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and in the absence of a creative spirit or a shaping art, its chief attractions were found in its executive skill, and a style accomplished, masculine, and pointed. It died out soon, however, for it had no root. Its classical illusions, taken at second hand, had never breathed a genuine classical spirit; and its disquisitions gradually degenerated into metrical treatises on botany, hunting, or medicine!

In conjunction with stronger political interests and deeper feelings on moral and religious subjects, Poetry gradually revived. It exhibited, from the first, a native origin that attested its authenticity, and in time it developed an ideal aim. The former was marked by its fidelity to nature, and its frequent reference to the rural manners of England. The nature which Thomson describes is living nature, and the blood flows freely in her veins. A refined appreciation of the graceful and the poetical he lacked; and the deficiency which makes itself ridiculous in the clumsy handling of his "Musidora" and other narratives, exists also in his delineations of scenery. The landscapes of Thomson, like those of Rubens, are sensual, though in each case we remark that quality less than when the subject treated is higher; and in each the want of refinement and spirituality is compensated by a rich combination of less exalted merits. The poet and the painter alike present us, in their landscapes, with the "fat of the land:" their substantial plains and well-watered meads remind us that they were intended to be meat for man and for beast; but whatever they may lack they are not deficient in reality. With an idyllic a moral poetry rose up. The moral meditations of Young had comprised much original thought of native English growth. Cowper, a kindred, though far greater poet, expressed in purer and simpler language thoughts with more of depth and of substantial worth, as well as a strain of sentiment, manly, religious, and gravely affectionate. In him, too, we find an admirable fidelity to outward nature in detail; although with her grander forms, unendeared by association, he had little sympathy; while ideal representations of scenery are no more to be found in his poetry than ideal conceptions of character.

If the poetry of Cowper belongs to our national school, that of Burns is yet more racy of the soil. He was, on the whole, more fortunately circumstanced for poetry, though he had more to contend with. The period at which he lived furnished materials sufficiently poetical, when presented to his VOL. XIX. NO. I.

keen insight and searching sensibilities; and Burns was luckily without that smattering of learning which often leads men from what surrounds them, without enabling them truly to appreciate the spirit of another age. He felt deeply; and he affected nothing foreign to his genius. Song and ballad, and light tale and humorous dialogue, the forms of composition with which the neighborhood was familiar,-with these, while he "unlocked his heart," he also interpreted that of his country. Most of those qualities which were distributed among his countrymen were concentrated in his larger being, or embraced by his ardent sympathies. As a thousand rivulets are blended in one broad river, so the countless instincts, energies, and faculties, as well as associations, traditions, and other social influences which constitute national life, are reconciled in him whom future ages are to recognize as the poet of the nation. It is not merely the romantic side of the Scotch character which was represented in Burns,-its imagination, its patriotism, its zealous affectionateness, its love of the legendary, the marvelous, and the ancient; that part, in fact, which belongs chiefly to the highlands. As amply was he furnished with the better lowland qualities,-sense, independence, courageous perseverance, shrewdness and humor; a retentive heart, and a mind truthful even when reserved. These qualities were united in his abundant nature; and his poetic temperament freed them from the limitations which belong to every character formed upon a local type. The consequence has been that his songs are sung at the hearth and on the mountain-side; his pathos is felt and his humor applauded by the village circle; his sharp descriptions and shrewd questions on grave matters are treated as indulgently by ministers of the "National Assembly," the "Free Kirk," and "orthodox dissenters," as Boccaccio's stories have been by the Italian clergy: and for the lonely traveler from the south the one small volume which contains his works is the best of guidebooks,-not, indeed, to noted spots and the best inns-but to the manners, the moral soul, and the heart of the Scotch people. In other words, Burns is emphatically a national poet.

We have now brought down nearly to our own times our imperfect sketch of the two main schools into which our poetic literature may be divided; and we have already remarked that both these schools have their origin in the nature of poetry and the instincts of man. This statement derives an historical confirmation from the fact that

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both became extinct together, when English | poetry had declined into mere imitation; and that whenever the poetic genius of England has been most powerfully developed, both have flourished together-united like the Latin and Saxon elements of our compound language. The poetic mind of England, on its revival toward the end of the last century, again as of old, manifested itself in the form of two schools which, with much in common, still represented, notwithstanding, the northern and southern hemispheres of our literature. Wordsworth and Coleridge were the chief examples of our national school; though in Coleridge the national frequently passed into a mystical inspiration; Shelley and Keats of the ideal. These were not, perhaps, the most popular poets of their time; but they were the most characteristic, and they have exercised the most enduring influence. We have referred to but a few of the names most generally known but to each school belonged many writers whose works will long be remembered.

The word School, we are aware, is an inadequate one; and we use it but for the convenience of classification. The growths of the same region, however diverse in detail, have yet characteristic features in common and it is thus also with the growths of the mind. In Mr. Coleridge's poetry the reasoning faculty is chiefly that of contemplation and intuition; in Mr. Wordsworth's, the meditative and the discursive prevails; but to both a predominance of the thoughtful is common; and in that respect both poets not only illustrate the peculiar genius of their country, but are also fit interpreters of the spirit of their age, as distinguished from the fashion of the moment or the sentiment of the hour. In both, too, there is a remarkable absence of the versatile faculty,

as exhibited in one of the modes to which we have alluded;-and accordingly, in the poetry of both, little change has taken place except that of growth. Till their genius had found out its own nature and scope it would rehearse no other part. The "Laodamia" of the latter shows at once what he might have done, and what it was foreign to him to do; nor does any great poet, mediæval or classical, seem to have ever drawn either of them into the sphere of his separate attraction, and detained him there. In the drama, also, neither of them had versatility enough to avoid a certain psychological effect the result of a knowledge of character which was metaphysical rather than

dramatic. In both, however, we find a deep-seated patriotism, a reverence for the hearth, a love of local traditions, an English enjoyment of nature, a humanity, mournful not seldom, and even in its cheerfulness grave-as though cheerfulness were less an instinct than a virtue or a duty. Most of these qualities exist also in the poetry of Mr. Southey, in which, with less both of thought and imagination, ahd a style less pregnant and felicitous, there is more of invention, and a more determined purpose. It is thus that with many and important differences poets whose individuality is complete, yet admit of being classed together. The same fact is true with respect to Shelley and Keats, and Mr. Landor, and others who might be named,-poets in whom a southern temperament and more classical ideal prevails.

It was in temperament chiefly that Mr. Shelley belonged to the classical school. In intellect he was metaphysical and abstract, to a degree scarcely compatible with the sensuous character of Greek poetry. His imagination likewise, admirable as it was, differed essentially from that of the classic models. It was figurative rather than plastic. In place of moulding the subject of a poem as a whole, it scattered itself abroad in the splendor of countless metaphors, seen sometimes one through another, like a taper discerned through a taper. A beautiful image had for him an attraction independently of the thought with which it was allied; and, once brought within the sphere of its attraction, his fancy fluttered around it, bewildered and intoxicated. A thought had for him also a value irrespectively of the place which it held in his argument: he prized it as truth; he prized it yet more as knowledge; and with such thoughts his poetry, at once subtly and expansively intellectual, is charged to a degree almost unprecedented. mentable errors which lurked in the first principles upon which he had so recklessly precipitated himself, (errors, however, hardly worse than lurk in many grave treatises welcomed with little mistrust at the present day,) of course infected his results. The conclusions, however, at which he arrived, were logical; and those who can learn from errors as well as truths, will find a sad instruction in the coherency of his reasonings, and a comparative safety in the audacity with which they are expressed. If, for instance, we adopt the opinion-which is a suppressed premise in all his speculations,— namely, that there exists no moral evil in

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the nature of man except that which finds its way there accidentally, it will be hard to avoid conclusions analogous to his, respecting both religion and government. The seed at least of such principles will be planted, and their growth will depend on the ardor of the climate, and the fertility of the soil. It is only with his poetry, however, that we are now concerned. Its abstruse as well as imaginative character would have rendered it almost unintelligible, if he had not possessed, though apparently by nature rather than by study, a singular gift of language. His diction, which was searching, vigorous, various, arranged itself into periods, scholastic in the skill that joined clause on to clause, and the sustained melody of which at once discriminated the meaning and enforced the sentiment. The same dialectical precision gave dignity to his style, whether he wrote in verse or in prose; and imparted to both the utmost clearness which the subject matter, the involved thought, and the redundant imagery allowed of. This faculty was eminently Grecian; and the very sound of that noble language, which was not so much a study to him as a delight, will often be found in his verse. He reminds us of the Greek inspiration chiefly by the skill with which he illustrated the ancient mythology. In his "Prometheus Unbound," his classical vein is too often checked by political or metaphysical disquisitions most inappropriately introduced; but in it, and in the choruses of his "Hellas," there is an Eschilean energy; and many of, the classical touches in his "Adonais" are admirably true. It is, however, in his minor poems that he most belongs to the South. His "Hymn of Apollo" and "Hymn of Pan" are full of the musical hilarity of the Greeks; his " Ode to Naples" is a true ode of compact structure and concentrated purpose; and his "Arethusa," the metre of which sweeps along like a vernal torrent, and in which the nymph and the element she presides over are with such skill blended and alternated, proves that Shelley's versatile temperament included that Protean power by which the Greeks dramatized Nature and humanized all her forms.

In few writers are we more instructively reminded than in Shelley, of that analogy between the Poet and the Man, without which poetry would include little inward significance and moral power. His temperament was of the highest order. All temperaments, to be sure, except the phlegmatic, can lend themselves to poetic purposes; but

| while that one which unites the saturnine with the impassioned produces poetry often, as it were, by disease, poetry is the natural expression of one like his,-sanguine, and organized with the utmost of nervous sensibility. The former quality is marked by that soaring hope with which he watches the destinies of man, heralding the promise of a Future on which he the professed enemy of Faithhad too credulous a dependence. The second we trace in the childlike wonder with which he regards the daily face of Nature; all objects, from the far-off peak to the flower at the mountain's base, wearing for him a radiance, as if the glorious apparition of the earth had but just started into existence. His disposition also, as it is described by his friends, cordial and full of sweetness, though threatening if assailed,-impetuous, yet shy at intervals, and when shy, opening no more,

makes itself felt throughout its poetry in many a passage, the sentiment of which, if deficient in robustness, is alive with pathetic tenderness. His character, too, affected as it was by outward accidents, stands up in his works conspicuous, for evil and for good. His poetry, in truth, is the embodiment of a social creed, not only dogmatic and exclusive, but aggressive. His song is no voice from Nature's recesses, sent forth to indicate the whereabout of sweet and secret passion; still less is it the orderly array of thought with which the ambitious scholar studiously adorns his theme and commends his name to posterity. It is the chaunt of the bard, or rather the war-note of the prophet-chief. In the solitudes of the soul, and when most "hidden in the light of thought," Shelley was a public man-bent on political designs, such designs as even now convulse the world. His spirit did not, indeed, like Milton's, " sit in the pomp of singing robes," but, to use his own expression, "hovered in verse o'er his accustomed prey." Nor, in so estimating himself, did he mistake, we think, either his vocation or his abilities; but he greatly mistook the subject and himself. He taught when he had but begun to think, and before he had begun to learn; and the perverse error which blinded his eyes was a snare also to his feet, and made void one half of the work of his hands. Seldom have such gifts been so abused. in zeal, but weak through self-confidence: he rushed into the fight without armor, though with boundless courage; and with. the weapon of an idle and ignorant scorn he struck, not only at abuses and corruptions, which such as he are sent to plague and to

He was strong

destroy, but at truths older than either | was extraordinarily keen, but deficient in science or song, and higher than his highest hopes for man.

The errors of Mr. Shelley were not such as a true charity either conceals or palliates: but as little do we deem it our duty to enlarge on them here. The infidelity of the mind has its root oftentimes in the will. The gravity and the danger of such error cannot be exaggerated; but neither its origin, its character, nor its effects admit of being treated of in a few words. Infidelity and blasphemy need no epithets to characterize them. Partly to account for his opinions, and partly in the passion of the hour, vices were imputed to Shelley from which we believe him to have been exempt. We should believe this (were there no other reason) because we believe that a high moral sense, and a nature, however darkened, neither corrupt nor insincere, must be the basis of all elevated poetry. One of the lessons which we have to learn from Shelley is the insufficiency of the highest moral aspirations alone to guard us against lurking evil in our spiritual nature; and especially against that of pride the root of infidelity, and the weakness that borders most nearly on insanity. Our theme, however, is an humbler one than that of theology, and we shall allude to Mr. Shelley's errors only as they affect him as a poet.

come so much.

With great moral energies he had great moral deficiencies. Few men possessed more than he that high faculty of admiration, through which men learn so much and beHe gazed in admiration at all things, whether the triumphs of the human mind or the commonest achievements of mechanic skill: yet in all his poetry we find no trace of his having possessed the kindred, but nobler habit-that of veneration: And yet, to be without veneration is to be shut out from a complete world,―the world, moreover, which contains that in which we live. The spirit of his poetry often looks up in wonder and glances around in love, and flings gaze far forward in anger or in scorn; but its eyes are never cast reverently downward, and therefore, even in its zeal for truth, it overruns the ground in which truth lies. He had an intellectual defect also which corresponded with this moral one. He had no power of suspending his judgment. He could not doubt; and his infidelity itself was in part a passionate faith in certain moral principles with which he rashly assumed Christianity to be at war; and in part that undiscriminating hatred of priestcraft to which the fanatics of liberty are subject. His mind

its

breadth. Such minds, especially when irradiated by an imagination addicted to metaphors, admit no twilight of intelligence. All their thoughts stand out like realities, until eclipsed by rival thoughts. This one-sidedness of mind accounts in part for the fact, otherwise inexplicable, of his having denied, at an age when others at most but doubt— and obtruded rather than confessed his infidelity. His temper also was impetuous, to a degree that, while it misapplied his reasonings, deprived his poetry of that perfect sanity which we find in the great masters. He was aware that it lacked self-possession and serenity. It lacked it because his whole nature-constitutional, intellectual, and moral-was deficient in gravity. He wrote, moreover, ambitiously, and with too much effort: And his genius was to a slight degree sophisticated by egotism. The ideal of every poet includes something of himself; and Shelley's nature, in its militant capacity, is indicated in his two most important works, his "Prometheus" and his "Revolt of Islam:" but his "Alastor," "Prince Athanase," and many of his minor poems, prove that he was fond of dwelling upon it in other relations, and in a spirit of anatomical scrutiny. We should err, however, in our estimate of Shelley's genius if we did not allow for the degree in which its products were modified by circumstance. Ill health had preyed on him till his natural sensibility had been heightened into nervous irritability. This circumstance, together with the belief that his time in this world was short, made him over-task his faculties, which were thus ever in a hectic state of excitement. The abstract habit of his mind gave an additional daring to his conclusions; and that habit was increased by the fact that between him and his countrymen there was war. Isolation, indeed, always intensifies, for good or for evil, the energies of speculative men; whose powers are at once tamed down and enriched when merged in friendly communion with other minds. In the case of Shelley it also left his poetic education incomplete. He had carefully fed his mind on all things beautiful and sublime; nor had the influences of study, philosophical, scientific, and political, been wanting to him: But living remote from practical life, his genius lacked one species of nourishment, the knowledge that comes by experience. It had never been disciplined.

To estimate justly the faults as well as the merits of the truly great is a duty which we

owe not only to truth and to ourselves, but | to them. It is only when we know what hinderances were opposed to their greatness by the forfeits exacted from their weakness, that we can know to what that greatness might, without such obstacles, have amounted. We can but guess, therefore, what would have been the mature works of such a mind as Shelley's, when the soil had cooled down sufficiently to produce healthy growths. The manhood of human life is still but the boyhood of genius: yet how much has he not done in his brief span! There is not one of his larger works which is not a storehouse of condensed thought and beauty-whatever may be its faults in the way of unreality or exaggeration. His "Hymn on Intellectual Beauty," his odes to "Liberty," to " Naples," to "the West Wind," his " Cloud," his "Skylark," and many a choral ode in his Lyrical Dramas, are in themselves a conclusive answer to a charge frequently brought against English Poetry, namely, that it has seldom soared into the highest region of lyrical inspiration and in his shorter pieces there are numerous snatches of song to which the term "essential poetry" would not be misapplied-poems not only of magnetic power, but as flawless as the diamond, and in their minuteness as perfect as the berry on the tree or the bubble on the fountain. Great indeed is the bequest which Shelley has left us: and it is not without somewhat of remorseful sorrow that we remember what life gave him in return. Looking on what is past and gone through the serene medium of distance, all petty details vanish from our view, and a few great realities stand bare. In sad retrospection we look forth-and we see a man and a life! A young man, noble in genius, in heart ardent, full of love, his whole being expanded to all genial and cheering influences as "a vine-leaf in the sun:"such an one we behold, endowed richly with the treasured stores of old learning and cherished hopes for future man. With the joy of a strong swimmer he flings himself upon the stream of life—and finds himself bleeding and broken on the rocks it covers! To say "it was his own fault" is a mode of disposing of the matter rather compendious than (to us) satisfactory. For his errors he is answerable at another tribunal than ours. The age which partakes of and fosters such errors may find time to remember his sufferings as well. Through trials not the less severe because not unprovoked, he fought his way if not in peace of conscience, yet certainly with high courage and heroic hope.

He deemed that he had lived long. But he was only in his twenty-ninth year when the Mediterranean waves closed above his head. A sad career was his :-He had his intellectual resources, and he had friends; yet his was a sad career; and worthy of deeper thoughts than belong either to the region of adulation or of anger.

The genius of Keats was Grecian to a far higher degree than that of Shelley. His sense of beauty was profounder still; and was accompanied by that in which Shelley's poetry was deficient-Repose. Tranquillity is no high merit if it be attained at the expense of ardor; but the two qualities are not incompatible. The ardor of Shelley's nature shows itself in a strong evolution of thought and succession of imagery;-that of Keats in a still intensity. The former was a fiery enthusiasm, the latter was a profound passion. Rushing through regions of unlimited thought, Shelley could but throw out hints which are often suggestive only. His designs are always outline sketches, and the lines of light in which they are drawn remind us of that "temple of a spirit" described by him, the walls of which revealed

"A tale of passionate change divinely taught, Which in their winged dance unconscious genii wrought."

Truth and action may be thus emblemed; but beauty is a thing of shape and of color, not of light merely, and rest is essential to it. That mystic rapidity of interwoven thought, in which Shelley exulted, was foreign to the deeper temperament of Keats. One of his canons of poetry was, that "its touches of beauty should never be half-way, thereby making the reader breathless, instead of con

tent.

The rise, the progress, the setting of imagery, should, like the sun, come naturally to the poet, shine over him, and set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him in the luxury of twilight." He disliked all poetical surprises, aud affirmed that poetry "should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance." Shelley's genius, like the eagle he describes,

"Runs down the slanted sunlight of the dawn."

But, beauty moves ever in curved lines, like the celestial bodies, and even in movement stimulates rest. Beauty was the adornment of Shelley's poetry; it was the very essence of Keats's. There is in his poetry not only a constant enjoyment of the beautiful,-there

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