J'ai pour aïeul le père et le maître des dieux; Et des crimes peut-être inconnus aux enfers! Now here has been exerted more of profound thought and of refined reasoning, infinitely more, than was requisite to produce pages like the passage from Pope. The imagination, too, is of the most vigorous compass; recalling to this wretched queen, from the past, the secret sufferings of her abominable love; then hurrying her into the future, where she is met by horrors that efface all the preceding, in contemplating the blisses in store for her rival in the possession of the beloved Hyppolytus. For though she knows of a device on foot to disappoint them of this their felicity, and is, moreover, reminded of it by her nurse -who remarks to her consolingly: ENONE.-Quel fruit recevront-ils de leurs vains amours? Ils ne se verront plus yet it brings no mitigation of her jealous anguish; and her reply is one of the finest touches of woman's love in all poetry, save, perhaps, that it is rather too pure for the character of Phedre: PHEDRE. Ils s'aimeront toujours! What will their fruitless love avail them? suggests the nurse; they will never more meet. But they will love, not the less; rejoins the jealous Phedre. Then she is transported into the skies, where she encounters the frowns of her celestial ancestry. Next she imagines her self in hell, where she is about to be adjudged to eternal torments by her own father; and so vivid does the scene become to her, that she apostrophises him as if really present, and sees the fatal urn drop from his palsied paternal hand. Yet, what reader, at all capable of being swept along in this tornado, will ever think of the reasoning, the eloquence, or the imagination? It is that here all these have been made (so to speak) to pass through the heart; they have been colored with the feelings. What prominently impresses is the truth and the passion; and this is the impression to which all minds, unsophisticated by vain critical distinctions, apply, emphatically, though often indistinctly, perhaps, the name of Poetry. Let us now turn from this terrible picture to repose a moment on another representation of the same passion, more gentle, as more pure and legitimate; and also, we think, more conclusive still upon the position for which we are contending. From the abundance which distinguishes the poetry of Lord Byron, we select the well-known parting scene between Conrad and Medora. We quote without preface, deeming that it would be discourteous not to assume the whole poem to be familiar to at least our poetical readers; the only readers, probably, who will take much interest in the present speculations: "She rose-she sprung-she clung to his embrace, Scarce beat the bosom where his image dwelt Again-again-that form he madly pressed; Here, surely, is not less of the eloquence of truth, than in the lines of Pope; nor less of the force of imagination, in the sense, at least, that the scene described is, of course, purely fictitious. Yet no reader-save some profane pedant who should have proposed it to his pupils as an exercise in parsing -no reader of taste and feeling, we say, will be found to have adverted, in the perusal, to either of those attributes; whereas, in Pope, they were the main objects of attention and admiration. The admiration here, as in the soliloquy of "Phedre," will only be expressed by an exclamation, half-involuntary, that "This is Poetry indeed!" But how Poetry? This extract pretends to none of the reputed constituents of Poetry; nothing of invention or plot, nothing of historical allusion, nothing of figurative illustration or adornment. What is remarkable, indeed, (and was a motive to our selecting this passage,) it does not contain, in its nearly twenty lines, a single figure-not so much even as a trope! It is merely a relation of facts (acts or emotions) simple and naked as an entry in a merchant's ledger. Whence its acknowledged Poetry, then? Conclusively, from that source of all Poetry, passion passion nobly and truly, but delicately, spiritually delineated; for the poet should never forget that his muse is a virgin. Accordingly, how exquisitely is this supreme rule observed by Byron in the above passionate and critical situation! How admirable, for example, the precaution suggested by introducing the term "bride" (in the last but three lines), lest the reader should, for an instant, forget the legitimacy of the freedom! So, in the next line, the phrase, “as if to gaze no more." The mere artificer of verse would not have failed to disclose the fact that Conrad was gazing" on her for the last time (alive), crudely thinking to borrow "effect" from the anticipation; while, on the other hand, your mystical modern sentimentalists would have travestied the affecting unconsciousness 66 But of Conrad into a presentiment. Conrad could not, naturally, have known his calamity at this time; and Byron was too much the poet not to have kept to the truth of chronology and of nature. Not less finely conceived is the kiss on the "cold forehead"-any warmer being probably, repulsive, even to love the most passionate, in the swooning state of Medora. These are the profound subtleties though to many they may seem vain refinements-which best distinguish the poet from the artist. They must be drawn from feeling; they can never be detected by observation, or seized by cold analysis. Hence, the ancient maxim, poeta nascitur, is an eternal and absolute truth. For the rest, there is scarce a line of this mutely eloquent portraiture that does not discover the hand of a master, or rather the genius of the poet. Let the reader only compare with it the not dissimilar parting-scene of Gertrude and her Henry, by Campbell. To make our position-that passion is the source of Poetry-still more familiar, as well as to exemplify the conditions before intimated as requisite to this effect, we indulge ourselves and readers, we hope, in another extract from the " Corsair "-a poem which, in truth, is one illustration of our principle, from the first line to the last; and, in our opinion, is the most poetical, that is, the most passion-inspired of compositions in the English, perhaps in any, language. Conrad is returning, (as the reader will remember,) to his island home and bride. The beautiful Gulnare-who, partly in gratitude for his having rescued her from the burning harem, but principally through love, has contrived his escape from impending death-is on board. She finds herself treated with more than coldness by the man whom she has risked "Her all on earth, and more than all in Heaven," to save; the brave pirate disdaining the redemption of his own life at the price of the sultan's assassination. Thus de nied even the sympathy of him she loved and saved, and, as for his love, knowing that a few hour's sail will place her in that presence-the most terrible to an enamored woman-a successful rival's; condemned, moreover, by her own conscience, and Conrad's disapprobation of that most shocking of crimes, especially in a female; standing alone and aloof on the deck before a crowd of pirates-what should be woman's conduct, in such a situation? This is what none of the contemporaries of Byron could have portrayed. Yet this is what he has depicted, with an art so consummately unartificial, as to make you forget, in a few lines, the blood-stained murderess, in the meek dignity of endurance, the unselfish devotedness and the all-forgetting, (and, too often, all-atoning,) abandonment of female love. "And her-at once above-beneath her sex, This Conrad marked and felt-ah! could he less? And now he turned him to that dark-eyed slave, To deeper shades of paleness-all its red That fearful spot which stained it from the dead! He took that hand-it trembled-now too late : So soft in love-so wildly nerved in hate; He clasped that hand-it trembled—and his own Nor is Conrad's conjugal fidelity, in this trying scene, less happily preserved than proved : "If he had driven her from that resting-place, In this, as in the preceding extract, there is, it may be observed, scarce a single figurative expression. The phrase, "it bade her, &c.," is not a personification, but is admirably designed to separate the duty of the husband from the weakness of the heart. The solitary metaphor and a happier could not be imagined-is the "broken sighs;" taken from fragrant plants, which grow sweeter when torn or bruised. Passion, then, it is evident, is here the supreme, the sole art of the writer. It is this that turns sentiments the most ordinary, and diction the most unornamented, into the gold of Poetry. There is, however, another quality not less distinctive of this author-the illative truth of the reasoning-we mean, of course, the reasoning of the passions. Both these qualities combined seem to us to have placed Byron-irrespective of the controverted merits of his writings, and merely by the proverbial birth-right alluded to, and so amply evinced in the poem before us-in the first rank, if not first in that rank, of the few genuine poets of any age or any country. In him alone, or in the highest degree, it may be said that passion was reason, and reason was passion. Though his soul was kindled with etherial flame, (as he has said himself of a kindred spirit,) yet, in him, the flame was ever fed by the soundest and deepest knowledge of the world, and of the heart of man. This, which is sometimes called "common sense," (a thing, by the by, the most uncommon upon earth,) is, so to express ourselves, the genius of the Humanity, as passion is that of the Divinity, of our nature; and it is by the union of both, that the Poetry of Byron has the fortune, almost singular, of responding to the two prime elements of human being. As passion is the efficient principle, so pleasure, we have said, is the proper end of Poetry. True, there may be rhythmical compositions useful for their teachings, admired for their ingenuity, applauded for their eloquence. But these grounds of approbation are reflex, refer to an ulterior object, and properly belong to other forms of literature, whose province is to inform the understanding or move the will. Whereas, of Poetry, the characteristic object and the natural effect, (however other effects may concur,) is pleasure-pleasure which, in this case, like virtue, is its own reward. So that one may say of Poetry as the enthusiastic De Stael said of flowers: its distinctive excellence consists in being "gloriously useless." 66 Lord Byron-who might have been also among the first of critics-it is true, ridiculed Bowles for pretending (in the Pope controversy") to lay down “Invariable principles of Poetry." And the ridicule was merited, according to the prevailing notions of the poetic art; for those principles were avowedly based upon the subject-matter, which is, necessarily mixed and mutable. But to his lordship's interrogatory, "What is there that is invariable?" perhaps a sufficient answer would be, human Passion, as dividing the field of human consciousness with Thought; that Passion which con *We entirely reject the idea that "the proper end," if by that be meant the only end of Poetry is pleasure. We reject it even on the assumption, long disputed, that the happiness of men is, to them, the only design of the universe of material and spiritual objects, qualities and effects, out of which the many-colored tissues of Poetry are woven ; for "happiness" is a term of very wide signification, and demands, for its full attainment in the lives of men, a varied, and earnest, and most intelligent attention to the laws and circumstances that govern their being. But we do not, and cannot, pay this attention understandingly, except through many teachings and in many ways. Now, there are far higher teachings to lead men to the better summits of happiness, than are found in the abstract and cold canons of ethical reasoning. The first and highest descend into the mind and heart through what have always been recognized as Divine influences-Revelation, Inspiration, Conscience. But altogether aside from those is that great gift of seeing the beautiful and true in nature, in mind, in the passions, in human action; and it is by the appreciation and expression of this perception given us-that is by Poetry and the Poetic sentiment-that we may be purified and elevated, if we will-taught, in a word, many lessons entirely essential to our noblest felicity. The best gift of Poetry, therefore, is not the mere feeling of present pleasure, (which is what the writer means,) but those influences, teachings, that go so far to make us "assured of our immortality." The same, indeed, may be said of flowers, to which the writer so appositely refers. They are not, any more than Poetry, "gloriously useless." Aside from the fact, (quite practical and cold in this connection, we allow,) that every blossom belongs to some plant that has its particular use-those delicately-nurtured "affections of the soil," those "stars of the earth"-as a German writer has called them-flowers-afford us too many beautiful instructions, are symbols of too many tender and immortal things in our own nature, to be so characterized. We believe, indeed, that the brilliant De Stael herself, by the very use of the enthusiastic expression, "gloriously," intuitively felt what in words she denies, that these " fresh-eyed children of the elements" are performing among us a beautiful and benign mission. Flowers are themselves Poetry. As to passion being the great" efficient principle" of Poetry, if the writer means to embrace by the term whatever powerfully affects, not only the sensibilities, the heart, but the high faculty of the imagination, (which, however, he nowhere clearly indicates,) his position is undoubtedly the true one. But with this understanding of the word, we cannot see how he can estimate Lord Byron as "in the first rank" of all poets, "if not the first in that rank "-leaving Homer and Eschylus, Dante, Shakspeare and Milton, Göthe and Schiller, quite in the background. We do not join in the miserable outcry of the day against Byron's poetry-and will take occasion some time to give our reasons for it but certainly the "passion" that moved the minds of a few of those earlier poets seems to us as much higher than the "passion" that stirred his Lordship, as the sky is higher than the clouds. ED. AM. REV. the first requisite is to feel vividly; the other, to make the reader, or spectator, feel with you." Here, in truth, is the alpha and omega, not of tragedy alone, but of all Poetry. And, if the observation be more apparently true of the drama, it is because this is the most pure, the most homogeneous, form of the art. Passion, then, to conclude, is the art of genius; as genius is, in turn, the guide and legislator of all art, of all execution. In the fertility and the confusion of the subject, we have, we perceive, out-stepped the slight frame which had been designed for this paper. The porch will be found too massive, we fear, for the main structure. But we only ask that it be considered upon its absolute qualities, by any who may deny it the relative merit of proportional fitness. stitutes Poetry independently of rhyme or metre, as we see in Rousseau, Chateaubriand, and sometimes Bulwer; that passion, without which the mechanism of versification only serves to burlesque plain prose, of itself sufficiently stale or stupid, as commonly in Wordsworth and most of his followers, on either side of the Atlantic. The sentiment which inspires, not the subject that happens to employ, is the sole stable principle, as the sure and simple criterion. Hence the latent truth--though unconscious to himself, apparently-of another remark of Byron, on the same occasion; That the poet ranks according to his execution"; not according as his subject is an epic, a tragedy or a song: by which he meant, no doubt, that Burns, for instance, ought to be accounted as much a poet as Homer. But his criterion of "execution" seems inap- In defining Poetry to be essentially the plicable to the form of comparison thus eloquence of passion having pleasure for implied; for the distinction of rank which its end, we comprise, of course, in the it professes to repudiate in the matter, it terms Passion and Pleasure all the modes retains in full force in the mode of treat- and all the degrees of feeling, from emoment: so that nothing is gained. Where- tion up to ecstacy: just as all agitation as, if, for execution, that is, art, we sub- of the air is of the same nature and origin, stitute Passion, which is an indivisible whether in the form of the furious tornaunity, we have the proper principle where- do or of the fanning breeze. To the genupon to answer the question involved tler descriptions, however, belong, happiin Byron's meaning, namely, Whether ly, both the subjects of the comparison for the writers compared are equally genuine which this long dissertation is intended poets? This is a question of fact, and to prepare us, and to which we now prothe only soluble one in the case. To ceed. We say happily; for here our inquire whether poets in different depart- criterion is already in effect recognizedments of the art are equally great, if not the machinery of plot, historic allusion, in truth absurd, must set all afloat on the erudite imagery being felt and admitted, ocean of arbitrary or conflicting opinion. upon all hands, to be, in poems of the Should the foregoing interpretation of By- class now in question, entirely out of ron's sentiment seem strained to subserve place. our argument, let the following, taken from the next paragraph be thoughtfully considered: " It is the fashion of the day (he proceeds) to lay great stress upon what they call imagination and invention,' the two commonest qualities: an Irish peasant, with a little whiskey in his head, will imagine and invent more than would furnish forth any modern poem." Now this flouted imagination and invention are, by established opinion, the two arms, so to speak, of his own criterion, "execution." And if we take them away, what in fact remains to constitute Poetry? Necessarily, only that passion, or sentiment, or feeling, or whatever we choose to call it, which at once excludes and substitutes both the one and the other. "To write tragedy" (says Alfieri, himself the most natural, or least book-made of poets) "I found that 6 Campbell's poem on The Rainbow has long been spanning the Atlantic with its fame. Our country woman, 'Amelia's' later effort on the same subject, has, we believe, hardly reached as yet to the other side; and even on this, we have reason to think, remains unobserved by many whose poetic kin would not have failed to perceive and hail it, had it only arisen in an English sky. Yet, that as poetry it is supe rior to Campbell's-superior almost beyond comparison, if there be anything in the principle sought above to be established-we may as well, here in advance, declare to be our unbiassed judgment, And now to the proof. As the pieces are both short, we shall quote them in full; that the reader may have the whole subject, together with our comments, before him. We begin with Campbell, in obedience to chronology. |