to the respect of criticism. In the present day, through the study of our elder dramatists, to which the nation has been urged by a small class of original-minded critics, some struggles have been made by several popular writers to return to the longdeserted paths of truth and nature. But it is melancholy to remark with what small success. Our poets are almost all mere egotists. They attempt to lift the curtain of the general human heart, and, instead of discovering, as through a transparent glass, the internal movements of other men, they but behold, as in a mirror, their own self-complacent images. Thus, Lord Byron reproduced himself perpetually, not only in his miscellaneous poems, but in all his dramas. He fancied he was looking into a thousand hearts, while he was only looking into one. He dipped his pencil in his own inflamed and feverish blood, and thought every other man's was of the same colour. No work since the time of Elizabeth may be looked upon as an original draught from nature by the hand of genius, in which the curtain of the human heart is lifted, and the secrets of our inner being are disclosed as by the power of a God. This degree of excellence was reserved exclusively for Shakspeare and his nobly-gifted contemporaries. There were no such miracles before his time, and there have been none since. It is strange that Nature, who is so sparing of the dramatic faculty, should have reserved all England's share of it, for one particular age. Since that period, we have had highly beautiful poems and romances in the dramatic form, but no genuine drama. In modern tragedy we have not a single new creation. The characters have all a hundred prototypes. They are mere outlines, and are the hereditary property of the stage. The interest depends not upon the minute and full development of character, but upon the nature of the incidents. They are like the poems of Scott, that borrow almost all their charm from the story. It is not that the characters in modern plays are absolutely unnatural, but that they are too vague and general. The consequence is that we look more to the development of the plot than to the exhibition of the secret springs of action and of mental or moral idiosyncrasies. Take away from the dramatic writer of the present day his incidents and plots, and you leave him poor indeed; but we do not think so much of what happens to the persons of Shakspeare's drama, as of the nature of their hearts or intellects. Their character and not their fate is most present to our minds. Hamlet is an intensely interesting personage, without any reference whatever to his position; and equally so is Macbeth, though a being of a directly opposite nature. When we are presented with such full length pictures of humanity as these, so distinct and animated, we receive an impression that can never fade but with life itself. Did any man, woman, or child, that has been introduced to Hamlet or Macbeth or Othello or Lear, ever happen to forget them? But he who wishes to keep up his acquaintance with the personages of the modern drama, must have a strong memory indeed, if he does not find it necessary to refresh it with occasional re-perusals. They all wear out of us, like forms, with chalk We never look in the drama of the day for profound or original delineations of human nature, though it is not to be denied that we often find in it a great deal of elegant poetry, much refined thought and noble feeling, and many striking and pathetic incidents. It would take up too much space and time on the present occasion, and lead us too far from the main object of this article, to attempt the arduous task of a philosophical explanation of the causes which have operated on the intellectual character of the literature of different periods. Of course, human nature must be always the same, but the development of its energies depends upon an infinite variety of accidents. All that I now wish to insist upon, is a fact suggested by the curious old volume, the title of which is on the first page of the present paper. It has been asserted by the critics of the artificial school, that we had neither accuracy nor harmony of verse before the time of Waller; and that Pope brought our versification to a state of excellence, which it would be impossible to surpass. Now, if we even put aside all reference to the elder dramatists, and confine ourselves to the miscellaneous poets, it might easily be shown (unless one unvaried tone be harmony) that Waller and Pope were greatly inferior, as mere versifiers, to the author of the Fairy Queen, and perhaps even his obscure "acquaintant and friend," John Chalkhill. We might, if necessary, go so far back as old Chaucer, whose verse, when rightly read, has a fluency, a sweetness, and a variety of modulation, that put to shame the sing-song of the French school "That creaking lyre, That whetstone of the teeth, monotony in wire." Mr. Tyrwhitt has shown that Chaucer's versification, whenever his genuine text is preserved, was uniformly correct, although the harmony of his lines has, in many instances, been lost by the changes that have taken place in the mode of accenting our language. Chaucer was the inventor of the ten syllable or heroic verse to which Pope was so partial, and of which its original inventor left specimens, that Dryden despaired of improving. That a very favourable change has come over the spirit of our poetical literature since the time of Anne, must be sufficiently obvious to the most casual observer; and that this change is to be attributed partly to the weariness and disgust occasioned by the vast flocks of rhyming parrots, who have given us perpetual repetitions of the easily echoed verse of Pope, and partly to the attention that has been recalled to our elder writers, will hardly be disputed: but it is perhaps not so generally understood that many even of our miscellaneous poets, who pretend to originality of style, have only given up one object of imitation for another. The free heroic couplet, with its variety of pause, of such writers as Leigh Hunt, Keats, Shelley, and Barry Cornwall, which many people seem to look upon as a novelty, is several hundred years old. In reading the poem of Thealma and Clearchus, if it were printed with new type, on fine hot pressed paper, with the spelling modernized, we might easily fancy ourselves turning over the pages of the author of Rimini. It is not only the metre, but the entire spirit and manner of the old writers to which our modern poets have returned. Readers do not now look for only wit and good sense in a composition that aims at the dignity of poetry-these qualities do well enough for a prose essay; but in a poem, the fire of imagination is regarded as an essential ingredient. The genuine lovers of our poetical literature can never be sufficiently grateful to the two Wartons, who (the one by his excellent Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, and the other by his History of English Poetry), expedited that revolution in taste, which has made all men acknowledge the superiority in point of poetical merit of descriptions of nature, human and external, to smart satires and witty allusions to fashionable life. Their own poems did something towards bringing nature once more into vogue; but it was Thomson, Burns, and Cowper, who were the most influential leaders in this happy introduction of a nobler poetical system. If Dryden had possessed a larger share of fancy and feeling, his great superiority over Pope, in the range and energy of his mind, might have effectually prevented the latter from exercising so pernicious an influence on the public taste. But Dryden soon ceased to be a very popular poet, and the world becoming too nice to relish his rough strength, were satisfied with no verses that had not something of the polish and tone of his successor. Critics do not quarrel with Pope, because he is too harmonious and accurate, but because his harmony is too monotonous, and his accuracy, on which so much stress is laid by his admirers, is confined to matters of comparatively slight importance. It is true that he is more uniformly smooth than Shakspeare himself, but his music is less varied and delightful; he is more uniformly correct in diction and metre, but his descriptions of external nature and the heart of man, besides being more slight and limited, are incomparably less accurate than those of our Prince of Dramatists. Even his accuracy of rhyme and grammar is grossly overrated: his works abound in flagrant violations of both. Lest, however, the reader should think that I mean to allow him no kind of merit, I may as well explain what I really think of him. I agree with those who place him at the head of the second order of poets; those in the first order being Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton. No writer ever condensed so much good sense into so narrow a compass. Condensation and perspicuity are amongst his most conspicuous merits. He was not, however, without fancy and feeling. Far from it. He had greatly more of both than his predecessor Dryden. brilliant display of the first quality in his Rape of the Lock, and a pleasing specimen of the latter in his Abelard and Eloisa. But mere fancy will not make a poet of the very first order. Imagination, with which Pope was but sparingly endowed, is what is most required in the loftier efforts of the Muse. His pathos is not of a very powerful nature. It gently wins our sympathy, but I doubt if it ever wrung a tear from readers the most accustomed to the melting mood. It is said that the original letters of Abelard and Eloisa are far more pathetic than the poem. I believe all modern critics of any eminence have agreed to place Pope, as I have done, the first in the second rank, which, if rightly considered, is a highly honorable position. He who doubts this, should cast his eye over our list of poets, and observe how many great names are below him, and how few above. There is a Of the personal history of John Chalkhill, the author of Thealma aud Clearchus, our knowledge is slight indeed. It is |
