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to encircle them with her light and airy garlands. Shakspeare's Tempest, on the other hand, might have been written as a prose tale. I do not mean to say it would have been equally beautiful, but there would have been as much poetry in it as there is now. We should still have had the enchanted island, the mild and majestic Prospero, the tender girlish Miranda, the encircling ocean with its shipwreck, and that wondrous spiritual creation, which is one of the boldest attempts even of Shakspeare's daring imagination, -we should have Ariel and Caliban, occupying each the extreme points of grace and deformity, of aerial lightness, and earthly grossness. We should want the charm of that verse so varied in its melodies, now falling on the ear like a dying gale, anon "sending its brass voice like a trumpet through the startled air, and at another time compressing itself to the moral maxims and pithy sayings, in which he who wielded it so delighted—we should want all this; we should no longer hear the ravishing of that lute which "discourses such eloquent music:" but the ideas, the characters, the images, the scenery, would be all unchanged. Still would the regions of the Muse be peopled with the same interesting and fascinating creatures; still would the same words of truth or beauty flow like nectar of the gods from their opened lips; still would they feel and act as they do now, conveying to us the same moral lessons, and exciting in us the same vivid emotions of pleasure or of sorrow, of hopefulness or regret. It may seem paradoxical to some, but if Shakspeare had never in his whole life penned a single verse, he would have been the same great poet he is now, with the exception of the praise due to his wonderful skill in managing Dramatic rhythm; and if Johnson had written all his works in verse, invaluable as they are in many respects, they would not have been poetry, nor he a poet.-But, it may be replied to all this, of what use is it to introduce a new distinction into Literature? Why not abide by the old and popular notion of Poetry? Because the old classification is artificial, and the one we propose is natural; and nothing tends so much to introduce confusion and consequent obscurity into our ideas, as to have things essentially different from each other placed side by side, because they happen to agree in some visible yet unessential point, which the popular mind at once seizes on as a palpable link of connection, thereby obstructing most materially the progress of true knowledge and clear conception. The same change is taking place in the sciences, which we aim at making general in literature. Artificial systems of classification are everywhere making way for those suggested by natural and essential distinctions. We might just as wisely and as well class a man with a bird,* in our systems of Natural History, because they both walk on two legs, and refuse to allow him any connection with the class to which he really belongs, because most of them walk on four; as arrange together two literary compositions, from the simple fact that they are both written in verse;―or still more appositely might we assert that a monkey becomes a man by being dressed in man's clothes; and a man a monkey, by being reduced to the nakedness of nature;-if at least

This classification is in use at Cambridge.

we say that a certain composition, arranged in one particular form, is poetry, while by being arranged differently it loses all title to be so called; just as if any arrangement of words could change the spirit, the essential nature of a thing, the creative faculty displayed in its conception, or the fancy employed in its decoration: and it is in these that the poetry consists.-Napoleon was a great poet, when on the plains of Egypt he said to his army, "Soldiers, forty ages are looking on you from the Pyramids," which then rose in giant and colossal majesty from the bosom of the level that stretched around them; I say, he was a great poet, and no verse could have added poetry to the magnificent conception his words symbolized. The Duke of Wellington was not a great poet, when at the battle of Waterloo he addressed his soldiers in those memorable words,—“ What will they think of us in England to-day, if we are beaten ?" Yet both were stirring sentences, and both touched a chord which answered well the noble appeal: the difference was that the Frenchman spoke from and to the imagination-the Englishman from and to the heart; the appeal of the latter was more moving, and must have been felt more strongly, as the memories of home and children and wife and friends came rushing o'er the soldier, perhaps destined to lie a cold and mangled corpse before that evening's sun went down :-its want of poetry consists in its kind, not in its power or degree.

It remains that we speak briefly of the several classes into which poetry is divided.-1st, The Epic, or Narrative. 2nd, The Dramatic. 3rd, The Reflective. 4th, The Descriptive. 5th, The Lyric. We will notice the essential characteristics of each of these.

The basis of the Epic is some event of sufficient importance to engage our sympathies, which has a regular beginning, middle, and end, connected together by some tangible link; and not merely following each other, but arising out of each other in natural sequence. Upon this event, whether real or fictitious, imagination has to work, adapting to it suitable characters, putting into their mouths fitting conversation, and surrounding them with consistent scenery; while she calls fancy to her aid in superadding the needful decorations.

Next comes the Dramatic, the basis of which, like the Epic, is some event proceeding through its successive stages by a regular gradation, but in which, unlike the epic, the poet speaks only through the medium of the characters of the piece, to whose particular circumstances he has to adapt conversation. The great distinction between this and the epic seems to be, that in the former the interest turns on the display of character, psssion, feeling; while in the latter, the course of the action, the surrounding scenery, the reflections of the poet, excite at least an equal interest with the evolution of character. Or to state the distinction more antithetically-in the one we have the action supplementary to the character, in the other the character supplementary to the action.

Our third class is that of Reflective poetry, in which neither individual character, nor any particular event, constitutes the main interest; but meditations on the general course of human life and conduct; on the virtues, vices, follies of society; its prospects for the future, its enjoyments or sufferings during the past; the truths of

religion, science, and philosophy; in a word, all that concerns, or is at all connected with, the retrospect or prospects of the moral history of the human race. It is to poetry of this class that Mr. Wordsworth refers when he says, with an exquisite felicity of language, "Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the empassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science." It is in this class of poetry too, where imagination operates on sentiments and not on ideas, where the moral predominates over the intellectual, that the task of the critic is most difficult; for so frequently does the poet merge in the moralist, that it requires the most subtle analysis to detect the irradiations of fancy and imagination, and distinguish them from effusions of simple pathos or reflection.

Our fourth class, the Descriptive, needs but one remark, which is equally applicable to all mimetic art; that it is not a copy, but an imitation that is required; an idea which has been expressed thus, that "the basis of all art is similitude in dissimilitude,"—not that we could produce a copy of a natural scene in words, but what we mean is, that the province of art is to describe things not as they actually are, but as they seem to us, invested with the lights and shadows and hues that human vision "half beholds and half creates;" a general theory which, limited to poetry, may be expressed by saying, that the duty of the poet is not to tell exactly the height of every tree, or the hue of every leaf, or the width and depth of every stream, or the relative distance of each object that compose his picture; but to endeavour, by the best mechanism his skill has at command, to convey to the reader the exact impression which that scene is to produce upon his eye or mind, clothing it in all the radiant and unearthly charms that a lively fancy, a warm heart, and a vivid imagination have the power to conjure up, and throw at will round the most barren spots of the most sterile wilderness. We may illustrate this position by the comparison of a painting by Claude, to an exact copy of a natural scene made of wood, moss, stones, and paper, and then placed behind some optical glass that would raise it to the just magnitude of the original. No one could deny that this toy would more exactly represent the scene than the flat coloured canvass of the painter; but no one would think of instituting a comparison between them in point of art or genius, any more than they would dare to liken a waxen doll to Titian's Venus.

We have lastly to consider Lyrical poetry, which we shall define to be the language of high excitement operating upon, and in its turn affected by, the imagination or fancy. The reader will observe, that in this definition we simply follow out the principle before laid down, of introducing natural in place of artificial distinctions into literature. In the popular language, poetry is called lyric when written in some particular measure—a classification which has arisen from those measures being more adapted than others to music; and thus we have huddled together in one heterogeneous class, compositions the most opposite in tone, principle, object, and style. For instance, we shall find Collins' Ode to Evening, one of the most exquisite descriptive poems in our language, placed side by side with Gray's Progress of Poetry, with which it has no one feeling or principle in common. The

essential of Lyric poetry is the uncurbed rush of Imagination. Through all the other classes, Imagination, though predominant, is not despotic; here it rules with imperial sway, fixing its magic throne within a spell-bound circle, where Science dare not enter, where Reason shrinks astounded into nothingness, and even the senses find themselves amid a world of sights and sounds too fleeting and visionary even for their subtle comprehension. Judgment, or the power of selection, when the frenzy fit is over, when the fiery eagle, wearied with his impetuous course, returns homeward with flagging wing, and "Quenched in dark clouds of slumber lie

The terror of his beak, the lightnings of his eye," moves like a spirit o'er the mingled and shapeless elements, moulding them into forms of beauty, of terror, or of grace.

We have now spoken, briefly indeed and imperfectly, of the five orders of poetry; yet, we trust, with sufficient clearness to convey to our readers the exact distinctions we wish to lay down. We would remark, however, with respect to all, that there is scarcely a single poem which does not partake of the characteristics of more than one of the classes. The Epic poems must be dramatic, descriptive, and reflective. The Dramatic will not seldom trespass on the ground peculiarly belonging to the other classes; and above all, the Lyric, with its wanton wing, has no confines of its own its only law is its lawless will; its only condition is, that the mind should be entirely abandoned to the impulse of passion, imagination, or fancy; that, in a word, it should be exactly in that state in which music is the only adequate symbol of its rapid and tumultuous emotions: for we may, I think, fairly assert that Lyric poetry always requires the aid of music fully to develope the feelings of the writer; that it is only while we listen to "airs

Such as the melting soul may pierce,

In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,

The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie

The hidden soul of harmony;"

it is only, I say, while listening to such airs as these, that we can follow the Lyric poet in his dizzy flight from earth to heaven, that our feelings bound upward like the lark with his; that we can be borne unconsciously on untiring wing from realm to realm, from world to world, even beyond the flaming wall that hems round the palpable and visible, to strange, mysterious regions, where Imagination surrounds herself with a wild and wondrous creation of her own.

We have not been speaking of poems, but of poetry-of its inner spirit, of its essential principles; and we must ever bear in mind that poetry is only one component of a poem. Our remarks have been directed, moreover, to poetry as a conception residing in the mind of the poet, rather than to the transmission of that conception to the reader; we have taken him to the laboratory, and shown him the elements before they are manufactured for use; and, therefore, he must not turn round upon us and pronounce all that we have told him

falsehood and nonsense, because the manufactured article is unlike the raw material. We could, if time permitted, lead him through each successive step of the operation, but it is needless and superfluous; and we prefer giving principles, and leaving their evident application to our readers, whom we will only detain while we treat briefly of the final theme of our subject-the ends and effects of Poetry.

We have defined poetry to be the product of Imagination and Fancy; and our enquiry therefore is, for what purposes were these powers of mind given us by Him, every part of whose creation, moral or physical, is exquisitely adapted both to the whole and to every other part? Suppose them for a moment eradicated from the moral world, what a blight would instantly fall upon our social affections; what a chill would be thrown over all the intercourse of life; how dull and how dreary would be our pathway through the vale of tears! It is to the perhaps unconscious exercise of these powers, insinuating themselves into every thought and action, and enwrapping nature and society in an aerial veil, as the atmosphere we breathe adds hues of beauty and brightness to every object bathed in its all-encircling stream, that we owe the constant though gentle excitement that keeps the pulses of life in motion, and preserves our sympathies from stagnation. How much of Imagination is there in a mother's love for a child, as she bends fondly o'er his placid slumber, and kisses his pillowed cheek, calling up with all a mother's partiality the scenes of his future life, and painting them in colours fair and glowing as her own enraptured feelings. What but such enthusiasm could support her through the toil and weariness of that child's rearing? And in those happiest hours of existence, when, from love to one, our sympathies with all are enlarged; when we feel that a new charm has been added to every object of thought or sense; when the earth wears a brighter green, and the sky a more glorious blue; when the step is lighter and the laugh merrier, and the eye more bright and the cheek more flushed; in those rapturous hours of ecstasy, when we abandon ourselves without restraint to the mighty flood-like rush of overmastering passion, how busy is Imagination in fashioning a paradise, and an Eve the guardian-goddess of the place; and how cunning the hand of Fancy, that dainty delicate spirit, in adorning it with flowers and fruits brighter than bloom on earth! Without these master spirits, these potent magicians, the world would be a desert, and man would wander through it listless and uninterested, feeling life a burden, and welcoming annihilation as the greatest of all blessings. We might multiply instances selected from every period and every situation of life; but we wish to suggest matter for the reflective, rather than unfold it to the passive gaze of the unthinking. Enough has been said to show the office of these two powers in human existence-that of investing every object with ideas which may not, perhaps, literally and actually belong to it, but which do belong to it as it stands related to our feelings. And this is the distinction that lies between the poet and the man of science: that the latter represents things as they are individually and abstractedly, considering only what they are in themselves; while the poet never dissevers them from human thought and human feeling, painting them, March 1839.-VOL. I.—NO. I.

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