lips of the poet, to whom we commit our weakness as well as our wisdom. He is also freed, in a great measure, from that obligation of consistency with himself, which is imposed on all other writers. If the sentiments he expresses are contradictory-if one ode, or one elegy, be utterly at variance with its predecessor-yet, if in each instance he expounds what we ourselves have thought, or felt, or can be made to feel, he escapes without censure. In discoursing on human life, we should hold it discreditable in the graver moralist, if in one page of his writings he should depict our existence as a fruitless toil or weary idleness, as a scarce mitigated grievance, replete with pain and disappointment, and yet in some future page break forth in exclamations of delight at this admirable state of being, so happily devised, so full of activity, so gay with hope, so rich in affections! But the poet is allowed, after this very fashion, "to change his hand and check the measure." Of such conflicting representations as these, neither can, of course, express what is generally and permanently true of human life, but both portray an actual and veritable condition of our changeful minds. Both, therefore, belong to the poet. The very truth he seeks is to be found in this versatility of thought; he is pledged to the follies, he must be faithful to the inconsistencies, of mankind. We may here, perhaps, be asked why-if poetry is to be described as that species of literature which has intellectual pleasure and excitement for its very purpose-why the novelwhich is certainly written for our amusement, and cannot often be accused of having any other object in view-should not be classed under the head of poetry? To us it seems that the novel is not only divested of the form of verse, and is not only less select in the objects presented by it to the imagination, but that it depends for its power over us on a species of interest incompatible with what is most peculiar and refined in the substance itself of poetry. The interest of a novel depends on a strong excitement of our curiosity. We are carried from event to event with breathless haste, and our agitation continually increases to know the results of those entangled and con flicting circumstances in which we ourselves seem, for the time, to be involved. If the work has not this predominant interest of a story, it may be a good book for many purposes, but it is no novel. Now, this excite. ment of a keen impetuous curiosity, cannot possibly be united either with that deep impassioned thought, or with that subtle play of fancy, which are the main boast and glory of the poet. If the novelist pause to reflect and refine if he would throw the mind back upon itself, or task it with discursive efforts of the imagination-we grow impatient, and our impatience is just in proportion to the success with which he had engaged us in that busy, stirring, complicated scene, which, like another real life, he was creating around us. He cannot expect, after having thus disturbed the repose of his reader, to have him in that " still and quiet time," when the mind is free to take those varied and delicate movements which, in such quick succession, the verse of a master spirit is capable of impressing on it. When the poet undertakes to conduct us along the course of some narrative, we have no such haste or trepidation. If we find ourselves borne with violence, it is on the wings of passion; we are not tormented by a craving curiosity in the plot, which is tempered and subdued, and made subordinate to other modes of excitement. When we travel with the minstrel we have abundant leisure on our hands; we have no place to reach, or are in no haste to reach it; we pause, we loiter, we wander, wherever and as long as he pleases. The very music of his verse delays and detains the spirit. We linger as we listen, and rather fear to go too fast than are impatient to proceed. The novel, therefore, appears to be marked out from the poem, not only by its prosaic form, and a coarser selection of topics, but by its dependence on a species of interest incompatible with that mood of reflection so necessary to the enjoyment of poetic thought. But here, as in all such distinctions, the two provinces are seen to be separate, but it is utterly impossible to draw the boundary line between them. In the poem, the interest of a narrative may so predominate that the work shall be little more than a tale in verse; while in the novel that interest may be so subdued, and the page so fraught with feeling and imagination, that the composition, though it loses its merit as a tale, becomes a poem in all but the absence of metrical form. Reflection is almost the perpetual attitude of the poet. He is full, indeed, of passion; but, instead of con.. ducting to active effort, it lies involved in thought. There have, doubtless, been strains of poetry inspired by the vivid direct impulse of passion; but these must have been few and brief. The natural mood of the poet is that -of intense reflection. Even when he pours forth his personal and bitter lamentations, he rather recalls his anguish than immediately suffers under it; his grief is a reminiscence while he writes; it is not the present tyranny of his bosom. Those thoughts that voluntary move Harmonious numbers," ful a celebrity in their day. The enthusiasm of the times makes them poetry. Such strength of passion, like the supernatural force of Samson, disparages all noble arms; it needs not the polished steel of the artificer; the first trivial thing that comes to hand serves it as well. And here, we apprehend, lies the explanation of whatever there is of truth in the often-quoted and oftendisputed remark of Dr Johnson on the inferior nature of devotional poetry -a remark which is sometimes too rashly and too absolutely contradicted. There is no unfitness, we allow, in the theme itself, for the sentiment of Chris. tian piety has inspired some of the most elevated strains of poetry; nor is the writer so peculiarly situated with regard to this sentiment, that he is unable to exercise his mind with freedom upon it, or to surround it with poetic associations. But there is this peculiarity in the case, that strains of a very humble character in respect to human genius, are, in this order of poetry, sustained in existence and reputation by the strength of feeling to which they are addressed, so that an air of mediocrity is given to the entire class. When verse is employed as an instrument to excite devotion, it meets with a feeling too strong for the poet -a feeling too imperative and obligatory, to rise and fall with the scale of literary merit. The humblest verse is raised to the level of the most sublime-nay, above that level. It is with the sacred hymn as it was in olden times with the sacred pictureits character as a work of art is entirely lost sight of in the piety of its subject. are not the sudden and violent outpourings of passion. Melody may be described as the grace of speech, and, like the grace of action, requires self-control, and gains half its charms from the expression of that self-government. And how could the poet, unless his heart were free as it is full, take that wide survey of his knowledge - which is necessary to the successful practice of his art? The same temper of mind which is brought to the production, should be brought also in some measure to the perusal of poetry. Nor is this heady and impatient curiosity of the novel, to which we have been alluding, the only interference to the due enjoyment of this intellectual luxury. If the mind, it is worth observing, be already possessed and overmastered by the very passion the poet would excite, it is no longer fit audiThus have we attempted, in a very ence for his higher and more compli- humble manner, to describe the discated strains. Of what avail to such tinguishing characteristics of poetry, a one are the delicate touches of his and have traced them to a peculiarity art? They are not felt, they are not in the ostensible end which this species appreciated; or rather, whatever he of writing has in view. We have not says on the too favoured theme, is felt contrived to raise any thing mysterious without measure, and without distine- about the nature of the poetic, nor tion is applauded. The passion has have wrapped our meaning, as we outrun the poet; it makes superfluous easily might have done, in terms which all his moving tropes and fine and would have given it an air of profundsubtle associations, and gives equal ity, by reason of their sheer obscurity. effect to the coarsest material. It is The qualities which distinguish the thus we often find but little merit in poet, are such as all writers, and innational hymns, which yet are re-deed all men, possess, but not in equal measure. the terms are intended to relate to Poetry and prose, when any thing more than the form of com sponded to by all classes of society, even the highest, and in those revolutionary songs which have had so fear position, mark a difference of degree, not of kind; and a difference of degree, moreover, which is broad and obvious. This we add, because an altogether fruitless perplexity may be raised, by asking whether this or that verse-maker is to be called a poet. It is a perplexity, in fact, out of which, in some instances, there may be no escape whatever, because the words prose and poetry are not fitted to de signate minute differences in those qualities of authorship to which they refer, but apply only to broad distinctions, palpable and interesting to all men. In proportion to the capability of the poet's subject to sustain high passions and high thoughts in proportion to his own power to think and feel, and to collect around him all auxiliary topics, and to use the resources of language and of melody, which last is never to be forgotten, and has an influence over us greater than we generally suspect-in such proportion will he be worthy of his high title. If less fortunate in his theme-if less gifted with imaginative powers-he may still share the honours of the laurel. But to decide in every case which may be suggested, whether the prosaic element has preponderated or not -to fix the exact minimum of poetry which shall pass muster in the ranks to determine when that mediocrity, so detestable to gods and men, loses even the sad claim of mediocrity; this is impossible, and happily of no manner of interest. It is a problem of the same nature as that ancient piece of sophistry, wherein you are told to take grain after grain from a heap of sand, and are asked at each removal whether the quantity that remains is still to be called a heap. Of course, you must arrive by this process at a point where the name is no longer applicable; but the term heap ap is not a measure for an exact number of grains, it is impossible to fix upon the exact moment in the process when the name is lost, and is no longer appropriate. Whether the problem be of grains of poetry or grains of sand, it has the same sort of difficulty, and about the same im portance. as In setting down the muster-roll of poets, it should not be forgotten that we are judging for mankind, not merely for ourselves, and that we ought, therefore, to cultivate a catholicity of taste. For our own part, we dislike all talk of schools of poetry, where the one is extolled to the ceaseless disparagement of the other. He who admires Wordsworth and Coleridge, admires not more wisely because he depreciates Pope and Dryden. We would have none of the laureate fraternity neglected-none who stands high in his own order. Not, indeed, that every writer who has happened to survive, by accident of chronological position or other caprice of fortune, will therefore invite or repay perusal. There is a certain class of authors whose works are to be found built in and incorporated, as it were, in those massive collections of poetry which keep their station on the earth by mere weight and bulk. Authors whose names, though never mentioned by the lips of living admirers, are still seen to take their turn on title pages, and the gold lettering of the long row of volumes_uncouth names and unmusical, such as Garth, and Sprat, and Blackmore these no man thinks of disturbing. Scarcely can their memories be said to survive, but to suffer a slow and lingering oblivion. Their works are preserved, indeed, but much as mummies are preserved ; they bear no aspect of life; they are but mementoes of the dead, and frauds upon the tomb. If the spirits of these departed poets, for poets they must be called for lack of any other name, still wander amongst us, it is only in shame and sorrow, because these sad remains-this dust they have left behind them-has not been honestly interred. Such unhappy authors, who have ceased to live but to whom the grave denies its repose, it is charity to pass unquestioned; let their ghosts glide by in silence and unspoken to, that they may the sooner rest in peace. But of names which by any large section of society are held in affectionate remembrance, it is always worth while to investigate the claim to celebrity. Wherever the popular voice continues to applaud, there is distinguished merit of some kind-merit which in its own order still remains unsurpassed, and which, therefore, ought to be duly acknowledged and honoured. This brief description of the nature of poetry, discloses to us at once the part which is to be allotted to it in the great work of mental cultivation. Appealing as it does to passion, and regarding always the beauty of its exposition rather than the justice or completeness of its reasoning, it never can be considered on any subject as a positive final instructor. Its office is to incite to reflection, and provide materials of thought; to accompany, not to direct, our progress. Variety of topic, variety of view, variety of sentiment and opinion, are indispensable for mental culture; and it is not easy to see how better the mind is to be provided with these, and roused from its natural sloth, than by a perusal of the poets, whose very task it is to give forth the various subjects of human thought in their most captivating and impressive form. Of course, the perusal of poetry is not to be urged in the same dictatorial manner in which other studies may be advocated and enforced. No one can sit down to the work of the poet as he might to that of the mathematician, with great labour to understand, and with great labour to enjoy it. This is against the very nature of poetry; it cannot be made task-work of. If the pages of genius laid open before the attentive mind will not attract, will not rivet, will not delight, then for that mind, so constituted, there must be other literature, other incitement. But if it does delight, then let the charm work. Do not think, you who have the supervision of our youth, that your pupil is reflecting to no purpose, because he is reflecting with greatest ardency. He is not idle who sits apart with the slender volume in his hand, wrapt utterly and most deliciously from the world around him, the vision of the poet on his eye, the music of the poet in his ear. His mind is making more rapid growth in those hours of heartfelt passionate thinking, than in days, and weeks, and years of steadfast and very commendable labour, where the heart, however, is unengaged. It is only by understanding and keeping in view the exact office of poetry, that any fair defence can be made for such writings as those of Byron. The beneficent influence of such a poet as Wordsworth, no one will dispute. He not only leads to reflection, but reflection of the purest kind. He has taken it for his province even to correct many associations, which, other poets finding in theminds of men, have taken advantage of, without calculating their tendency. It has is been his peculiar achievement to extend our sympathies towards the neglected and forgotten, towards the humble and the weak, who need them not the less because they have few qualities to attract them. Witness that little piece, "The Cumberland Beggar," which throws so singular a charm over a torpid slow old man, creeping along the highway with his head bent to the earth, not more by age and infirmity than with sluggish apprehension. The old man creeps along with scarce a thought-no fictitious sentiment is infused into his mind-no ideal grace is added to his figure-there is nothing in all the picture but the sin simplest reality-there nothing new but the poet's heart, which, however, has circled its object with so singular an interest, that it is impossible for any one who has read the poem, ever again to look with perfect apathy upon one of these old children of the earth. Of such writings there will not be two opinions. But what are we to say of his contemporary, Byron? His teaching extends not our sympathies, but our contempt, over mankind, and justifies this arrogance towards others by an equal self-disparagement. He teaches his pupil to despise the homely expedient of regulating the passions of his own bosom, and to preserve the tumult, and with it the wild license of infinite complaint. In his own vivid phrase, we are "half dust, half deity." He does not raise what is in us of divine, but teaches us perpetually to contemplate with bitterness that part which is dust and clay. He teaches half the lesson, and there leaves his tortured and disquieted reader. If every book, especially of poetry, were looked on as a sole instructor, who would not feel compelled to denounce such writings? But many books, many thoughts, much contradictory and perplexing and turbulent matter, go to the making up of a cultivated mind. Every mode of thinking has its place; and the very best is not the best until it has been viewed in juxtaposition with others. He who has read, and felt, and risen above the poetry of Byron, will be for life a wiser man for having once been thoroughly acquainted with the morbid sentiments which there meet with so full and powerful an expression. And so variously are we constituted, that there are some who find themselves best roused to vigorous and sound thinking by an author with whom they have to contend. There are who can better quiet their own perturbed minds by watching the extravagances of a stronger maniac than themselves, than by listening to placid strains, however eloquent. Some there are, who seem destined to find their entrance into philosophy, and into its calmest recesses, through the avenue of moody and discontented reflection. As to that description of poetry which is dramatical, where the writer does not advocate any distinct class of opinions or sentiments, but sets forth the various deeds and passions of men with depth but impartiality of colouring-what need be said of this, but that it is the study of the world itself in a more manageable form? It is the study of mankind, facilitated and rendered most attractive. Of all literature, it may be said that it carries us out of ourselves, and brings us acquainted with the endless diversities of our fellow-men; but this is here the very function of the writer, who gains his title and his intellectual rank by performing it with pre-eminent effect. Humanity in all its forms is crowding round the student of dramatic literature; nor is any metropolis in the world half so full of strange shapes, goodly and marvellous, as the solitary chamber of that student after the incantation of the poet has been read. We are not inclined to prose any longer, upon a theme so easy as the praises of poetry, and where our readers would perhaps prefer to prose each one for himself. We will add only, that there are many influences of poetry which reach even those who have no personal acquaintance with it. Those who are repugnant to verse, and avoid, as much as possible, all contact with rhyme as a thing purely vexatious, are not, perhaps, aware how pernaps, much they are indebted, indirectly, the labours of the poet. Many a feeling they would not willingly relinquish, has originated or been fostered by the ideas thrown into general circulation by a succession of poetic teachers. The sentiment of beauty in all its modifications - a sentiment which adds so much to the pleasure of life, so much to the refinement of character is due, far more than without to some effort of reflection we are apt to perceive, to those associations of thought which imaginative writers have brought about. We need not enter into any discussion on the origin of this sentiment; it is on all hands admitted that it is in most instances the result of an agreeable association of ideas. These associations the poet multiplies, and his combinations, extending through all literature, become the common property of mankind. A little childhow attractive an object, and yet how small a part of the interest it excites is owing originally to its mere form! As you meet one of these round corpulent urchins, scarce balancing itself, and as yet imperfect in every movement, muttering some sad mimicry of language meaning nothing, and looking out with such charming ignorance on all things-you slacken pace, you pause, you contemplate it with a feeling of delight, which you express in the term beautiful, or some other kindred epithet. The feeling seems instantaneous, and yet it was the result of many previous reflections connected with childhood, of comparisons drawn between it and maturity, and of that play of imagination which suggests a sort of ideal happiness for infancy. All this, or the greater part, was due to the poet, unless we choose to say we should have been sufficient poets for ourselves, and refuse our acknowledgment to the long line of men of peculiar genius who have made the world familiar with their thoughts. The beauty of the fair sex may seem to require, and to admit, of no touches from any art whatever; and it must be confessed that, without aid from poetic or other literature, and without much meditation of any kind soever, men who see beauty nowhere else, are capable of descrying it here. But that peculiar refinement attached to female charms, by which the sex acquires so mysterious, so respectful, and so tender a homage this comes from the poet. He has been busy in all ages, in all countries, in all languages, investing, by a thousand delicate associations, the form of female beauty with every moral grace-surrounding it with every image pleasing to the fancy or dear to the affections. Nay, has he not carried that form first into the skies, to people his celestial regions with, and then brought it back again |