs and rights which they do. When a little further grown, the boy, — ^looking up and pressing onward, as he rises in stature, and feels new capacities expanding within him, — rebels in secret against the j^oke, the reins, and the scourge with which he finds himself ruled, however his ser- vitude may be disguised ; and he sighs for maturity, that he may go where he pleases, and do what he likes. It is not, then, the toys, the sweetmeats, the holy- days, the finery, and the caresses that are lavished upon him, — these are mere every-day matters of course, — it is something far more intellectual than any childish thing, that constitutes the charm of childish existence. " When I am a man !" is the poetry of childhood ; and, Oh! how much is compre- hended in that puerile phrase, so often employed by little lips, unconscious of its bitter meaning ; and so unheeded by those who are men already, and have forgotten that they ever had a golden dream of that iron age, — a dream to which all the fictions of ro mance are cold and unnatural ! " When I am a man !' means, in the mind of a child, when he shall be no WHAT IS PDKTICAL. 65 more that which he e.?,- when (as he is ah-eady by anticipation) he shall be that which he is noi, — that which, Hlas! he never will be, — lord of himself. If we would really know, by a test which will hardlj deceive us, the highest happiness of what is (mis takenly I am sure) deemed the happiest period of human life, — let us recollect what were our owb emotions when we were cherishing ideas of man hood to come, — but which never did come to the heart as it had been promised to the hope. *' When I was a child !" is the poetry of age. Man advancing in years, enriched with the treasure ot disappointed hopes, looks less eagerly before him because he expects less good, and fears more evil in this world, in proportion as he proves for himselt what are the sad and sober realities of life. Eternity invites him to explore its mysteries, in anticipation of his approaching end ; when all his love, and all his hatred, aiid all his envy shall cease, and there remain no longer a portion to him in all that is done under the sun. [Ecclesiastes ix. 6.] Yet, while caution and prudence, the fruits of many a failure and much suffering, make him peep warily forward into his future trials in the present state, — the circumstances of spiritual existence are so utterly unseen and inconceivable by mortal faculties, that, when his mind puts forth its feelers beyond the grave, imperfectly to apprehend a little of the terrors or the glories of an hereafter, — soon coming in contact with things with which flesh and blood can hold no com- munion, it draws them back with a sensitive collapse, like that which shrinks up a snail when its telescopic eyes suddenly touch a palpable substance. Yet not into itself alone, or even within the cir- cumscribed horizon of the present, does the mind retire from eternity ; it takes refuge in past time, and recalls, with fondness and entrancement (unknown while they were in his power), the sports of infancy, the raptures of bovhood, and the passionate pursuits F 60 WHAT IS POETICAL. of youth. But, in the dream of memory, he forgets that while he was passing successively through these, the poetry of Hope was, in each, alluring him forward to the stage beyond ; and even through the matter-of-fact period of maturity continued to decoy him from the every-day business of life, till he ar- rived at that barrier where " desire faileth, because man goeth to his long home." It is from that bar- rier that he daily looks less and less onward, and more and more behind him, at the scenes which he is leaving for ever, and especially at the earliest, the most endeared, though the most familiar, of the whole series. Ah! then, how naturally will some bright day, among the many clouded ones, recur to him in all its splendour, and be spent, like youth renewed, — spent over again in imagination, through all its hours, with an intensity of enjoyment which the reality never gave — never could give, subject, as all present felici- ties must be, to inconveniences and annoyances, for- gotten as soon as they are over ; while the ethereal, or rather the ideal, of the scenes and the circum- stances alone survives in remembrance. " This lives within him ; this shall be A part ot his eternitj-. Amid the cares, the toils, the strife, The weariness and waste of hfe, That day shall memory oft restore, And, in a moment, live it o'er, When, with a lightning-flash of thought. Morn, noon, and eve at once are brought (As through the vision of a trance) All in the compass of a glance !" It IS then, in the recollection of such a day, inno- cently spent with friends, of whom some have been long dead, others are far separated, and a few have grown old with himself, — it is then that he can say, — WHAT 15 POETICAL. 67 "The harmonies of heaven and earth, Through eye, ear, intellect, gayje birth To joys too exquisite to last. And yet more exquisite when past ! When the soul summons, by a spell, The ghosts of pleasure round her cell, In samtlier forms than once they wore, And smiles benigner than before ; Each loved, lamented scene renews With warmer touches, tenderer hues ; Recalls kind words for ever fiown, But echoing in a softened tone ; Wakes, with new pulses, in the breast, Feelings forgotten, or repress'd : —The thojight how fugitive and fair, How dear and precious such things were , That thought, with gladness more refined, Deep and transporting;, fills the mind. Than all the follies of an hour. When ny St the soul confess'd their power Bliss n possession will not last, Remeraber'd joys are never past ; At once the fountain, stream, and sea, They were, they are, and yet shall be." Now, all these are of the nature of poetry — poetry in its highest, purest, most intellectual, imaginative, and passionate for«i- And that verse is not poetry which does not, in some way or other, and in no in-^ considerate degree, excite sentiments, images, and associations kindred to those which would be awa- kened in the mind, presented to the eye, or inspired into the soul, — by the well-proportioned statue of Minerva on her temple at Athens, — by the low sounds of battle, booming from the seacoast, along the banks of the Thames, when the British and Dutch fleets were engaged within hearing, but out of sight, of the metropolis, — by the first view of his native land, and its nearer approach, till he beheld the smoke from his own chimney, to the mariner returning from a lons" voyage, — by the contemplation of the stars and the heavens, under all the aspects in which we have considered them, — by the ineffable forecastings of 68 THE FORM OF POETRY. Hope in the bosom of the lad, who thinks to himself, much oftener than he says it, " When I am a man !" — and by the tender but sublime emotions of the man, looking back through the vista of years, and exclaiming, " When I was a child !" remembering only the delights of nutting, bird-nesting, fishing for minnows with a crooked pin, and going home at the holvdays — but forgetting the tasks, the control, the self-denial, and the hard^fare to which the schoolboy was subjected. May I add, that " the Pleasures of Memory," and " the Pleasures of Hope," have had poets in our own language, whose strains, worthy of their themes, will not soon cease to animate the aspirations of youth, and hallow the recollection of age. LECTURE HI. THE FORM OF POETRY. I HAVE not pretended to definr^ poetry ; but if I have, in any moderate degree, succeeded in showing what is poetical in the various instances ada\]iced, I cannot entirely have failed in what I designed, — naniely, to furnish a test whereby poetry itself may be detected wherever it exists in any species of literary composition. For it follows, thai every sub- ject which is not purely didactic or scientific, — the mathematics, for example, and these only in their principles and processes, — is capable of being treated poetically; or placed in such a light, and witli such associations, natural or adventitious, as shall divest it of wliatever is ordiuary, gross, or mere detail, and clothe it with that ideal beauty which is not the less real because it is only discernible at the nice dis- THE FORM OF POETRY. 69 tance, and in the peculiar point of view, which, by brino:ing out some latent excellence, or some happy incidence, gives it a new and unexpected character. Hence, in conversation, in eloquence, in iiistory, — indeed, in every kind of discourse, whether oral or written (at proper seasons), — the themes in hand may be poetically treated ; that is, they may be ex- hibited in all their poetical relationships, and under those aspects may excite the corresponding emo- tions. But it is manifest, that such license, in the several species of composition alluded to, and in fact in all prose, ought to be rarely employed ; because poetical excitement is not required, and must be impertinent, when, instead of the passions being moved or the fancy delighted, the mind is to be instructed in abstract truths, informed of actual events, disciplined by close thinking, or entertained with moral, critical, or miscellaneous speculations. In novels and romances, poetic colouring, grouping, and invention may be more frequently hazarded ; but even in these the slightest excess is repulsive to good taste. Verse and Prose. In every language, barbarous or polished (I believe), there are two modes of utterance— speaking and singing ; and two kinds of cadence m the collocation of syllables, corresponding to speech and song — prose and verse. In the former, the rhythm or cadence is allowed to flow on, without interruption, into lengths and subdivisions of period, according to ihe requirements of the subject-matter ; whereas in I'erse. whatever be the ductility or refractoriness of ihe thouglits, the strain is limited to certain suc- cessions and recurrences of clauses, not only in melodious concatenation, but hiirmoniously calling and responding to each otlier. As in every lan- guage there have been found traces of these two 70 THE FORM or rOK'lTli'. distinct forms of articulate utterance : the one, from its freedom, plasticity, and phiinness adaf ted to the general purposes of verbal or literary intercourse ; the other confined to the special treatment of sub- jects in their poetical view, and peculiarly adapted to this by the music of numbers, the march of syl- lables, and the exuberance of ornament which these admit, that the thoughts themselves may be exalted as much above commonplace notions as the ca- dences in which they are conveyed are more impos- ing than th-e irregular movements of ordinary dis course: prose and verse, from tiiese circumstances, are sufficiently distinct. When, therefore, prose occasionally (as in the example lately quoted from Dryden) presents poetical associations, and awakens poetical feelings, it departs from its usual and poli- tic practice, — not improperly, for this is permissible and expedient on due occasions; but no good writer will be found frequently thus digressing. On the other hand, when verse employs the simplest mode of style to set forth objects that disdain embellish- ment, it departs in like manner from its usual and politic practice, — I will again say, not improperly, for this is permissible and expedient on due occa- sions : but no good writer will be found frequently thus digressing. In either case, the abuse of a legitimate privilege destroys the very character of the composition. Prose becomes poetical without the fire and spirit of poetry ; and verse becomes prosaic without the vigour and elasticity of prose. On either hand it is graceful, and even commend- able, for masters in each kind of composition — and if duly qualified, they are expressly licensed by the court of Apollo — to sally out in quest of game into the preserves of each other, expecting and allowing Te[irisals ; but such sportsmen, in the fields of lite- rature, must be content with a day's shootirig now and then upon a strange manor, and not make a win- ter's campaign of a transient diversian; otherwise* THE FORM OF I'OKTRY. 71 at the bar of criticism, they may be made igno- miniously amenable lor their trespasses. Thoug-h 1 have not presumed to define poetry in the abstract, some conventional meaning, in which it will be expedient hereafter to employ the term, is necessary here. Poetry, then, in the sense which I propose to have always in mind, is verse, in contra- distinction to prose; and this is the sense (detine and dispute as we may respecting the ethereal quality itself) m which everybody uses the word. Poetry, to be complete, must be verse ; and all the wit of man cannot supply a more convenient definition. Every thing else which may be insisted on as essen- tial to good poetry is not -peculiar to it, but may, with due discretion and happy effect, be incorporated in prose. Poetry cannot be separated from verse with- out becoming prose ; nor can prose assume the form of verse without ceasing to be prose altogether. It is true that, according to common parlance, poetry in this sense may be prosaic, that is, it may have the ordinary qualities of prose, though it still retain its peculiar vehicle, — metre : and prose may be po- etical, that is, it may be invested with all the cus- tomary attributes of verse, except that same peculiar and incommunicable one — metre. The change, how- ever, is rarely to the advantage of either. Yet when a writer of fine fancy and commanding powers of diction (like Dryden, in the instance lately quoted), from the nature and inspiration of his subject almost unconsciously grows poetical — the poetry of his thoughts, images, or facts comes out as naturally as a blush or a smile over a beautiful coun- tenance ; his pathos, sublimity, or picturesque de- scriptions are in season and in place ; they produce tl^eir instant effect, and are gone, like the smile or the blush, while we are gazing upon them, leaving the general aspect unchanged. Prosaic verse, everybody knows, is what any- body may write, and nobody will endure ; nor, in a 72 THE FORM OF POETRY. polite age, can it, under any circumstances, be ren- dered attractive. But poetical' prose, though the dullest, heaviest, clumsiest kind of literature, has, in some notorious instances, found more favour. In French, indeed, from the absolute v/ant of a genuine poetical diction, — neither the rhythm, the rhyme, nor the reason, it may be said of the language, allow- ing " thoughts that JDreathe" to vent themselves in " words that burn," — a florid prose style has been adopted with signal effect in the TeUmaque of Fene- lon, which no mastery of his native tongue could have made tolerable in French verse, any more than the most consummate mastery of our own could make tolerable to a good ear in English prose. I cannot stay to justify this remark, but I am sure that it is correct. Some works of this description, however, have been extensively read in our refractory language , but their day is gone by. The pious sentiments of " Hervey's Meditations," recommended the fantas- tic style m which they were disguised to multitudes, who persuaded themselves that they were pleased, because they supposed that, in such a case, they ought to be, with fine words, and so many of them. The interesting scenes, circumstances, and actors in " The Death of Abel," translated from the German of Gesner, in like manner, made that farrago of bad taste a favourite book for nearly half a century The language of the original, indeed, has such com- pass and capabilities for every kind of composition, that poetical prose, and even prosaic verse, may be made agreeable in it ; but no versions of either, mto our severe and uncompromising tongue, can rise above the dead level of mediocrity. Ossian's Poems, as Macpherson's rhapsodies were called, obtained, in their turn, a sudden, factitious, and deservedly transient reputation. From whatever relics of an- cient song these may have been borrowed, — a ques- tion with wliich we have nothing to do at present, — THE FORM OF POETRY. 73 they are composed in such " a Babylonish dialect," that it might be presumed no ear, accustomed to the melody of pure verse or the freedom of eloquent prose, could endure the incongruities of a style m which broken verse of various measures is blended with halting prose of unmanageable cadences and compound sentences, as difficult to read and as dis- sonant to hear as a strain of music would be in execution and effect, if every bar were set to a dif- ferent time and in a different key. Horace's descrip- tion of a heterogeneous body, compiled of flesh, fish, and fowl, to make — certainly no " Some fauUlexs monster which the world ne'er saw" — might aptly enough be applied to cliaracterize th(; cacophonous rhythm, ill-jointed clauses, and dislo- cated feet, in all kinds of metre, of this prodigious birth of a distempered brain ; in which iambics. trochees, mapaests, dactyls, spondees, and every form of syllable, word, accent, or quantity, that can enter into English sentences, are jumbled in juxta- position, like disrupted strata, where convulsions of nature have thrown down mountains and heaved up valleys. Characteristics of Prose and Vei'se. There is reason as well as custom in that conven- tional simplicity which best becomes prose, and that conventional ornament which is allowed to verse ; but splendid ornament is no more essential to verse than naked simplicity is to prose. The gravest cirtics place tragedy in the highest rank of poetical achievements, — " Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy, With sceptre'e as they went Where that Do-wel dwelleth, do me to wytte,ir For they be men on this mould that most wide walke. And knowe countries and courtes, and many kinne's places, Both princes pallaces and poore mennes cotes, And Do-wel and Do-evil, where they dwel both. — ' Amongst us,'' quoth the minours, * that man is dwellmge, And ever hath, as I hope, and ever shall hereafter.' — ' Contra,'' quod I, as a clarke and cumsed to disputen, And said him sot he ley, ' Septies indie cadit Justus,' Seven sythes,'^* said the Boke, ' syimeth the rightful!, And who so sj-ntieth, I say, doetli evil, as men thinketh, And Do-wel and Do-cvil may not dwell together ; ♦ Inquired. t Dwelt. t Tell, $ Lived. II Saluted them kindly. TT To inform me. ** Times. THE DICTION OF POETRY. 103 Ergo, he is not alway among you frj-ers, He is other whyle elsewhere, to wyshen the people. * i shall say thee, my sonne,' said the fryer than, 'How seven sythes the sadde* man on a day synneth, By a forvisne,'t quod the fryer, ' I shall the iaire shewe — Let bryng a man in a bottej amid the brode water ; The winde and the water the botte wagging,(5 Make a man many a time to fall and to stande ; For, stande he never so stiffe, he stumbleth if he move ; And yet he is safe and sounde, and so him behoveth ; For if he arise the rather, and raght to the steer, The winde would with the water the botte overthrovi^, And then were his life lost through latches of liimself."|| Our elder poets often availed themselves of " apt alliteration's artful aid" (as Churchill significantly calls it), in their minor pieces : — " The life is long that lothsomely doth last, The dolefull dayes draw slowly to their date ; The present panges and painfull plagues forepast, Yielde griefe aye greene to stablish this estate." Anonynums. Shakspeare has many fine-touches of this poetical seasoning, which, indeed, is seldom otherwise than pleasing, when unobtrusively thrown in. If the vowel i be pronounced in the substantive " wind''' as it is in the verb " to ivind,^^ the effect of the double alliteration in the following line wtil be exceedingly impressive : — " The churlish chiding of the wintry wind." To show how subtle the charm of exquisite verse may be, let " wind" be pronounced with the usual flat i, and the " wintry wind" will be hardly endu- rable. Later poets, even the most eminent, have not disdained to employ this petty artifice. Gray, one of the most fastidious of the tribe, was even fond of it. * Sober. t A simile t A boat $ Rocking the boat '1! By his own careleiisncss 104 THE DICTION OF POETRY. " Rmn seize thee ruthless king ! Confusion on thy banners wait ; Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing. They mock the air with idle state." Alliteration, open or occult, may be traced through every turn of this brief paragraph. Young, in his most sombre lucubrations and epi- grammatic arguments, plays with alliteratives in his own quaint way : — " Fondness for fame is avarice of air !" Rhymed Verse. Our national verse may be written either with rhyme or without it. By universal usage, however, rhyme seems to be almost indispensable in lesser metres, to distinguish the lines in recitation, and give a certain finish to the cadence of each ; as though the strain were set to some kind of music, which played during the delivery, but called not off attention from the subject, the thoughts, nor the lan- guage ; as conversation may be carried on in a draw- ing-room, while low, sweet, undisturbing instru- mental harmony in the vestibule, or under the win- dow, is heard, though not listened to, all the time. In fact, rhyme is a running bass accompaniment that wonderfully aids the spirit and melody of the song, throughout which, without being distinctly regarded, it is, nevertheless, so interfused, that if it be sus- pended for a single note the spell is broken; and treble, alt, tenor, — soaring, sinking, swelling, or pass- ing by the most subtle transitions through the whole diapason of their range, — seem to want the sustain- ing power which kept them afloat and accordant. But rhyme ought ever to be subdued, and made sub- sidiary to the richer and more varied rhythm of the lines : for the instant it becomes conspicuous by its singularity it attracts attention from the theme to THE DICTION OF POETRY. 105 the mechanism of the verse ; and offering no more than a tinkhng, momentary sound to the ear, it either displeases at once ;.'s an interruption, or soon be- comes offensive because it is frivolous. Rhymes should be employed as expletives, — graceful only when they are not reflected upon ; or, rather, as an element of composition, resembling air, light, health, and other of the higher and more essential requisites of happy existence, which are breathed, seen, enjoyed, without disturbing the common tenor of our feel- ings. When thus adapted, rhyme becomes an ingre- dient so equally blended with the other constituent parts of good verse as to do its office not less quietly, nor less effectively, in upholding the general har- mony, than the articles of nouns, auxiliaries of verbs, and other small words, which occur over and over, again and again, in all kinds of discourse, as well as literary composition, and not less in prose than in poetry. These particles, though noticed by nobody, unless bunglingly brought in, are nevertheless felt by all to be absolutely necessary for the purpose of connecting, adjusting, and filling up the verbal im- port of every sentence. Rhyme may be a snare to idle versifiers, with whom " One line for sense, and one for rhyme, Are quite sufficient at ope time." These it may betray into verbosity'; while " The mob of gentlemen who write with ease" may be tempted, by its " fatal facility," to copy the practice of Elkanah Settle, " Wlio fagoted his notions as they fell, And if they rhymed and rattled, all was well." Dryden. But the genuine poet, who knows how " to build the lofty rhyme,'"' in the higher as well' as the vulgar sense of the word, — he, in the search after consonant I 106 THE DICTION OF POETRY. endings, will start many a noble image and idea while he IS only pursuing a sound. So far from being seduced to attenuate his matter for the accommoda- tion of recurring points, where the rhymes must strike in like oars in rowing, which while they featlier the surge, and make it flash in the sun, impel the boat onward, and accompany the song of the seamen, — the genuine poet, of whom we speak,— like Pope, the greatest master of rhyme in our own, or, perhaps, in any language, because in none other is it so difficult, shy, and perverse,* — will delibe- rately prefer it, for the remarkable reason which he states in the introduction to his " Essay on Man," because of its poicer of compression ! Hear him : — " If I could flatter myself that this Essay has any merit, it is in steering between the extremes of doc- trines seemingly opposite ; in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect, sys- tem of ethics. This I might have done in prose ; but I chose verse, and even rhyme, for two reasons. The one will appear obvious ; that principles, max- ims, or precepts, so written, both strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained by him afterward. The other may seem odd, but it is true ; I found that I could express them more shortly this way than in prose itself; and nothing is more certain than that much of the force as well as grace of arguments or instructions depends on their con- ciseness." To this may be added, that if poets understood the secret of compression thus ingeniously expounded, and if they practised it after the example of their preceptor, — poetry, instead of being the dullest, * In proof of this maybe mentioned the simple circumstance of /J^urai TO'W^is ending in liie consonant .<^, while in 7;eri5 the usual termination of the third person singular, present t^jnse (that which of all others oc- curs the ofienest), is the same. This is a source of perpetual sorrow and plague to metre-mongers, and probably curtails the available rhymes in the English tongue one-fourth of what they might be, were the unman* ageable « equally »he termination of either singular or plural nouns and verbs. THE DICTION OF POETRY. 107 heaviest, and least attractive species of literature to the o^reat mass of readers, which 1 do not hesitate to acknowledge tiiat it is, would be, at least, as generally acceptable as imaginative and intellectual prose. It is not. " Do you like poetry 1" said the Frenchman to his friend. "O yes!" replied the other, " next to prose !" This is the real sentiment of many a reader of feeble, fanciful, fashionable rse, — ay, and of verse of the first order, — who has neither courage nor ingenuousness to avow his in- difference ; indeed, who will hardly acknowledge it to hifnself, though he has shrewd misgivings, which he represses, because they make him suspect that he must be miserably deficient in taste. The rea- son is plain ; and even good poets have too often to thank themselves for the failure of their most elaborate efforts, because they will not write natu- rally, but rather choose to disguise common sense with oracular ambiguity, and trick out common- place' in the foppery of euphuism. It is impossible to please people by convincing them that Vaey oughX to be pleased : you must make tliem, that they can- not help being so. How to do that I pretend not to teach. Let us try a paragraph from the " Essay on Man,' by the poet's own gauge, — elegant compression : — " Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine ? Earth for whose use ? — Pride answers, 'Tis for mine , For me kind nature wakes her genial power, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower; Annual for me the grape, the rose renew The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew ; For me the mine a thousand tre£.sures brings, For me health gushes from a thoui^and springs ; Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise, My footstool earth, my canopy the skies." This hrilliant clause shows the fine tact and mas- terly management of the ten-syllable couplet, pi cu- liar" to Pope, who is at once the mos' affluen. in resources, and yet the most compact a.nd energetic 108 TlIK DICTION OF POETRY. in the employment of them, of all writers in rhyme (v\ilhout any exception) in our language. Here all the great features of the visible universe, the boun- ties of Divine Providence, and the general business of humnn life, are presented in the smallest possible compass consistent with distinct and harmonious arrangemeiit : sun. moon, and stars; earth, ocean, air; flowers, fruit, harvest, and vintage; wealth, luxury, commerce; and, the "end" of all, — the gratification of the rational creature ! It is remark- able, that throughout this melodious flow of never- tiring numbers, the cesural pauses float between the fourth and fifth, and the fifth and sixth syllables. This, probably, was accidental, the poet being ruled solely by the infallible test of his ear, which most exactly suited the cadence and consonance of the verse to the subject. It has been suggested, that it would improve the passage morally^ if these lovely lines, and lovelier sentiments, instead of being uttered by Pride, in supercilious vaunting, had been put into the mouth of n»an himself, as the grateful beneficiary of his Maker. It is with the diction, not the morality, of this brief extract from a long and implicated argument that we have to deal at present ; and 1 state this " new reading" for no other purpose than to show on what nice and subtle adaptation of sound to sound, not less than of sense to sense, de- pends the perfection of verse to the ear, through which it must (however we may reason against it) afl'ect the mind. Let the amendment be put, and I am sure that it will be negatived without a division. " Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine ? Earth for whose use .' — Man answers, 'Tis for mine." Is not the sweet accordance of the whole clause marred by the jangle of " Man ansivers,''^ instead of the sharp, clear phrase, "Pride answers," &c. " Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine? Earlh for wlu)se use /— PnUe auswers, 'Tis for niiuc" THE DICTION OF POETRY. 109 Blank Verse. Blank verse is principally confined to the drnma, and compositions in our five feet measure of ten syllables ; nor is there any probability that it will ever much transorress those bounds ; a circumstance which seems to establish rhyme as a vital principle in minor pieces, — son^s, ballads, odes, and octo- syllabic effusions. There is, indeed, one splendid and victorious exception to the unmanag-eabjeness of blank verse in metres of every kind, nnd this too in an epic poem. Concerning "Tlialaba,"' — the " wild and wondrous tale," as the admirable author, Dr. Southey, himself styles it,— whatever be thou2:ht of the eccentricities of the plot, or the moral to be deduced from fictions the most preternatural, the success of the experiment of framing that prodigy of song- in numbers of all lengths and cadences, without rhyme, cannot be doubted by those whose ears and hearts are tuned alike to all the varieties of rhythm of which our language is capable, as- sociated with the most gorgeous imaginations that modern poetry has conjured up and converted into realities. For myself, T am free to acknowledge, that the efiTect produced on my mind by the perusal resem- bled the dreanis of the Opium-eater, especially that magnificent one which "commenced with a nuisic of preparation and awakening suspense ; a music like that of the coronation anthem, and which, like that, gave the feeling of a vast march — of infinite cavalcades filing off; and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day, — a day of crisis and final hope for human nature, then suflfering some mysterious eclipse, and labour- ing in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where ; somehow, I knew not how ; by some beings, I knew not whom ; a battle, a strife, an agony 110 TIIK DICTION OF POETRY. was conducting, was evolving- like a great drama, or piece of music; with which my synipath)^ was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, its nature, and its possible issue. I, as usual in dreams, where of necessity we make ourselves central to every movement, had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. 1 had the power, if I could raise myself, to will it; and yet had not the power, for the weight of twenty At- lantics was upon me, or the oppression of inex- piable guilt. " ' Deeper than plummet ever sounded,' I lay in active. Some greater interest was at stake ; some mighter cause than ever yet the sword had pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came sudden alarms, and hurryings to and fro; trepidations of innumerable fugitives ; I knew not whether from the good cause or the bad ; darkness and lights ; tempest and human faces ; and, at last, ivith the sense that all icas lost, female forms, and the features that were worth all the world to me. — and hut a moment allowed, — and clasped hands, and heart- breaking partings, and then everlasting farewells ! and with a sigh, such as the caves of hell sighed when the incestuous mother uttered the abhorred name o{ Death, — the sound was-reverberated — ever- lasting farewells ! — and again, and yet again, rever- berated — everlasting farewells! And I awoke in struggles, and cried aloud, 'I will sleep no more!'" This dream has transported me too far : — I return. Such music, such mystery, such strife, confusion, agony, despair, with splendours and glooms, and ulternations of rapture and horror, the tale of " Tha- laba the Destroyer," with its marvellous rhythm and oriental pageantry, produces on the mind of the entranced, delighted, yet atllicted reader, — so, at least, it affected me. \ have said that the experi- ment was victorious, but the author himself has not ventured to repeat it; like a wise man (which poets seldom are, especially successful ones), contenting THK DICTION OF I'OKTUY. I 1 I himself with the ,c:lory of having- performed an un- precedented feat, and which may very well remain ■dn unrivalled one. He was probably aware that he sould not excel it in a second attempt, and unless he did that (with the usual disheartening judgment of the multitude on like occasions), he would have been deemed to have fallen short of it, merely be- cause the novelty being gone by, in which much of the pleasure of surprise at the performance necessa- rily consisted, it would only appear like an ordinary R.chievement. In smaller poems, blank verse has been rarely tried, except in numerous and nameless imitations of an indifferent prototype by Collins, — a poet who had, indeed, a curious ear, as well as an exquisite taste in versification ; but both were of so peculiar a kind that neither the music of his numbers, nor the beauty, delicacy, and almost unearthly character of his imagery are always agreeable. The very structure of the stanza, in his " Ode to Evening," is so mechanical to the eye, — two long lines followed by two short ones, — that a presentiment (hke an instinctive judgment in physiognomy) instantly oc- curs, that both thought and language must be fettered in a shape so mathematical, — wanting even the hie- roglyphic recommendation of the metrical hatchets, wings, altars, and other exploded puerilities of the later Greek epigrammatists and the elder English rhymers. Collins's Ode itself is a precious speci men of mosaic vv^ork, in v/hich the pictures are set with painful and consummate skill, but have a hard and cold effect, beyond the usual enamel of his style. But Milton, the mighty Milton, has pronounced against rhyme, and in favour of blank verse, in the preamble to " Paradise Lost,'' — either written by himself, or published with his express sanction : — " The measure is English heroic verse, without rhyme, as ^hat of Homer in Greek, and Virgil in I tin; rhyme being no necessary adjunct, or true 112 THE DICTION OF POETRV. ornament, of poem or good verse, in larger works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame metre ; graced, indeed, since, by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, liinderance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse, than else they would have expressed them. Not without cause, therefore, some, both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note, have rejected rhyme, both in larger and in shorter v;orks ; as have also, long since, our best English tragedies ; as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial and of no true musical delight, which consists only in apt num- bers, fit quantity of syllables, and the sense vari- ously drawn out from one verse to another; not in the jingling sound of like endings, — a fault studiously avoided by the learned ancients, both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect, then, of rhyme, so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so, perhaps, to vulgar readers, that it is rather lO be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem, from the troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming." Without entering into any argument on the ques- tion, dogmatically as the law is here laid down, we may at once appeal to Spenser, Dryden, Pope, and many of our contemporaries, to exonerate rhyme from the indignity cast upon it ; though we are, at the same time, v;illing to allow that Shakspeare, Milton, Thomson, Young, and others have estab- lished for blank verse all the high claims (except exclusiveness) asserted here. Milton himself was not happy in the management of rhyme ; yet it can- not be admitted that *' Conius,'' " Samson Agonis- tvs," or " Paradise Lost," outshine, either in sublime embellishment, or " colours dipp'd in hea%en," the joyous images, the moin-nfnl l)eauty, and the rapl THE DICTION OF POETRY. 113 abstractions, of •' L'Allegro," "II Penseroso," and "Lycidas;" thou Mischievous. i| Ea.sily handled. V Gentle. •* I.iTely. Tt Stumbled. ++ Tulled liard. <\»J Fretted. nil Spread abroad thy chest. 11 V. Brushwood hillocks. **'* Crashed, uprooted, ajid thrown down. ttt I'eep. •niK DICTION OF POETRY. 135 In '• the Cottar's Saturday Night," the poet has so varied his dialect that there are scarcely two con- secutive stanzas written accordini^ to tlie same model An hour of winter evening' music on the ^EoUan harp, when 'ill the winds are on the wing, would hardly be more wild, and sweet, and stern, and changeable than the series. Some of the strains are as purely English as the author could reach ; others so racily Scottish as often to require a glossary ; while in a third class the two are so enchantingly combined, that no poetic diction can excel the pathos and sub- limity, blended with beauty and homeliness, that equally mark them. Of the latter description is the following: " The cheerfu' supper done, \vi' serious face, They, round the ingle,* form a circle wide; The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace. The big ha-Bible, ance his father's pride : His bonnet reverefitly is laid aside. His lyart haffetsf wearing thin an' bare ; Those strains tliat once did sweet in Zion glide. He walesj a portion with judicious care : And, 'Let us worship God!'" he says, with solemn air." The latitudinarianism of the Scottish dialect in ff yming, jingling, or merely alliterative vowel sounds, in dissonant words at the end of lines, may be thus exemphfied : " O pale, pale now, those rosy lips, I aft hae kiss'd sae fondly ; And closed for aye the sparkling glance, That dwelt on me sae kindly. And mouldering now, in silent dust, That heart that lo'ed me dearly ; But still within my bosom's core. Shall live my Highland Mary !" Fondly and kindly, — dearly and Mary could never *i^lfe. t Gray side- lo»k hiding itself behind the unveiled, form of nature. VARIOUS CI.ASSKS OF I'Or.TIiV. 151 The foregoiitg illustration is all that the limits of these Essays will allow on the subject of theatrical entertainments. Of the morality of the stage I have nothing to say, except that, in proportion as the style of dramatic composition has been purified, the talent displayed by writers, in what oui^ht to be at once the most directly moral and constitutionally sublime species of verse, has become less and less conspicuous. Without disparagement either to vir tue or genius, sufficient reasons might be assigned for such an anomaly, — but this is not the fit occasion for explaining them. With a few honourable excep- tions, — among v/hich may be named the tragedies of Miss Mitford and Mr. Sheridan Knowles, — the efforts of our contemporaries in this field have been less successful in deservingsuccess, than in any other walk of polite literature. I refer solely to acting plays. Mrs. Joanna Baillie, the Rev. H. Milman, the Rev. G. Croly, Messrs. Coleridge, Sotheby, and some others, have written tragedies for the miiid and the heart, which rank among the noblest pro- ductions of the age. A very different judgment must be passed on the dramas of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Most of these, notwithstanding the treasures of poetry buried in them, have been abandoned to an obscurity as ignominious as oblivion, on account of their atrocious piofligacy: like forsaken mines, no longer worked, thoug-h their veins are rich with ore, because of the mephitic air that fouls their passages, and which no safety-lamp yet invented can render innoxious to the most intrepid virtue. It is griev- ous to think that so many of the most powerful minds that ever were sent into this world to beau- tify and bless mankind, like morning stars with love- liest light, or vernal rains with healing influence, should have been perverted from their course into malignant luminaries, or from their purpose into sour, cold mildews, blighting and blastiiiL'' tiie earth 152 VARIOUS CLASSKS OF POETRY. and its inhabitants, so far as their evil beams could strike, or their deadly drops could fall. It is true that they represented man as he was, — not as he ought to have been ; not as he might have been — had poets always done their duty, and exhibited vice as vice, and virtue as virtue, instead of making each wear the disguise of the other; associating valour wit, generosity, and other splendid qualities, with earthly, sensual, devilish appetites and passions • whereby the multitude, who possessed none of these brilliant endowments, were confirmed in their be- loved vices i while those who were constitutionally or affectedly gallant, facetious, and affable were induced to imagine, that, with these holyday virtues, they might indulge in the grossest propensities, and hold in contempt— as allied to meanness, pusillan- imity, and hypocrisy whatever is pure, lovely, and of good report in woman, or meek, self-denying, self-sacrificing in man. Religious Poetry. Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Waller, says, — "It has been the frequent lamentation of good men, that verse has been too little applied to the purposes of worship ; and many attempts have been made to animate devotion by pious poetry: that they have seldom obtained their end is sufficiently known, and it may not be improper to inquire why they have miscarried. Let no pious ear be offended if I ad- vance, in opposition to many authorities, that poeti- cal devotion cannot often please. ******** The essence of poetry is invention ; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights. The topics of devotion are few ; and being few, are universally known ; but, few as they are, thev can be made no more ; they can receive no grace from nov{dty of sentiment, and very little from novelty of exfression. Poetiv i)lea.scs by exliibiting VARIOUS CLASSES OF POKTRV. 153 an idea more g^rateful to tlie mind than the thinc^s themselves afford. This effect proceeds from the display of those parts in nature which attract, and tlie concealment of those thai repel the imagina- tion; but reli2:ion must be shown as it is; suppres- sion and addition equally corrupt it ; and such as it is, it is known already. From poetry the reader justly expects, and from good poetry always obtains, the enlargement of his comprehension and the ele- vation of his fancy ; but this is rarely to be hoped by Christians from metrical devotion. Whatever is great, desirable, or tremendous is comprised in the name of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot be exalted ; infinity cannot be amplified ; perfection cannot be improved. ***** Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most sitnple ex- pression is the most sublime. Poetry loses its lustre and its power, because it is applied to the decora- tion of something more excellent than itself. All that pious verse can do is to help the memory and delight the ear ; and for these purposes it may be very useful ; but it supplies nothing to the mind. The ideas of Christian theology are too simple for eloquence, too sacred for fiction, and too majestic for ornament : to recommend them by tropes and figures is to magnify by a concave mirror the si- dereal hemisphere." Having, in the Introductory Essay to a volume of Sacred Poetry,* minutely examined the long and, I may say, the celebrated argument of which the fore- going is but an abstract, I shall not go into particu- lars here to prove the mistake under which the great critic labours ; but I may briefly remark, that the more this dazzling passage is examined, the more indistinct and obscure it becomes (according to the true test of truth itself, as laid down in a former * " The Christian Poet, or Selections in Verse on SacrcJ Subjerts," by Juries Monti^omery : published by W Collins, Glas^row ; ;ind Whit i&y • tandon. 154 VAfaoUS (JLA8SK.S OK POLTRY. paper) f and in the end it will be found to throw lit^ht upon a shigle point only of the question, — a point on which there was no darkness before, — namely, that the style of devotional poetry must be suited to the theme, whether that be a subject of piety or a motive to piety. Those who will take the trouble to examine the passage at length will find that all the eloquent dic- tation contained in it affects neither argumentative, descriptive, nor narrative poetry on sacred themes as exemplified in the great works of Milton, Young, and Cowper. That man has neither ear, nor heart, nor imagination to know genuine poesy, and to enjoy its sweetest or its sublimest influences, who can doubt the supremacy of sucli passages as the Song of the Angels in the third, and the Morning Hymn of Adam and Eve in the fifth book of " Paradise Lost ;" the first part of the ninth book of the " Night Thoughts ;" and tlie anticipation of millennial bless- edness in the sixth book of " The Task ;" yet tiiese are on sacred subjects, and these are religious poetry. There are but four universally and per- manently popular lo7ig poems in the English lan- guage,— " Paradise Lost," "The Night Thoughts," " The Task," and " The Seasons." Of these, the ihree former are decidedly religious in their charac- ter ; and of the latter it may be said, that one of the greatest charms of Thomson's masterpiece is the pure and elevated spirit of devotion which occasion- ally breathes out amid the reveries of fancy and the pictures of nature, as though the poet had caught sudden and transporting glimpses of the Creator himself through the perspective of his works; while tV.e crowning Hymn, at the close, is unquestionably one of the most magnificent specimens of verse in any language, and only inferior to the inspired pro- totypes in the Book of Psalms, of which it is, for the * See Lecture II. vaimous classk« i;f poktuv. 155 most part, a paraplirase. — As much may be &aid of Pope's " Messiali," which leaves all his original pro- ductions immeasurably behind it, in combined ele- vation of thought, affluence of imagery, beauty of diction, and fervency of spirit. It follov^s, that poetry of the highest order may be composed on pious themes; and the fact that three out of the only four lonj^ poems which are daily reprinted for every class of readers amona" us, are at the same time religious, — that fact ought forever to silence the cuckoo-note which is echoed from one mocking-bird of Parnassus to another, — that poetry and devotion are incompatible : no man in his right mind, who knows what both words mean, will admit the absurdity for a moment. 1 have already endeavoured to show* that gorgeous orna- ment is no more essential to verse than naked simplicity is essential to prose. There must, there- fore, within the compass of human language, be a style suitable for " contemplative piety" in verse as well as in prose ; a style for penitential prayer as well as for holy adoration and rapturous thanksgiv- ing. If nothing can be poetry which is not elevated above ordinary speech by " decorations of fancy, tropes, figures, and epithets," many of the finest passages in the finest poems which the world has ever seen must be outlawed, and branded with the ignominy of prose. It is true that there is a vast deal of religious verse which, as poetry, is utterly worthless; but it is equally true that there is no small portion of genuine poetry associated with pure and imdefiled religion among the compositions even of oar hymn-writers. What saith Milton on " the height of this great argument V Hear him in p^-ose that wants nothing but numbers to equal it wdth any page in "Paradise Lost." " These abilities are the inspired gifts of God, ♦ Se(? Lecture HI. 150 VARIOUS CI-ASSES OF POETRY. rarely bestowed; and are of power to imbreed and cherish in a g-reat peo[)le the seeds of virtue and public civility ; to allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in rii^ht tune; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the tlirone and equipage of God's almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrouoht with high providence in his church ; to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of pious nations doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ; to deplore the general relapses of king- doms and states from justice and God's true wor- ship. Lastly, whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable and grave ; whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from without, and the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within; all these things, with a solid and treatable smoothness, to paint out ?.nd describe : — teaching over the whole book of sanctity and virtue, through all the instances of example, with such delight to those especially of soft and delicious temper, who will not so much as look upon truth herself, unless they see her elegantly dressed ; whereas the paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged and difficult, tliough they be indeed easy and pleasant, they will then appear to all men easy and pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult indeed." — On Church Government, book ii. The art of which this is a true description must be the highest of all arts, and require the greatest combination of fine faculties to excel in it. That art is poetry ; and the special subjects on which it is here exhibited, as being most happily employed, are almost entirely sacred. The writer is Milton, who in his subsequent works exemplified all the varieties of poetical illustration here enumerated, and justified his lofty entimate of the capabilities of vcjsr*. hallowed to divine tliemos, bv the success VARIOUS CLASSES OF POFTRY. 157 With wliich lie celebrated such in " Paradise Lost," " Pa-adise Regained," and " Samson Agonistes." Not anollier word can be necessary to refute the notion tiuit relitrious subjects are incapable of poetic treatment. Dr. Johnson himself says nothing of the kind ; and yet, upon his authority (from a mis- understanding of two passages in his criticisms on Waller and Watts), this notion is still held by men who ought to be ashamed of it. Didactic and Descriptive Poetry. I class these two together, because poets them- selves so often unite them ; for though we have abundance of pieces, in which, if " pure description holds (not) the place of sense," but occupies its own picturesque position with independent and due effect, yet few compositions in verse can be purely pre- ceptive, without the •' aid of foreign ornament ;" nor can it be literally eaid of any art or science, thus handled, that its "beauty" is, "when unadorned, adorned the most." It must be arrayed and enriched with extrinsic graces, or renounce all pretensions to attractiveness from the poor and impolitic use of metre. It is the misfortune of didactic poetry, that for the purposes of teaching, it has no advan- tage over prose ; and, in fact, from the difficulty of adapting the elegances of verse to commonplace details, it often falls lamentably short of common sense, in unnatural attempts to convey the simplest meanings in bloated verbiage. Pure directions of any ivind, especially on technical subjects, may be delivered more precisely and intelligibly in the ordi- nary language of men, diversified v/ith the terms of that art which is taught. Every specimen of this class, from the days of Hesiod to those of the late .Tames Grahame — not excepting what has been deemed, in point of execution, the most perfect poem of antiquity, the Georgics of Virgil, — every speci- I5S VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. men of this class establislies the truth, or rather the truism, above laid down. In a poem on airriculture, it is self-evident, d priori, that instructions in hedging, ditching, drain ing, hay-making, sowing, reaping, Szc. can assume little or nothing of poetry beyond the shape of rhythm to the eye, for they will scarcely admit the sound of it to the ear, in higher harmony, or sweeter diction, than may be found by humming and counting the fingers over old Tusser's " Five Hundred Points in Husbandrj^" Lessons on manual occupations, domestic economy, or even learned pursuits cannot alone be the burthen of song, or it will soon be no song at all ; for with " music, image, sentiment, and thought," — the elements of poetry, — they have no affinity. I confine the remark to the mstructions, because the things themselves may sometimes be made highly poetical and interesting ; but then they cease to be didactic, and become descriptive. Thomson's great work, with a few precepts inter- mmgled, presents, in beautiful series and harmo- nious connexion, the phenomena of nature, and the operations of man contemporary with these, through the four seasons ; — forming, in fact, a biographical memoir of the infancy, maturity, and old age of an English year. — Grahame, in his " British Georgics," has written a preceptive ,poem, in which similar subjects are included ; but liere the lovely and mag-- nificent appearances of nature are extraneons em- bellishments, while the labours of the farmer (the Scotch farmer), mean in themselves, are daily di- rected, and occasionally delineated, according to the succession of months. Between the plans of tlie two poems there can be no comparison, and between the execution 1 will make none. The God of nature has divided the year into several distinct gradations, hcwev(-r obscurely the boundaries of eacli may be marked; .'•o that everybody has clear and fixed ideas of spring, summer, autumn, and VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. 159 Winter, from personal observation of the varying surface of the earth, the aspect of the heavens, the temperature of the air, and those employments of the husbandman by which they are respectively characterized. On the other hand, the distribution of the year into months is an arbitrary arrangement by man, which suits the almanac-maker much better than the poet. The phases (if we must use the term) of June and July, of December and January. — indeed, of any two contiguous months, — are too little diversified to admit of contrasted pictures of each, witliout producing monotony by repetition, or defect by omission, of those features whicli happen to be common to both. Indeed, in our irregular cli- mate, the months sometimes seem to have changed places, particularly in the earlier half of the year, the advance of vegetation being far less undeviating than its decay. Thomson's is a descriptive poem, interpolated with precepts in their right places , Grahame's is a preceptive one, in which descriptions luckily superabound, and are never deemed mis- placed : for without them its pages would be un- readable. Hence, in a didactic poem, the finest passages are those which are ?w^ didactic; branches bearing flowers and fruit, ingrafted on a stock which, of itself, would put forth nothing but leaves. Grahame's " Sabbath," and his " Birds of Scot- land," are better known than his " British Georgics." His taste was singular, and his manner correspond- ent. The general tenor of his style is homely, and frequently so prosaic that its peculiar graces appear in their full lustre from the contrast of meanness that surrounds them. His readers may be few; but whoever does read him will probably be oftener surprised into admiration, than in the perusal of any one of his contemporaries. The most lively, the most lovely sketches of natural scenery, of minute' im;igery. and of exquisite inci- dent, unexpectedly developed, occur in his compu 160 VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. sitions, with ever-varying-, yet ever-assimilating features. All his beauties are of one kind ; they have a family likeness, with infinite diversity of re- semblance. I mean those beauties which most abound in him, — and more in lam than in any other writer; because, by the bent of a mind pre- disposed to a particular class of subjects, and with microscopic accuracy of observation, he curiously and constantly searches for them ; while his breth- rei^ only take them as they fall in their way, or are' necessary for the extraordinary embellishment of some other figure to which they are subordinate. These are almost exclusively descriptive ; they con- sist in secondary qualities, and remote or relative contingencies, which, by unforeseen association, place an object in a novel and delightful point of view, give a quick and happy turn to a train of thought, or infuse such life and reality into a scene, by the sudden introduction of a sprightly image, or an affecting circumstance, that the reader is instantly converted into a spectator on the spot, and forgets the poet, the poetry, and every thing except the palpable illusion which, for the moment, captivates his attention. It is like looking down into a con- cave mirror, in a darkened room, when, expecting to see our own features reflected, we are startled by the appearance of a strange countenance* rising towards us, and on the instant are completely de- ceived. An example will explain this better than ten periods of definition, or a long string of meta- phorical illustrations. Take the picture of a corn- stack, from the " British Georgics." " Of forms the circular is most approvea As offering, in proportion to its bulk, The smallest surface to the storm's assault. — To turn the driving rains, the outer sheaves, *The roun-tpnanre of a person placed opposite, without our know lodge, anc looking into the mirror at the same time. Various classks of pok.tuv. 101 With bottoms lower than the iiisthng top, Should i^loping lie. When, to the crowning sheaf Arrived, distrust tlie sky ; the thatch lay on, And bind with strawy coils. O, pleasant sight ; These lozenged ropes, that, at the tapering top, End in a wisp-wound pinnacle — a gladsome perch, On which already sits poor Robin, proud, And sweetly sings a song to harvest-home !" In these lines, nothing can be more dry or unen- tertaining than all that immediately belongs to the subject: but just when the reader is congratulating himself that the paragraph is within a couplet of the close, — he sees — he hears — " poor Robin," perched and singing on the twisted pinnacle ; and, instead of a mere recipe to make a corn-stack, the bodily image of one, newly thatched, is at once placed before his eye, while his ear is regaled with the sweet small notes of the bird of autumn. The fashionable as well as the familiar poetry of the present day sparkles with fanciful yet true descriptions, of which the subjects are, in general, among the most obvious, and yet the least noticed circumstances, recurring every day, and every- where. The brilliant parterres of Miss Landon's enclosure, on the south of Parnassus, where ideas, like humming-birds, are seen flying about in tropical sunshine, or fluttering over blossoms of all hues and all climes : and the home meadows of John Clare, the Northamptonshire peasant, whose thoughts, like bees, are ever on the wing in search of honey from " the meanest flower that blows ;" are equally productive of these " curiosities of literature." A specimen from the latter (as less known of the two) will show to what perfection the art of making much of a little has lately been carried. THE thrush's nest. " Withm a thick and spreading hawthorn bush, That overhung a mole-hill large a-nd round, I heard, from mom to mom, a merrv thrush. Sing hymns of rapture, while I drrwik the sound IV 162 VARIOUS CLASSKS OF POETRY* With joy ; — and oft, an unintruding guest, J watch'd her secret toils from day to day, How true she warp'd the moss to form her nest, And modell'd it within with wood and clay. And by-and-by, like heath-bells gilt with dew. There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue : And there I witness'a, in the summer-hours, A brood of nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the sunsliine and the laughing sky." John Clare. Here we have in miniature the history and ge- ography of a " Thrush's Nest," so simply and naturally set forth, that one might think such strains "no more difficile, Than for a blackbird 'tis to whistle ;" but let the heartless critic who despises them try his own hand, either at a bird's nest or a sonnet like this ; and when he has succeeded in making the one, he may have some hope of being able to make the other. The happy peculiarities of that kind of descriptive poetry, which with us is indigenous — nothing of similar growth having been preserved in the remains of antiquity, nor any thing to compare with it found among the luxuriant products of modern Italy, — may be illustrated by a quotation or two from the writings of a bard of the same humble class with John Clare, but who was not less curious in marking, and skilful in delineatmg, the charms of external nature, and the occ'ipations of rural industry, than the poet of " The Se;.sons" himself. The author of the "Farmer's Boy" was exalted above his deserts at the beginning of his career ; and, according to the usual reaction of things in this perverse world, depreciated as much belov/ them in the sequel. Death, the universal ad- ministrator of those who die leaving an inheritance which cannot be willed, is adjusting the claims of posterity to what he has left behind which may bo VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. 163 worthy of preservation ; and he has already obtained that place in the esteem of those whose judgments are final, which he will probably hold during his century of probation. Robert Bloomfield's Country Muse resembled the Country Maiden, which he paints so prettily in his " Rural Tales :" — " No meadow-flower rose fresher to the view, That met her morning footsteps in the dew ; When, if a nodding stranger eyed her charms, The blush of modesty was up in arms ; Love's random glances struck the' unguarded mind And beauty's magic made him look behind." Thus, the public fell in love with the simple Suffolk Muse at first sight ; and turning to look, when she had passed by, praised her gait, her shape, her coun- tenance, and air, as all-enchanting and unrivalled. But meeting her repeatedly afterward in the walks of Parnassus, and deeming her less fascinating at every interview, that public, whose affections are more variable than the clouds, which change colour in every light, and form in every breeze, soon dis- cerned her homeliness of feature, rusticity of accent, and inelegauce of manners. — Hence, though famil- iarity never bred contempt, her modest graces were successively eclipsed by the dazzling pretensions of higher born and higher gifted rivals, so that few con- tinued to behold her with the partiality of Walter to Jane, in his first love. This poet's real merits must, at any rate, have been considerable, to have survived the indiscreet panegyrics of mistaken friends, and the carping criticisms of fastidious enemies. Bloomfield excels in description, because he pre- sents images and pictures both of living and inani- mate nature, which every unperverted eye recognises at once, ^uid which often occasion not only an emo- tio-n of pleasure at finding them in verse, but of sur- prise also that they were never found there before-, because, though perfectly familiar, the originals 1G4 VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. themselves never touched us so exquisitely as the poet's exhibition of them does. I prefer an extract on one of the most hackneyed themes of vulgar rhyme, on which he who could produce novelty must have been well entitled to poetic honours. Mention- ing- the task of Giles, in spring, to watch the new- sown crops, and himself to frighten away the rooks, — or having shot a few of the marauders to hangr them up as scarecrows, or spread them out dead on fhe ground, to warn away their pilfering companions, these lines occur: — " This task had Giles in fields renrtote from home; Oft has he wish'd the rosy morn to come ; Yet never was he famed, nor foremost found, To break the seal of sleep — his sleep was sound ; But when, at daybreak, summon'd from his bed, Light as the lark that caroU'd o'er his head : — His sandy way, deep-worn by hasty showers, O'erarch'd with oaks that form'd fantastic bowers. Waving aloft their towering branches proud, In borrowed tinges from the eastern cloud, — Gave inspiration pure as ever flow'd. And genuine transport in his bosom glow'd. ** His own shrill matin join'd the various notes Of nature's music from a thousand throats ; The blackbird strove with emulation sweet. And Echo answer'd from her calm retreat : The sporting whitethroat, on some twig's end borne, Pour'd hymns to freedom and the rising morn : Stopp'd in her song, perchance, the starting thrush Shook a white shower from the blackthorn bush, Where dew-drops, thick as early blossoms hung, And trembled while the minstrel sweetly sung' Across his path in either grove to hide. The tunid ral)bit scouted by his side ; Or pheasaut boldly stalk'd along the road, Whose gold and purple tints alternate glow'd." Every couplet here shows the difference between a genuine poet and a mere accomplished versifier. Four lines will be sufficient to explain and justify this assertion. Arty rhymer might have placed the VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. 165 thrush upon the thorn, amid blossoms and dew-drops ; but mark what a variety oiincidents the nice observer of nature strikes out. He startles the bird in the midst of her song ; she flies off, and shakes from the black-thorn (the sloe) the earliest and frailest of the season, "a white shower" upon the ground; but instantly recoUecting how "the minstrel" had been sitting before she v^^as disturbed, he describes her perched amid the thorny sprays, covered with flowers and moist with dews. I repeat the lines, and call particular attention to the last : — " Stopp'd in her song, perchance, the starting thrush Shook a white shower from the blackthorn bush, Where dew-drops thick as early blossoms hung, And trembled while the minstrel sweetly sung." Are not the ideas as thick as the blossoms, and as brilliant as the dew-drops ] Bloomfield has another merit ; it is his own, and he deserves a statue for it. In his " Rural Tales," he has succeeded in the patriotic attempt to render the loves and joys, the sports and manners, of English peasants interesting. I recollect no poet before him who, by a serious, unaff'ected delineation of humble life, as it actually exists, had awakened strong sym- pathy, in people more prosperously circumstancecl, towards the lower classes of the community. In Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," much entertain- ment is afforded, and compassion excited, by the inimitable skill and pathos of the author in display- ing the characters, pastimes, wrongs, and suff'erings of the natives of "Auburn:" but still the reader con- descenis to be pleased, or to pity; and the poet is rather their advocate than their neighbour, or one of thtMTiselves: there is little oi fellow-i^ieWwg: in the case. Gay and others, who have pretended to cele- brate rural swains and maidens, have always de- graded them by a mixture of the ludicrous with the true, to give spirit to tliejr descriptions ; thereby 166 VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. making what might have been natural and affecting, merely grotesque and amusing. I take no account here of that most artificial of all kinds of verse, while it pretends to be the most natural, — the pastorals of our earliest poets, or those of later ones down even to Pope (in imitation of very questionable models in classic literature), and numberless Arcadian masque- rades in Continental languages, full of splendid faults, which need not be either exposed or reprobated here, — 1 take no notice of these ; they have been long and worthily exploded, as having no more reference to the state of society in this island, or elsewhere under the moon, than to the manners and customs of the inhabitants of that planet itself, if such there be. Bloomfield has done for England what all her native bards have done for Scotland, " Richard and Kate," '^ Walter and Jane," and " The Miller's Maid," there- fore, are unique and original poems, which, by representations equally graphic and dramatic of what they really are, have rescued English peasants from unmerited reproach, and raised them to equality with their Scottish neighbours, whose character, in verse at least, is associated with all that is romantic in love or delightful in song. A paragraph of description, minute and elaborate to a degree, yet expanded into such magnificence, that in its progress it fills the mind with glory as its subject does the heavens, while, being introduced as a simile, it is associated with moral sentiment of that high cast which makes " the whole of unintelligent creation poor," — must close this section : — " As the ample moon. In the deep stillness of a summer-even, Rising behind a thick and lofty grove, Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light, hi the green trees ; and, kindling on all sides Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil Into a substance glorious as her own, Yea with her own incorporated, by power Capacious and serene ; — like power abides VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. 167 In man's celestial spirit. Virtue thus Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds A calm, a beautiful, and silent lire From the encumbrances of mortal life, From error, disappointment, — nay, from Ruilt, And sometimes (so relenting Justice wills) From palpable oppressions of Despair." Wordsworth's Excursion Lyric Poetry. It would be impossible to define the limits, or lay down the laws, of what passes in our own country under the title of Lyric Poetry. In these brief papers, there is no room to expatiate upon terms : it will therefore be more convenient, and quite as profitable, to elucidate this nondescript division of the subject by examples and comments, rather than by abstract disquisition. Italy, rich in every kind of poetry, except the purely descriptive, stands without rival among the nations of Europe in lyric com- position. Yet, till Mr. Mathias, some twenty years ago, published six volumes of " Componimenti Lirici de' piu illustri Poeii (f Italia,'^'' the names of Filicaja; Guidi, Testi, Celio Magno, and others, were scarcely known among us, while those of Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, and Tasso were associated only with the " Divina Commedia," " Sonetti," " Orlando Furioso," and " Gerusalemme Liberata." It is true that there are myriads of pieces called Lyrics in our language, and every year adds thousands to the number ; yet it would be impossible to select, from all our poets of former days, half a dozen volumes of Emrlish Lyrics, in every respect equal to these. Dryden, Collins, and Gray, — nor must we forget the exube- rant but almost unreadable Cowley, — stand, without question, before all other English writers of Odes, yet the whole round of their pieces of permanent and unchangeable value might be comprehended within the space of one of Mr. Mathias's little 168 VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. volumes ; and the most acute and industrious editoi might be safely challenged to compile two more, of approximating- worth, out of all the works of all the dead. This is not stated to dishearten our country- men, or to depreciate their language. Their mother tongue and their mother wit are, at least, of equal proof with those of modern Italy and her most gifted sons. It is expressly to stimulate our living bards to study those models of lyric excellence, that I hold them so high, and would excite my contemporaries to rival and transcend them by original models of their own, of equal or surpassing grace, freedom, elegance, and energy, combining every beauty of thought with corresponding harmony of expression. All this is possible in the English language, but it has rarely indeed been accomplished. Let us briefly notice three of these great Italian masters. Vincenzio Filicaja had drunk deeply both of the stream of Helicon and of " Siloa's brock, that flow'd Fast by the oracle of God." The fire of the Muses, and the fire of the altar, equally burned in his bosom, and sparkled through his song. No poet ever more successfully followed the steps of the inspired prophets, in their paths of highest elevation, or deepest humility. His Canzone on "The Majesty of God," and that addressed to *' Sobieski, King of Poland," but more especially the two incomparable odes on the "Siege and Deli\er- ance of Vienna" (formerly alluded to), display his powers in all their splendour and perfection. There is wonderful energy and pathos in his language ; and the figure of repetition, as in the Sacred Scriptures, is often and most effectively employed. Celio Magno is one of the most pathetic of all poets. His Canzone on the death of his father, and another in contemplation of his own decease, breathe such transporting tenderness, that the mind, pos VARIOUS CLASSKS OF POETRY. 169 sessed by a melancholy more delicious than glad- ness, resigns itself wholly to the revery, and dwells and dotes on chosen passages without strength or desire to leave them. Can any mortal man read such lines as the following, once only ] — " Lasso me ! che quest' alma e dolce luce, Questo bel ciel, quest' aere, onde respiro, Lasciar convengo ; e miro Fornito ii corso di mia vita omai, E 1' esalar d' un sol breve sospiro A' languid' occhi etema notte adduce ; Ne per lor mai piu luce Febo, scopre per lor piii Cintia i lai." Or this apostrophe of lingering regret 1 — " Oh ! di nostre fatiche empio riposo, E d' ogni uman sudor meta inl'elice , Da cui torcer non lice Pur orma ne sperar pietade alcuna ! Che val, perch' altri sia chiaro e felice Di gloria d' avi, o d' oro in area ascoso, E d' ogni don giojoso, Che Natura puo dar larga, e fortuna, Se tutto e falso ben sotto la luna." These most beautiful and affecting lines contain no thought which has not been a thousand and a thou- sand times expressed; yet their influence is en- chanting, for they realize, in a moment, mingled with mysterious delight, that ineff'able fear of death which is interwoven with life, and which is natural to all men ; for " willing" as the spirit even of the good may be, " to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better," its frail companion shudders at a change which consigns her to worms, and dark- ness, and dissolution ; — " the Q^-sh \s weak," and trembles into dust. Alessandro Guidih^s been crowned by Mr. Mathias with the thickest laurels ; and fairly to him may be conceded all the glory that is due to one of the vain- (» *70 VAUIUUS CLASSES OF POETRY. est and sublimest of poets. He speaks of himself frequeiitly, and always in strains so boastful that he would appear utterly disgusting and contemptible, did he not sing his own praises in language so cap- tivating, and with such genuine dignity of thought and splendour of imagery, that we either forget or forgive the egotism of the man, in the overwhelm- ing majesty of the poet. He actually seems to speak the truth ; and truth is never offensive when w^e believe it heartily, unless it condemns ourselves. Airy grandeur and irresistible impetuosity are the characteristics of his style ; his genius is Grecian, but his spirit is Roman, Gladly and unfearingly I turn to our English Lyr- ics, and begin with a very small example, which, however (like the taper in the second stanza), g/'ows clearer and brighter the more it is contemplated. " The wretch, condemn'd with life to part, Still, still on hope relies, And every pang that rends his heart Bids expectation rise. " Hope, like the glimmering taper's light, Adorns and cheers his way, And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray." Goldsmith. Is this poetry 1 Every one feels that it is. Is i. fine versification 1 In that respect, also, it is unex- ceptionable. Now, the same ideas might be given in prose, without being deemed extravagant, — while in point of diction they could hardly be more hum- bly attired. Yet he who should attempt to do this, with equal effect, in any other form than the original, would find that he had set himself to catch a rain- bow, and bend it in a contrary direction. There is the subject, — a captive under sentence of death, yet nursing in secret, almost from despair, tlie hope of life, with every pang. Here he is transformed into VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. 171 a benifr]ited wanderer, whom the j^pparition of that cherished deceiver meets amid the darkness and allures from afar, under the semblance of a stream of light from a cottage window, brightening as he approaches; while we, who fear the illusion may prove an ig?ils fatuus, are prepared to see him sud- denly ingulfed in a morass. Poetry is the short- hand of thought : how much is expressed here in less than threescore syllables : — TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE WHO FELL IN THE REBELLION OF 1715. " How sleep the brave, who sink to rest With all their country's wishes blest ! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallow'd mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's leec have ever trod. *' Ly Fairy hanJs tbeli knell is rung, By forms unseen tbeii airge is sung ; There Honou^- comei, a pilgrim gray, Tc bless ihe turl 'hn.t wraps their clay ; Ard Freedom shal' a while repair To dwell, a weeping hermit there." Collins. Again ; what a quantity of thought is here con- cl*.nsed in the compass of twelve lines, like a cluster of rock crystals, sparkling and distinct, yet receiv- ing and reflecting lustre by their combination. The stanzas themselves are almost unrivalled in the asso- ciation of poetry wilh picture, pathos with fancy, grandeur with simplicity, and romance with reality. The melody of the verse leaves nothing for the ear to desire, except a continiance cf the strain, or, rather, the repetition ot a strain v-h^.ch cannot tire by repetition. The i./^.agery \s cf the most delicate and exquisite character, — Spring decking the tui'fy sod; Fancy's feet treading upon the flowers there; Fairy hands ringing the loiell ; unseen forms sing- 172 VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. ing- the dirge of the glorious dead ; but, above all, and never to be surpassed in picturesque and ima- ginative beauty, Honour, as an old and broken sol- dier, coming on far pilgrimage to visit the shrine where his companions in arms are laid to rest ; and Freedom, in whose cause they fought and fell, — leaving the mountains and fields, the hamlets and the unwalled cities of England delivered by their valour, — hastening to the spot, and dwelling (but only for " a while") " a weeping hermit there." The sentiment, too, is profound : — " How sleep the brave !" — not how sweetly, soundly, happily ! for all these are included in the simple apostrophe, *' How sleep the brave !" Then, in that lovely line, " By all their country's wishes blest," is implied every circumstance of loss and lamenta tion, of solemnity at the interment, and posthumous homage to their memory, by the threefold person- ages of the scene, — living, shadowy, and preter- natural beings. As for thought, he who can hear this little dirge "sung," as it is, by the "unseen form" of the author himself, who cannot die in it-^- without having thoughts, " as thick as motes that people the sunbeams," thronging through his mind, must have a brain as impervious to the former as the umbrage of a South American forest to the latter. There are in its associations of war, peace, glory, suffering, life, death, immortality, which might furnish food for a midsummer day's medita- tion, and a midwinter night's dream afterward, could June and December be made to meet in a poet's revery. FROM THE EXEQUY, ON THE DEATH OF A BELOVED WIFE. {By Henry King, Bishop of Chichester; born 1591, died 1669.) " Sleep on, my !ovp, in thy cold bed Never to be disquieted ; VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. 173 My last ' good night /' thou wilt not wake Till I ihy fate shall overtake ; Till age, or grief, or sickness, must Marry my body to that dust It so much loves ; and fill the room My heart keeps empty in thy tomb. " Slay for me there ; I will not faile To meet thee in that hollow vale ; And think not much of my delay, I am already on tho way, And follow thee with all the speed Desire can make, or sorrows breed- Each minute is a short degree, And every houre a step towards thee ; At night, when I betake to rest. Next morn I rise nearer my West Of life, almost by eight houres' sail, Than when sleep breathed his drowsie gale !'* What a " last good night !" is this ! and oh ! what a one ''''good morrow V to last for eternity, when such partners awake from the same bed, in the resurrec- tion of the just! Is there the "man born of a woman," who has loved a woman, and lost whom he loved, and lamented whom he has lost, that will not feel in the depth of his spirit all the tenderness, and truth of these old-fashioned couplets] I dare not offer a comment upon them, lest 1 should disturb the sanctity of repose which they are calculated to in- spire. Nature speaks all languages ; and no style is too quaint or pedantic, in which she may not utter heart-sentiments in terms that cannot be mis- understood, or understood be resisted. Gray is one of the few, the very few, of our great- est poets, who deserves to be studied in every line for the apprehension of that wonderful sweetness, power, and splendour of versification which has made liim (scholastic and difficult as he is) one of the most popular of writers, though his rhymes are occasionally flat, and his phrases heathen Greek to ordinary readers. The secret of his supremacy 174 VARIOUS CLASSES OF POF.TKV- consists principally in the consiimmHte art with which his diction is elaborrited into the most melo- dious concatenation of syllables to form lines ; and those lines so to implicate and evolve in progres- sion, that the strain of one of Handel's Overtures is not more consecutively ordered to carry the mind onward, through every bar, to the march at the con- clusion, when (as in the instance of the Occasional Oratorio) the hearer has been wrought to such a state of exaltation that fie feels as though he could mount the scaffold to the beaten time of such " The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, The swallow twittering from the strav.'-bjilt si: ed The cock's shrill clarion, and the echor g hem, No mere shall rouse them from their lowly bed." Gray's Elegy. "Ihis is one of the most striking stanzas in Gray's Fiegy, which owes much of its celebrity lo tne ccn- nc fdance of numbers expressly tuned to tnc suOI-tjc^s, eP'.t xelicity of language both in the so-jnd ara i.(^Q s*g"nificance of words employed. Yet in ii.e fi*-st Y)TsZ of the verse above quoted, the far-souf^i^i, 3ie- g'ance of characteristic description in "tno breezy cal.i of incense-breathing morn" is spoiled utterly by the disagreeable clash between "breezy" and "■*■ brea- thing," within a few syllables of each other. Con- trast this with the corresponding line, and the duUe??* ear will distinguish the clear, full harmony of " The cock's slirill clarion, and the echoing horn,'' from theasthmatical wheezing of the breeze and tne breathing of the incense. This has been mentioned, not for the sake of petty criticism, but to render more emphatical the stress which I lay upon the pre-eminence of this author in the management of English rhythm. VARIOUS CLASSKS OF POETRY. 175 " Oh, lyre divine ! what daring spirit W"i\kes theo now ? thoiigli he inherit Not the pride, nor mn])le pinion, Which the Theban oagle bare, SaiUng with supreme doinmion Througli the azure deep of air." Progress of Poesy. Where can measures more noble than the fore- going be foinid in any modern tongue 1 " Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows, Wliile, proudly riding o'er the azure realm, In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes, — Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm , Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind's sway, That, hushed in grim repose, expects his evening prey.' The Bard. It would be idle to descant on the diction or im- agery of verses like these. T will only advert to the prophetic intimation of the catastrophe in the last clause. Had the poet described the tempest itself with the power of Virgil in the first book of his iSneid, it would have failed in this instance to produce the effect of sublime and ineffable horror, of which a glimpse appears in the background, while the gallant vessel is sailing with wind, and tide, and sunshine on a sea of glory. All the sweeping fury of the whirlwind, awake and ravening over " his evening prey," would have been less terrible than his " grim repose ;" and the shrieks and struggles ^f drowning mariners less affecting than the sight of " Youth on the prow, and <^^easure at the helm," " regardless" of the inevitable doom on which they were already verging. Dryden's " Alexander's Feast" is undoubtedly the lyric masterpiece of English poetry, in respect to versification ; exemplifying, as it does, all the capa- 176 VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. bilities of our language in the use of iambics, tro- chees, anapaests, dactyls, and spondees. The me- tres in this composition are so varying, and yet so consonant — so harmonious and so contrasted — they implicate and disentangle again so naturally, so ne- cessarily almost, that I know not to what they can better be compared than to a group of young lion at play — meeting, mingling, separating — pursuing attacking, repelling — changing attitude, action, m tion, every instant — all fire, force, and flexibility exuberant in spirits, yet wasting none ; while th poet, like their sire couched and looking on, may be presumed with his eye to have ruled every turn and crisis of their game. He sings, indeed, the triumph of music — but his poetry triumphs over his subject ; and he insinuates as much. It was less " the breathing flute and sounding lyre" of Timo- theus, than the living voice, the changing themes, the language of light and power of the bard, " that won the cause," A single section will justify this praise ; the measures, it will be observed, change in every couplet : there are scarce two lines alike in accentuation ; yet the whole seems as spontane- ous as the cries of alarm and consternation excited by the bacchanal orgies described. " Now strike the golden lyi-e again : A louder yet, and yet a louder strain ; Break his bands of sleep asunder, And rouse him like a rattling peal of thunder. Hark ! hark ! the horrid sound Has raised up his head, As awaked from the dead, And amazed he stares around. Revenge ! revenge ! Timotheus cries ; See the furies arise: See tlie snakes that they rear, How they hiss in the air, And the spark'es that flash from their eyes. Behold a ghastly hand, Each a torch in his hand ! Those are Grecian glinsts. that in battle were siain VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. 177 And unburied remain, Inglorious on the plain :— Give the vengeance due To the valiant crew ! Behold how they toss their torches on high, How they point to the Persian abodes, And glittering temples of the hostile gods ! — The princes applaud with a furious joy, And the king seized a flambeau, with zeal to destroy ■ Thais led the way, To light him to his prey. And like another Helen fired another Troy." Metrical Romances. A free and easy species of verse, which may be called the lyrical narrative, has been very fashion- able since the first splendid achievements of the great master in this style, Sir Walter Scott ; who founded it upon the models of his elder countrymen, rejecting their barbarisms, and blending with their better manner an abundant proportion of modern refinements. This innovation affects various forms in its rhythmical cadences, but its practitioners con- fine themselves to none altogether: here, skirmish- ing away in the moss-trooping measures of " The Last Minstrel"- -there, marching in stanzas of a mile, with the stately tread of " Marmion ;" and again, like " The Lady of the Lake," gracefully row- ing along in octosyllabic time. Fifty romances, at least, have been published in this vein, of which five will not soon be forgotten. From one of these (the least irregular of Sir Walter's Border epics), as an example of tragic power in which he has out- gone himself, I extract the "Death of Roderic Dhu," the sternest of all his champions. Roderic, wounded and captive, is imprisoned in a hideous " donjon keep." A minstrel is introduced to him by mistake, who, being locked in with the chieftain Gael, sings, at his request, " The Battle of Beale and Duine." Roderic is thus represented: — 178 VARIOUS CLASSES OF POETRY. "A" i.he tali ship, whose loft)'- pr-:.r scarcely any alternative left between " an honest lame" and " none." No iivhig writer can hope for in\mortality in its only enviable earthly sense, who does not oc- cupy his talents on subjects worthy of them, and, at least, not disreputable to their Author, — tne Father of lights ! The follies, the sins, and the misfortunes of poets have, indeed, been proverbial since the proudest days of Greece, I shall neither expatiate upon these, nor palliate them ; but a word or two may be expedient. In youth, when we first become enamoured of the works of the great poets, we naturally imagine hose must themselves be the happiest of men who can communicate such unknov/n and unimaginsd emotions of pleasure, as seem at once to create and to gratify a new sense within us ; while^ by the y^:- j.^'ic of undefinable art, they render the loveiie?r sc6r:<^s of nature more lovely, make the most inditferent topics interesting, and from sorrow itself awaken a sympathy of joy unutterably sublime and soothing. He who in early years has never been so smitten with the love of sacred song as to have wished, nay, to have dreamed, that he was a poet, — as Hesiod is said to have done, though few, like him, awaking, have found their dream fulfilled, — is a stranger to one of the purest, noblest, and most enduring sources of mortal blessedness. When, however, glowing with enthusiastic admiration, we turn from the writings to the lives of these exalted beings, we find that they were not only liable to the same infirmities with ourselves, but that, with regard to many of them, those vehement passions, which they could kindle and quell at pleasure in the bosoms of others, ruled and raged with ungovernable fury in their own, hurrying them, amid alternate penury and profusion, honour and abasement, through the vicissitudes of a miserable life, to a premature, deplorable, and some- 192 THK POKTICAL CHARACTEK. times a desperate death. On the other hand, among the more amiable of this ill-starred race, those finer sensibilities which warm the hearts of their readers with ineffable delight were to the possessors slov/ and fatal fires, feeding upon their vitals, while they languished in solitude, and sank to the grave in ob- scurity, after bequeathing to posterity an inheritance, in the unrewarded products of their genius, to endure through many generations, and cast at once a glory and a shade on the era in which they flourished, as the phrase is, — in vv^hich they perished, as it ought to be. On the whole, then, — though it is a frigid and dis- heartening conclusion, — it is v/ell when a youth of ardent hope and splendid promise, who has been allured into the "primrose path of dalliance" with the Muses, by the songs of their most favoured lov- ers, heard like the nightingale's, unseen, — it is well when such a one, in due time (and before being irrecoverably bewildered), is alarmed and compelled to retreat by the afiecting and humbling sight of those lovers, in the characters of men, frequently of low estate, neglected Oi" contemned by the multi- tude, trampled down by the pride of wealth and power, — desponding martyrs of sloth, or suicidal slaves of intemperance. If ever there was an ex- ample of paramount genius, like the first created lion, bursting from the earth, " Pawing to get free His hinder parts ;" — Milton. then rampant, ?.nd bounding abroad, and " shaking his brinded mane," m ail the joy of new-found life ; — if ever there was such an example, calculated to quicken souls as sordid as the dod, and make them start up from behind the plough into poets, the story of Robert Burns affords it. And if ever there was a warning of the degradation :uul (lestruction of talents THE THEMES OF POETRY. 193 of the liighest order, calculated to scare the boldest and vainest adventurer from the fields of poesy, the story of Burns presents that terrific warning; that flaming- sword turning every way, to forbid entrance into that paradise of fancied bliss, but real wo, in which he rioted and fell. But as I propose to allude further to his career in the close of this paper, at present I hasten to notice^(very imperfectly, indeed) the themes of poetry, and its influences. The Themes of Poetry. It is an affecting consideration, that more than half the interest of human life arises out of the suf- ferings of our fellow-creatures. The mind is not satisfied alone with the calm of intellectual enjoy- ments, nor the heart with tender and passionate emotions, nor the senses themselves with voluptuous indulgence. The mind must be occasionally roused by powerful and mysterious events, in v/hich the ways of Providence are so hidden, that the wisdom and goodness of God are liable to be questioned by ignorance or presumption, while faith and patience must be silent and adore : the heart must sometimes be probed by sympathies so rending, that they only fall short of the actual agony to which they are alUed; the senses cannot ahvays resist the unde- finable temptation to yield themselves to voluntary torture. Among the crowds that follow a criminal to exe- cution, is there one who goes, purely, for the plea- sure of witnessing the violent death of a being like himself, sensible even under the gallows to the in- convenience of a shovv^er of rain, and cowering under the clergyman's umbrella, to listen for the last word of the last prayer that shall ever be offered for him ] No ; some may be indifferent, and a few may be hardened, but not one can rejoice ; while the mul- titude, v;ho are melted with genuine compassion^ 194 TUC THKMES OF POETRY. nevertheless gaze from the earliest glimpse of his figure ou the scaffold, to the latest convulsions of his frame, with feelings, in which the strange gratifica- tion of curiosity, too intense to be otherwise ap- peased, so tempers the horror of the spectacle, that it can not only be endured on the spot, but every circumstance of it recalled in cool memory, and in> vested with a character of romantic adventure. Can any sorrow of affection exceed, in poignancy, the anguish and anxiety of a mother, watching the progress of consumption in the person of an only son, in whom her husband's image lives, though he is dead, and looks as he once looked when young, and yet a lover ; the son in whom also her present bliss, her future hopes on earth, are all bound up, as in the bundle of life ? No ; there is a worm that dies not in her bosom, from the first moment when she feels its bite, on discovering the hectic rose upon his cheek, that awakens a thousand unutterable fears, — not one of which in the issue is unrealized, — till the last withering lily there, as he lies in his coffin, with the impress on his countenance of Death's sig- net, bearing, even to the eye of love, this inscription, — " Bury me out of thy sight !" — Yet, of all the pangs that she has experienced, there is not one which she did not choose even for its own sake, — she IV ould not he com(oYied\ — there is not one which she would have foregone for any delight under heaven, except that which it was impossible for her to know — his recovery ; and while she lives, and while she loves, the recollections that endear him to her happiest feelings are heightened almost to joy in grief, by the remembrance of how nmch she suf- fered for him. To the man of thought, all that is terrible and afflictive in nature, in society, in imagination, is food for his mind, sucli as spirits alone of liigher tem- perament can fully taste and turn into luxury ; but iB'hicli inferior ones can re]ish» too, mi no smajj nica- THE THEMES OF POETRY. 105 sure. Earthquakes, volcanoes, lightning-, tempest, famine, plague, and inundation ; hard labour, penur}^, thirst, hunger, nakedness, disease, insanity, death ; the existence of moral evil ; the deceitfulness and - desperate wickedness of man's heart ; envy, malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness ; — the commission and the punishment of crimes against society ; op- pression, bondage, impotent resistance of injustice ; with all the wrongs and woes of a corrupt or a tyrannical government ; the desolations of foreign war ; the miseries of civil strife : to sum up all, the troubles to which we are born, the calamities which we bring upon ourselves, the outrages which we inflict on each other, the judgments of Divine Provi- dence on individuals, families, nations, the v/hole human race, — each class, and the whole accumula- tion of these awakening and appalling evils, not only ^ afford inexhaustible subjects of sublime and inspiring "^ contemplation to the sage, and themes for the poet ; but by the manner in which they affect the entire progeny of Adam, prove that more than half the in- terest of mortal life arises out of the sufferings of our fellow-creatures. The wisdom and kindness of God are most gra- ciously manifested in thus educing good from evil. There is so much floating and perpetual distress in the world, and in every part of it, that were a person of the firmest nerve to know all that is enduring for one hour only, in one place, — the present hour, at this moment, throughout this great city, — and were he able to sympathize with it, in every case, and aU at once, as though the whole were under his eyes, within hearing, in his neighbourhood, in his family, — his spirit would assuredly sink under it, aud if life were prolonged, and reason not totally overthrown, he would never relapse into gayety. On the other hand, there is so much selfishness in our nature, that if the groans of the whole creation around could neither reach our ears nor touch our hearts, we 106 THE THEMES OF POETRY. should bo of all animals the most insensate, the most ferocious. It is good for us to be afflicted in the afflictions of others, but it would be death or madness to be so beyond that undefinable line which Provi- dence has drawn, and within whicli we are uncon- sciously kept by the power that wheels the planets in their orbits, and suffers not a sparrow to fall to the ground without permission. While the last paragraph was passing through my pen upon paper, a fly glanced through the candle- flame, fell backwards into the liquid roimd the wick, and lay weltering there for several seconds before the mercy of a trembling hand could inflict a speedier death ^han that which it was enduring. What an age of misery might have been condensed within those few moments to the poor fly is inconceivable to man ; but could this be ascertained by some curious inquirer, the nightly burnings alive of flies alone would be sufficient to render his own existence miserable ; yet who would choose to be utterly regardless of the sufferings of the meanest insect, the structure of whose frame is a miracle of Omni- potence 1 and vdiatever cold-blooded skepticism may insinuate to the contrary, whose sensibilities are probably so acute, that, in the language of thfi poet, — " E'en the poor beetle that v/e tread on feels As great a pang as when a giant dies." And thus is man so ''fearfully and wonderfully made," as to require for the health of his body, the expansion of his intellect, and the purifying of his heart, other and sterner excitements than those of either sensual and enervating pleasure, or of placid and serene enjoyment. From his own personal maladies, and from a strong but well-governed sym- pathy Vv^ith tlie fiery trials of his fellow-creatures of ;iil kinds and conditionr-. he niav derive, if not THK THEMES OF POETRY. 197 positive happiness, the means at least of infinitely increasing his happiness, by learning to suffer with resignation, by loosening his affections from the world, and by having his heart and his treasure in heaven. The famous lines of Lucretius, at the opening of his second book, De Rerum Natura, have been so often quoted and criticised, that I shall merely allude to them as beautifully bearing on the subject before us. Let us take a signal instance to illustrate the general argument. It is twice seven years, or nearly so, since the death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, and her new-born offspring; the former, the most beloved person in the realm ; the latter, the heir of the greatest throne in the w^orld, though it lived not long enough to receive even a name to be inscribed upon its coffin; so uncertain are the des- tinies of man, when most absolutely decreed by himself or his fellow-mortals. On that occasion the grief of the public was deep, sincere, and lasting; but who can doubt that the interest — using the word in its favourite sentimental sense — who can doubt that the interest excited by these events was trans- cendently more sublime and affecting than would have been awakened by the loss of the same per- sonages under circumstances less excruciating to the common feelings of humanity, or less fatal to the fond expectations of a generous people? In proportion to the agony was the interest, and in pro- portion to the interest was the enjoyment, by those who bore a part in the universal affliction. There was enjoyment in remembering and repeating, in tones of regret, the virtu-es and graces of the Daughter of England, — there was enjoyment in mak- ing a Sabbath of the day of her burial, — enjoymen'. in listening to pious improvements from the pulpit of the sovereign dispensation of Providence, — el^ joyment in mingling tears and lamentations witn tlie whole British people, at liic hour when her ins TIIK THKMKS OF POP^TRY. relics were laid in the grave, — enjoyment in compos ing and perusing tiie strains of eloquence and poesy that celebrated her glory and her fall, — and there was enjoyment in every recollection of her name, after the bitterness of death had passed away, and her memory had been silently enshrined in hearts, where it had been fondly hoped that she would one day be enthroned. Thus from the greatest felt calamity which this country had suffered for ages, there was communi- cated the greatest benefic of the kind on record to the minds of millions, by means of a chastening but benignant excitement, which produced a happier in- fluence on tlie moral character of the people than all the victoriGs of ten years' war had done, or the vic- tories of tea more cculd now accomplish ; for it quickeaea latc expression, if not into immediate existence, more loyaL patriotic, compassionate, and devotional feelings than any national event, either prosperous or adverse, had done since Britain ^^^.g a kina-dom. When the mighty are put down froio their seats, we gaze at the eminence whenc^e i'di-y are fallen, as vv3 should upon the cliff where an ea^le at rest had been struck dead by lightning in our sight, — the vp.ry void being then more conspicuous than was ihe living presence. When death brings down such noble marks in the highest places, his povver is felt by reaction upon the fears and forebodings of all classes downward in gradation. We are so accustomed to read, and speak, and think of death as a real personage, with his darts striking down, indiscriminately, persons of all ages, ranks, and con- ditions, — one of whom is said to be pierced every moment, his shafts flying incessantly, and in all directions, — that, v/ithout any violent efhrt of mind, we may consider him as an " archer," indefatigable as well as " insatiate," who, in the course of nature, has never once missed a victim against whom he drew his bow, nor amonij tens of thousands of mill- THE THKMKS OF FOKTItY. 199 lOus, which, since the creation, liave been appointed to him for his prey, has he ever forirotten one ; those whom he miffht seem to have left behind in his march of destruction, being from his lengthened forbearance most obviously exposed to his next aim ; since the further they have escaped, the nearer have they been running into that danger which in the issue must be met. Death is the chief hero of poetry, though life be its perpetual theme; and t^king advantage of the strange affinity between pain aud pleasure, to which reference has been made, the main subjects of verse have been selected from the sufferings of man in every stage of his earthly existence, under every aspect of external circumstances, and through every form of society. The noblest lessons are Taught in the school of adversity, and communicated by the examples of those who have learned them there, to those who have not been so disciplined, in song rather than in history. Cowley says : — " So when the wisest poets seek, In all their liveliest colours, to set forth A. picture of heroic worth, The pious Trojan, or the prudent Greek ; They feed him, not with nectar, nor the meat That cannot, without jo}'', be eat ; But, in the cold of want, and storms of adverse chance, They harden liis young virtue by degrees ; The beauteous drop first into ice doth freeze, Alia into solid crystal doth advance. • " His murder'd friends and kindred he does see, And from his flaming country flee ; Much is he toss'd by sea and land. Does long the force of angry gods withstand : He does long troubles and long wars sustain, Ere he his fatal birthright gain : — With not less toil and labour can Destiny build up a great man. Who's Avith sufficient virtue fill'd His ruin'd country to rebuild." 200 THK THF.MES OF POJOIRY. If it be the business of tragedy, as A/istotle hIIovvs, to purify the soul by pity and terror, then out of the ills of the universe may poetry of every kind extract balm to heal, or comfort to allay them. Thus, in a new and admirable sense, is the riddle of Sameon illustrated. In the carcass of -the young lion, which roared against him, and v/hich he rent as he would tear a kid, when he turned aside to see it, behold a swarm of bees and honey in it ! " Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." Out of grief, misfortune, bereavement, the poet brings gladness, profit, con- solation. There is no romance, no poetry in any of these things themselves to those who suffer (whatever there be to witnesses of them), till they are past. Sickness and death are cruel and fearful visitations ; it is sickness removed, death averted, vv'hich makes health enjoyment, and escape renova- tion. The return to this lovely world of him who has " shrieked and hovered o'er the dread abyss" that divides time and eternity, is more than life, —it is life from the dead. Then, then, the ro- mance and the poetry begin, where the awful reali- ties end. When Hezekiah was sick unto death, and a mes- sage from the prophet said, " Set thine house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live ;" then Heze- kiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the Lord, and pleaded hard, and wrestled in agony of supplication for a reprieve. " And Hezekiah wept sore," But when his prayer had been heard, his tears seen, and fifteen year's were added to his life, then was his mourning changed into minstrelsy, and the fear and anguish which had previously over- whelmed his spirit gave way to transport. Then, likewise, he could expatiate with delighted remi- niscence, and in the most delicate and touching strains, on those incidents of his extremity which TIIF, THF.MKS OK P()I;TRV. 201 had been all horror and darkness while they were present. J3ut in the joy of (.'onvalescence, he recalled the very circumstances and sentiments which had been stru'rg'ling and despairino^ pangs in his heart before, and winged them with words that flew up to heaven's gate in notes of gratitude and praise : — "The writing of Hezekiah, king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered from his sick- ness. I said in the cutting off of my days, I shall go to the gates of the grave ; I am deprived of the residue of my years. 1 said, I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord, in the land of the living; 1 shall behold man no more, with the inhabitants of the world. Mine age is departed, and is removed from me as a shepherd's tent." *****«! am oppressed ; O Lord ! undertake for me," ***** " Behold, for peace I had great bitterness ; but Thou hast, in love to my soul, delivered it from the pit of corruption ; Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. The grave cannot praise Thee ; Death can- not celebrate Thee." * * * " The living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do at this day." — Isaiah xxxviii. 9-19. The main themes of poetry might be summed up in a few phrases, or expanded into an index to a cyclopedia. I s'hall particularize two only in this place. War, — the war of glory, in which ambition tram- ples down justice and humanity, to raise a single tomb for a favourite hero upon a Golgotha of nations ; and war, — the war of freedom, in which death is preferred to chains, and victory is the eman- cipation or the security of millions. War also assumes a thousand vulgar and atrocious forms ; but these two alone are poetical ones. War has been the chief burden of epic poetry in ages past, how- ever perils and labours, sufferings and conflicts, by land and by water, may have been intermingled with battle and devastation, according to the subject which Q 202 THE TIIEMI':S OF POETRY. was to be dignified and adorned above the strain of history, by the embelUshments of fiction and the music of verse. But the poets who have succeeded in this highest and most difficult field are those who selected their heroes and their scenes of action from the traditions rather than the chronicles of times long antecedent. The most splendid achievements of contemporaries can receive no additional lustre from being celebrated in heroic narrative. Truth repels the touch of fable as the contamination of falsehood in cases where the matters of fact are so fully known, or so easily ascertained, that the com- mon sense of mankind will receive nothing unauthen- ticated in reference to them. Lucan fell with his hero in the battle of Pharsalia, and Sir Walter Scott himself was vanquished bi/ his on the plain of Wa- terloo. The fight on the latter must for ever rank among the proudest examples of military ascendence ; but, for a thousand years to come, it can hardly be seen (except by incidental glimpses, such as Lord Byron has caught of it in the Third Canto of " Childe Harold,") in an aspect fit for poetical aggrandize- ment. In lyric song, however, — as in the " Hohen- linden" of Campbell, and Wolfe's " Burial of Sir John Moore," — the glories even of modern warfare may be set forth in lays which rival or eclipse all that antiquity has left of the kind. But love, in all ages, and among all people, has been the principal source of poetic inspiration. Love. — the love of country, our native country ; love, — the love of home, our own home, its chari- ties, endearments, relationships ; love, — the love which men ought to bear to their brethren, of every kindred, realm, and clime upon earth ; love, — the love of virtue, which elevates man to his true stand- ard under heaven ; and, with reverence be it spoken, love, — the love of God, who is Love. I add once more, love, — that love which is the prime, perpetual, everyoungand fresh, and unexhausted theme of bards THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 203 in each successive generation as though it had never been sung before ; — the love which Adam bare to Eve in Paradise; the love with which Eve compensated Adam in the wilderness for the loss of that earthly Paradise which he seems to have forfeited from excess of love to her. I cannot be wrong ; I cannot be misunderstood, when I speak thus of that ineffa- ble tenderness which includes whatever makes hu- man love sweet, and lasting, and pecuHar ; the busi- ness of the heart, the subject of hope, fear, sorrow, rapture, despondency, despair, — each in turn, some- times altogether : for so mysteriously mingled is the cup of affection, that the bitterest infusion will occa- sionally dash it t-ith intenser deliciousness. All the vicissitudes of this love are pre-eminently poetical in every change of colour, form, and feeling which it undergoes, being intimately associated with all that is transporting or afflictive, bright and pure, grand and terrible, peaceful, holy, and happy in mortal existence. On this theme, how gloriously soever they have often excelled, it must be con- fessed that poets have more grievously offended than on any other. Where they might have done most good they have done most evil. I forbear to expa- tiate here ; suffice it to say, that taste and morals have been equally vitiated, and genius itself debased, in proportion as it has thus been prostituted. The Influence of Poetry. Poetry possesses a paramount degree of influence, from the fact, that sentiments communicated in verse are identified with the very words through which they have been received, and which fre- quently, more than the character of the sentiments themselves, give force, perspicuity, and permanence to the latter. The language and its import being remembered together, the instruction conveyed is rendered more distinct and indelible. The dis- 204 THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. courses of the, orator, with all their beauty of embel- lishment, ardour of diction, and cogency of argument, are recollected rather by their effect than in their reality : what he has conceived and expressed with transcendent ability, we call to mind in its general bearings only, and repeat to ourselves or to others, by imperfect imitation and in very incompetent ver- biage. This, of necessity, must be far inferior 'n emphasis and clearness to the original composition, whether that were spontaneous or elaborate ; and if such be the case with eloquence, much more will it be so with history, philosophy, and prose literature at large, from which the narratives, speculations, and reasonings, can only be recalled in the abstract, however fascinating in perusal the style of the writer may be. Of these, the epitomised matter, moral, or lesson alone remains in the mind, which, being blended with our stock of general knowledge, gene- ral principles, general motives, — thus remotely be- comes influential on our conduct and our lives. Poetry, on the other hand, takes root in the memory as well as in the understanding, — not in essence only, but in the very sounds and syllables that incorporate it. This every one can testify from experience who, as a child, was taught the songs of Dr. Watts, as a youth, went through Homer and Horace, and, as a man, made acquaintance vi^ith the native and foreign literature of his own and past ages. Of all his reading, that which he remembers most perfectly, and remembers in the words of the originals, will be poetry; poetry in the fixed form of verse, from which it cannot be dissociated with- out losing half its beauty, and more than half its influence. That influence is further and incalculably increased from the circumstance that itis the business of poetry to invest whatever it touches with the hues of ima- gination, and animate that which is susceptible with tlie warnilh of i)assion ; at the same time never to THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 205 depart from truth ; for if it does, it departs from nature, and its creations are monsters, as incongru- ous in themselves as they are revolting to good taste. Noble fictions are not disguises, but revela- tions of truth ; shapes which she assumes to make herself visible to the mind's eye ; indeed, so far is legitimate fiction from being any thing distinct from reality, that it can have no existence without it, but is neither more nor less than the fine ideal of reality. In reference to the lamentable and frequent abuse of that best gift of influence (because the most potent, diffusive, and enduring), which heaven has bestowed upon the poet for the best purposes — at once to delight and profit contemporaries and pos- terity — I may observe, that he holds a perilous talent, on a fearful responsibility, who can invent, combine, and fix with inseparable union, words, thoughts, and images, and give them motion like that of the planets, — not to cease till the heavens shall be dissolved, and the earth, with the works therein, burnt up. Is there a power committed to man so great 1 Is there one that can be more benefi- cently or more malignantly exercised ? The deeds of warriors, the decrees of princes, the revolutions of empires, do not so much, so immediately, so per- manently affect the moral character, the social con- dition, the weal and the wo of the human race, as the lessons of wisdom or folly, of glory, virtue, and piety, pride, revenge, depravity, licentiousness, and the converse of these, — in the writings of those mysterious beings who have an intellectual exist- ence among us, and rule posterity, not " from their urns," like dead heroes, whose acts only are preserved in remembrance, but by their very spirits living, breathing, speaking in their works; therein holding communion with the spirits of all who read or hear their syren or their seraph strains ; and thus becoming good or evil angels to successive genera- tions, tempting to vice and crime, to misery and 206 THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. destruction ; or leading- throuc^h ways of pleasant ness and paths of peace. Millions of thoughts and images, fixed in the palpable forms of words, and put into perpetual motion by these benefactors or scourges of their species, are passing down in the track of time, upon the length and breadth of the whole earth, blessing or cursing the people of one age after another ; and, let authors tremble at the annunciation, perpetuating the righteousness or ag- gravating the guilt of men, whose bones are in the sepulchre and their souls in eternity. Lord Bacon, remarking upon the destruction of all other works of men's hands, says of letters, — " The images of men's wits remain unmaimed in books for ever, exempt from the injuries of time, — because capable of perpetual renovation. Neither can they properly be called images, because, in their way, they generate still, and cast forth seeds in the minds of men, raising and procreating infinite actions and opinions in succeeding ages ; so that, if the invention of a ship was thought so noble and won- derful, — which transports riches and merchandise from place to place, and consociates the most remote regions in participation of their fruits and commodi- ties — how much more are letters to be magnified, which, as ships passing through the vast sea of time, connect the remotest ages of wits and inven- tions in mutual traffic and correspondence!" — Oj the Advancement of Learning, Book i. In this commerce of literature, the Scriptures and the writings of divines excepted, the compo- sitions of the poets are undoubtedly the most ex- tensively and abidingly influential, because they have had, in youth at least, the greatest power over the greatest minds; when, more even than history, and uninspired ethics themselves, they have tended to form the characters, opinions, and actions of tliose who lead or govern the multitude, whether as princes warriors, stateemen, philosophers, or THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 207 philanthropists. The compositions of the poets have also this transcendent advantag'e over all others, that they are the solace and delight of the most accomplished of the finer, feebler, better sex, whose morals, manners, and deportment give the tone to society ; — not only as being themselves (to speak technically) its most agreeable component parts, but because they are the mothers and nurses of the rising generation, as well as the sisters, lovers, and companions most acceptable to the ex- isting one, at that time when the affections of both sexes are gentlest, warmest, liveliest, and most easily and ineffaceably touched, purified, tempered, and exalted. What owe we not, in Britain, at this day, to Alfred 1 — Liberty, property, laws, literature ; all that makes us as a people what we are, and po- litical society what it ought to be. And who made Alfred all that he became to his own age, all that he is to ours 1 — She, who was more than a parent to him. "The words which his mother taught him," the songs which his mother sang to him, were the germs of thought, genius, enterprise, action, every thing to the future father of his country. We owe to poetry, — probably to rude, humble, but fer- vent, patriotic poetry, — all that we owe to Alfred, and all that he owed to his mother. But poetry makes poets. To exemplify this gene- rating quality of poetic influence, by which it is itself transmitted and increased with every era of advancing time, I shall refer to the known history, character, and writings of two individuals, born and brought up in circumstances of life which were so little likely to awaken and nourish poetic feelings in their minds, that it may be safely assumed concerning them, had they been born and brought up under any other circumstances, higher or lower in social rank, less favourable or more to the development of natural genius, they would have grown up into poets, as surely as they grew up into men. Neither of 208 THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. tliem was of the first order ; the one, indeed (Henry Kirke White), being but of a moderate, the other (Robert Burns) of a rare standard ; but both of gen- uine poetic temperament. Henry Kirke White. Nothing is trifling or insignificant in childhood, when every thing conduces to form the bias of an immortal mind ; and every occurrence that awakens a new emotion is the forerunner o{ everlasting con- sequences. Such was the incident mentioned by Henry Kirke White, that before he was six years old he was accustomed to hear a certain damsel sing the affecting ballad of "The Babes in the W'ood," and others, alluded to in the following lines, written when he was little more than twice that age:— " Many's the time I've scampered down the glade, To ask the promised ditty from the maid, Which well she loved, as well she knew to sing While we around her formed a little ring ,— She told of innocence foredoom'd to bleed, Of wicked guardians bent on bloody deed ; Of little children murder'das they slept, While at each pause we wrung our hands, and wept; Sad was the tale, and wonder much did we Such hearts of stone there in the world could be '" ****** " Beloved moment ! then 'twas first I caught The first foundation of romantic thought." * -if- * * * "I hied me to the thick o'erarching shade, And there on mossy carpet hstless laid. While at my feet the rippUng runnel ran, The days of wild romance antique I'd scan. Soar on the wings of fancy through the air, To realms of light, and pierce the radiance there." The heart of any child would be touched with such ditties, but while the rest returned to their play, the future poet alone would retire into solitude to muse THE INFLUENCE OF POKTAU'. 209 upon them ; and think, and feel, till he could feel and think no longer, over such a stanza as this in the rude old ballad, when the villain had left the children in the wood, under pretence of going to the town lo bring then* bread, for which they were crynng : — "These pretty babes, with hand in hand, Did wander up and down, But 7iever more could see the man, Approaching from the town !" These are lines which none but a poet by nature could make, and they are such lines as make poets. From the same juvenile composition we leam that Kirkc White was early acquainted with Spenser and Milton. Describing his evening walks with a fa- vourite school-fellow, he says : — " To gaze upon the clouds, whose coloured pride Was scatter'd thinly o'er the welkin wide, And tmged with such variety of shade, To the charm'd soul sublimest thoughts conveyed, — In these what forms romantic did we trace, While fancy led us o'er the realms of space ! Now we espied the thuaderer in his car, Leading the embattled seraphim to war ; Then stately towers descried, sublimely high. In Gothic grandeur frowning on the sky ; Or saw, wide-stretching o'er the azure height A ridge of glaciers, in mural white, Hugely terrific!" 4ny eye might build castles in the clouds, or dis- cover towers and glaciers amid the pomp of sunset ; but the imagination of the poet alone, fired with the first perusal of Milton, would discern in them the bat- tle array of the seraphim, and the war in heaven, when " Forth rush'd, with whirlwind sound, The chariot of paternal Deity Flashing thick flames;" and especially that wonderful couplet, in which the approach of Messiah is described : — R 210 THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. " Attended with ten thousand, thousand saints, Ke onward came :—far off his coming shone /" I have laid emphasis on the latter clause, in which, with five of the plainest words that our language contains, " the poet blind yet bold" has struck out, condensed, and displayed, with insurpassable effect, one of the most magnificent images to be found even m Paradise Lost : — " Far off his coming shone !" The memory of Henry Kirke White has been embalmed rather by the genius of his biographer (Dr. Southey) than his own. He was, unquestion- ably, a youth of extraordinary promise ; but it must be acknowledged that he has left little which would have secured him more than a transient reputation, if his posthumous papers had fallen into other hands than those of the best-natured of critics and the most magnanimous of poets. There is no great infusion, hi his most finished pieces, of fine fancy, romantic feeling, or fervid eloquence. Their dis- tinguishing characteristics are good sense and pious sentiment, strongly enforced, and sometimes admira- bly expressed ; indeed the cast of his thought v/as rather didactic, than either imaginative or impas- sioned. Nevertheless, some of his fragments of verse, penned occasionally on the backs of mathe- matical exercises at college, in fits of inspiration, show that the spirit was far from being quenched within him, after he had formally abandoned poesy as a pursuit ; but that, in sickness, solitude, and studies the most difficult and uncongenial, the hidden fire burned more intensely for repression, and now and then flashed out portentously. The following lines, though the second is lame, and the cold critic might perhaps find fifty faults in them, are strikingly sublime. There is a veil of obscurity upon them, like that wliich hides the secrets of the eternal world . — THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 21.1 " Once more, and yet once more, I give unto my harp a dark -woven lay : I heard the waters roar, I heard the flood of ages pass away." * O thou stern spirit, that dost dwell In thine eternal cell. Noting, gray chronicler ! the silent years, — J saw thee rise, — 1 saw thy scroll complete ; Thou spakest, and at thy feet The universe gave way ! * * * It was well that the author left this sketch unfinished; anotlier line might have let it down from " the high- est heaven of invention," in which it had been con- ceived, and into which the mind of the reader is rapt in the endeavour to decipher the hieroglyphic hint. Henry died at the age of twenty-one years. In some rough blank verses composed long before his dc'-^ease, he thus anticipated an early grave : — " Ay, I have planned full many a sanguine scheme Of earthly happiness ; * * * And it is hard To feel the hand of death arrest one's steps, Throw a chill blight on all one's budding hopes, And hurl one's soul untimely to the shades. Lost in the gaping gulf of blank oblivion. —Fifty years hence, and who will think of Henry? Oh, none !— another busy brood of beings Will shoot up in the mterim, and none Will hold him in remembrance. — " I shall sink, As sinks a stranger in the crowded streets Of busy London : — some short bustle's caused, A few inquiries, and the crowd close in. And all's forgotten." This may be very meager poetry, but the sentiments, in connexion with the author's subsequent history, are exceedingly affecting. The very reniarkablo simile at the conclusion, familiar as it seems, I be- lieve to be perfectly original ; and the moral maybe extended beyond its personal application here. What 212 THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. is the date of fame itself, and the circumstances accompanying it, more than the death of a stranger in tlie pubhc streets of a great city, occasioning a momentary interruption in a perpetual crowd 1 a ifew inquiries and exclamations, then all goes on again as it hath done for centuries past, on that very spot, and may go to the world's end ! The crown of Kirke White's labours in verse was 8 solitary book of "The Christiad," a sacred poem on the sufferings and death of our Saviour. In re- ference to this, his kind-hearted biographer observes, — " I cannot refrain from saying, that tiie last two stanzas (of this fragment) greatly affected me, when I discovered them written on the leaf of a different book, and apparently long after the first canto ; and greatly shall I be mistaken if they do not affect the reader also. They are these : — " Thus far have I pursued my solemn theme With self-rewarcling toil ; — thus far have sung Of god-like deeds, far loftier than beseem The lyre which I, in earlier days, have strung : — And now my spirits faint ; and I have hung The shell that solaced me in saddest hour On the dark cypress ! and the strains which rung "With Jesus' praise, their harpings now are o'er, Or, when the breeze comes by, moan, and are heard no more. ****** And must the harp of Judah sleep again ? Shall 1 no more reanimate the lay? Oh ! ""I'hou, who visitest the sons of men • Thou, who dost listen when the humble pray ! One iiltle space prolong my mortal day ; One little lapse suspend thy last decree ; I am a youthful traveller in the way ; And this slight boon would consecrate to Thee, Ere I with death shake hands, and smile that I arn free." These were probably the last stanzas the dying poet ever penned, for it pleased God to grant him a Jiii^her boon than that for which he prayed : — he asked for life, and he received immortality THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. 213 Robert Burns, " Tlie Ayrshire Ploughman," as he was first called, — or Bums, as he shall for ages be known by a moMOsyUable that will need neither prefix nor ad- junct to designate to whom " of that ilk" ii belongs, — Burns was so truly a born-'poet (if ever there was one), that whatever tended to develop his powers must be peculiarly interesting and instructive to all who love to trace in " the minstrel" tlie " progress of genius;" while, in this place, I trust that it will, in some measure, elucidate the main principles which I have endeavoured to establish in these papers re- specting poetry and poets. Religion, patriotism, and love were, in succession or in combination, the in- spirers of the poetry of Robert Burns: — when he wrote on other themes, he too frequently dese- crated the talents which their sublimer impulses had awakened, trained, and perfected. In broad humour, too, and keen satire, he excelled. It is true, that in both of these he went grievously astray; yet, amid the rudest extravagances of either, that intensity of feeling which belonged to the higher sentiments above mentioned often broke out in sallies of noble thought, and splendid imagination ; which showed that his spirit had not lost " all its original bright- ness," when it seemed most " fallen." The letter which he addressed to Dr. Moore, soon after his appearance as an author, in which he gives an account of his early life, proves that religion made a powerful impression on his mind, in the very dawn of infancy; of course, it must have influ- enced, in a high degree, the growth and charac- ter of his genius. Several of the most beautifu) and afl'ecting stanzas in "The Cotter's Saturday Night," in which the bard is known to have de- scribed the felicities of his father's fireside, touch upon the principal subjects of Holy Writ with such 214 THE INFLUKNCK OF POETRY. truth and pathos as to leave no doubt that " the Day-spring from on high," which shines through the Psalms and Prophecies, had lighted up his young imagination ; while the simplicity of evangelical nar- rative and the fervency of apostolic teaching had captivated his soul, and engaged the finest sensibili- ties of a heart not yet corrupted by commerce with a profligate world. To the cherished remembrance of early devotional enjoyments, and to a happy tal- ent for imitating the language of the sacred penmen, the best productions of Burns are indebted for much of their energy of expression and elevation of ideas, — their purity, tenderness, and force. But the wild minstrelsy of his native land, unre- strained and irregular, and infinitely variable, — con- fined indeed within a narrow circle, but that circle a magic one ; and hmited to a single key, but that key having a minor third of passing sweetness, — contrib- uted likewise to rouse his fancy, exercise his feel- ings, and enrich his memory with images and sen- timents at once noble and natural ; while its melo- dies, that flowed around him, were mingled in his ear and associated in his thoughts, with all the har- monies of nature heard amid forests and moun- tains, — the music of birds, and winds, and waters, which they resembled in unmeasured fluency and spontaneous modulation. Then, too, the tales of tradition, which he listened to from the lips of an ancient beldam, made him the inhabitant of an ima- ginary world, wherein all that " Fable yet had feigned or fear conceived" was realized to him ; for he was a thoughtful and solitary boy, and, in solitude and thought, he peopled every scene that was dear and familiar to his eye witli spirits and fairies, witches and warlocks, giants and kelpies. It is evident, frojii almost all his pieces, that it was his delight, indeed it was his forte, to THE INFLUENCK OF POETRY. 215 localize the personiiffes of his poetry, — whether tho ofFspriiig of his brain, like CoHa ; supernatural beiii2rs, hke the dancers in Kirk Allovvay ; or national heroes, like Wallace and Bruce, — with the very woods, and hills, and streams which he frequented in his boy hood. And in his mind this assimilation was so lively and abiding-, that there are few of his descrip- tions — descriptions in number, diversity, and pictu- resque features seldom equalled — on which he has not cast such sunshine of reality, that we cannot doubt that they had their prototypes in nature, and not in nature only, but in his native district; foi neither his knovvled^^e nor his affections were ever carried far beyond the province of his birth ; and be- yond Scotland they scarcely extended at all. It is probable that the mind of every one of us lays the scenes of Scripture narrative, of history, of romance, of epic poetry, — in fact, of all that we hear or read of, — in the places where we spent our childhood and youth; as, for example, the gai'den of Eden in our father's orchard, where there were many fruit trees ; the battle of Cannae on the wide common, inter- sected with trenches, where a conflict is said to have been fought between the Royalists and the Parlia- mentarians in the civil war ; the enchanted castle of some stupendous giant to have stood on the hill where the ruins of a Saxon tower rise on a mount out of a thick wood ; and the pursuit of Hector by Achilles round Troy walls, as having taken place about the nearest market town that we knew when we first read Homer. Each individual, of course, will have a different series of mnemonics of this kind, which he will find himself continually asso- ciating with the scenes of great events in the world's records and traditions. It is of some advantage, then, to the poet, that the features of the landscapes amid which he first dwelt, but more especially those of the neighbourhood where he long went to school, should afford rich and plastic materials, 216 THE INFLUENCE OF POETRY. which imagination can diversify a million-fold, ?n<] so accommodate as to make them the perpetual the- atre of all that he has been taught to remember con- cerning those who have lived before him, and all that he invents to increase the pleasures of memory, to those that shall come after him. For it is not from the real and visible presence of things that the poet copies and displays ; wherever he is, whatever climes he sees, his " heart" is " still untravelled ;" and it is from the cherished recollections of what early af- fected him, and could never afterward be forgotten (having grown up into ideal beauty, grandeur, and excellence in his own mind), that he sings, and paints, and sculptures out imperishable forms of fancy, thought, and feeling. In this respect, all the com- positions of Burns are homogeneous. He is in every style, in every theme, not only the patriot, the Scotchman, — but the Scotchman, the patriot of Ayrshire ; so dear and indissoluble are the ties of locality to minds the most aspiring and independent. Burns, according to his own account, was distin- guished in childhood by a very retentive memory. In the stores of that memory we discover the hid- den treasures of his muse, which enabled her, with a prodigalit)'^ like that of nature, to pour forth images and objects of every form, and colour, and kind, while, with an economy like that of the most prac- tised art, she selected and combined the endless characteristics of pleasing or magnificent scenery, with such sinaplicity and effect, under ever}'^ aspect of sky or season,- that the bard himself seems rather to be a co-^ipanion pointing out to the eye the love- liness or horror of a prospect within our own hori- zon, than the enchanter creating a fairy scene visi- ble only to imagination. He appears to invent nothing, while in truth he exercises a much higher f.iculty than wliat is frequently called invention, but whicli is little more than an arbitrary collocation of thinjrs. iiurmonioi!. o".lv when arrani'cd b\- il\elia;id THE INFLUKNCK OF POETRY. 217 thnt built the universe, or faithfully copied from origi- nal models of that hand by an earthly one, which pre- sumes not to add a lineament of its own. The j^c, nms of BurnSj like his native stream, confined to his native district, reflects the scenery on " the Banks of Ayr" with as much more truth and transparency than factitious landscapes are painted in the opaque pages of more ostentatious poets, as the reflections of trees, cottages, and animals are more vivid and diversified in water than the shadovrs of the same objects are on land. Whi'le yet a child, in addition to his school-learn* ing, the Life of Hannibal, and afterward the His- tory of Wallace, fell into his hands. These were the first books that Burns had read alone, — and in all the luxury of solitary indulgence, he stole away from toil and from pastime to enjoy them without interruption. These were also the books best suited to his genius at that age : they awoke the boldest energies of his mind, and kindled an inextinguish- able flame of heroic ardour and patriotic devotion in his bosom. The child became a soldier immediately, as every lad does in his turn : the drum and the bagpipe spake a new language to his ear, and were answered in corresponding tones from the recesses of his heart. He left his boyish sports, and strutted after the recruiting sergeant in the spirit of Hanni- bal overrunning Italy, or Wallace repelling the rav- agers of his country. Thus, the character of grand- eur was stamped upon his soul while it was soft in the mould : he became a hero before he was a man ; and, which was of much greater consequence to his future glory, before he was a lover. His genius was hewn out of the quarry with the strength and pro- portions of a Hercules : love, indeed, afterward touched it down into a gentler form, but love him- self could not reduce it to an Adonis; the original majesty remained after the original ruggedness had been chiselled away. The graces mav be added to 'Z'S rns; imluenck of i'oetry. the noblest character without deGrraciinir it, but when they precede the heroic virtues they preclude them. Two stanzas from " The Cotter's Saturday Night" will exemplify the style of his patriotic poetry : — " O Scotia ! my dear, my native soil ! For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content ; And O may heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile ; Then howe'er crowns and con nets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while. And stand, a wall of fire, around their much-loved isle. " O Thou, who pour'd the patriotic tide. That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart, Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride. Or nobly die, the second glorious part ; The patriot's God peculiarly Thou art. His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward ; • O never, ne'i'er Scotia's realm desert ; But still the patriot and the patriot-bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard." Love at length found him, who was to be pre- eminently the poet of love. Then, as the morning mists, when they retire from the risen sun, leave the landscape more beautiful, diversified, and spacious than the traveller could have supposed it before, — so, when the selfishness of the child and the obsti- nacy of the boy were dissolved in the growing ardour of youth, Burns discovered a new creation of so- cial feelings and generous sentiments in his soul, all referring to one object, and that the dearest and the loveliest, both to his eye and his fancy, that he had ever yet beheld. Religion had already warmed his affections, and heroism exalted his imagination ; love, therefore, found him a prompt disciple, and, unfortu- nately for his future peace and honour, love soon be- came lord of the ascendant in his horoscope, and thenceforward the load-star of his genius — the mas ter-passion of his life. TflK INFLUKNCK OF I'OKTRY. 219 Hitherto he had ij^azcd with iidmirHtion on the heavens as disphiying the gh)ry of God, and (;n the earth as being filled with his goodness ; while, in more romantic mood, he had imagined his native hills and valleys the Alps overcome and the battle- fields traversed by Hannibal, or had contemplated them as the actual scenes of the achievements and misfortunes of Wallace : now he looked upon the face of nature and of his beloved with the same ten- derness and enthusiasm ; whatever charms he de- scried in the features of the one, his lively fancy could attribute to those of the other. Sometimes he saw nature supereminently fair, because its beauties reminded him of her whom, with the idolatry of pas- sion, he adored ; again, the beauties of his mistress appeared all perfect, because they reminded him of whatever was lovely and attractive in creation. In her presence, and even in the idea of her presence, — "The common air, the earth, the skies, To him were opening Paradise."— Gray. Such joyous emotions as now began to visit his bosom were too restless to be confined there, too exhilarating to be told in ordinary language, and too evanescent to be revealed in verse, without the aid of glowing imagery. Then it was, according to his own scriptural allusion, not profanely intended, that the "poetic genius of his country found him, as the prophet-bard Elijah did Elisha, at the plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over him. She bade him sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes, and rural pleasures of his native soil, in his native tongue." It is not expedient here to pursue his personal his- tory ; nor necessary to expose the follies, vices, and sorrows of his latter days. The powers of his mind had grown to their full stature and strength before the period of his well-known and ever to-be-lamented 220 TilF, INFLUKNCK Ol POKTKY. arrival in Edinburgh. Thenceforward tliey under- went no extraordinary change either of improvement or deterioration, until their final and premature extinction, after a brief but brilliant career of fame, and a merry but miserable career of dissipation. As a writer, when worthily employing his talents, Burns is the poet of truth, of nature, and of Scotland. Allusion has already been made to the singular ad- vantages, neither fev/ nor small, which he derived from the privilege of availing himself of the whole vocabulary of his mother-tongue, in addition to the whole scope of the English language. His subjects are never remote, abstracted, or factitious ; they are such as come in his way, and therefore shine in his song, as the clouds which meet the sun are adorned by his rays. His scenery is purely native, and pre sents the very objects that engaged his attention when the themes with which they are associated were revolving in his mind. The reader sees, hears, feels with the poet in such descriptions as these : — " As I stood by yon roofless tower, Where the wa' flower scents the dewy air, Wliere the howlet mourns in her ivy bower, And tehs the midnight moon her care ; The winds were laid, the air was still, The stars they shot along the sky ; The fox was howhng on the hilh And the distant echoing vales reply." A poet ought to have the eye of the deaf, and the ear of the blind, with every other sense quickened in proportion, as though it alone were exercised to supply the deficiency of all the rest. Burns was thus exquisitely organized ; and these lines prove it. It is manifest, also, that he wrote less consciously from memory than perception: not after slow de- lib(^r.ition and long choosing, but from instantaneous imp\ilse acting upon ;ibundant and susceptible ma- terials, treasured up for anv occasion thai niiiihf THK INFLUKNCK OF POETRY. 221 bring them into use. The fire which bums through ilis poems was not elaborated spark by spark from mechanical friction in the closet. It was in tlie open field, under the cope of heaven, this poetical Frank- lin cauglit his lightnings from the cloud as it passed over him; and he communicated them, too, by a touch, with electrical swiftness and effect. Thus, literally, amid the inspiration of a thunder-storm on the wilds of Kenmore, he framed the "Address of Bruce to his Soldiers at Bannockburn," whicli will only be forgotten with the battle itself; that is with the glory and existence of his country. The high praises here bestowed upon the compo- sitions of this author must be confined to the best and the purest in morals and in taste. His ordinary and his satirical ones — I dare not except "Tarn O'Shanter," that prodigy of wayward fancy — are so often debased by ribaldry and profaneness, that they can scarcely be perused without shuddering by any one whose mind is not utterly corrupted. The genius of Burns resembled the pearl of Cleopatra, both in its worth and its fortune ; the one was moulded by nature in secret, beneath the depths oi the ocean ; the other was produced and perfected b5 the same hand, in equal obscurity, on the banks ol the Ayr. The former was suddenly brought to light, and shone for a season on the forehead of imperia. beauty ; the latter, not less unexpectedly, emerged from the shade, and dazzled and delighted an ad- miring nation, in the keeping of a Scottish peasant. The fate of both was the same : each was wantonly dissolved in the cup of pleasure, and quaffed by its possessor at one intemperate drauT'nt. k RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE, FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. No. I. The Permanence of Words, An eloquent, but extravagant, writer has hazarded the assertion, that " words are the only things that last for ever."* Nor is this merely a splendid say- ing, or a startling paradox, that may be qualified by explanation into commonplace ; but with respect to man, and his VvOrks on earth, it is literally true. Temples and palaces, amphitheatres and catacombs — monuments of power, and magnificence, and skill, to perpetuate the memory, and preserve even the ashes, of those who lived in past ages — must, in the revolutions of mundane events, not only perish them- selves by violence or decay, but the very dust in which they perished be so scattered as to leave no Irace of their material existence behind. Tliere is no security beyond the passing moment for tlie most permanent, or the most precious of these ; they are as much in jeopardy as ever, after having escaped the changes and chances of thousands of years. An earthquake may suddenly ing'.lf the pyramids of Egypt, and leave the sand of the desert as blank as ' The late Mr. William Ilazlitt. A RETROSPECT OF LITI.RATURK. 223 the tide would have left it on the seashore. A hammer -ill the hand of an idiot may break to pieces the Apollo Belvedere, or the Venus de' Medici, w^hich are scarcely less worshipped as miracles of art in our day than they were by idolaters of old as repre- sentatives of deities. Looking abroad over the whole world, after the lapse of nearly six thousand years, what have we of the past but the words in which its history is re- corded] What besides a few mouldering and brittle ruins, which time is imperceptibly touching down into dust, — what, besides these, remains of the glory, the grandeur, the intelligence, the supremacy of the Grecian republics, or the empire of Rome 1 Nothing but the words of poets, historians, philosophers, and orators, who being dead yet speak, and in their immortal works still maintain their dominion over inferior minds through all posterity. And these intellectual sovereigns not only govern our spirits from the tomb by the power of their thoughts, but their very voices are heard by our living ears in the accents of their mother-tongues. The beauty, the eloqueirce, and art of these collocations of sounds and syllables, the learned alone can appreciate, and that only (in some cases) after long, intense, and laborious investigation; but as thought can be made to transmigrate from one body of words into another, even through all the languages of the earth, without losing what may be called its personal identity, — the great minds of antiquity continue to hold their jiscendency over the opinions, manners, characters, institutions, and events of all ages and nations through which their posthumous compositions have found way, and been made the earliest subjects of study, the highest standards of morals, and the most perfect examples of taste, to the master-minds in every state of civilized society. In this respect, the " wordb' of inspired prophets and apostles among 224 A KKTROSPKCT OF LITERATURE. the Jews, and those of gifted writers among the ancient gentiles, may truly be said to "last for ever." Words are the vehicles by which thought is made visible to the eye, audible to the ear, and intelligible to the mind of another; they are the palpable forms of ideas, without which these would be intangible as the spirit that conceives or the breath that would utter them. And of su^h influence is speech or writing, as the conductor of thought, that, though all words do not "last for ever," and it is well for the peace of the world, and the happiness of indi- viduals, that they do not, — yet even here every word has its date and its eflfect ; so that with the tongue or the pen we are continually doing good or evil to ourselves or our neighbours. On a single phrase expressed in anger or affection, in levity or serious- ness, the whole progress of a human spirit through life — perhaps even to eternity — may be changed from the direction which it was pursuing, whether right or wrong. For in nothing is the power and indestructibility of words more signally exemplified than in small compositions, such as stories, essays, parables, songs, proverbs, and all the minor and more exquisite forms of composition. It is a fact, not obvious perhaps, but capable of perfect proof, that knowledge, in all eras which have been distinguished as enlightened, has been propagated more by tracts th-rui by volumes. We need but appeal, in evidence of this, to the state of learning in our own land at the present day, when all classes of people are more or less instructed. On this point I shall have a future opportunity of expatiating, and wlW therefore, at present, ofler only two examples of the permanence of v/ords, involving sacred or important truth, of equal value and application, iti ail periods and coun- tries, and among all people to M'hom they may be delivered A RETROSI'KCT OF LITERATURE. 225 III the youth of the Roman commonwealth, during a quarrel between the patricians and plebeians, when the latter had separated themselves from the former, on the plea that they would no longer labour to maintain the unproductive class in indolent luxury, Menenius Agrippa, by the well-known fable of a schism in the human body, in which the limbs mutinied against the stomach, brought the seceders to a sense of their duty and interest, and reconciled a feud which, had it been further inflamed, might have destroyed the state, and turned the history of the world itself thenceforward into an entirely new channel, by interrupting the tide of events which were carrying Rome to the summit of dominion. The lesson which that sagacious patriot taught to his countrymen and contemporaries, he taught to all generations to come. His fable has already, by more than a thousand years, survived the empire which it rescued from premature destruction. The other instance of a small form of words, in which dwells not an immortal only, but a divine spirit, is that prayer which our Saviour taught his disciples. How many millions and milUons of times has that prayer been preferred by Christians of all denominations! So wide, indeed, is the sound thereof gone forth, that daily, and almost without intermission, from the ends of the earth, and afar oflf upon the sea, it is ascending to Heaven like incense and a pure offering ; nor needs it the gift of prophecy to foretell, that though " heaven and earth shall pass avi^ay," these words of our blessed Lord *' shall not pass away," till every petition in it has been an- swered — till the kingdom of God shall come, and his will be done in earth as it is in heaven. We now proceed to the immediate purpose of these papers — to take a brief, and necessarily iniper* feet, but perhaps not altogether uninteresting, re« trcspect of the history of literature, from the ear* S 22n A RETROSPKCT OV LIT '.HyiV RE. liest data to the period immediately preceding the revival of letters in modern Europe. 1 must pre- mise that the method of handling such an argument in so small a compass can scarcely be otherwise than discursive and miscellaneous. The general Forms of Literature. Literature, as a general name for learning, equally includes the liberal arts, and the useful and abstruse sciences. Philosophy, in this acceptation of the word, is a branch of literature. But literature, in its peculiar sense as distinct from philosophy, may- be regarded as the expression of every fixed form of thought, whether by speech or writing. Litera- ture in this view will embrace poetry, eloquence, history, romance, didactics, and indeed every kind of verbal composition, whatever be the subject : all books, in reference to their execution, are literary works ; and so are the songs and traditions of bar- barians among whom letters are unknown ; the latter, not less than the former, being vehicles for commu- nicating premeditated thought in set terms. Of literature thus defined there are two species, verse and prose ; and the first takes precedence of the second ; for though the structure of ordinary discourse be prose, the earliest artificial composi- tions, in all languages, have assumed the form of verse; because, as the subjects were intended to be emphatically impressed upon the mind, and distinctly retained in the memory — point, condensation, or ornament of diction, combined with harmony of rhythm, arising from quantity, accent, or merely cor- responding divisions of sentences, w^ere the obvious and elegant means of accomplishing these pur- poses. A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 227 Early Poetry. The most ancient specimen of oral literature on record we find in the oldest book, which is itself the most ancient specimen of written literature. This is the speech of Lamech to his two wives (in the fourth chapter of Genesis), which, though consisting of six hemistichs only, nevertheless exemplifies all the peculiarities of Hebrew verse — parallelism, am- plijication, and antithesis. The passage is exceed- ingly obscure, and I shall not attempt to interpret it : the mere collocation of words, as they stand in the authorized Enghsh Bible, will answer our pres- ent purpose : — "Adah and Zillah ! hear my voice ; Ye wives of Lamech ! hearken unto my speech." This is a parallelism, the meaning of both lines being synonymous, though the phraseology is varied, and the two limbs of each correspond to those of the other : — " Adah and Zillah ! I heav my \o\\j: ; Ye wives of Lamech, | hearken unto \ny spv. ?cb, " For I have slain a man to my wounding. And a young man to my hurt." Here is amplification : concerning the man slain in the first clause, we have the additional information in the second that he was " a young man." " If Cain shall be avenged seven fold, Truly Lamech seventy and seven fold." The antithesis in this couplet consists, not in con- trariety, but in aggravation of the opposing terms — seven fold contrasted with seventy and seven fold The context of this passage has a peculiar inter 228 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. est at this time, when the proscription of everlast- ing ignorance is taken off from the multitude, and knowledge is become as much the birthright of the people of Britain as liberty. This Lamech, who, if not the inventor of poesy, was one of the earliest of poets, had three sons ; of whom Jabal, the father of such as dwell in tents, followed agriculture ; Ju- bal, the father of all such as handle the harp and organ, cultivated music ; while Tubal-Cain, an in- structer of every artificer in brass and iron, prac- tised handicraft. Thus, in the seventh generation of man, in one family we find poetry, music, agricul- ture, and the mechanical arts. Hence literature, which is connected with the two first, is not incon- sistent with the pursuits of the two latter. There are two traditions respecting the second and third of these brethren, each of which may, without im- propriety, be introduced here. Of Tubal-Cain, it is said, to borrow the homely verse of Sylvester's Du Bartas, — •^ While through a forest Tubal, with his yew, And ready quiver, did a boar pursue, A burning mountain from his fiery vein, An iron river rolls along the plain : The wily huntsman, musing, thither hies, And of the wonder deeply 'gan devise : And first perceiving that this scalding metal, Becoming cold, in many shapes would settle, And grow so hard, that, with his sharpen'd side The firmest substance it would soon divide ; He casts a hundred plots, and ere he parts, He moulds the groundwork of a hundred arts." There is a classical tradition of the discovery of iron, by a volcanic eruption of Mount Ida, so nearly allied to this that it may be concluded the one was borrowed from the other ; or, if both had a common origin, the coincidence would almost stamp the au- thenticity of the fact itself. Jubal, on the other hand, is reported to have found A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 229 the upper shell of a tortoise, in which, though the flesh of the animal had perished, the integuments remained. These at his touch trembled into music, giving forth sounds which suggested the idea of a stringed instrument. He mused a while, then set his fingers to work, andforthwithcame the harp out of his hands. This invention has also been celebrated in British verse, but of a higher mood than the strain already quoted: — " When Jubal struck the chorded shell, His listening brethren stood around, And, wondering, on their faces fell, To worship that celestial sound ; Less than a god they thought there could not dwell Within the hollow of that shell, That spoke so sv/eetly and so well." Dryden. To return to the general subject : the hemisticlis of Lamech, on which we have commented, are only verse in form ; neither the voice nor the soul of poetry are there. The next specimen which occurs in Sacred Writ are the words of Noah, when he awoke from his wine, and knew what his children had respectively done unto him : — " Cursed be Canaan ; A servant of servants shall he be to his breth.-en Blessed be the Lord God of Shem • And Canaan shall be kis servant : God shall enlarge Japheth, And he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, And Canaan shall be his servant." This quotation, in the closing triplet, rises mto genu- ine poetry, by the introduction of a fine pastoral metaphor illustrative of the manner of living among the ancient patriarchs : — ♦' God shall enlarge Japheth, And he shall dwell in the tents of Shem. 230 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. But these lines are more striking, as exhibiting the fiist example of the union of poesy and prophecy; for in those primitive days, -" the sacred name Of prophet and of poet were the same." COW'PER. I have passed over the reputed prophecies of Enoch before the flood, because, though we have a quotation from them in the Epistle of St. Jude, the original language in which they were uttered is either itself extinct, or, if it were the Hebrew, has lost the words that imbodied them. It may be ob- served, however, that the translated extract in the Greek Testament bears tokens of the original hav- ing been rhythmical, which is specially indicated by the use of one emphatical word four times in as many lines — a pleonasm that would hardly have oc- curred in prose composition, even in the age of Adam, but might be gracefully adapted to the ca- dence and character of the most ancient mode of verse. Isaac's benedictions on Esau and Jacob are at least presumptive evidence of the advanced state of oral literature (for writing was probably not yet invented) in his age. The critics, I believe, do not allow the language to have the decided marks of Hebrew rhythm. If so, the passage may be, without hesitation, set down as the oldest specimen of prose in the world. Of the words of dying Jacob, however, there is no question that the structure of them is verse, and the substance of them at once poetry and prophecy of the highest order. It might seem, from the power of the sentiments and the brilliancy of the illustra- tions, as though the patriarch on his dying couch, sur- rounded by his mourning family, were again caughl up into the visions of God — as when in his youth A RETROSPECT OE LITERATURE. 231 tie lay alone on the earth in the wilderness and saw the angels of God ascending and descending upon a ladder, that reached from his stone pillow into the heavens ; for here, in his last accents, it is even as if he had learned the language, and spake with the tongues, of angels — so fervent, pure, and abundant in wisdom and grace are the words of his lips and the aspirations of his heart. One extract will suf- fice : — " Judah is a lion's whelp ; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up : he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion ; Vv^ho shall rouse him up? " The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiioh come ; and to him shall the gathering of the people be. " Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine ; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes with the blood of grapes. " His eyes shall be red with vvine, and his teeth white with milk." The ivhole of this imagery might he engraven in hiero- glyphics ; but not one of the sister arts alone can do it justice, for it combines the excellences of all three -picture to the eye, music to the ear, poetry to the !?.iir.d. Early Eloquence. The death of Jacob brings us to the year 2315 from the creation, and consequently includes the earliest era in profane history of which any au thentic records remain, concerning those celebrated nations of antiquity among whom arts and sciences flo'jrished while Greece and Italy were yet uiipeopled or unknown. It has been intimated tliat verse was antecedent to prose in the progress of literature. It is true, that in the bock of Genesis many conversa- tions are given ; and in various instances, no doubt, thr^ very words employed by the speakers have been 232 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. preserved ; but none of these having been artificially constructed for the purpose of identifying and per- petuating the sentiments with the phraseology, they corae not under that definition of literature which has been assumed in this essay ; in fact, they are themselves integral portions of a literary work ; namely, the first book of Moses, w^hich belongs to a later period. Undoubtedly traditions of what had been said, as well as what had been done, by patri- archs and eminent personages were perpetuated in families through all generations, from Adam down- ward ; but as it was enough for the purposes of tra- dition that events and discourses should be substan- tially true, every one who repeated either would do so in his own language, rudely or eloquently, accord- ing to his taste or talent. Indeed, to sum up in a few sentences what had been delivered in a long dialogue, it was so far from being necessary, that it was obviously impossible to use the actual words of the speakers, even if they had been remembered. In one instance, however, without violating prob- ability, an exception may be made in favour of the speech of Judah to Joseph, when he and his brethren had been brought back to Egypt by the stratagem of putting the silver cup into Benjamin's sack. This address is perhaps the finest piece of pleading ever reported, though nothing can be more simple and inartificial than the diction and arrangement of the whole. In truth, it is little else than a family his- tory, with the principal incidents of which Joseph himself was well acquainted, and in the most afiliict- ive of which he had borne his bitter part. There is, moreover, a dramatic interest in the scene, arising from the reader's being in the secret of Joseph's consciousness; and thence knowing that the force of every fact and argument was far more searching and heart-melting to the hearer than the speaker himself could imagine, from his ignornnce of the person whom he was addressing. I must not quote A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 233 more than one paragraph, referring to a conversa- tion between them on their former visit to Egypt. Judah says to .Joseph, " xMy lord asked his servants, saying. Have ye a father or a brother 1 And we said unto my lord, We have a father, an old man — and a child of his old age, a little one ; and his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother — and his father loveth him." Is not this the voice of nature speaking with hu- man lips, and speaking to all the affections that make life precious 1 — " an old man" — " a father" — " a child of his old age" — " a little one" — " whose brother was dead" — " he left alone of his mother, and his father loveth him." Love, in man at least, can go no fur- ther — in woman perhaps it may. Now, as Judah must be supposed to have prepared his appeal for this interview, the speech itself may be considered as the earliest specimen of eloquence : and surely, in its kind, it has never been surpassed. I have dwelt the more on this specimen, because it is the model of almost every other regular speech that can be found in the sacred Scriptures. In these, recapitulatory narrative brings home to the hearers the peculiar deduction which the speaker would es- tablish,- having, as it were, bylines of eircumval- lation, completely secured access to every point of attack at once, he carries by storm at last the object of his harangue. The whole book of Deuteronomy furnishes a series of such historical arguments ; Moses therein addressing, as with the living voice, the people whom he had brought out of Egypt, and ied during forty years in the wilderness. And these consecutive discourses were probably so delivered to the tribes bodily assembled from time to time, to receive instruction from the lips of a legislator, who could call the heavens and the earth to be his au- ditors, and say with authority, " My doctrine shall drop as the rain ; my speech shall distil as the dew ; 234 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." Joshua's exhortation to the elders before his death — Samuel's remonstrance with the Israelites for their perverseness in demanding a king — Solomon's speech to the people before the dedication of the temple — Daniel's confession of the sins of the cap- tives in Babylon, and their forefathers — Ezra's prayer after the return of the Jews to their own land, laid desolate ; and, in the New Testament, Peter's ser- mon on the day of Pentecost — Stephen's discourse before the sanhedrim — and Paul's two defences be- fore the council and before Agrippa — these are all of the same class of oratory in which the details are long, the arguments hrief, and the conclusion per- sonal ; so that this peculiar mode of eloquence may be traced for two thousand years ; and probably, from its plainness and energy of application, was usual among all the eastern people. But whatever maybe conjectured concerning arti- ficial prose before the invention of writing, it is cer- tain that verse existed from the infancy of the world, and v/as employed for history, laws, chronology, devotion,, oracles, love, war, fables, proverbs, and prophecy ; indeed, for every combination of thoughts which were intended to be long and w^ell remem- bered Invention of Letters. Having now arrived at that period where sacred and profane history meet — the former like a clear stream issuing from a known fountain, and defined along its wliole course through a peopled and cul- tivated region ; the latter, dimly and slowly dis- entangling its mazes from the shades of impenelra- blo forests, " Where thing's Uiat own not man's doinuiion dwell," Bvi:nN A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 235 but henceforward widening-, deepening, brightening on its way — the first subject that claims our atten- tion is the learning- of the Egyptians, of which much has been said, and little is known. The testimony, however, of all antiquity, as well as the superb and stupendous monuments of architecture, and traces of literature in the sh-ape of hieroglyphics and sym- bols, however unintelligible, prove that they were a wonderful people for gigantic enterprise and inde- fatigable industry, in achieving what were then the highest feats of manual, intellectual, and mechanic power. On these we shall not expatiate here, as another oppoitunity will be afforded in the next paper of this series, of considering by whom, and by what means, such marvellous works were ex- ecuted. At present we shall only allude to them generally, in connexion with the discovery of alpha- betical writing. When, where, and by whom let- ters were invented it is now in vain to imagine. Notwithstanding the pretensions of Hermes Tris- megistos, Memnon, Cadmus, and others, the true history, nay, even the personal existence of these supposed claimants, must be ascertained before the unappropriated honour can be conceded to any one of them. It may, meanwhile, be affirmed, as one of those circumstances humbling to human pride that occasionally occur in history, and which, while they strangely stir the imagination, awaken sub- lime but melancholy reflection in minds given to muse upon the vanity and mortality of all the things that are done under the sun — it may be affirmed as one of these humbling circumstances, that the man who conquered the greatest tropliy ever won from fate and oblivion, lost his ov/n name, after divulging the.secretby which others might immortalize theirs. As a figure of speech, one may.be allowed to wish that the first letters in which he wrote that name, whe- her with a pen of iron on granite, or with his finger 236 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. in sand, had remained indelible. Bui his own inven- tion is his monument, which, like the undated and uninscribed pyramid, will remain a wonder and a riddle to the end of the world. It is allowed, I believe, on all hands, that the Egyptians, from time whereof the memory of man knoweth not to the contrary, possessed three kinds of writing-, — hieroglyphical, alphabetical, and, proba- bly, as a link between, logographic, of which latter the Chinese is the only surviving example at this day. Indeed, in all countries where society has emerged from the stagnation of barbarism, and has made but httle advance towards civilization, there have been found evidences of attempts to create a language for the eye, either by figures of things, by arbitrary symbols of words, or, in the most perfect manner, by the systematic combination of lines form- ing letters to represent the rudiments of sounds. This assertion might be copiously illustrated, but the limits of the present essay will permit no more than a cursory mention of the fact. It has been observed that the Egyptians were in possession of three kinds of letters, — if, indeed, by letters three kinds of learning be not typified; for Pythagoras, it is said, as a special favour rarely granted to a stranger, was initiated into these triple mysteries of writing. The hieroglyphic mode was unquestionably the first; but between it and the lit- eral the affinity is so remote that the leap over the whole space could scarcely have been taken at once, especially as there is an intervening step so obvi- ously connected with each, and connecting them with one another, that it seems almost necessary for in- vention to have rested, at least for a little while, upon it. When the ambiguity and imperfection of hiero- glyphics were felt to be irremediable, the first prac- ticable scheme which would suggest itself to the mind which conceived the happy idea of designating vocal sounds bv strokes, in themselves without meaning. A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 237 would be tc invent a separate mark for every word ; but, as all the easy forms would soon be exhausted, it might next occur to make these elementary, and adapt them, not to individual words, but to the mos* common simple sounds of which words were com- posed. Thus monosyllables woi^ld have a single mark; dissyllables two joined together; and poly- syllables more or less, according to their audible divisions. But still this apparatus would be difficult and per- plexing from the multitude of signs necessary ; till a finer ear, trying syllables more accurately, would unravel sound as Newton's prism unravelled light, and discover its primary intonations as he discov- ered the primary colours. Thus the alphabet would be gradually developed ; and a familiar sign being attached to each letter, a new creation of intelligible forms for imbodying thought would arise where all was silent, dark, and spiritless before. The lumber- ing, unwieldy logographic machinery is now con- fined to the unimproving and unimproveable Chinese, whose inveterate characteristic seems to be, that they obtained a certain modicum of knowledge early, which for thousands of years they have neither enlarged nor diminished. They have lent out their intellects at simple interest, and have been content to live upon the annual income, without ever dreaming that both capital and product might be immensely increased by being invented in the commerce of minds — the commerce of all others the most infalli- bly lucrative, and in which the principles of free trade are cardinal virtues. This theory of the process by which letters were gradually invented has been actually exemplifiarl ir our own day. A Cherokee chief, having heard that white men could communicate their thoughts by means of certain figures impressed on soft or hard substances, set himself the task of in^'entiiig a series of strokes, straight and crooked, up, down, and across, 9■'^9 A RETROSPECT OF LITKRATUKK. which should represePxt all the words in the Iiidiai? laiiOTa^e. These, however, became so numerous, and so refractory in their resemblances, that he must hnve given up the work in despair had he not recol- lected ttiat the sounds, or syllables, of vv^hich ail words consisted, were comparatively few, though rapable of infinite coo?bmation. To these, then, he ar-nHed his most approved symbols, which, in the course of time, he' reduced to two hundred ; and iatierly, it is said that he has brought them down as low as eighty ; and that by these he can accu- rately express the whole vocabulary of his mother- t"o?".gue. It is to be observed, in abatement of this jrorvellous effort of a savage mind, that the primary idea of loriting was suggested to it, not originally conceived by it. So beneficent to man has been the invention of letters, that some have ascribed it to the immediate instruction of the Almighty, communicated to Mo- se« when the two tables of stone, containing the Dtfcalogue, written by the finger of God, were de- livered to him on the mount. For this there ap- pears 10 me no evidence that will bear the test of a moment's calm consideration. Of the Supreme Being we know nothing but what He has been pleased to manifest concerning himself in his w^orks and in his Word. To the volumes of nature and of revelation man must no more presume to add than to diminish aught. In neither of these can we find that letters were thus miraculously given ; it therefore cannot be admitted, nay, it must be re- jected, so long as all probability is against the sup- position. IMan, in every progressive state of society'-, how- ever insulated from the rest of the w^orld, endeavours to express his feelings and perpetuate his actions by imagery or mnemonics of some kind : now these, so long as he continues to improve in knowledge, will, in the same degree, be more and more simplified in A RETKOSPFCr OF LITKRATURly 239 rorm, yet more and more adapted to every diversity and complexity of thoiii:^ht. Nay, it is not too bold to assume, that, thus circumstanced, man, by the help of reasoning, reflecting, and comparing, would as naturall)^ — yea, as necessarily — be led to the in- vention of alphabetical characters, as the young of animals, when they are cast off by their dams, are led by an ineffable faculty, which we call instinct, to all those functions and habits of life which are requi- site both for existence and enjoyment, and which their parents never could exemplify before them during their brief connexion. Birds may be ima- gined to teach their offspring how to eat, to fly, to Bing ; but no bird ever taught another how to build a nest, — no bird ever taught another how to brood crver eggs till they were quickened into life ; yet every linnet hatched this year will build her nest next spring as perfectly as the first of her ancestors in the bowers of Eden ; and, though she never knew a mother's warmth brfore, so soon as her own first eggs are laid she will sit upon them, in obedience to a kindly and mysterious law of nature, which will change her very character for the time, inspire her with courage for timidity, and patience for vivacity ; imposing on her confinement instead of freedom, and self-denial in the room of self-indulgence, till her little fluttering family are all disclosed, and reared, and fledged, and flown. If external circumstances thus conduct every irra- tional creature, individually^ to the knowledge and acquirement of all that is necessary for its peculiar state, — it see.nr.s to follow, as a parallelism in Provi- dence, that man in society, at one period or another m his progress of improvement in knowledge, would inevitably discoveroi/ the means by which knowledge might be most successfully obtained and secured ; these being as necessary to the rank which he holds n creation as the respective functions of inferior Rnimals are to their different conditions ! Crinnoi. 240 A RKTROSPECT OF LITERATURE however, allow it to be said, because I thus state the question, that I derogate from the glory of God by not attributing immediately to him what he has no- where claimed for himself, in the only book written by his command. To Him nothing is impossible ; with Him nothing is great or small, easy or difficult. His power is not more magnified by working mira- cles, than it was by ordaining, or than it is by up- holding, the regular course of nature. " There is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty givetb him understanding." Is it less, then, to say of the Almighty, that, by the understanding which he gave, man found out the divine art of writing (for divine in this connexion it may be called), than to suppose, without any proof, that this art is so superhuman that it could not have been discovered unless it had been absolutely revealed by the Deity? — No, surely ; for though he made man a little lower than the angels, yet hath he crowned him with glory and honour; and, to speak after tho manner of men, the more exalted the creature is found, the more praise redounds to the Creator, who is " God over all, and blessed for evermore." Modes of Writmg. That the art of writing was practised in Egypt before the emancipation of the Israelites, appears almost certain from their frequent and familiar men- tion of this mode of keeping memorials. When the people had provoked the Lord to wrath, by making and worshipping the golden calf, Moaes, interceding m their behalf, says, "Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin ; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, or.t of thy book which thou hast written. And the Lord said unto Moses, Whosoever sinneth, him will I blot out of ray book."* The allusion h-ere is to a table of * Exod. xxxii .12, .^3. A KK.TKOSPt fi OF !,i IKKA J liUK. 241 genealoffy, the muster-roll of ;!m anny, u register of citizensliip, or even to tliosc books of chronicles which were kept by order of ancient oriental princes, of the events of their reigns, for reference and remembrance. Besides, such a mode of publishing important documents is alluded to, not merely as nothing new, but as if even the common people were practically acquainted with it, " And thou shalt bind them (the statutes and testimonies of the Lord) as a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thme eyes, and thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine house, and upon all thy gates.'"* There are various parallel passages which no cavil- ling of commentators can convert from plain mean ing into paradox. But not the Egyptians and Hebrews alone pos- sessed this invaluable knowledge at the time of which we speak (from fourteen to seventeen hundred years before Christ) ; we have direct and incidental testi- mony, both in sacred and profane history, that the Phenicians, Arabians, and Chaldeans were instructed in the same. The book of Job (whoever might be the author) lays the scene and the season of his affliction about this era, and in the north of Arabia. That extraordinary composition — extraordinary in- deed, whether it be regarded as an historical, dramatic, or poetic performance — contains more curious and minute information concerning the manners and customs, the literature and philosophy, the state of arts and sciences, during the patriarchal ages, than can be collected in scattered hints from all later works put together. In reference to the art and the mate- rials of writing then in use, we meet with the fol- lowing sublime and affecting apostrophe : — " O that my v/ords were now written ! O that they were printed {impressed or traced out) in a book ! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead, in the rociv for ever !" * Deut. vi. 8, 9. T 242 A RKTKOSPECT OF LITERATURE. The latter aspiration probably alludes to the very ancient practice of hewing- characters into the faces of vast rocks, as eternal memorials of persons and events. It is said by travellers whose testimony seems worthy of credence, that various fragments of such inscriptions, now utterly undecipherable, may be seen to this day in the wildernesses of Ara- bia Petrea — monuments at once of the grasp and the limitation of the mental power of man ; thus making the hardest substances in nature the depositories of his thoughts, and yet betrayed in his ambitious expectation of so perpetuating them. The slow influences of the elements have been incessantly, though insensibly, obliterating what the chisel had ploughed into the solid marble, till at length nothing remains but a mockery of skeleton letters, so unlike their pristine forms, so unable to explain their own meaning, that you might as well seek among the human relics in a charnel-vault the resemblances of ' the once-living personages, — or invoke the dead bones to tell their own history, — as question these dumb rocks concerning the records engraven on them. The passage just quoted shows the state of alpha- betical writing in the age of .Tob, and, according to the best commentators, he describes three modes of exercising it : — " O that my words were now writ- ten, — traced out in characters, — in a book composed of palm-leaves, or on a roll of linen ! O that they were engraven with a pen of iron on tablets of lead, or indented in the solid rock to endure to the end of time !" Arguing against the perverse sophistry of his friends that he must have been secretly a wicked man, because such awful calamities, which they con- strued into divine judgments, had befallen him ; so fast does he hold his integrity, that, not only with passing words, liable to be forgotten as soon as uttered, does he maintain it; but by every mode that could give his expressions publicity and ensure A RETIIOSPECT OF LITERATURE. 243 them perpetuity, he longs that his confidence in God to vindicate him might be recorded, whatever might be the issue of those evils to himself, even though he were brought down by them to death and corrup- tion, descending, not only with sorrow, but with ignominy to the grave ; for, saith he, " I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day on the earth ; and though after my vskin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall 1 see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, though my reins be consumed within me." — Job xix. 25-27. Had these words of the patriarch been indeed " engraven with a pen of iron on the rock for ever," yet without some more certain medium of transmis- sion to posterity, they would have been unknown at this day, or only speaking in the desert with the voice of silence, which no eye could interpret, no mind could hear. But, being inscribed on materials as frail as the leaves in my hand, yet capable of infinitely multiplied transcription, they can never be lost ; for thousrh the giant-characters enchased in everlasting flint, would ere now have been worn down by the perpetual foot of time, yet, committed with feeble ink to perishable paper, liable " to be crushed before the moth," or destroyed by the touch of fire or water, the good man's hope can never fail, even on earth ; it w^as " a hope full of immortality ;' and still through all ages, and in all lands, while the sun and moon endure, it shall be said by people of every kindred and nation, and in every tongue spoken under heaven, " I know that my Redeemer liveth." Sacred Literature. We must here conclude what the limits of this brief essay will permit to be said respecting the literature of the Bible, the first five books of which contain examples of every species of writing and 244 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. discourse in use among' the Jews — poetry and prose, eloquence, ethics, legislation, history, biography, prophecy. It may be added, that the narrative por- tions especially are of inimitable simplicity ; they breathe a pathos, and at times exercise a power over the affections, which no compositions extant besides them have equalled, except some passages of rare occurrence in the subsequent books of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament. The historian presents men, manners, and incidents to the eye, the mind, and the sympathies of the reader precisely in the way that they impressed his own. This is the uniform style of the inspired penman in his highest mood : — " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void ; and darkness was upon the face of the deep ; and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, ' Let there be light,' and there was light." — Gen. i. 1-3. In scenes of com.mon life and the intercourse, between man and man, nothing can be more deli- cately true to nature than the light touches of a hand that could sketch such a scene as the follow- ing, — the picture composed of words having this advantage over any picture drawn with lines and colours ; that, whereas the latter can exhibit but one moment, and ojily imply discourse, the former can express motion, speech, and progress — the be- ginning, middle, and end of the action represented. How graceful, and yet how emphatic, are the orien- tol pleonasms in Jacob's reply to Pharaoh's simple question. " And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him befo*-e Pharaoh; and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. "And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, 'How old art thou ?' "And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, ' The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the years of A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 245 my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the hfe of my fathers, in the days of their pilgrimage.' " And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before Pharaoh."* Of the remaining books of Scripture (all of which are more or less conformed to these primitive models) it will not be expedient to enter into further particulars than to offer an example of the perfec- tion to which the most perfect of all the forms of literary composition was carried by him who, both as prophet and minstrel, is distinguished by the title of the sweet singer of Israel. Considered merely as an emanation of genius, conceived in the happiest frame of mind, and executed with force and elegance corresponding, — the 104th Psalm may not only be quoted in competition with any other similar product of fine taste, but may, indeed, be placed as the standard by which descriptive poetry itself ought to be measured and estimated as it approaches or falls short of the excellence of such a model. This divine song is a meditation on the mighty power and wonderful providence of God. It begins with an apostrophe to Him, as " clothed with honour and majesty, who covereth Himself with light as a gar- ment, who stretcheth out the heavens like the curtain of a tent, who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters, who maketh the cloriids his chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the wind." Then follow exhibitions of Almighty power in cre- ation, when " He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever;" and in destruction, when, at the deluge, " the waters stood above the mountains," but having accomplished their ministry of wrath, " at (His) rebuke they fled; at the voice of (His) thunder they hasted away." This scene of devastation is succeeded by one of amenity and fruitfulness, exquisitely delineated :—• ♦ Gen. xlvii. 7-* 246 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. " He sendeth the springs into the valleys which run among the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field ; the wild asses quench their thirst. By them shall the fowls of heaven have their habitation, which sing among the branches." The earth is represented as pouring forth from her lap the abun- dance of food for man and beast. The habits of various animals are accurately noted. The revolu- tions of the heavenly bodies, bringing day and night, and the change of seasons are next reviewed and celebrated in strains rivalling their own, when " the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." Afterward the great and wide sea, in its depths, is disclosed, and exhibited as a world of enjoyment as infinitely extended as the endless diversities of its strange population of living things innumerable, " both great and small." One passage, and but one more, must not be passed over, the picturesque reality of which will be per- ceived by all who have a heart to feel horror, or an eye to rejoice in beauty : — " Thou makest darkness, and it is night : wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. — The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God. — The sun ariseth; they gather themselves together, and lay them down in their dens. — Man goeth forth unto his work and his labour until the evening. — O Lord ! how manifold are thy works ! in wisdom hast thou made them all." The remaining unquoted passages of this Psalm are worthy of the foregoing, especially the verses which describe animal life, death, and resuscitation, by the breathing, withdrawing, or regenerating in- fluence of that Divine Spirit which at first " moved upon the waters." Who, after reading the whole ot this sublime strain, can forbear to exclaim, with the royal Psalmist, at the close : — " Bless Thou the Lord, O my soul !" and then invoke all living to do the same — " Praise ye the Lord." £l retrospect cf literature. 247 No. II. Literature of the Hindoos. Ai/rHouGH the modern Hindoos are generally dis- l.insruished by deplorable mental as well as bodily imbecility, they arc the descendants of ancestors not less conspicuous both for intellectual and physical power. Learning- rs said to have flourished in India before it was cultivated m Egypt, and some have assumed that it was from beyond the Indus that the Nile itself was first visited with the orient beams of knowledge. The modern Hindoos, however, in their uiuitterable degradation, are only careful to preserve the monuments of their forefathers' glory and intel- ligence in the stupendous ruins, or, rather, in the imperishable skeletons of their temples, and in their sacred and scientific books. But the latter being wholly in the hands of the Brahmins, few of v/hom understand much of their contents, are impregnabl}' sealed from the researches of the multitude. The astronomical tables of the ancient Indians are yet the admiration of Europeans, considering the disadvantages under which they were framed ; and if there remained no other discernible traces of learn- ing, these would mark a high degree of civilization among the people that could calculate them. Dwell- ing, like their contemporaries the Chaldeans and Babylonians, in immense plains, where, over an un- broken circle of horizon below, a perfect hemisphere of sky was expanded above, they watched the mo- tions of the stars, while they guarded thoir flocks by night, and learned to read with certainty, in the phases of the heavens, the signs of times and sea- sons useful to the husbandman and the mariner 248 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. But, unsatisfied with these, they vainly endeavoured to find out what the heavens could not teach — the destinies of individuals and the revolutions of em- pires. The sacred books of the Hindoos, which are yet preserved (so far as their authenticity can be deemed probable, and their institutes have been explored), display a corresponding elegance of style, simplicity of thought, and purity of doctrine, in all these re- spects differing essentially from the monstrous fables, the bloody precepts, and shocking abominations with which their more modern writings abound. The affinity between the architecture and hieroglyphics of India and Egypt indicates the common origin of both, and almost necessarily implies the senior claims of the former ; for science, like empire, has uniformly travelled westward in its great cycle, whatever oc- casional retrogradation may have been caused by disturbing forces. Egypt, with all its wonders, can boast nothing so magnificent as the Caves of Elora, consisting of a series of temples, sixteen in number, a mile and a half in length, and each from a hundred to a hundred and fifty feet in breadth, with heights proportioned, all sculptured out of the live rock by labour incalculable, and with skill only equalled by the grandeur of the edifices on which they have been expended. Edifices, however, they are not, in the proper sense of the word. The men of those days found in the heart of their country a mountain of granite equal to the site of a modern city. They excavated the solid mass, not building up, but bring- ing out, like the statue from the marble, the multi- tudinous design ; shaping sanctuaries, with their roofs and walls, and decorating them with gigantic images and shrines, by removing the fragments as they were hewn away, till the whole was presented standing upon innumerable pillars, left in the places where they had been identified with the original block ; the" range of temples, from the flint pavement , \ R!<:TuosiH:cr of literature. 24'J to the vaulted roof, bein;^ in fact one stone, wrought out of the darkness of its native quarry, open to the sun, and pervious to the breeze through all its re- cesses. It seems as though the master-spirits who planned this work had caught the sublime idea from their own prolific tree, which, casting its boughs on every side, takes fresh root at the extremity of each when it touches the soil, and multiplies itself into a forest from one stem. Milton, from such an archi- tectural tree, represents our first parents, after their fall, as gathering the ample leaves, " broad as a tar- get," to twine into girdles : The fig-tree — not that khid for fruit renown'd, But such as at this day to Indians known, In Malabar or Deccan, spreads her arms, Branching- so broad and long, that in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother-tree — a pillar'd shade, High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between . There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds, At loop-holes cut through thickest shade." Could the minds that conceived and the hands that wrought this prodigy of art have been those of men in their second childhood, — not the second child- hood of individuals, but of a people fallen into dotage and decrepitude, like their descendants, under the double curse of tyranny and superstition ] No ; the ancient Indians were men of mighty bone and mighty intellect, not only according to the evidence of these unparalleled relics of their power, but according to the most authentic testimony of those who have de- scribed the expedition of Alexander the Great into this vast region. Whatever were his victories, he saw a boundary there which he was not permitted to pass ; and when he left India behind him unsub- dued, he had little reason to sigh for other worlds to conquer. Nor (which is principally to our present U 250 A RETROSPECT Of LITEUATURI:. purpose) M'as he less thwarted by the philosophers of India than baffled by its warriors and its climate. These exercised such influence over the people, that the tribes rose in mass to repel the invader, or perish on the field, or amid the blazing ruins of their strong-holds, rather than submit, — and thencefor- ward live under the ban of excommunication from the society of men, which the priests had power to decree, and all the plagues which it was believed the gods would inflict upon the betrayers of their country to a stranger. In later ages, unfortunately, India was subdued, — subdued again and again ; and for two thousand years it has been the prey of foreigners. At length, how- ever, in the order of Providence, it has become a province of the British empire ; and, by whatever means acquired, it may be confidently asserted that our dominion there must be — I trust will be — main- tained by beneficence. Resolutely avoiding all po- litical allusions, I cannot hesitate to say that a better day has dawned on that land of darkness ; yet, before the Hindoo can rise to the dignity of independent man, a spell v/hich has paralyzed his spirit for thou- sands of years must be taken oft". The chain of caste must be broken — that subtlest and strongest of chains, at once invisible and indissoluble ; each link being perfect and insulated, so as to enclose within its little magic circle a distinct class of the communit}'^, and prevent the individuals for ever from mingling with those of any other class ; while all the links are so implicated together as to make all the classes one race of captives, dragged, as it were, in perpetual succession, at the chariot-wheels of their own Jug- gernaut, along the broad road of ignorance, debase, ment, and superstition. This chain must be brokei by the gradual association of persons of varioii? castes in civil, military, commercial, and religious bands, wherein all acting together, and on terms oi equality, those fetters which both concatenate and A RETHOSPKCT OF LITERATURE. 251 divide them will be worn thinner and thinner by in- cessant and unregarded attrition, till at length they fall off of themselves. But it is by schools, in which children are promis- cuously educated, whatever be their rank and parent- age, that the prejudices of bigotry and the inveteracy of proscription will be most easily and effectually abolished. A great point has been gained within the last thirty years, when seminaries in which Eu- ropean literature (however humble in form) is taught were first opened, and are now, in many instances, well frequented by boys of all castes, from the sons of the Brahmin to those of the Soudhra : but a still greater step towards native emancipation was taken by a countrywoman of our own, about tv.'elve years ago, who dared to offer instruction to Hindoo fe- males. Their mothers, through a hundred genera- tions, had been held in the bonds of ignorance, and if their posterity had been left for a hundred genera- tions more under the same thraldom and outlawry, the other sex must have remained, by a judicial fa- tality, as they are, and as they have been, — unim- provable beings, from the hereditary disqualification of caste, which prevents a man from ever being any thing but what his father was, and requires him to entail the monotonous curse upon all his posterity. But now the worst of castes — the caste of sex — is broken in India, by the opening of schools for girls in various stations. The v/ork has been begun under good auspices, and it will go on. The great difficulty was to take the first step : this, a few years ago, was deemed an impossibility ; the only impossibility now is, to stop the progress of motion once communi- cated, and never to cease while the earth rolls in its orbit. But we must return westward. 252 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. Literature of the Chaldeans^ Babylonians, <5fC, Nations have their infancy, as well as the men and women that compose them. To a child every thina: is new and wonderful, and if one of these little curious observers could communicate its minute history, for the first three years, in its own exquisite anomaly of words and ideas, there would be the prettiest fairy-tale that the world ever saw ; it would, indeed, defy criticism, but it would delight beyond example everybody that had once been a baby, dear to a mother, and who remembered, however imper- fectly, those joys and sorrows of the nursery that compose the morning dreams of life, before one awakes to its dull, and cold, and sad realities. In like manner, the first records of every people abound with marvels and prodigies, with crude and terrible traditions, wild and beautiful reveries, fabulous rep- resentations of facts, or pure unmingled fiction, with which no truth can amalgamate. Heroes and demi- gods, giants and genii, evil and good, are the every- day actors of scenes in which supernatural achieve- ments and miraculous changes are the ordinary inci- dents. These observations are peculiarly applicable to the early histories of the celebrated nations of antiquity. There scarcely exists an authenticated fragment of all the learning and philosophy of the Chaldeans, Babylonians, Assyrians, Egyptians, and Phenicians, to give posterity, in the present age, matter-of-fact proof that there were such giants of literature in tlie earth in those days as we have been taught to believe from the testimony of the more enlightened Greeks, who, after all, appear to have knoivn less even than they have told concerning these patriarchal people, and to have recorded vague traditions rather han preserved genuine relics of historical records, which had perished in the bulk before their time A RETR06PEO1 t)F LITERATURE. 253 It is almost unaccountable, if there were such trea- sures of knowledge, in Egypt especially, that the philosophers and statesmen of Greece who travelled thither for improvement should have acknowledged so little. This circumstance naturally induces sus- picion that what they learned there was either of very small value, or that they were very disingenu- ous in not registering their obligations. Be this as it may, though there is abundant evidence that in manual arts, as well as in arms, these people of the east were great in their generation, their literature must have been exceedingly defective ; otherwise their monuments of thought, no more than their monuments of masonry, could have so perished as scarcely to have left a wreck behind : " They had no poet, and they died." There is not in existence a line of verse by Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, or Phenician bard. They could embalm bodies, but hieroglyphics them- selves have failed to embalm ideas. Yet there was mind, and mind of high order; limited, indeed, in the range of objects on which it was exercised, but expanding itself into immensity upon the few to- wards which its energies were converged. It is manifest, from the uniform character of mag- nificence stamped upon all the ruins of temples, pal- aces, and cities, as well as from the more perfect specimens of pyramids, obelisks, and sculptures, yet extant in the land of Nile, that a number compara- tively small of master-spirits supplied the ideas which myriads of labourers were perpetually em- ployed to imbody, and that the learning of the Egyp- tians was nearly, if not wholly, confined to the priest- hood and the superior classes. Mcses, indeed, was instructed in it, not because he was the son of a slave, but because he was the adopted son of Pha- raoh's daughter. We have Scripture authority, too 254 A RETKOSPECT OF LITERATURE. for the fact, that long before the Israelites became bondsmen to the Egyptians, the Egyptians had sold themselves and their land to their king for bread during a seven years' famine. However intellectual then the rulers and hierarchy may have been, who planned those amazing monuments of ambition, the hands which wrought such works must have been the hands of slaves, — slaves held in ignorance as well as servitude. Men free and enlightened never could have been made what these evidently were — live tools to hew rocks into squares and curves, and pile the masses one upon another by unimaginable dint of strength, and the consentaneous efforts of multitudes, whose bones and sinews — whose limbs and lives, were always in requisition to do or to suffer what their hierophants or their sovereigns projected. Speculation on the Original Use of Hieroglyphics. The marvellous relics of Memphian grandeur, of which new discoveries are made by every successive traveller into the desert, or up the river, are melan- choly proofs that the vaunted learning of the Egyp- tians, when it existed, was as much locked up from the comprehension of the vulgar, as it is at this day from the curiosity of the learned in undecipherable hieroglyphics. Had instruction been as general there as it is here, the key to those hieroglyphics could hardly have been lost to posterity. But we are told that a key to the hieroglyphics has been found ; and in reference to alphabetical hieroglyphics this is true ; but that this was the original character Iff figure-writing it is difficult to believe ; for had it /«3en so, it would probably have been early abandoned, ind abandoned aUogether, when the simpler forms l)f lines and curves were adopted to express letters. Had hieroglyphics in the first instance been alpha- oetical, and employed for purposes of literature, the \ KKTKOSPKCT l)F LITICRATURK. 255 slowness of the process, and the extent to which documents so written would spread, must have con- fined their use to tabular and sepulchral inscriptions for a single copy of the history of Egypt, for example (had such a one been compiled), equal to Hume's History of England, would have required a surface for transcription scarcely less than the four sides of the great pyramid of Ghizza. Without, however, entering into any inquiry con- cerning the value and extent of the recent discoveries of the late Dr. Young, to whom, I believe, the honour belongs, and through him to our country belongs, or M. Champollion, who has most happily followed the clew of which the doctor found the first loose end for unwinding; without entering into any inquiry into these exceedingly curious but abstruse and com- plicated questions, the (ew following remarks are intended to refer solely to the antecedent use of hie- roglyphics in Egypt, in the same manner as they have been or are used elsewhere, both in ancient and in modern times ; namely, as symbols, not of letters, nor of ivords, but of things ; each of which, though it had a general meaning,, from which it probably v/cys never dissociated, yet in its particular application might be employed as a pure mnemonic, and associated with any special idea of that class to which it belonged. Hieroglyphics, in this respect, differed essentially from the system of modern mnemonics, wherein the association of symbols v/ith things to be remembered by them is not arbitrary, and therefore not capable of being harmoniously adapted, but fixed, and neces- sarily incongruous ; so that of whatever utility they may be in forming a technical memory, the habit of collocating, and the familiarity of dwelling upon, such heterogeneous materials in the lumber-room of the mind, can have no better effect upon the judgment and the taste than to pervert the one and corrupt the other. For example : — a lecturer on mnemonics. 256 A RETROSPECT UF LITERATURE. in my hearing-, proposed something (I forget what) to be remembered in connexion with the miraculous conversion of St. Paul. To accomplish this, he had occasion for the letters (or the consonants) com- posing the word smilingly, while, by an unlucky coincidence, the symbol to be employed was Venus. " Well, then, ladies and gentlemen," said he, " having ascertained these two points, — the word and the symbol, — you need only imagine that when Saul of Tarsus was struck down to the ground by the light from heaven, the goddess of beauty, in her chariot, drawn by doves through the air, was passing by at that moment, and looked down smilingly upon him." To say nothing of the impiety, the absurdity of such an association of images and ideas is so revolting that the mind which could endure it must be eithei originally insensible to all that is delicate, beautiful, and true in poetry, painting, and reality, or it would soon be rendered so. Let us now see how differently, yet how grace- fully and appropriately, genuine hieroglyphics may be combined with ideas and images to be remembered by them. In the year 1734, three red Indian chiefs of the Creek nation were admitted to the honour of a formal audience, at Whitehall, v/ith his majesty George II. On being introduced into the presence, Tomo Cachi, the principal of his tribe, thus addressed the king, presenting at the same time the symbols to which he alluded: — "This day I see the majesty of your face, the greatness of your house, and the num- ber of your people." Then stating the object of their visit to be " the good of the children of all the nations of the upper and lower Creeks, that they might be ijistructed in the arts of the English people," he add<-Yl, " These are feathers of the eagle, the swiftest of birds, and which flieth all round our nations. These feathers are the sign of peace in our land, and have been carried there from villaiie to village, and we have brou£-ht them over to leave with vou, A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 257 great king! as a sign of everlasting peace." Now had these symbols been delivered to the chief of another tribe of Tomo Cachi's own countrymen, the5 would have been preserved in memorial of the pa* cific interview ; and the very luords of the speech that accompanied them would have been so accurately remembered, that on every public occasion, when reference was made to the particular event, the feathers would have been produced, and that speech would have been repeated, the former being made mnemonics of the latter, not by a settled but by an arbitrary association ; for the same feathers might have been the recording emblems of any other pacific treaty, and combined in remembrance with any other form of words uttered at the ratification of it. Among these Indian tribes, every thing of import- ance transacted in solemn council between them- selves or their white neighbours is confirmed and commemorated by the delivery or interchange of symbols, which for the most part are strings or belts of wampum. A string consists of a series of square flat pieces of muscle-shell, fastened breadth-wise on a cord or wire : a belt is composed of several of these strings joined side by side, and from three to four inches wide. The value of each is computed by the number of fathoms contained in the whole length when drawn out. Upon the delivery of a string, the speech which accompanies it may be verbose enough, because it is sufficient if the general meaning be recollected — but when a belt is given, the words must be few and weighty, and every one of them remembered. Neither the colour nor the size of the plates which constitute the wampum is indifferent ; the black and blue are used when the occasion is one of doubt, rebuke, or contention ; the white at amicable meet- ings : but when defiance is held forth, the pieces of shell are artificially marked with red, the colour of blood, having in the middle the figure of a tomahawk. The Iiidian women are verv ingenious in the inveu 258 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. tion of significant devices, and expert in the art of weaving the same into the texture of these hiero- glyphic belts; every one of which is individually distinguished by some special mark whereby the association of the words delivered with ii may be revived, even though all the rest of the emblems upon it v/ere similar to those on other belts, delivered with other words at the same time. Such strings and belts are also documents by which the Indians register the events of their desultory history, and perpetuate the only literature which they have ; namely, the verbal terms in which treaties, agreements, and pledges were made between tribes, and families, and private persons. Their national records of this kind are carefully deposited in chests, which are public property. On certain festival days all these are brought forth to refresh the memory of the aged, and that the young may be instructed in the interpretation of them. On such occasions a large circle is formed by the initiated and their schol- ars, all sitting on the earth, under the shadow of forest trees, around the chest ; from which only one length of wampum is taken out at a time, and held up to inspection, while some chieftain or orator (learned in what actually deserves a better name than legend- ary or traditional lore) not merely explains the circumstances under which it was accepted, but rehearses word for word the very speech delivered with it. The string or belt is then handed round the whole assembly, each marking the length, breadth- colours, and devices upon it, and in his own mind connecting with these the sentences of which it is the particular memorial. When all have examined it, and satisfied themselves, this is laid by, and 'another and another produced, till the whole seiies has been gone through in like manner. In illustra- tion of the Indian use of such hieroglyphics, tlic following singular fact is worth attention : — The wars between the Delawares and Iroquois A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 259 had been violent, and of ancient standing-. According to their own accounts, the former were always too powerful for the latter. The Iroquois, fearful of extermination, about a century ago, sent a message to the Delawares, saying, — " It is not profitable for all the Indian nations to be at war with one another, for by this the whole race must be destroyed. We have thought of a plan by which all may be preserved. One tribe shall be the woman. We will place her in the midst, and the others who are wont to quarrel shall be the man and live round about her. No one of these shall offend the woman. If any should act so basely, the rest will immediately say, — ' Why do you strike the woman]' then they shall all fall upon him who has hurt her, and chastise him. The woman herself shall not go to war with anybody, but shall be at peace with all, and keep peace among them. Therefore, if the men that surround her fall out, and beat each other, the woman shall run between them, and say, — ' Ye men, what are ye about 1 Why do you wound and kill each other T Your wives and your children must perish if you do this.' Then the angry men shall hearken to the woman, and obey her voice." The Delawares acknowledge, that not being aware of the subtlety of their antagonists, their tribe consented to be the woman. The Iro- quois accordingly appointed a great feast, and invited all the Indian nation to attend it. On this occasion their chief orator addressed the representative of their dupes thus : — " We have appointed you, the Delaware tribe, to be the woman among the Indian people. We therefore clothe you in a v/oman's long garment reaching to the ground, and adorn you with earrings. We hang a calabash filled with oil, and another filled with medicines, upon your arm : with the oil you shall cleanse the ears of the tribes, that they may listen only to good words ; and with the medicines you shall heal those who are walking in foolish ways, that they may return to their senses. 260 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. and incline their hearts to peace. We deliver inta your hands a plant of Indian corn, and a hoe, thai as the woman, you may apply yourself to agricultum and labours at home." — Each of these conditions of the covenant was confirmed by the delivery of a bel of wampum, significant of its particular provisions. For many years afterward these were faithfully kept in the national chest, and from time to time brought out, when the identical speeches delivered with them were repeated in the ears of the people. To return to the original use of hieroglyphics among the ancients, — for this mode of registering thoughts was not confined to the Egyptians, — I do humbly conceive that it was precisely the same in principle, though far more comprehensive than the use of the wampum symbols among the red Indians, — namely, that it was a system of mnemonics, not fixed but optional, and capable of indefinite applica- tion. It is generally presumed that each figure had a meaning so determined, that those who were pos- sessed of the key, might unlock the mystery of every combination on systematic principles that could be presented to him. Whether this process were slow or prompt, difficult or easy, is not the question : the practicability of it may reasonably be doubted on this plain ground, — the symbols which compose hiero- glyphics are so few, that, in the very nature of things, the ideas which they could clearly express must be few in proportion : and though their combinations might be as infinitely diversified as the combinations of alphabetical signs, yet, as each could have but one Sxed meaning, which it would always express, the range of ideas in which it might be introduced must be exceedingly narrow, and nearly all of the same class. On the other hand, the letters of the alphabet having no meaning at all when alone, but only in combination of syllables, which singly or concate- nated form words, it follows, that whatever words A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 261 can make intelligible to the ear, literal writing- cah make intelligible to the eye. To this it may be re- plied, that if the images in figure-writing were few, yet each represented a whole class of meanings, of which it was the radiating point, or the root, from which not merely a tree, but a forest of thoughts, congenial to one another, branched forth : in short, that as the Hebrew language is a language of hie- roglyphics, which must be interpreted by tracing the various shapes of signification which the same metaphors assume, according to the exigency of their respective contexts, so a language of figures to the eye may be made to convey as many abstract ideas as those who invent or employ it may choose. This is perfectly practicable upon the principle by which Indian hieroglyphics are applied to every desirable purpose of reminiscence only. It may not, indeed, be impossible to construct a system of hieroglyphics in which the meaning, and con- sequently the application, of every radical should be fixed, and yet so exuberant in diversified scions, as to express whatever the human mind can con- ceive : this may not be impossible to construct in theory, but to learn and employ such a language to any considerable extent would be beyond the power of a finite capacity. The Chinese, of which every mark or logograph resembles a lock of many wards, would present reading-made-easy lessons for an infant school, in comparison with such pages of Sphynx's riddles. There are two perfect hieroglyphics on record, with the authorized interpretation of each; and it is pretty evident from these that the original use of hieroglyphics, before letters were invented, and liie- roglyphics themselves were converted into letters, was much the same among the ancients as it is at this day among the American Indians. An inscription over the temple of Minerva, at Sais, presented to the spectator five images — an infant, an old man, a 262 A liKTROSPECT OF LITERATURE. hawk, a fish, a river-horse. The general meaning of the first two is sufficiently obvious ; the hawk was the emblem of Deity, the fish v/as an abomina- tion to the Egyptians, and the hippopotamus was equally abhorred on account of its grossness. We are told, then, that the tablet indicated this: — 'Young and old, know that God hates impurity." Now, though these very figures, without violating the general sense of any one of them, might suggest at least as many different readings as the most con troverted passage in any ancient author, — yet, tak- ing it for granted that the above was the precise lesson intended to be conveyed, how was it taught • Undoubtedly by a set form of words, to which the figures were adapted; and presuming that literal writing was not then invented, we conclude that the figures were employed, and placed in a conspic- uous situation, to remind the spectators of the senti- ment with which they were associated, and which had been publicly explained to everybody from the time when the tablet was first exhibited. Had any other sentiment, at the utmost variance with this, been chosen to be signified by these emblems, the emblems would have reminded those who looked upon them of that sentiment, and that only ; no scheme of hieroglyphics, however comparatively perfect, being capable of so conveying abstract ideas by visible images as to enable every adept in the science to interpret them in the same form of words : and unless this might be done as accurately as by letters, there could be little assurance that any interpretation was the true one, — a circumstance which would go far to invalidate all historical re- cords (except names and dates, thereby reducing history to mere chronology), for few matters of fact could be xmeqidvocally represented. For example, John struck William. Here the persons are the figures of the hieroglyphic, and tlie verb describes the action which must be manifest A RETIl()yPK.( I OF litkuaturf;. ZCui from their attitudes. Human ingenuity may be de- fied to express the precise sense of that one word ' struck." You may represent a man striking an- other, but you can only represent the atlempt to strike ; the finished act cannot be shown, for his arm is in the air ; it is only on the way to effect its pur- pose ; but the person in danger from it is on his gaard, and he may anticipate the blow, or shrink from it. If you represent the fist of the assailant's hand upon the head at which it was aimed, you can- not make it plain that it was violently laid there ; of course the spectator cannot be assured that John struck William, notwithstanding the ferocious and menacing aspect of the former ; for braggarts some- times double their fists, and -push when they dare not strike. Again, if to indicate the past tense, you represent William fallen under the infliction, there will be no direct evidence that he was knocked down ; he may have slipped, or thrown himself upon the ground to avoid the stroke. If hieroglyphics, even though their practitioners were painters equal to Apelles or Timanthes, be so inadequate to exhibit actions by imagery, how nmch more defective must they be to express abstract ideas, which at best could only be doubtful deductions from the repre- sentations of images and actions in themselves equivocal ! The other instance of a hieroglyphic recorded and interpreted, to which allusion has been made, is not a pictured series, but the things themselves, which were employed as symbols to communicate a message of defiance. When Darius Hystaspes had long been carrying on a fruitless war against the Scythians, the enemy sent him a present, consisting oi a bird, a mouse, a frog, and a bundle of arrows ; intimating thereby that till the Persians could fly through the air like birds, live in the earth like field- aiice, or under the water like frogs, they need not flope to escape the Scythian arrows. Is it not plain 264 A Rl.TROSPECT OF I-ITKKATURE. that a hundred different messages might have been transmitted with the very same emblems to a hun- dred different persons, each of v/hich could only be understood by the receivers according to the cir- cumstances of their peculiar situation in respect to the givers ; but not even then to be understood un- less a verbal interpretation accompanied them, of which the emblems were to be neither more noi less than memorials 1 Mexican picture-language and Peruvian knots might be produced in further proof of this conjec- ture, for 1 presume not to offer it as more than con- jecture, that ancient hieroglyphics were not origin- ally the adaptation of figures either to letters or words, but the representation solely of things which, by association, might be made mnemonical signs of any arbitrary collocation of words, generally express- ing ideas of that class to which, by convention, the figures themselves belonged. I will offer only one test of an authentic verbal document, probably com- posed before the invention of alphabetical writing, by which this theory may be put to the proof. In my last paper I alhided to the blessings of dying Jacob upon his children, and observed that the whole might be converted into a table of hiero- glyphics. Every distinct benediction or prophecy, referring to each of his sons in succession, is marked by some strikingly appropriate figure ; and, as the very structure of the sentences, even in our English translation, shows that the original composition vvas verse, and, consequently, a set form of words, the imagery of each clause would very naturally, and very obviously too, constitute the hieroglyphics of the particular sentiment associated with it, and not of that sentiment vaguely, but in the exact terms of the poetic diction in which it had been uttered. Tjike the blessing on .Tudah, quoted in our last paper : *' Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise ; thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies ; thy A RllTROSFKCT OF LITliUATURE. 2(i5 father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up : he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion ; who shall rouse him up 1 The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come : and unto him shall the gatherin^j of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's cplt unto the choice vine, he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes : his eye shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk." Here is a hieroglyphic table in three compart- ments : in the Jirst, under the figures of a lion's whelp, a full-grown lion, and a lioness couched among her young, the power and fierceness of a miglity conqueror are shadowed forth ; in the second appears a sceptre, the sign of sovereignty, to be con- tinued till a greater than Judah shall come ; in the third, the vintage-scene evidently exhibits the future prosperity and happiness of his descendants in the land promised to their fathers. Now, might not these symbols be engraven and kept in the families of the sons of Jacob, not merely in general remem- brance of the blessings appropriated to each of their tribes, but to remind them and their posterity of the literal language in which the prophecies were given, and on the presei'vation of the words of which depended the only assurance that the substantial truth had noi been perverted by loose oral tradition \ We are told that the Egyptian priests inscribed upon pillars, and obelisks, and on the v/alls of their temples, all the lessons of wisdom and records of past events, which they taught to the privileged few who were their scholars. If the speculations here advanced have their foundation in truth, it is proba- ble that whatever was thus taught by hieroglyphics was first composed in fixed forms of words ; and that the mode of teaching from these was not by means of a key which unlocked the secrets of ii X 28(» A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. universal language, but by repeating to the learners premeditated sentences like the Indian speeches, and associating with each of these, as it was impressed upon the memory, the figure or figures correspond- ing with it in the hieroglyphic series of the whole ; then, though thousands might be well versed in the genei-al signification of symbols which were in general use, none could understand any particular arrange- ment of them except those who were specially in- structed in the same. Manj'- might comprehend the scope of each of the blessings .ndicated in a hiero- glyphic series made from Jacob's farewell words, but none, by any imaginable process, except pre- vious instruction, could interpret the figures into the words.* Ancient Greek Literature. Leaving the interminable, perhaps we ought rather to say the inaccessible, maze of hieroglyphics, though " long detained in that obscure sojourn," we turn to the daylight scenes and pure realities of Greece. * The following is a very significant specimen of an Indian hiero. glyphtc siill used: it has frequently been mentioned in ridicule, biU it is not vvithout a grave signification : — " A serpent in a circle, representing eternity. — A tortoise resting on the serpent, being the symbol of stnmgth, or the upholding power. — Four elephants standing on the back of the tortoise, emblems of Wisdom sus- taining the earth. — On the top of all the triangle, the symbol of Yoni, and the Creation." In Oahu, one of the Sandwich Islands, the tax-gatherers, though they can neither road nor write, keep verj' accurate accounts of all the articles of all kinds collected from the inhabitants throughout the island. This is done principally by one man, and the register is nothing more than a line of cordage from four to five hundred fathoms in length. Distinct portions of this rope are allotted to the various districts, which are known one from another by their relative locality in succession, beginning and ending at one point on the coast, and also by knots, loops, and tufts of different sliapofl, sizes, and olours. Each tax-payer in each district has liis ])lace and designation in this string, and the number of dollars, pigs, d02s, pieces of sandaJ- wood, the quantity of taro-root, and other coirimo- dities at which he i.s rated is exactly defmed by marks most ingeniously diversified,— which, though fonned upon general i)rinciples, can only b« tuidersiood in tlieir application by the resident collector, who has in hia mind the topographical picture of the island, and all its districts. A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 267 To arrive at these, however, we must pass over all the fables of her first ages, borrowed probably from Egyptian mythology, and introduced by Cecrops, the founder of Athens, and perhaps never understood by the Greeks : we must likewise leave behind the generation of heroes which followed that of gods, including among the former the earliest names in profane literature, — Cadmus, who is said to have imported letters from Phenicia ; also the poets Or- pheus, Musa^us, Linus, Amphion, and others, of whom miracles of song are recorded, which may indeed be allegorical representations of the influence of the fine arts, especially poesy (the language of superior beings to a barbarous people), in civilizing manners and transforming characters, by awakening, developing, and expanding the intellectual powers of man. Homer himself lived so much within the undeter- minable limit of that doubtful era, when, though it was no longer night, it was not yet day in Greece, that the only date which can be assigned to him is not that of his actual existence, but that of his resurrection from an obscurity which had gathered round his tomb, and w^ould probably for ever have concealed it and all but his name from posterity. Of course the allusion is to that act of Pisistratus by which he almost redeemed the royal title of tyrant from the obloquy which his usurpation had entailed upon it, when, according to the only history of the period — unwritten tradition, he collected the scattered songs of Homer, and united the loose Lnks into that perfect and inimitable chain in which they have been delivered down to us, most resem- bling, it may be said, " the golden everlasting chain* celebrated in the Iliad, wherewith the father of the gods bound the earth to his throne ; for in like man- ner hath this father of poets, from his " highest heaven of invention," indissohibly bound the world to the sovereignty of his genius. 268 A RETROSPECT OF LTTERATrRK. Whether the poems of Homer, like the " Orlaiiilo Tnnamorato" of Boinrdo, as recom posed by Berni. or our national ballad of " Chevy Chase," as altered and improved by successive hands, were rude but noble lays, refined gradually or at once , or whether they were originally composed in the form which two thousand five hundred years have not been able to amend or deteriorate — this is a question which it were vain to argue upon here ; suffice it to say, that Greek literature, in poetry at least, had reached a standard which has never been surpassed in the age of Pisistratus, who, as the prototype of Pericles (his imitator both in the career of learning and of ambition), if he deprived his countrymen of their birthright, conferred on them the only earthly ad- vantage that can in any degree be regarded as an honourable compensation for the loss of liberty : he bestowed upon them, by his munificent patronage, the motives and the means of cultivating those ele- gant arts and useful sciences which, more than all that fortune can give, or valour v.^in besides, adorn, enrich, and dignify any people among whom they find a sanctuary and a home. The glory of Pisis- tratus in the history of literature is only second to that of Homer; for having gathered the poems of the latter into the most precious volume (the Sacred Scriptures excepted) which time has spared in the devastations of his march, and spared so long that even he cannot destroy it, except in that ruin in whRjh he shall involve himself and all things under the sun. From the era when the works of Homer were thus revived, and not they only but all the treasures of past and contemporary genius, in the library which Pisistratus first established, were thrown open to all who had leisure, ability, and disposition to avail themselves of the same — from that auspicious era, not only Athens, but all the little commonwealths of Greece, Sparta excepted, rose so rapidly in learning A RKTROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 269 and refinement, that thenceforward, till tlie sub- version of their indepenrlenee by Philip of Macedon, has; been Justly styled the g-oiden era of that illus- trious land, whose heroes, philosophers, poets, his- torians, orators, nnd adepts in all that exalts and bcHutifies man in society remain to this day, and must ever remain, the models and exemplars to the jrreat and the ylorious of every kindred and climate. Had they correspondingly excelled in virtue, how had they blessed their own and every other ai^e in which their honour, name, and praise should have been known ! But it is their literature, not their morals, with which we have at present to do, and it is but jusiice to say distinctly, after intimating that much was imiss, there were among them many not only of the wisest but of the best men, to whom no light bui that of nature had been given, and whose nearest approach to the discovery of eternal truth was the consecration of an altar "to the unknown God." Within the period above alluded to, but especially after the battles of Marathon and Salamis had raised the reputation of their arms to an equality with the eminence of their arts, the greatest number of their greatest men appeared, and flourished in such thick contiguity and rapid succession, that the mere relics, the floating fragnrents of the wreck of literatm-e which have been preserved, because they could not sink in the dead sea of oblivion, that ingulfed and stagnated over the buried riches of a hundred argo- biep, — the mere relics and wreck of literature pre- served to us, from that brief period, are of as much value as all that has been inherited, or recovered rather, from the ages before that died — may I say it ^ wnlhout loill, — and the ages after, that had com- paratively little wealth either to live upon or to be- queath, though the country, under various forms of republican government, and as a province of Rome. 270 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. continued to be the seat of arts, science, and phi losophy through many succeeding centuries. Athens. It was during that brief but iUustrious period that Athens, the eye of Greece — the loveliest feature in a face and form of which every line and limb was moulded as exquisitely as her own ideal image of beauty, — it was then that Athens, the eye of Greece, shone forth in all its lustre, and, when it closed, left such a remembrance of its light behind, as continued to cheer the paths both of the Muses and the Graces through the comparative darkness of succeeding times. Athens bj/ day presented the brilliant and vivacious spectacle of a thronging population in the forum, the portico, the grove, the theatres, the tem- ples, the palaces of her heroic yet voluptuous city, — where the gayest, the proudest, the most intellect- ual people that ever dwelt in such close society, were eagerly pursuing glory under every form of labour, letters, arts, and arms, — or pleasure, in all its diversities of pomp, licentiousness, and superstition — superstition so elegantly disguised (and yet so profligate) as to impose on the imaginations, if not to captivate the understandings, of the wisest men. There every street, public edifice, and open space was so crowded with the images of their popular divinities, — and their divinities were but the symbols of. the worshippers themselves personified, though with, superhuman strength and symmetry, in marble, metal, ivory, or wood, — that it was almost a prov- erb, "You will as easily find a god as a man at Athens." From this picturesque profusion of sculp- ture, exposed without injury to the open air in that deliirhtful clime, Athens bi/ night would resemble a city of statues, — T had almost said a city of spirits, — when the cold moon, looking dov/n from a pure blue heaven, beheld, emerging from black shadows, A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 271 innumerable forms of Parian marble white as snow and disposed in every attitude of grace and majesty One seems to feel the silence of the scene in thinking upon it ; its beauty, magic, grandeur, touch and awe and elevate the soul, and we almost expect that one of the more than mortal shapes should break the stillness, and address us in the language of Peri clcs or Demosthenes; till some patrician youth, like Alcibiades, flushed with wine, apparelled in purple, and crowned with flowers, followed by a rabble-rout of bacchanals, breaking forth from the haunts of their revelry, with shout, and song, and dance, and music, disenchant the whole, — or rather transform the enchantment into a new and more exhilarating spectacle of the midnight orgies of the finest sons of Greece in her prime. Is there anywhere a parallel to this picture of imagination'? — Somewhere in the depths of an aban- dQned wilderness, in the heart of Africa, according to an ancient tradition, there may be seen to this day, in perfect preservation, a magnificent city, once the capital of a surrounding empire, on which so strange a judgment came, that all its inhabitants were in a moment turned to stone, while they and their dwellings were doomed to remain, through the lapse of ages, precisely as they stood, as they looked, as they v/ere, at the infliction of the stroke. The stillness of death — of death in every form of life, reigns within the walls, while the multitudes of people of all ages, ranks, and occupations, who seem to the visiter (if visiter ever enters there) at the first glance in the full action of men, women, and children, hurrying to and fro about their busi- ness or their amusements, — the longer you gaze seem more and more fixed to the eye, till the be- holder himself becomes almost petrified by sympa- thy. Sometimes, however (and it is well for him, when his trance is so broken), a herd of antelopes, fleeing from a lion in full chase after them, rush 272 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. through the open ^ates of the city, and bound along the streets, regardless of the apparent throngs of human beings wherever they turn, but whose mo- tionless figures, through long familiarity, are to them as indifterent as so many unshapen fragments of rock. — I must drop the veil here, both over the city of Minerva and the city of the desert, which I have dared to bring into crude comparison with it : in contemplating either, imagination may have rmi riot in the labyrinths of revery, mistaking phantoms for realities, and vain fancies for high thoughts. We return for a few moments to the straightforward path of historical retrospection. The Decline of Greek Literature. It has been already stated, that the period from Pisistratus to Philip of Macedon was the golden age of Grecian fame ; literature and freedom flourishing together, — and they ought never to be separated. Literature, when freedom is lost, becomes the most degraded and the most dangerous tool of despotism ; while freedom without literature — that is, without knowledge — presents the most ferociously savage state of human society, if society can exist without a smgle bond of moral or civil restraint. If the Spartans were not such an iron race, it was because learning and philosophy, which they affected to despise, exercised an indirect but benign influence over them, without betraying the secret of theii power. From the division of the empire of Alexandei the Great, when Greece fell under the dominion of one of his captains, though the Achaian league par- tially restored and maintained the republican spirit in some of the states, till the time when the wnole country passed under the Roman yoke, — from the death of Alexander to the reign of the Emperor Aurehan, mav be styled the silver age of Gre(^ce. A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 273 Many noble and illustrious names of the second order belong to this period. Then followed a brazen time, which may be brought as low as the reign of Heraclius, emperor of the East, in the seventh cen> tury of the Christian era. Thenceforward, a long series of iron years have rolled in heavy and hope- less burden over Greece, under its own latest sove- reigns, and from the fifteenth century under its Turk- ish oppressors to the present day. But the circle of ages is surely now complete, and have w^e not the promise, the prospect, the com- mencement of an immediate return of Astrea to Greece, bringing back the golden days of justice liberty, and hterature, to that fairest, most fertile, that most wronged and forsaken region of the earth ? Marathon and Thermopylae are again named with enthusiasm by lips that speak nearly the same dia- lect, and breathe the same spirit as Miltiades and Leonidas, — from bosoms in which the fire of Gre- cian bards and Grecian heroes has been recently re- kindled. That fire, indeed, broke forth at first with an avenging violence, which, if it consumed not its enemies, repelled them from the soil : but now since security and repose may be looked for, we may hope that the tempered flame will, once more and for ever, shine out with a purity and splendour that shall rival, if it cannot eclipse, the glory of the better days of ancient Greece. 274 A !lKTROSPt;CT OF LITERATURE. No. III. Greek and Roman Polity contrasted. GtthkJOE and Rome were the reverse of each othei in resiject' to arts and arms. Greece, divided into almost as many little commonwealths as there were islands in her seas, or encircling mountains and in- tersecting^ rivers on her main land, was prevented from extending: her dominion otherwise than by colonization along: the neighbouring shores of Asia Mhior, Sicily, and Calabria ; while at home perpetual jealousies and feuds tended rather to preserve than to endanger or destroy the balanced independence of her numerous states. In one instance only Greece became an invader and a conqueror; but that vv^as not till she herself had been invaded and con- quered by Philip of Macedon. Then, not of choice but from compulsion, under his son Alexander, her collected armies, small in comparative numbers, but forming a phalanx of which every soldier was in himsel a host, were led through the heart of Asia, and even to the banks of the Ganges, reducing the whole eastern world to the personal sway of their commander; for it was for himself, and not for his country, — for himself alone, and not for a dynasty of princes in his own line, that "Macedonia's mad- man" won the most unwieldy empire the world ever saw : — it rose, it stood, it fell with him. To the political fate of Greece after his demise allusion sufficient has already been made. It never agam was a conqueror at home or abroad. In cfreece, therefore (Sparta excepted, which from the days of Lycurgus, through many generations, main- tained its standing as its legislator had left it, — in resolute semi-barbarism ; uniting the savage virtue.* A j!!;T!n)SiM.ri' of liti katim;k. 275 with a liiQ-h tone of moral feeling- on some points, and a deplorable profligacy on others) : in Greece, the culture of the fine arts was the principal occu- pation of the most accomplished minds, and' the profession of arms was secondary, but only second- ary, :uid almost parallel witii this favourite pursuit among those who had leisure to choose their way of life. In Rome, on the contrary, for seven centuries after the foundation of the city, aggression and ag- grandizement were the watchwords of her citizens, and universal empire the secret or avowed aim of her warriors and statesmen ; till, having won the world with her sword, she became the victim of that reaction by which nature avenges herself on all, whether individuals or nations, who outrage her equity in the distribution of power, wealth, dignity or dominion. The luxuries and the vices of the couvjuered countries became the snares and the de- stroyers of Rome herself. But before we proceed to notice the literature of Rome in a retrospect like the present, brief as it must be even on the main subjects, it will be requi- site to glance at least for a few moments upon the character and condition of the multitude, both in Greece and Italy, during the two most brilliant eras of each. The term classic, affixed by way of pre- eminence to the literature and arts of these people, operates like a spell upon our imagination : without attaching to it any definite meaning, we associate with it all that is great and splendid, beautiful and excellent, in the surviving pages of ancient authors as well as all that is venerable, sublime, and almost superhuman in the relics of Greek and Roman archi- tecture and sculpture — the severest and most endur- inu- of manual labours. In. t'ricsp, for the present at least, let the writers, the builders, and the artists stand alone and unri- va! jed. They were the few, but what were the many, in lii e .-■ ...f . i'l-^ioMs vv'.en •■■ wv h.ivc derived 276 A RETUOSPKCT OF LITERATURE. those treasures of learnins:, and in which we inbfiril tas common property to all who liave minds to ad- mire them) tliose stupendous structures of human skill and might 1 So far as the epithet classic is an accommodated word, employed by a kind of literary courtesy to designate superiority of intellect and knowledge, I am bold to affirm that Britain is as clas.-jjc as Greece was in the days of Homer, and as Rome was at any period between her foundation and the close of the third Punic war. I speak of the relative intelligence of the whole body of the people, rank for rank, in each of those countries compared with the actual measure of information diffused through the corresponding orders in this island. The Common People of Greece. In all the classic regions of antiquity, whether monarchies or republics, knowledge was a species of free-masonry; none but the initiated were the depositaries of its secrets, and these privileged per- sons were almost universally princes, nobles, priests, or men of high degree, including tnose who, from bent of genius or other auspicious circumstances, were devoted by choice, or compelled by office, to the cultivation of letters and philosophy. The vul- gar, the profane vulgar, the multitude, the million, were jealously and cruelly excluded from the bene- fits of learning, except in so far as these were neces- sarily and benignly reflected upon them in the kinder conduct and more affable manners of their masters and superiors ; for long before Bacon uttered the famous oracle — "knowledge is power,"* the ancients were aware of that mystery, unsuspected by the ignorant, whom they ruled by that very power — the power of knowledge, both in spiritual and temporal predominance, as their subjects and their slaves. '"A wiso mail is strong; yea, a irian o\' kno\vlc(liid('rs and b(>t>k-owners A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 279 in this metropolis, would avail themselves of privi- leges so paiiifully to be enjoyed ! Would )iot the sevenfold majority of the inhabitants satisfy them- selves with what they could learn of relij^ion on the Sabbath ] But the poor Greek had no Sabbath, on which, resting from toil, he might repair to the tem- ple, the grove, or the portico, for such instruction as priests and sages miglit deign to afford him. And would any, except those to whom literature was the daily bread of their minds, indulge an appetite for its dainties under the politic restraints of literary societies so circumstanced 1 Morals and science, therefore, at Athens, were principally tauglit by word of mouth, and their les- sons were learned through the ear ; the eyes of the vulgar had little to do towards the improvement of their minds, except as an habitual taste for paint- ing and sculpture, of which the most finished speci- mens were familiar to them from infancy, tended to soften external rudeness, but added ahijost nothing to the stock of knowledge beyond the ideas of fine forms. Nay, even the curious delight and critical exactness with which they listened to the strains of poets, and the arguments of orators in the forum, as well as the recital of the noblest and severest forms of tragic sentiment, and the subtilest and most poignant sallies of comic wit on the stage — were perfectly consistent with a very moderate standard of actual information among a lively, sensitive, and voluptuous people. It is certain that a fine but fac- titious taste may be formed under peculiar circum- stances (and theirs were very peculiar), without effort, and with little knowledge of the subjects on which it is exercised; such taste referring almost exclusively to the manner in which they are handled. Hence Demosthenes might well say that the first, the second, and the third requisite of a good speech was delivery ; that necessarily inclu- 280 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. ding harnioiiTv^us composition as well as brilliant ut- terance. So situated, the Athenian artisan had scarcely a motive to lenrn to read, because if he acquired the ability, he could have little opportunity to use it. Writing-, indeed, was a profession, and the occupa- tion of a scribe must have been a profitable one ; but of course it was chiefly exercised in the service of the wealthy, the learned, and the great; those who could afford to purchase books, and those who i^ould not live without them. That the deficiency of instruction by means of lessons addressed to the eye was not compensated by those addressed to the ear, appears from an anecdote familiar to every schoolboy, but which may be repeated here for the sake of the twofold illustration of our argument which it aff"ords. Aristides had incurred the enmity of his fellow-citizens on account of his pre-emi- nent virtues. A clown, ignorant even of his person, applied to him to mark his own name for banishment on the shell used in the ballot of ostracism. Hav- ing complied with this request, the philosopher in- quired what the accused had done to deserve such a punishment. " I don't know," replied the fellow ; " but it provokes me to think that he, of all men, should strive to be called the just."" This story con- firms the assumption that the common people of Greece, in her glory, were not generally taught to read and write, and that not only moral feeling, but intellectual discernment also, was much lower among them than among our contemporarip.s The common People of Rome. The founder of Rome seems to have been as much of a savage as might be expected of one who was suckled by a wolf. It was the genius and sagacity of his successor which established by wisdom what lie A lurrnosr-Kt f of i.iTKHATURi--. 281 h;id hei^iin in violence, and gave to " the eternal city" the principle of duration. Romulus had formed a body ; Nunia Pompilius lent the soul ; he made his own soul immortal upon earth in it ; and his spirit svi'ayed the counsels and led the enterprises of its senators and warriors in every stage of its progress to universal sovereignty. If but for RomuhisRome had never been — it may be affirmed, that but for Numa Pompilius, Rome had not continued to be, or had not risen above the level of the petty conmion- wealths that surrounded and harassed it without cessation, till they were all ingulfed in its vortex. This great prince, in a dark age, at the head of a horde of barbarian adventurers, by his transcendent policy and enlightened institutes, not only perpet- uated the civil polity of the in^'^nt state on the basis of knowledge being power, but, by virtue of the same victorious principle, enabled the youthful republic in the sequel to extend her empire beyond the ditch over which Remus leaped in contempt, and was slain in it by his brother, from the Euphrates on the one hand, to the Atlantic on the other ; and from Ethi- opia, within the precincts of the torrid zone, to Brit- ain, " divided from the world," towards the north. The Romans laboured under the same disadvan- tages in acquiring and communicating knowledge as the Greeks ; and they laboured under many more from the rough fierce manners of the plebeians, and the unquenchable thirst for martial glory that distin- guished the patricians. Education, of consequence, was low among all classes, not excepting the highest, till after the reduction of Greece, when the polite arts of the vanquished brought the conquerors under the liberal yoke of instruction. Meanwhile, how- ever, even in these youthful days of Rome, we meet with more examples, and those examples of a higher order, of pure virtue, self-denial, self-devo- tion, self-sacrifice, than pagan antiquity can fur- nish from all its records besides. Simple maimers, Y 282 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. generous sentiments, unaffected scorn of corruption, public spirit, and a certain peculiar intellectual cou- rage, as well as that personal valour which was a matter of course, being called into continual exer- cise by the economy of war m those times, in which, during every battle, innumerable single combats were waging at once throughout the whole field ; these were the common qualities of the earlier Romans and their descendants for five centuries. The circumstance to which this cast of charactei may be traced is honourable to the people, and glo- rious to that sex which, among the Romans, was always treated with the revereiice, not less than the affection, which " man that is born of a woman" owes to her from whom he not only derives life, but to whom he is indebted even until death for life's best comforts and sweetest enjoyments. That rev- erence among uncivilized tribes is rarely paid by the savage of the forest or the wilderness to his help- mate ; and even among the polished nations of an- tiquity, Greece herself not excepted, woman had not the honour due to her ; her lord and master, there- fore, derived not from her the benefit of that influ- ence which she was intended to exercise over him, without appearing to exercise any influence at all. The Roman matrons and the Roman maidens are equally illustrious in the primitive annals of their country. The mothers were the instructers of the youth of both sexes; they taught them at home; every family v;as a school of industry and a school of virtue; frank, simple, and austere. Regarding their children as their jewels, it was their duty, their pride, and their happiness to make them as intrinsic- ally valuable and externally ornamental as might be. Roman Literature. At length, Carthage destroyed, and Greece sub- dued, literature began to be cultivated with enthu- siasm by this hardy and heroic people; and, once A RKTROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 283 introduced, it soon beg-an to show its benign influ- ence on the manners of all classes, from tlie patri- cian to the domestic slave, and to produce its fruits in minds of every mould, wherein the seeds of know- ledjj^e were sown. About this era flourished Ennius and Plautus; and thenceforward Rome rose as rapidly in letters as in arms: so that, within a gene- ration or two, Lucretius, Catullus, and Cicero had advanced the intellectual glory of their country to the verge of its consummation. But even in the Augustan age, which followed, wlien we consider the base means by whicli the Roman people were bribed into slavery, held in gorgeous fetters, and their fero-^ cious passions glutted with cruel and bloody specta- cles to restrain them from reflecting on their degra- dation, and conspiring against the new tyranny ; who can doubt, that in morals and understanding, LfOndon, at this hour, is as classic as pagan Rome was in the proudest moment of her splendid infamy T The verses of the elder Romans, so far as can be collected concerning their character, were burlesque and satirical (like those of the modern Greenlanders) rather than warlike and devotional, as the earliest poetry generally is. But from the expulsion of the Tarquins and the establishment of a consular govern- ment, eloquence was always in special esteem, and diligently cultivated, though of a kind corresponding with the simple habits, narrow learning, and turbu- lent circumstances of the times. The tongue was the weapon with which civil war was carried on, and political ascendency gained, in the conflicts betw3en the patricians and the plebeians, — at everlasting strife with each other in the forum, but in perpetualleague in every other field, where the sword was the arbi- ter, and the spoils of the world the prize of victory. Hence the Latin language, even before it was em- ployed for the more brilliant exercises of literature, had been highly wrought, and condensed into a most energetic vehicle for the commerce of thought; and 284 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. afterward, by the practice of its best speakers and writers, grace and vigour became equally blended in its construction and idiom. Inferior in copious- ness, splendour, and flexibility, to the inimitable Greek, it is itself inimitable in pithy and sententious brevity ; while in grandeur and beauty its orators and poets have left examples of its capabilities which those of its rival tongue can scarcely excel. From Ennius to Virgil, there was a rapidly ascending suc- cession of master-minds, formed not only to rule the taste of contemporaries, but to give laws of thinking to all posterity by whom their labours of thought should be possessed with the power of appreciating such models of excellence. During the triumvirate of Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, there were living at once in Italy the greatest number of poets, orators, historians, and philosophers that Rome ever knew ; and many of these were of the highest rank in their respective professions. But in Rome, as in Greece, with hb- erty fell literature, not indeed at once, for she rose and fell frequently — rising weaker, and falling hea- vier each time ; but from the hour when Augustus assumed the purple, he put chains upon the Muses, — golden ones indeed, and sparkling with gems, but still they zvs-re chains, — chains that bound the soul. Adorned and degraded with these they were com- pelled to walk in his train — beautiful captives, smil- ing like infants, and singing like syrens, but sick at heart, pining in thought as they followed the tri- umphal car of the enslaver of their country ; atwhose v/heels Roman freedom, Roman virtue, Roman glory, Were dragged in the dust ; and never, never again stood upriglit, and strong, and fearless as before. Thenceforward literature and philosophy visibly declined ; slowly at first, but with accelerating tend- ency towards final extinction ; so that from the close of tlie reign of Trajan down to the fourth cen- tury of the Christian era, when the poet Claudian A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 285 flourished, who, with all his faults, was worthy of a better age, — there is not a solitary monument of Roman genius to rank with the masterpieces of the fifty years which either preceded or followed the usurpation of supreme power by Augustivs. There are, however, various useful and interesting produc- tions amid this decay of learning, which throw light upon the public events and private manners of the intervening period of intestine turbulence and bar- barian aggression by which the pride and power of Rome were gradually shaken, dilapidated, over- thrown, and finally broken to pieces on the banks of the Tiber, never to be reinstated. Literatwe during the Middle Ages. For nearly ten centuries succeeding, the literature both of Greece and Rome was of a character so heterogeneous, that this epithet alone will be suffi- cient to designate it, — the necessary brevity of the present review not allowing us to waste another word upon it in reference to antiquity. Meanwhile, revolution after revolution changed the condition of the people that inhabited the provinces of the western empire from the death of Constantine the Great. The Goths, Vandals, Huns, with numberless and nameless tribes of barbarians, emigrating in mass, — like mountains midermined, and sliding from their base , or forests on morasses, slowly ruptured, and ingulfing their own growth as well as inundating the adjacent plains — from Scythia, Sarmatia, Siberia, and the inexhaustible regions of Tartary, overran Germany, Gaul, Italy, and Spain ; out of wiiose par- titions of the spoil of Europe gradually arose its modern empires, kingdoms, and commonwealths. From the stern and summary principles of equity among these rude people, grafted upon tlie Roman institutes imbodied by Justinian, sprang the laws and policy of Christian nations at tliis day. In 286 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. Britain itself we owe more of the rights and freedom we enjoy to those hordes, which have been held up to indignation as the ravagers and destroyers ol every thing great, and good, and glorious, in govern ment and literature, during that revolutionary strug- gle, which compelled the Romans to withdraw theii legions and their colonists from our remote island, and reduced the enfeebled natives to call in the aid of the Saxons to repel the inroads of the Picts and Scots ; we owe more to these vilified savages than to their illustrious victims, whose fate has so often excited the compassion of historians, poets, moral- ists, and declaimers of every class. Yet it must be acknowledged, after all, that the Romans, from their degeneracy, were worthy of no better a fate ; nay, they were so irrecoverably corrupt and emasculate, that the infusion of purer blood from the full foun- tains of the north had become requisite to restore human nature itself in the south of Europe to health, vigour, and temperance, — the true standard both of mental and bodily enjoyment and perfection. The fate of the Eastern Empire was longer held in suspense : it stood a thousand years on its new base, at the point where Europe and Asia meet on the opposite shores of the Hellespont ; but it fell, in the sequel, after many a long and furious struggle against the encroachments of the Saracens and the Turks. Nothing in history is more extraordinary than the sudden rise, the rapid progress, and the amazing ex- tension of the empire of the former. In less than a hundred and fifty years the Saracen arms had con- quered all the western, southern, and eastern prov- iixes of the Roman world, including Spain, Barbary, Libya, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and the adjacent regions; to which were added Arabia, whence they issued, with Persia, a great part of Tar- tary, and in process of time the whole of India within the Ganges, where the eagles of Rome had never even alighted, much less gathered themselves to- A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 287 gether upon the prey. It is true that all these coun- tries were never, at the same time, under the imme- diate sovereignty of one prince ; but it is not the caliphate of Bagdad alone of which we now speak, — the reference is to the domination at large of the Saracens, whom their kindred origin, language, manners, religion, and the rage, first for conquest, and afterward for knowledge, assimilated with each other, and distinguished from every people under heaven besides. MaJiomet. At the beginning of the seventh century, an un- lettered slave and a "renegade monk invented a new form of superstition, — a triple cord to bind the hu- man spirit, composed of certain parts of Judaism, Christianity, and paganism, so subtly and inextrica- bly implicated, that to this day it continues to hold in captivity as great a multitude of our divided race as ever professed the same form of faith. Among the innumerable millions of those who have lived and died in this world of change and mor- tality, if we were to fix on one whose existence, opinions, and actions, in their results, have more extensively influenced the destinies of a larger pro- portion of their fellow-creatures than those of any other, we should name the false prophet of Mecca. There have been warriors, legislators, and fanatics, who, in their circle, have equalled and even excelled him in prowess, policy, and extravagance ; but not one can be brought into entire competition with Ma- homet for the spread and permanence of his fame, either as conqueror, lawgiver, • or impostor. His empire, institutes, and superstition have been rooted and perpetuated over so vast a portion of the old world, that the tail of his elborach (the beast which carried him on liis miraculous journey to Paradise), —the tail of his elborach, like that of the dragon in 288 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. the Apocalypse, may be said to have drawn after him a third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them down to the earth. Interpreting' these stars agreeable to the hieroglyphic language of prophecy, as signifying kings and their kingdoms, states and their people, this has been literally the case for twelve centuries, — a longer date than that of any single empire, ancient or modern. In this view Mahomet may be called the greatest and most ex traordinary man that ever had being on earth. The former part of this impostor's life, compared with the latter, presents one of the most striking contrasts that can be found even in the fictions of poetry. According to the generally received ac counts, he was the posthumous son of his father, early left an orphan by his mother, and adopted by an uncle, who, being too poor to provide for his wants, sold him into bondage at sixteen years of age. Then, however, he grev/ into such favour with his master that he was intrusted by him with many valuable mercantile enterprises, — and into such fa- vour with his mistress, that, on the decease of her husband, she conferred on her slave her person and her wealth. Had one of the numberless deaths that lie in am- bush day and night around the path of man, and to which, from the ill-fortune of his childhood, and the misery of his circumstances till he had passed ma- turity, Mahomet was more imminently exposed than it is the chance (so to speak) of most people, — had one of those deaths cut him off, in some unexpected moment, it is impossible to imagine what would have been the actual religious and political, condition of many of the richest provinces of Asia, Africa, and Europe, during the ages upon ages in which his suc- cessors — as true to his religion as that religion is true to the worst passions of human nature, — have followed him in his track of blood; carrying the sword and the Koran from the heart of Arabia to A RKTROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 289 the extremes of east and west of the ancient con- tinent. What has been the condition of those most magnificent, and, from sacred and classic associa- tions, those most venerable countries of the globe, is well known, and need not be particularized here. But it is humiliating to the pride of human intel- lect, that the most comprehensive moral change that ever was effected by a mere man in the character of an immense proportion of the species was the work of a barbarian, unacquainted with the literature and science of his own Arabia, as scanty at that time as the herbage in its deserts ; and it is yet more deroga- tory to the vaunted pretensions of human virtue, unaided by a really divine influence, that this moral change was itself the greatest moral evil from one source with which our race has been visited since the serpent beguiled Eve with his subtlety. The Koran, which contains the oracles of this anomalous heresy, — anomalous, yet so admirably adapted to all the fierce and licentious passions of our nature that it required no miracle to aid the sword in its promul- gation, finding or making a traitor in every evil heart which it assailed, — the Koran is said to be a model of elegant Arabic composition, and though anti- quated, by no means deserving the character which the celebrated John Hutchinson gives of it ; namely^ that it is a jargon of dialects never spoken by man. The learned Hebraist, in this instance, was probably prejudiced by his abhorrence of the doctrines which this apocryphal volume contains. On the other hand, if the diction be so pure, it could not have been the work of the arch-deceiver himself, or he was not the illiterate personage whom he affected to be, per- haps for this very purpose, — that the eloquence and knowledge displayed in this pretended revelation might appear supernatural, and self-evidence that he was verily inspired. Be this as it may, Mahomet and his immediate successors, in all other respects, were brutal, re- Z 290 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. morseless, fanatical conquerors, ravagers, and ovet- throwers of nations and of letters. It was in the reign of Omar, the third of this ferocious line, that the celebrated Alexandrian Library was condemned to be burned, on the shrewd assumption, that if the books were in consonance with the Koran, they were useless ; and if contrary to it, heretical. This has been deemed the greatest loss which learning ever sustained ; and certainly, in bulk, if not in value ; as one single calamity, and a calamity for ever irrepara- ble, it was the greatest that could even be imagined within the range of possibility. Two libraries, how- ever, of nearly equal amount in number of volumes, and probably much more precious in the selection, had been previously consumed by fire in the same situation. Those, therefore, who take it for granted that if the third had been spared by the Arabs, its contents would have been preserved as an inherit- ance to enrich all posterity, may console them- selves for its wanton destruction, by reflecting, that if two libraries of the kind, and on the spot, guarded by the vigilance and jealousy of the most enlightened people of the earth, were destroyed in the course of two centuries between the age of Julius Caesar and that of the Antonines, it is scarcely probable that this, for eight hundred years longer, would have escaped fire, dispersion, or ruin, by violence, neglect, or accident, while Egypt was in possession of one race of barbarian masters after another. The Literature of the Saracens. The spoilers themselves, in this instance, ulti- mately made all the compensation that w^as in the power ©f man to make for this one act of unexam- pled havoc. The Arabs — the Saracens, as tliey were afterward called— had scarcely exhausted their first military fury, in the march of uninterrupted conquest, east, west, north, and south, tlian thev bcf;!;) Ui A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 291 appreciate the intrinsic worth of books. Learning avenged herself nobly on tiiose lier enemies, by first making them her captives, then her friends, and finally her champions, by whom she was, in the sequel, preserved from all but utter annihilation in those very lands where she had once held sovereign sway. The Saracens, with an eagerness of search strikingly contrasted with their recklessness of de- vastation, in this respect, collected, wherever they could be found, copies of the Greek authors of the classic ages, which, being translated into their own tongue, they made the text-books of schools and colleges, established by authority in every country wherein they had gained a settlement; and they employed their own most eminent scholars to write commentaries on the same. Their princes even entered into treaties with the eastern emperors, at Constantinople, for rare manuscripts, which had now become to them of the value of provinces. In process of time — ay, within two centuries from the conflagration of the Alexandrian Library, — the works of Aristotle and other Grecian philosophers, poets, and historians were retranslated from the Arabic versions into Latin, and the other languages of the west; nay, so complete was "learning's tri- umph o'er her barbarous foes," that through these vehicles, imperfect as they must have been, the po- lemical schoolmen of the middle ages derived their ill-digested learning. It is lamentable to think that so many of the latter — men of gigantic intellect, — wasted their strength for the most pigmy purposes. These wandering stars, amid the night of ages, shoot- ing singly through the settled gloom that hung over the whole horizon of Europe, or occasionally re- vealed in constellations through rifted clouds that closed upon them in redoubled darkness ; these schoolmen, as they are still called, were proofs, that under the most repressiuir circumstances, there are, in every generation, minds which cannot be kept 292 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. clown; minds which, by their native energy and buoyance, will struggle into liberty of thought, and exercise the sovereigijity of genius over the ignorant and passive multitude, — at least, if they can find no better subjects. From the Arabs chiefly, this race of hunters after quiddities and crudities, of v/ranglers about straws and hairs, bubbles and atoms, learned what they knew of mathematics, metaphysics, chymistry, and natural philosophy, with such arts and sciences as were then in repute, though very de- fectively understood, and little improved, from cen- tury to century. Charlemagne the great, and our own Alfred, a greater than he, commanded the original writings of Arabic authors, as well as their versions from the Greek, to be translated into the vernacular tongues of their respective people ; and thus each of these truly great princes laid the foundation of the future literary fame of his own country. To the Arabs, also, Europe is indebted for the numeral figures and the invaluable cipher, without which neither the mathematics, nor the subhme and interesting sciences which depend upon these for their proofs and illustrations, could, by any other conceivable means, have been carried to their present perfection. If he who invented the alphabet (the letters of which are the numerals of writing) was the greatest intellectual benefactor of his species, he who invented the signs of the numeration table (which are the alphabet of the mathematics) was only second to him in the boon which he bequeathed to posterity. Every moment of every hour of every day, in every country where letters and figures are known, there are thousands of individuals exercising the privileges and enjoying the benefit of these two inestimable inheritances. The discovery of the golden key of numbers, with its ten wards, which has unlocked to us the starry lieavens, as well as the infinitesimal tieries of tilings on earth, lias lieeii ascribed to ihe A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 293 Indians ; but so far as can be shown, at least, those from whom we received it are entitled in equity as well as gratitude, to that credit from us. But the Saracens not only excelled their contem- poraries in arts and sciences, useful and abstruse ; from them, more than from all the classic models of antiquity, modern Europe derived the character, materials, and embellishments of its poetry. The new-discovered world of romance, likewise, for the most part belongs to Arabia and the East, having been as little known in the ages of Pericles and Augustus as were the unvisited regions beyond the Ganges. The songs of troubadours, the tales of novelists, the legends of chivalry, were all, more or less, borrowed or imitated from Saracen originals. The marvellous and terrific imagery of these works of melancholy or mirthful imagination were equally of oriental or African lineage ; and those features, wherein they claim aflfinity with classic prototypes, were not impressed upon them from the originals in Greek or Roman song, but were transmitted, and transformed by transmission, to them through the enchanted medium of Arabian genius, seizing what- ever it found of beauty or grandeur in the productions of taste, and making all it seized as much its own in appearance as though it were indigenous to the soil, whither in reality it had been recently transplanted The Revival of Literature in Europe. Giants, dragons, necromancers, griffins, and a tliousand other antic forms of men and animals, that people poetry and romance, were all either natives or foundlings of the East : so were the more delicate progeny of fairies, gnomes, sylphs, salamanders — spirits of the elements entirely distinct from the mythological beings which classic fable had created there. Of fairies, especially, the delight of child- hood, and, in their place, not less the delight of age, 204 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. renewing in luxurious revery the feelings of child- hood : of fairies it may be said, that nothing was ever invented by the M^it of man so finely fanciful — so real, and yet so aerial; that to this hour, when their existence is no longer even a vulgar error, they continue to be so exquisitely marvellous, and withal so natural, that they are the very population of the world of poetry. Without these brilliant and awful creations of enthusiastic sensibility — I now allude to the gigantic and terrible, as well as to the minute and beautiful, — in every form of fear, and love, and hope personified, in warmer, richer, fairer lands, where mechanical labour is little known, and where, from the earliest times, traditional lore of wonders has been the literature of tribes, fierce, fiery, and roving, like the Arabs, or a people indolent and voluptuous, like the Persians; without these bril- liant and awful creations of oriental minds, the poetry of modern Europe might never have arisen above mediocrity — the freezing point of imitation, where all may be as splendid, yet as cold and unsub- stantial, as figured frost-work, or drifted snow, or transparent ice. Modern poetry, we may presume, scarcely could have risen above this inanimate me- diocrity, because it would have wanted machinery — a race of supernatural beings of ethereal origin, to supply the vacant thrones of Olympus. The mythology of Greece and Rome, in their native songs, fills the mind and transports the imagination, but rarely touches the aflfections : the divinities of these highly intellectual people were as little calculated to excite human sympathies (though invested with human passions, and boundless im- punity in the indulgence of them) as their own images in marble and brass in their temples, and by the public ways. That kind of epic machinery belonged exclusively to the periods during which it was the religion of the multitude, and while k remained the secret whereby the great and th© A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 295 learned held that multitude at once in ignorance and subjection. Hence the deities of Homer and Virgil have never been introduced with happy effect into modern verse of high order. There is not a popular heroic poem in any living language in which they have been well employed ; nay, there is not one in which they have been employed at all where they are not an absolute encumbrance — not to say nuisance. The truth is, that they destroy poetical probability the moment they appear on the scene ; disenchanting the glorious unreality, which the man of true genius makes a million-fold more real to the feelings and fancy of his readers than the most accurate and elaborate representation of facts in history can be. There are, indeed, some lyrical pieces, especially Italian canzoni, and, in our own language, some playful love songs, and other trifles, in which the divinities of ancient times are quite at home. But from " the highest heaven of invention" Jove and his senate are for ever and for ever fallen ; so that it would be as rational, and about as easy, to rebuild their temples, and restore their worship, as to reinstate them in the honours and immortality which they once enjoyed on Parnassus, and which, as their only immortality, they will possess so long as the literary relics of Greece and Rome are studied and admired. On the other hand, the oriental mythology, if 1 may so style it, as soon as the revival of letters in the south of Europe revived the most elegant of all the forms which letters can assume, — Poetry, which is the language of the noblest minds, and itself most noble v/hen most intelligible, — the oriental mythology at once sup- plied a machinery, gloomy, splendid, gay, and terri- ble, for every occasion, as the one or the other might be wanted. The poems of modern date (those I mean which have outlived their century) most cele- brated, and which will be longest remembered, owe 296 A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. half their inspiration, and more than half their popii- larity, to its influence. For examples we need but recollect the " Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto, the " Gerusalemme Liberata" of Tasso, the "Faerie Queene" of Spenser, and, to crown all, the " Tem- pest" and "Midsummer Night's Dream" of Shaks- peare. But these belong to a later period. ^ Of the literature of the middle ages it may generally be said that it was " voluminous and vast." Princes, nobles, and even priests then were often ignorant of the alphabet. The number of authors was proportionally small, and the subjects on which they wrote were of the driest nature in polemics — such were the subtleties of the school- men ; of the most extravagant character in the paths of imagination — such were the romances of chivalry, the legends and songs of troubadours ; and of the most preposterous tendency in philosophy, so called, — such were the treatises on magic, alchy my, judicial astrology, and the metaphysics. To say all that could be said on any theme, whether in verse or prose, was the fashion of the times ; and, as few read but those who were devoted to reading by an irresistible pas- sion or professional necessity, and few v/rote but those who were equally impelled by an inveterate instinct, — great books were the natural produce of the latter, who knew not how to make little ones ; and great books were requisite to appease the voracity of the former, who, for the most part, were rather gluttons than epicures in their taste for litera- ture. Great books, therefore, were both the fruits and the proofs of the ignorance of the age : they were usually composed in the gloom and torpor of the cloister, and it almost required a human life to read the works of an author of the first magnitude, because it was nearly as easy to compound as to digest such crudities. The common people, under such circumstances, could feel no interest and derive no advantage from the labours of the learned, which A RETROSPECT OF LITERATURE. 297 were equally beyond their purchase and their com prehension. Those libri elcphantini (like the regis- ters of the Roman citizens, when the latter amounted to millions) contained little more than catalogues of things, and thoughts, and names, in words without measure, and often without meaning worth search- ing out ; so that the lucubrations, through a thousand years, of many a noble, many a lovely mind, which only wanted better direction how to unfold its ener- gies, or display its graces, to benefit or delight man- kind, were but passing meteors, that made visible the darkness out of which they rose, and into which they sank again, to be hid for ever. It is remarkable, that while the classic regions of Europe, as well as the northern and western colonies of the dissolved Roman empire, were buried in bar- barian ignorance, learning found a temporary refuge in some of the least distinguished parts of the then known world — in Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Scot- land, and even in. Ireland. And here these papers must conclude, having brought our cursory retrospect to the thirteenth century, an era at which the minds of the people of Europe were already prepared (though scarcely con- scious of the turn in their favour) for those great and glorious discoveries in literature and philosophy, which — since the adoption of the mariner's compass and the invention of printing, introducing liberty of thought and, as a necessary consequence of the latter, freedom of speech have made way for the diffusion of knowledge, revealing new arts and sci- ences, and calling up old ones from the dead in more perfect forms A VIEW OF MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. No. I. English Literature under the Tudors and the first Stuarts. The discovery of the mariner's compass, the invert won of printing, the revival of classic learning, th« Reformation, with all the great moral, commercial, political, and intellectual consequences of these new means, materials, and motives for action and thought, produced corresponding effects upon literature and science. With the progress of the former alone, in our own country, have we to do at present. From the reign of Elizabeth to the protectorate of Cromwell, inclusively, there rose in phalanx, and continued in succession, minds of all orders, and hands for all work, in poetry, philosophy, history, and theology, which have bequeathed to posterity such treasures of what may be called genuine English literature, that whatever may be the transmigrations of taste, the revolutions of style, and the fashions in popular reading, these will ever be the sterling standards. The translation of the Scriptures, settled by authority, and wliich, for reasons that need not be discussed here, can never be materially changed, — consequently can never become obsolete, — has secured perpetuity to the youth of the English MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 299 tonf^ue : and whatever may befall the works of writers in it from other causes, they are not likely to be antiquated in the degree that has been foretold by one whose own imperishable strains would for centuries have delayed the fulfilment of his disheart ening prophecy, even if it were to be fulfilled : — * Our sons their fathers' failing language see. And such as Chaucer is shall Dryden be.^ Pope. Now it is clear, that unless the language be im proved or deteriorated far beyond any thing that can be anticipated from the slight variations which have taken place within the last two hundred years, com- pared with the two hundred years preceding, Dryden cannot become what Chaucer is; especially since there seems to be a necessity laid upon all genera- tions of Englishmen to understand, as the fathers of their mother-tongue, the great authors of the age of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I. : from Spenser (though much of his poetry is wilfully obscured by affected phraseology) and Shakspeare (the idolatry to whose name will surely never permit its divinity to die) to Milton, whose style cannot fall into decay while there is talent or sensibiUty among his coun- trymen to appreciate his writings. It may be con- fidently inferred, that the English language will remain subject to as little mutation as the Italian has been since works of enduring excellence were first produced in it; the prose of Boccaccio and the verse of Dante, so far as dialect is concerned, are as well understood by the common people of their country, at this day, as the writings of Chaucer and Gower are by the learned in ours. Had no works of transcendent originality been produced within the last hundred and fifty years, it may be imagined that such fluctuations might h^ive 300 MODERN ENGLISH LITEKATURE. occurred as would have rendered our language as dif- ferent from what it ivas when Milton nourished, as it then was from what it had been in the days of Chau- cer; with this reverse, that, during the latter it must have degenerated as much as it had been refined during the earlier interval. But the standard of our tongue having been fixed at an era when it was rich in native idioms, full of pristine vigour, and pliable almost as sound articulate can be to sense, — and that standard having been fixed in poetry, the most permanent and perfect of all forms of literature — as well as in the version of the Scriptures which are necessarily the most popular species of reading, — no very considerable changes can be effected, except Britain were again exposed to invasion as it was wont to be of old ; and the modern Saxons or Nor- wegians were thus to subvert both our government and our language, and either utterly extinguish the latter, or assimilate it with their own. Contemporary with Milton, though his junior, and belonging to a subsequent era of literature, of which he became the great luminary and master-spirit, was Dryden. His prose (not less admirable than his verse) in its structure and cadence, in compass of expression, and general freedom from cumbersome pomp, pedantic restraint,- and vicious quaintness, which more or less characterized his predecessors, became the favourite model in that species of com- position, which was happily followed and highly improved by Addison, Johnson, and other periodical writers of the last century. These, to whom must be added the triumvirate of British historians, Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon, who exemplified, in their very dissimilar styles, the triple contrast and har- mony of simplicity, elegance, and splendour, — these illus-trious names in prose are so many pledges, that the language in which they immortalized their thoughts is itself immortalized by being made the MODRRN KNGLISH LITERA.TURK. 301 vehicle of these, and can never become barbarian like Chaucer's uncouth, ru£?ged, incongruous medley of sounds, which are as remote from the strength, volubility, and precision of those employed by hi ^• polished successors, as the imperfect lispings oi infancy before it has learned to pronounce half the alphabet, and imitates the letters which it cannot pronounce with those which it can, are to the clear, and round, and eloquent intonations of youth, when the voice and the ear are perfectly formed and attuned to each other. English Literature from the Restoration to the Reign of George the Third. From the Restoration in 1660 to the time when Cowper had risen into full fame in 1790, may be dated the second grand era of modern English lite- rature, reckoning from Elizabeth to the close of Cromwell's protectorate, alread}^ mentioned as the first. The early part of this period (the reigns of Charles II. and James II.) was distinguished for works of wit and profligacy ; the drama in particular was pre-eminent for the genius that adorned and the abominations that disgraced its scenes. The middle portions of the same period, from the revolution of 1688 to the close of the reign of George II., was rather the age of reason than of passion, of fine fancy than adventurous imagination in the belles lettres generally. Pope, as the follower of Dryden in verse, excelled him as much in grace and har- mony of numbers as he might be deemed to fall below him in raciness and pithy originality. In like manner he imitated Horace in Latin, and tJoileauin French, rivalling, perhaps equalling either in his peculiar line, and excelling both, by combining the excellences of each in his own unique, compact, consummate style. It is to be remarked, however. 302 MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. that though Pope gave the tone, character, and fashion to the verse of his day, as decidedly as Ad- dison had given to the prose, yet of all his imitators not one has maintained the rank of even a second- rate author; the greatest names among his contem- poraries, Thomson and Young, being those who dif- fered most from him in manner, subject, and taste,— especially in those of their works which promise to last as long as his own. Between Pope and Cowper we have the names of Collins, Gray, Goldsmith, and Churchill. Of these, the two former have nothing in common with Pope, but they produced too little, and were too great man- nerists themselves to be the fathers, in either line, of a school of mannerists : it is only when mannerism is connected with genius of the proudest order or the most prolific species that it becomes extensively infectious among minor minds. As for Goldsmith and Churchill, whatever they appear to have owed to Pope they are remembered and admired for what they possessed independent of him, each having wealth enough of his own to be a freeholder of Par- nassus, after paying off any mortgage on his little estate due to that enormous capitalist. The greater stress has been laid upon the utter mortality among the numberless imitators of Pope, because it exemplifies the impossibility of any imitator ever being a great poet, however great his model, and however exquisite his copying may be. Nothing in the English language can be more perfect than the terseness, elegance, and condensa- tion of Pope's sentiments, diction, and rhyme. Of course the successful imitation of these m.ight be expected to prove an infallible passport to renown, because such a style involves the happiest union of diverse requisites, and its charm consists far less in any one peculiarity (as is the case of other eminent bards) than m the perfection of those principles MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 30.3 which are common to all poetic composition ; yet in our day, there has been an example of this suc- cessful imitation which in every other respect has been a total failure. The Paradise of Coquettes, published a few years ago, was a work of much taste and genuine talent in its mechanical construction, as well as in the playful, delicate, pungent satire with which it abounded ; yet this piece, worthy of the highest admiration in its way, though elaborately criticised and profusely commended in the reviews, never shone beyond their precincts, and was scarcely read except in quotations or in their pages. This miscarriage afforded also an encouraging proof to ill-treated authors, or authors who imagine them- selves ill-treated, — that permanent fame depends not upon contemporary criticism ; for whatever reviews may effect in advancing or retarding the hopes of a candidate under their examination, final success depends upon a tribunal whose decision they cannot always, with their keenest sagatity, anticipate. English Literature of the present age. With the exceptions already named," there was not a poet between Pope and Cowper who had power to command in any enviable degree, or even for a little while, that popular breath of applause which the aspirant after immortality inhales as the prelude of it. Verse, indeed, was so low in pubhc estima- tion, and so little read, that few of the fugitive pieces of the hmir, on their passage to oblivion, attracted sufficient notice to defray the expenses of their jour- ney thither. Cowper's first volume, partly from the grave character of the longer pieces and the pur- posely rugged, rambling, slip-shod versification, was long neglected, till The Task, the noblest effort of his muse, composed under tlie inspiration of cheer- fulness, hope, and love, unbosoming the whole soul of his afiections, intellisience. and i)itty,r-— at once 304 MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. made our countrymen feel that neither the genius of poesy had fled from our isle, nor had the heart for it died in the breasts of its inhabitants. The Task was the first long poem from the close of Churchill's brilliant but evanescent career, that awoke wonder, sympathy, and delight by its own ineffable excellence among the reading people of England. " The happy miracle of that rare birth, (Habington's Halcyon.) could not fail to quicken many a drooping mind, which, without such a present evidence both of genuine song and the genuine effects of song amid the previous apathy to this species of literature, would hardly have ventured to brood over its own conceptions in sohtude and obscurity, till they too were warmed into life, uttered voices, put forth wings, and took their flight up to the " highest heaven of invention.'' From Cowpermay be deduced the commencement of the third great era of modern English literature, since it was in no small measure to the inspiration of his Task that our countrymen are indebted, if nat for the existence, yet certainly for the character, of the new school of poetry, estabhshed first at Bristol, and afterward transferred to the Lakes, as scenery more congenial and undisturbed for the exercise of contemplative genius. Southey, Coleridge, and Wordsworth started almost contemporaneously in the same path to fame, — a new one, indeed, un- trodden and entangled with thorns or obstructed with stones, yet in many parts fertile and wildly diversi- fied ; blooming with all the beauty, and breathing with all the fragrance, of the ricliest and most cul- tivated enclosures of the Muses. The minds and the feelings, tli(^ passions and prejudices of men of all ranks and attainiiu iits, (Voin tjic liinhfyt to the low- MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 305 est, were at that time roused and interested by the fair and promising, the terrific and stupendous eVents of the French Revolution ; and the excitement of this portentous phenomenon in the state of Europe prepared this nation especially (from the freedom with which all questions might be discussed) forthat peculiar cast of subjects and of style, both in verse and prose, for which the present period is distin- guished from every former one. The first era of our modern literature, already de- fined as extending from Elizabeth to the close of the protectorate, was that of nature and romance com- bined : it might be compared to an illimitable region of mountains, rocks, forests, and rivers — the fairy land of heroic adventure, in which giants, enchant- ers, and genii, aS well as knights-errant, and wander- ing damsels guarded by lions, or assailed by fiery flying dragons, were the native and heterogeneous population ; where every building was a castle or a palace, an Arcadian cottage or a hermitage in the wilderness. The second era, from Dryden to Cowper, bore a nearer resemblance to a nobleman's domain, sur- rounding his family mansion, wliere all was taste, and elegance, and splendour within ; painting, sculp- ture, and literature forming its proudest embellish- ments — while, without, the eye ranged with volup- tuous freedom over the paradise of the park, woods, waters, lawns, temples, statues, obelisks, and points of perspective so cunningly contrived as to startle the' beholder with unexpected delight ; nature and art having changed characters, and each, in mas- querade of the other, playing at hide-and-seek amid the self-involving labyrinths of landscape gardening. At length, when both the eye and the heart had been wearied for more than a century with the golden mediocrity of these, in which notliing was so awful as deeply to agitate, nor so familiar as tenderly to interest, the Bristol youtiis alremlv niuiiod bi)U\lv A <, 306 MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. broke through the restraint, and hazarded a new style, in which simplicity, homeliness, common names, every-day objects, and ordinary events were made the themes and the ornaments of poetry. These naturally assimilate themselves with what is em- phatically called " the country" — " each rural sight, each rural sound ;" the loves and graces of domestic life, the comforts of our own fireside ; the flowery array of meadows, the green gayety of hedge-rows, the sparkling vivacity of rivulets ; kind intercourse with neighbours, the generous ardour of patriotism, and the gentler emotions of benevolence. Such furnished the " perpetual feast of nectared sweets" set before their readers by those innovators on the courtly formality of the old school ; but the charm of their song was too often interrupter by the coarse- ness of vulgar manners and the squalidness of pov- erty — too nearly associated with physical disgusts to be the unpolluted source of ideal delights. This, therefore, could not last long; the subjects which might be rendered interesting were soon ex- hausted. Hence this ramble after Nature in her humblest forms and her obscurest haunts was only a holyday frolic ; and these wayward sons of genius, by their high endowments, were destined to give a more heroic tone, a more magnificent character, lo the literature of their country. Southey, by his marvellous excursions in the regions both of history and romance — Coleridge, by his wild fictions of a class entirely his own, in which there is an indescri- bable witchery of phrase and conceit, that aff"ects the imagination as if one had eaten of " the insane root that takes the reason prisoner" — and Words- worth, by his mysticism, his Platonic love of the supreme good and the supreme beauty, which he seeks everywhere, and finds wherever he seeks, in tlie dancing of daffodils, the splendour of the settmg sun, the note of a cuckoo flitting like a spirit from hill to hill, which neither the eye nor ear can roUow, MODERN KNGLISH LITERATURE. 307 and in the everlasting- silence of the universe to the man born deaf and dumb — these were the tluee pio- neers, if not the absolute founders, of the existing style of English literature ; which has become so diversified, artificial, and exquisite — so gorgeously embellished, and adapted to every taste, as well as so abundant in its resources by importations from the wealth of every other land, that it may challenge similitude to the great metropohs of our empire, where the brain of a stranger, like myself, is bewil- dered amid the infinite forms of human beings, hu- man dwellings, human pursuits, human enjoyments, and human sufferings ; perpetual motion, perpetual excitement, perpetual novelty ; city manners, city edifices, city luxuries : ail these being not less strik- ingly characteristic of the literature of this age than the fairy-land of adventure, and the landscape gar- dening of " Capability Brown" were characteristic of the two periods from Spenser to Milton, and from Dryden to Cowper. If the literature of the middle ages (as was shown in a former paper*) were principally composed of crude, enormous, indigestible masses, fitted only to monkish appetites, that could gorge iron like os- triches, when iron was cast into the shape of thought, or thought assumed the nature of iron ; the litera- ture of the present day is entirely the reverse, and so dre all the circumstances connected with it. Then there were few readers, and fewer writers ; now there are many of both ; and among those that really deserve the name of the former, it would be difficult to ascertain the relative proportion of the latter, for most of them in one way or another might be classed with writers. The vehicles, opportuni- ties, and temptations of publishing are so frequent, BO easy and unexpenslve, that a man can scarcely ')e connected with intelligent society, without being * Soe the Third Part of '■■ A Retrospect of Literature " &c 308 MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE seduced, in some frail moment, to try how his thoughts will look in print : then, for a second or two or least, he feels as the greatest genius in the world feels on the same occasion, " laudum immensa cupido,''^ a longing after immortality that mounts into a hope — a hope that becomes a conviction of the power of realizing itself in all the glory of ideal reality ; than which no actual reality ever afterward is half so enchantingly enjoyed. Hence the literature of our time is commensurate with the universality of education ; nor is it less va- rious than universal to meet capacities of all sizes, minds of all acquirements, and tastes of every de- gree. Books are multiplied on every subject on which any thing or nothing can be said, from the most abstruse and recondite to the most simple and puerile : and while the passion of book-jobbers is to make the former as familiar as the latter by royal ways to all the sciences, there is an equally perverse rage among genuine authors to make the latter as august and imposing as the former, by disguising commonplace topics wuth the colouring of imagina- tion, and adorning the most insignificant themes with all the pomp of verse. This degradation of the high, and exaltation of the low — this dislocation, in fact, of every thing, is one of the most striking proofs of the extraordinary diffusion of knowledge — and of its corruption, too — if not a symptom of its declension by being so heterogeneously blended, till all shall be neutralized. Indeed, when millions of intellects, of as many different dimensions and as many different degrees of culture, are perpetually at work, and it is almost as easy to speak as to think, and to write as to speak, there must be a pro- portionate quantity of thought put into circulation. Meanwhile, public taste, pampered with delicacies even to loathing, and stimulated to stupidity with excessive excitement, is at once ravenous and mawkisli — gratified with nothing but novelty, 'loi MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 309 with novelty itself for more than an hour. To meet his diseased appetite, in prose not less than in verse, a factitious kind of the marvellous has been invented, consisting, not in the exhibition of supernatural in- cidents or heroes, but in such distortion, high colour- ing, and exaggeration of natural incidents and ordi- nary personages, by the artifices of style, and the audacity of sentiment employed upon them, as shall produce that sensation of wonder in which half- instructed minds delight. This preposterous effort at display may be traced through every walk of polite literature, and in every channel of publica- tion ; nay, it would hardly be venturing too far to say that every popular author is occasionally a jug- gler, rope-dancer, or posture-maker, in this way, to propitiate those of his readers who will be pleased with nothing less than feats of legerdemain in the exercises of the pen. No. II. Contemporary Poets, It must be conceded that there never was a time when so great a number of men of extraordinary genius flourished together in this island ; as many may have existed, and perhaps there may be always an equal quantity of latent capacity ; but since the circumstances of no previous period of human his- tory have been altogether so calculated to awaken, inspirit, and perfect every species of intellectual en« ergy, it is no arrogant assumption in favour of the living, no disparagement of the merits of the dead, to assert the manifest superiority of the former in developed powers — powers of the rarest and most 310 MODERN KNGLISn LITERATURE. elevated kind in poetry — the noblest of the arts, and that which is brought earliest to the consiunmation of excellence, as it depends not upon the progress of science, but on sensibility to that which is at ail times in itself equally striking in the grandeur, beauty, and splendour of external nature, with cor- responding intensity of feeling towards whatsoever things are pure, lovely, and of good report in the mind of man, or in the scenes and circumstances of domestic life. In poetry, late as it is in the age of the world, and after all the anticipations in every field that could furnish subjects for verse withni the last three thou- sand years, the present generation can boast of at least six names that may be ranked with any other six (averaging the measure of genius on both sides) not only of our own country, but of any other that were contemporaries, independent of a far greater number of highly accomplished writers, such as in every refined and lettered period must abound • — men who are rather poets by choice than by des- tiny, and who, if they had been either kings or beg- gars, would not have been poets at all ; because in the one case they would have been above, and in the other below, the temptation and pleasure of court- ing the Muses. Southey, Campbell, Wordsworth, Scott, Moore, and Byron — these, under any circum- stances, from the original bias of their minds, must have been poets : had they been born to thrones, they would have v/oven for themselves chaplets of bays more glorious than the crowns which they in- herited ; had thej^ been cast in the meanest stations of civilized society, they would have been distin- guished among their peers, and above them, by some emanation of that " light from heaven" which no darkness of ignorance in untutored minds could utterly extinguish or always hide. It must be further acknowledged by all who have justly appreciated the works of these authors (which MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 311 are exceedinj,dy dissimilar in those respects wherein each is most excellent), that the g-reat national events of their day have had no small influence In training their genius, leading them to the choice of subjects, and modifying their style. So far, then, these cir- cumstances have been sources of inspiration ; but there is a drawback with regard to each, that, yield- ing to the impatient temper of the times in their eager pursuit of fame, they have occasionally aimed at the temple on the mountain-top, not by the slow, painful, and laborious paths which their immortal predecessors trod, and which all must tread who would be sure of gaining the eminence, and keeping their station when they have gained it, — but they have rather striven to scale the heights by leaping from rock to rock up the most precipitous side, for- cing their passage through the impenetrable forests that engirdle it, or plunging across the headlong tor- rents that descend in various v/indings from their fountains at the peak. Thus they have endeavoured to attract attention and excite astonishment, rather by prodigious acts of spontaneous exertion, than to display gradually, and eventually to the utmost ad- vantage, the well directed and perfectly concentrated force of their talents. In a word, it may be doubted whether one of the living five (for Byron is now be- yond the reach of warning) has ever yet done his very best in a single effort worthy of himself (I mean in their longer works), by sacrificing all his merely good, middling, and inferior thoughts, which he has in common with everybody else, and appearing solely in his peculiar character, — that character of excellence, whatever it may be, wherein he is dis- tinct from all the living and all the dead ; the per- sonal identity of his genius shining only where he can outshine all riv.ds, or where he can shine alone when rivalry is excluded. Till each of the survivors has done this, it can hardly be affirmed that he has secured the imniortalitv of one of his great intel- 312 MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. lectual offspring- : there is a vulnerable part of each, which Death with his dart, or Time with his scythe, may sooner or later strike down to oblivion.* The unprecedented sale of the poetical works of Scott and Byron, with the moderate success of others, proves that a great change had taken place both in the character of authors and in the taste of readers, within forty years. About the beginning of the French revolution scarcely any thing in rhyme, ex- cept the ludicrous eccentricities of Peter Pindar, v/ould take with the public : a few years afterward, booksellers ventured to speculate in quarto volumes of verse, at from five shillings to a guinea a line, and in various instances were abundantly recompensed for their liberality. There are fifty living poets (among whom it must not be forgotten, that not a few are of the better sex — I may single out four ; Miss. Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Hemans, Miss Mitford, and L. E.L.) whose labours have proved profitable to themselves in a pecuniary way, and fame in propor- tion has followed-the more substantial reward. This may appear a degrading standard by which to mea- sure the genius of writers and the intelligence of readers, but, in a commercial country at least, it is an equitable one ; for no man in his right mind can suppose that such a rise in the market demand could have taken place, unless the commodity itself had become more precious or more rare, or the taste of the public for that kind of literature had been exceed- ingly improved. Now poetry, instead of being more rare, was tenfold more abundant when it was most * Ir» reading the foregoing passage at the Royal and London Institu- t-ians, the autlior distinctly remarked, that aS he could not be supposed to speak invidiously of any one of the great poets implicated in the quali- fied censure, he did not think any other apology necessary either to tliem- oelves or tlnnr admirers there present, except that, deeming such censure applicable to contcMriporaries in general, he had named those only wiio could not be injured in their established reputation, or their honourable feelings, by the frankness of fneiully criticism; and who could therefore alTord to bo told of faults ^iiich they hud, in a small degree, in common viilh a rnnltilude of their inferiors, who have the same in a much higher. MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 313 in request ; it follows, therefore, that the demand was occasioned by a change equally creditable to the superior talents of those who furnished, and the superior information of those who consumed, the supply. The market, however, has much fallen within these last ten years, and the richest dealer long ago invested his capital in other funds, much to his own emolument and the satisfaction of more customers than any author living besides himself can boast. Lord Byron did worse ; but I am not the judge of his morality here. I shall only remark upon him in his literary character, that had he always selected ma- terials for his verse (Milton uniformly did his best) equal to the power which he could exercise upon them, his themes would never have been inferior to the loftiest and finest which he adorned in that golden era of his genius between the publication of the first and the fourth cantos of Childe Harold, which era, I believe, comprehends all his masterpieces ; nor would his execution ever have fallen below that which, by a few touches, could strike out images of thought equal to Pygmalion's statue in beauty ; while, with a breath, he could give them an earthly immor- tality, and by a destiny which no revolution in lan- guage or empire can reverse, send them forth to peo- ple the minds of millions of admiring readers in ail ages to come. He might have done this, almost in- fallibly, in every instance in which he condescended ^tq put forth the whole strength of his intellect, and Iavis>4i upon the creation of an exuberant fancy all the riches of a poetical diction, unrivalled among con- temporaries, and unexcelled by any of h'3 predeces- sors. Yet no modern author who c.tn lay claim to the highest honours of Parnas^as has written a greater quantity of perishable, perishing rhyme, than the noblest of them all. In this sketch it is not necessary to expatiate on tije particular merits of anv other class of poets, these 314 MODKRN ENGLISH LITERATURE. two masters of the lyre having been more follovvea than the rest, not only by the servile herd of imita- tors, bnt by many men of real talent, who had strengtl and stock enough of their own to have come out in their original characters, and spoken in their own language. The consequence has been just as it ought to be : there is not one copyist of either Sir Walter Scott or Lord Byron who is popular at this hour ; and it may be safely foretold, that not one production resembling theirs, which is not theirs, will last thirty years. There is a small but pecuhar class of versifiers, which deserves a word of notice here, if it be but a word of reprobation. The leaders of this select band of poetasters are men of some fancy, a little learning, less taste, and almost no feel- ing. They have invented a manner of writing and thinking frigidly artificial, while affecting to be neg- ligently natural, though no more resembling nature than the flowers represented in shell-work on lack- ered grounds, and framed in glass cases by our grandmothers, resembled the roses and carnations which they caricatured. They think, if they think at all, like people of the nineteenth century (for cer- tainly nobody ever thought like them before), but they write in the verbiage of the sixteenth, and then imagine that they rival the poets of Elizabeth's reign, because they mimic all that is obsolete in them, which in fact is only preserved in Spenser and Shakspeare themselves, because it is inseparably united with what can never become obsolete, — " thoughts that breathe and words that burn," not less intelligible at this day than when they were first uttered. It might be shown that the finest passages in our ancient writers are those in which the phrase- ology has never become antiquated, nor ever can be «so till the Englisli shall be a dead language. This scliool must pass away with the present genera- tion, as surely as did the Delia Cruscan of the lasi century. MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 315 The Drama. Is it not remarkable, while we are rich beyond precedent in every other species of elegant literature, that in the drama we shonld be poor even to pau- perism, if that term in its technical and degrading^ sense may be so applied ? Not a tragedy that can live on the stage, its own element, beyond the date of a nine days' wonder, has been produced for many years. The phantasmagoria of the Castle Spectre^ the magnificent but anomalous Pizarro, the crazy Bertram, are not exceptions, unless they can bq shown to be legitimate tragedies, which, by thJ- power of mind over mind alone, obtained not a tem- porary, but a permanent triumph, — a triumph that must be renewed as often as they are performed. The Stranger^ immoral and insidious as it is, long maintained its ground by the aid of consummate act- ing in its most exceptionable character ; but it must be acknowledged by its warmest admirers that the catastrophe is achieved by a coup de main, a trick of pantomime at last, which amounts to a silent con- fession of failure, that after all the cunning and elabo- rate preparation to secure success to the interview, the hero and heroine, like Harlequin and Columbine, could only be reconciled in dumb-show ! The Gor- dian knot of the delicate dilemma is cut, not disen- tangled ; and the imagination of the most enraptured spectator dare not dwell for five minutes behind the curtain after it has fallen upon the scene. The first word uttered by either party there would dissolve the enchantment at once : Mrs. Haller must be I^Irs. Haller still, and the Stranger a Stranger for ever. Yet when I name Miss Joanna Baillie, Miss Mitford, Lord Byron, Milman, Sotheby, Sheridan Knowles, and leave my audience to recollect other able writers of tragedy, among our contemporaries there is evi- dently no lack of great talent for this species of com 316 MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. position, that may delight in the closet, however the taste of play-goers may have degenerated so as to disrelish any thing either highly intellectual or highly poetic on the stage. It is vain to say that many pieces bearing the name of tragedies have been brought out which deserved a better fate than they experienced ; for whatever may have been the cause of their miscarriage, the fact, the fatal fact remains, that this age has scarcely produced a tragedy which can keep its hold as a tra- gedy in representation ; and short of this, whatever be the merits of some of the prematurely slain, they were only dialogues in blank verse. Desert is no- thing in such a case, except it can enforce its claim ; unless an audience cannot help being pleased, it is idle to argue upon the duty of their being so. The homage exacted by genius is that which cannot be withheld, although it is voluntarily paid. It would seem as if the age of tragedj^ as well as that of epic poetry, were gone for ever ; both belong to a period of less refinement in the progress of modern society than the present. This is not the place to attempt a solution of the paradox. But comedy, — gay, polite, high-spirited comedy, might have been expected to be carried to perfection amid the vicissitudes of the last thirty years, when the energies of men in every rank of life being stimu- lated beyond example by the great events continually occurring at liome and abroad, boundless diversity of character and pursuits must have been ever at hand to furnish materials for scenic exposure ; while the popular mind, incessantly craving for keener ex- citement, would eagerly have seized upon any novelty in the form of dramatic entertainment. Every novelty, except such as genius alone could bring forth, has been presented on the stage, and accepted with avidity by the frequenters of the theatre ; but no offspring of intellect and taste, at all comparable to the num- berless progeny of the same in every other dep;irt- MODKRN ENGLISH LITF.R ATUUK. 317 mentof literature, has appeared to redeem the credit of the drama from the disrepute into which it has fallen, since Sheridan gave to the world his few but inimitable comedies. These, after surpassing all that went before, seem to have left no hope for any that might follow them. This critique on the present state of the drama in England, refers to it solely as one class of htcrature, and bears no reference to the questionable morality of theatrical performances Novels and Romances. In what are properly called novels, fictitious nar- ratives of common life, the period between Pope and Cowper was more prolific than any preceding one. Indeed, the genuine novel was yet a novelty, which originated, or rather was introduced, in the merry reign of Charles II., but never had been carried to its height of humour and reality till Fielding, Smol- lett, and Richardson, each in his peculiar and unri- valled way, displayed its utmost capabilities of paint- uig men and manners as they are. These were followed by " numbers without num- ber," and without name, that peopled the shelves of the circulating libraries with the motley progeny of their brain. But from the time of the irruption of Southey and his irregulars into the region of Par- nassus, where all had been torpor and formality before, with the exception of the little domain of Cowper, poetry rose so rapidly into fashion as to share the patronage of sentimentalists and other idle readers, till the Lady of the Lake and Childe Harold bore away the palm of popularity from the ynost renowned of their contemporaries — tlie ladies and gentlemen that live in novels, and nowhere else. There was indeed a long and desperate resistance made on the part of the novelists against the poets , and their indigenous resources failing, they called in to their ai<1. not {Jernian talcs unlv, but — to confound ',UH M()I>i;kn kn<;f,isii i.irKiiA'iiiKi:. I lie. le. MODKUN ENGLISH LITKRATUUE. 319 and fictions of far nobler and more intellectual char acter are substituted, though, of course, the mass is not wholly purified, and the million are the vulgar still. The principal literary objections to these inimi- table tales (for I meddle not with their morality) in after-times will be, that the author, in his best per- formances, has blended fact and fiction both in inci- dents and characters so frequently, and made his pictures at once so natural to the life, yet often so contrary to historical verity, that henceforward it will be difficult to distinguish the imaginary from the real with regard to one or the other ; thus the cre- dulity of ages to come will be abused in the estimate of men, and the identity of events by the glowing illusion of his pages, in which the details are so minute and exquisite, that the truth of painting will win the author credit for truth of every other kind, and most, it may be, where he least de- serves it. The Periodical Press. But it is in the issues from the periodical press that the chief influence of literature in the present day consists. Newspapers alone, if no other evi- dence were to be adduced, would prove incontro- vertibly the immense and hitherto unappreciated superiority in point of mental culture, of the existing generation over all their forefathers, since Britain was invaded by Julius Cassar. The talents, learning, ingenuity, and eloquence employed in the conduct of many of these ; the variety of information con- veyed through their columns from every quarter of the globe to the obscurest cottage, and into the humblest mind in the realm, render newspapers, not luxuries, which they might be expected] to be among an idolent and voluptuous people, but absolute ne- 320 MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. cessaries of life, — the daily food of millions of the ;!:!«st active, iiUeUigent labourers, the most shrewd, indefatigable, and enterprising tribes on the face of tile earth. Compare an ordinary provincial journal of last week, with the best that was published in the metropolis fifty years ago, and the step which refine- ment has made in the interval will at once appear. Tlie periodical publications of the first half of the last century, — the Tatler, Spectator, Guardian, and their successors, did much towards increasing an eager relish for elegant literature, as well as render- ing the more useful and popular kinds of knowledge accessible to everybody. But, except in their mas- terpieces, w^hich may be equalled, though never ex- ceiled, there are hundreds of articles in every week's newspapers, which may at least rival the common run of essays in some of the most celebrated works above alluded to. The Literary Gazette, the Spec- T-itor, and several other weekly journals, are deci- ' edly literary, and exercise no slight jurisdiction in afiairs of criticism and taste. Of higher rank, though far inferior potency, are magazines. A few of these, indeed, have consider- able sale ; but they rather reflect the image of the public mind, than contribute towards forming itf features or giving it expression. As amusing mis- cellanies, they are in general far superior to their predecessors, before the establishment of that which bears the title of Monthly, — and which, whatever ma)' have been its merits or delinquencies in past times, had the honour of efifecting as glorious a revolution among the compilers of these, as Southey and Wordswortli efiecled among the rhymers of 179G. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, at this time, probably takes the lead among the fraternity, and by the boldn<^ss, hihirity, and address with whicli it is managed, it has become equally formidable in politics and predominant in lit-jr-iture. In both tliese MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. 321 departments the New Monthly and the London assume a high station.* Yet there are no publications whatever which at once exemplify the advancement and the perversion of mind at this particular time, by such decided symptoms of both, as the magazines already named, which are at the head of their class. In the leading articles of these, there is scarcely a line of natural writing from month-end to month-end. Let this sweeping censure be admitted with what qualification it may, the general truth of the assertion may be established by an appeal to any page of any one of them opened at random. That admirable talents are in full exercise there will be instantly acknow- ledged ; but then all is effort, and splendour, and display. It is fine acting, which only falls short of nature ; but it is not nature, and therefore cannot quite please, even at its best ; we feel there is some- thing wrong ; we may not know exactly what it is, but this we do know, that all is not right. The con- tributions are got up in a masterly manner, but evi- dently for the purpose of producing the greatest possible effect ; they are positive experiments upon the minds of the readers — not the unburdening of the minds of the writers themselves, glad to pour out in words the fulness of feelings long cherished in secret, and which they would have uttered in a desert island, where rocks, and woods, and streams were their only auditors. Authors write best for the public when they write for themselves. f Reviews not only rank higher than magazines ni * And, since this essay was composed, the Metropolitan, Frazer's Magazine, and others. t It is but justice to say, that since this paper was originally com- posed (in IS23), considerable improvement has been introduced in the style of many magazine articles, but still sufficient of the prodigality of genius (as well as the extravagance of bad taste) is exhibited monthly in such publications to justify the retention of the passage as St originally stood, with that abatement of its severilv wbirh this note mplje-a. Bb 322 MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE. literature— rather by usurpation than right — but they rival newspapers themselves in political influence, while they hold divided empire with the weightier classes of literature — books of every size, and kind, and cliaracter, on which moreover they exercise an authority peculiar to the present age, and never dreamed of by critics in any past period since the alphabet was invented. Formerly reviews were, on the whole, what they professed to be — critical essays on new publications ; and they filled a respectable office in the republic of letters, as censors who did their duty, not always with ability, but generally with fairness ; or, if otherwise, with a decent gravity of injustice that seldom exposed them to retaliation. The commencement of the Edinburgh Review was the discovery of a new world in criticism, to which all authors were liable to be transported as criminals, and there dealt with according to laws made on the spot, and executed by those who made them. The speculation answered well, the adventurers grew rich and renowned, and their ambition increased with their wealth and celebrity. Another work, the Quarterly Review, on the same scale, in the course of a few years was started in opposition to it ; and this has flourished not less than its prototype, by adopting nearly the same system of tactics in literature, while it has been inveterately confronted to it in politics. The Westminster Review and the British Critic, in their respective departments, exercise no small influence over respectable classes of readers. In these nondescript publications downright au- thorship and critical commentary are combined ; the latter being often subsidiary to the former, and a ?aominal review being an original essay on the sub- ject, of which the work placed at the head of the article sometimes furnislies little more than the title. These distinguished periodicals, on the ground of ihcir decided superiority to all rontcniporarv journals MODERN ENGLISH Llii/RA JUKE 323 n which the saine subjects are discussed, have long commanded the admiration both of friends and foes and it is a proud proof of the ascendency of litera- tuie in our own day, that these several reviews are the most powerful political auxiliaries, or rather engines of the several parties, which, in such a state as ours, divide public opinion between them on questions of national interest. It may be added that there are other respectable publications, bearing the name also of reviews, especially the Monthly and the Eclectic, which are conducted with various degrees of ability, but all employing more or less the same arts of criticism, and making criticism subservient to purposes foreign to itself, though cap- tivating to the world of idle and capricious, as well as curious and intelligent, readers. By these, as well as by the magazines and newspapers, such variety and abundance of extracts from nev/ books are regularly copied into their own pages, as almost to supersede the use of the originals ; whatever is most valuable in each being thus gratuitously furnished to the public. To authors of high powers this practice is eminently serviceable, as by these means they are earlier and more advantageously introduced to favour and fame than they could otherwise have been by all the arts of puffing and the expense of advertising. On the whole, therefore, periodical publications of every order may be regarded as propitious in their influence to the circulation of knowledge and the interests of literature ; while truth, however per- verted in some instances by passion and prejudice, is more rapidly, effectually, and universally diffused by the ever-varying and everlasting conflicts main- tained in these, than the same quantity with the same force of evidence could be developed in bulkier volumes, by a slower process, and within an incom- parably more contracted circle. Works, liowever, of thelarjjest kind, and the mont e]:ih!)rate structure, 324 MODERN ENGLISH LITERATUUE. | in every department of learning, abound amoi cyclopedias without measure, compilations w number, besides original treatises, which e^ show the industry, talent, and acquirements < thors in all ranks of society, and of every grac of intellect. Nor are there wanting works o tory, voyages and travels, divinity, law, and pi of sterling value, and worthy of the British n which in arts and arms is second to none i; world. The majority of these publications e: the same characteristic features as the more ionable and fugitive ones previously deline; namely, strong excitement in profession, ambi display in execution, and excessive gratificati( the entertainment which they provide. The t of every era must resemble those who wrote those who read them. Great expectation mui met with proportionate effect; and (unreasoi as it may appear, and as it is) if the effect b( beyond both, a degree of disappointment is ex enced on the one hand, and a measure of failu] the other. Such, according to the best judgment of the w of these imperfect remarks, is the present sta literature in this country, especially of popular ] ature, including poetry, the drama, works of gination, and the periodical press. Of its fi progress or decline it is unnecessary to offer conjecture. It does, however, seem to have proached a crisis, when some considerable ch; for the better or the worse may be anticipated ; v literature in England Avill return to the lov( nature and simplicity, or degenerate into boir and frivolity. THE END (/of'^ 5 dnv3 CALIF f ;os-ANi os-ang: i)jnv] A-Of CALIF ^p.W^., \\u Liunru* I oj^. ^iUONVSOl^ SWEUNIVERS/^ %,Jh 000 577 627 ^lOSANCElf J^ ^OFCAll FO/?^ J "^AiiaMNn-iwv^ >&Aavaaii-^^ s^l•UBRARYGc. ' - — ' ^ -^UIBRARYO^ ^^V\EUNIVER&'^ ^OFCALIFOff^ ^i^OJIlVDJO^ '^Aavaan^ ^OFCAllFOfti^ ^^WEUNiVERS"/^