MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 537 ten so much, or written so well as Mrs. Hemans: few have entwined the genuine fresh thoughts and impressions of their own minds, so intimately with their poetical fancies, as she did; few have undergone more arduous and reverential preparation for the service of song; for, from childhood, her thirst for knowledge was extreme, and her reading great and varied. Those who, while admitting the high-toned beauty of her poetry, accused it of monotony of style and subject, (they could not deny to it the praise of originality, seeing that it founded a school of imitators in England, and a yet larger in America,) little knew to what historical research she had applied herself-how far and wide she had sought for food with which to fill her eager mind. It is true that she used only a part of the mass of information which she had collected-for she never wrote on calculation, but from the strong impulse of the moment, and it was her nature intimately to take home to herself and appropriate only what was high-hearted, imaginative, and refined;-but the writer of this notice has seen manuscript collections of extracts made in the course of these youthful studies, sufficient of themselves to justify his assertion; if her poems (like those of every genuine poet) did not contain a still better record of the progress of her mind. Her knowledge of classic literature may be distinctly traced in her 'Sceptic,' her * Modern Greece,' and a hundred later lyrics based upon what Bulwer so happily calls the Graceful Superstition.' Her study and admiration of the works of ancient Greek and Roman art, strengthened into an-abiding love of the beautiful, which breathes both in the sentiment and in the structure of every line she wrote (for there are few of our poets more faultlessly musical in their versification ;) and when, subsequently, she opened for herself the treasuries of Spanish and German legend and literature, how thoroughly she had imbued herself with their spirit, may be seen in her Siege of Valencia,' in her glorious and chivalresque 'Songs of the Cid, and in her Lays of Many Lands,' the idea of which was suggested by Herder's 'Stimmen der Volker in Liedern.' "But, though her mind was enriched by her wide acquaintance with the poetical and historical literature of other countries, it posess ed a strong and decidedly marked character of its own, which colored all her productions-a character which, though any thing but feeble or sentimental, was essentially feminine. An eloquent modern critic (Mrs. Jameson) has rightly said, 'that Mrs. Hemans' poems could not have been written by a man;' their love is without selfishness, their passion without a stain of his world's coarsness, their high heroism (and to illustrate this assertion we would mention ‘Clotilda,' 'the Lady of Provence,' and the 'Switzer's Wife,') unsullied by any grosser alloy of mean ambition. Her religion, too, is essentially womanly, fervent, clinging to belief, and, hoping on, hoping ever, '. in, spite of the peculiar trials appointed to her sex, so exquisitely describe in the Evening Prayer in a Girl's School ;' "If such was the mind of her works, the manner in which she wrought out her conceptions was equally individual and excellent.Her imagination was rich, chaste, and glowing; those who saw only published fruits little guessed at the extent of its variety. "It is difficult to enumerate the titles of her principal works. Her first childish efforts were published when she was only thirteen, and we can speak of her subsequent poems, 'Wallace,' 'Dartmoor,' 'The Restor ation of the Works of Art to Italy,' and her 'Dramatic Scenes,' only from memory. These were, probably written in the happiest period of her life, when her mind was rapidly developing itself, and its progress was aided by judicious and intelligent counsellers; among whom may be mentioned Bishop Heber. A favorable notice of one of these poems will be found in Lord Byron's letters; and the fame of her opening talent had reached Shelley, who addressed a very singular correspondence to her. With respect to the world in general, her name began to be known by the publication of her 'Welsh Melodies,' her Siege of Valencia,' and the scattered lyrics which appeared in the New Monthly Magazine, then under the direction of Campbell. She had previously contributed a series of prose papers, on Foreign Literature, to Constable's Edinburgh Magazine, which, with little exception, are the only specimens of that style of writing ever attempted by her. To the Siege of Valencia,' succeded rapidly her 'Forest Sanctuary,' her' Records of Woman,' (the most successful of her works,) her Songs of the Affections,' (containing, perhaps, her finest poem, The Spirit's Return,') her National Lyrics and Songs for Music,' (most of which have been set to music by her sister, and become popular,) and her 'Scenes and Hymns of Life.' A few words with respect to the direction of her powers in later days, may be worthily extracted from a letter of hers which lies now before us. She had been urged by a friend to undertake a prose work, and a series of Artistic Novels,' something after the manner of Tieck, and Goethe's Kunst-Romanen, as likely to be congenial to her own tastes and habits of mind, and to prove most acceptable to the public. "I have now,' she says, 'passed through the feverish and somewhat visionary state of mind often connected with the passionate study of art in early life; deep affections and deep sorrows seem to have solemnized my whole being, and I now feel as if bound to higher and holier tasks, which, though I may occasionally lay aside, I could not long wander from without some sense of dereliction. 1 hope it is no self-delusion, but I cannot help sometimes feeling as if it were my true task to enlarge the sphere of sacred poetry, and extend its influence. When you receive my volume of "Scenes and Hymns," you will see what I mean by enlarging its sphere, though my plan as yet is very imperfectly developed.' "Besides the works here enumerated, we should mention her tragedy, the Vespers of Palermo,' which, though containing many fine thoughts and magnificent bursts of poety, was hardly fitted for the stage; and the songs which she contributed to Colonel Hodges' 'Peninsular Melodies; and we cannot but once more call the attention of our readers to her last lyric, 'Despondency and Aspiration,' published in Blackwood's Magazine' for May 1835. It is the song of the swan-its sweetest and its last!"'*-H. F. CHORLEY, in the Athenæum, No. 395 ON THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS. BY PROFESSOR NORTON. "We have now received the last of the imperishable gifts of Mrs. flemans's genius. The period of her spirit's trials and sufferings, and its glorious course on earth, has been completed. She has left an unclouded fame; and we may say, in her own words : •No tears for thee!-though light be from us gone No tears for thee! * * "It has already been shown that this was not the case MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. They that have loved an exile, must not mouru To see him parting for his native bourne 539 "As this, therefore, will be the last time that we shall review any productions of Mrs. Hemans, we may be permitted to recall, with a melancholy pleasure, the admiration and delight with which we have followed the progress of her genius. The feelings with which her works are now generally regarded, have been expressed in no publication earlier, more frequently, or more warmly, than in our own. Without repeating what we have already said, we shall now endeavor to point out some of their features, considered in relation to that moral culture in which alone such writings can exist. "Mrs. Hemans may be considered as the representative of a new school of poetry, or, to speak more precisely, her poetry discovers characteristics of the highest kind, which belong almost exclusively to that of later times, and have been the result of the gradual advance, and especially the moral progress, of mankind. It is only when man, under the influence of true religion, feels himself connected with whatever is infinite, that his affections and powers are fully developed. The poetry of an immortal being must be of a different character from that of an earthly being. But, in recurring to the classic poetry of antiquity, we find that, in their conceptions, the elements of religious faith was wanting. Their mythology was to them no object of sober belief; and, had it been so, was adapted not to produce but to annihilate devotion. They had no thought of regarding the universe as created, animated, and ruled by God's allpowerful and omniscient goodness. To them it was a world of mat ter. 'The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain, Or chasms and watery depths,' never existed except in the imagination of modern poets. The beings intended were the fair humanities' of Ovid's Metamorphoses, whose attributes, derived from the baser parts of our nature, were human passions lawlessly indulged, accompanied with more than mortal power. Gibbon, who was any thing rather than what he affected to be-a philosopher-speaks of the elegant mythology of the Greeks.' The great fountains of their popular and poetical mythology were Homer and Hesiod. Hesiod does not surpass Homer in the agreeable or moral character of his fictions, and, as regards the elegance of the mythology found in the great epic poet, a single passage, if we had no other ineans of judging, might settle the question, the address of Jupiter to Juno at the commencement of the Fifteenth Book of the Iliad : Oh, versed in wiles, Juno! thy mischief-teeming mind perverse Which, stealing down from heaven, thou hast by fraud "It may be incidentally remarked, that these lines illustrate not merely the features of the ancient mythology, but also the condition of woman as treated by the heroes of Homer and by his cotempora ries. We happen just to have opened upon another striking exainple of the elegance of the ancient mythology during the Augustan age It is a passage of Ovid, almost too indecent and silly to be alluded to, though Addison was not ashamed to translate it, beginning'Fortè Jovem memorant, diffusum nectare, curas Seposuisse graves, vacuâque agitasse remissos Cum Junone jocos.' * "From the passage referred to, we may judge something of the convivial manners of the Romans, and of the habits of intercourse between the sexes. "It is remarkable, that in all religious and moral conceptions, the noblest materials of poetry, the philosophers were very far in advance of the poets. The Fables of Hesiod and Homer,' says Plato, 'are especially to be censured. They have uttered the greatest falsehoods concerning the greatest beings.' Referring to the loathsome and abominable fables about Coelus, Saturn, and Jupiter, he says-'We must not tell our youth that he who commits the greatest iniquity does nothing strange, nor he who inflicts the most cruel punishment upon his father when injured by him; but that he is only doing what was done by the first and greatest of the gods.' A little after he subjoins, 'The chaining of Juno by her son, the throwing of Vulcan from heaven by his father, because he attempted to defend his mother from being beaten, and the battles of the gods described by Homer, are not fictions to be allowed in our city, whether explained allegorically or not.' 'Though we praise many things in Homer,' he says, 'we shall not praise him when he represents Jupiter as sending a lying dream to Agamemnon, nor Eschylus when he makes Thetis complain of having been deceived by Apollo.' 'When any one thus speaks of the gods we are indignant, we grant no permission for such writings, nor shall we suffer teachers to use them in the instruction of youth.'t "The poets of this nation did not, in Plato's opinion, represent their 'We shall heroes as more amiable or respectable than their gods. not,' he says, 'suffer those of whom we have the charge to believe that Achilles, the son of a goddess, was so full of evil passions as to unite in himself two opposite vices, avaricious meanness, and inNor shall we allow it to be said solence towards gods and men. that Theseus, the son of Neptune, and Perithous, the son of Jove, rushed forth to the commission of such abominable robberies, or that any son of a god or any hero committed those abominable and impious acts which are now imputed to them in the fictions of the poets.' 'Such fictions are pernicious to those who hear them; for every bad man finds a license for himself, in the belief that those nearly related to the gods do and have done such deeds. They are, then, to be suppressed, lest they produce a strong tendency to wickedness in our youth.'‡ "Such were the sentiments of the most poetical of Grecian philosophers concerning the religious and moral character of the poets of his nation; and he remarks in addition upon the gloomy fancies of Homer concerning the state of departed souls, as neither true nor useful, but adapted to produce unmanly fears, and therefore not to *"It is related that Jove chanced, being exhilarated by nectar, to lay aside his weighty cares, and interchange pleasant jokes with idle Juno." + See De Republica, Lib. II. pp. 373--383. 1 See De Republica, Lib. III. p. 391. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 541 be listened to by those who, as freemen, should dread slavery more than death. During the period between Homer and Virgil, a misty brightness had spread over the poetic ideas of the future abodes of the blessed; but the Elysium and Tartarus of poetry were but fic tions, awakening no serious hopes nor fears, and having no power over the heart. These imaginations of a future life were connected with no just and ennobling conceptions of the purposes of our existence, of the spiritual nature of man, or of that endless progress to. which we may look forward. The heroes of Elysium found their delight in the meaner pleasures of this life. ‘Quæ gratia currûm Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repôstos. "Thus the ancient poets were shut out from the whole sphere of religious sentiment; and all those numberless conceptions and feelings that spring from our knowledge of God, and the sense of our own immortality, are absent from their writings, while this whole exhaustless domain has been laid open to the poets of later times. A single example may illustrate what has been said. Let us take the concluding verses of Mrs. Hemans's Fountain of Oblivion •— Fill with forgetfulness!-- there are, there are Yet pause again;--with memory wilt thou cast No restless doubt between, no rankling thorn ? Fill with forgetfulness, fill high !--yet stay-- Where smiles, long lost, again shall light our way, I must remember still. • For their sake, for the dead--whose image nought May dim within the temple of my breast- For their love's sake, which now no earthly thought I ask not to forget.' "The whole train of emotion and thought in these verses is of a character wholly unknown to the classic days of Greece and Rome To imagine any thing corresponding to it in the work of an ancient poet, is to bring together conceptions the most incongruous. "Here it may be worth while, in order to prevent ourselves from being misunderstood, to observe, that we do not mean to depreciate the value of the study of the ancient poets. After those inquiries by which the truths of religion are established, there are none of more interest or importance than such as relate to the mind and heart of man, and open to us a knowledge of what he has been, and what he may be on earth. But, to attain this knowledge, we must ac *The love of horses which they had alive, And care of chariots, after death survive. In bands reclining on the grassy plain, They feasted and pour'd forth a joyful strain." VOT. U.-46 |