5 10 15 taken with little choice. The first from the lines on the "BOY OF WINAnder-Mere,"—who Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, That they might answer him. And they would shout With long halloos and screams, and echoes loud Of mirth and jocund din. And when it chanced, Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene * Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received * Mr. Wordsworth's having judiciously adopted "concourse wild" in this passage for " a wild scene" as it stood in the former edition, encourages me to hazard a remark, which I certainly should not have made in the works of a poet less austerely accurate in the use of the words, than he is, to his own great honor. It respects the propriety of the word " scene," even in the sentence in which it is retained. DRYDEN, and he only in his more careless verses, was the first, as far as my researches have discovered, who for the convenience of rhyme used this word in the vague sense, which has been since too current even in our best writers, and which (unfortunately, I think) is given as its first explanation in Dr. Johnson's Dictionary, and therefore would be taken by an incautious reader as its proper sense. In Shakespeare and Milton the word is never used without some clear reference, proper or metaphorical, to the theatre. Thus Milton: "Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm, A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend, Of stateliest view.' I object to any extension of its meaning, because the word is already more equivocal than might be wished; inasmuch as in the limited use, which I recommend, it may still signify two different things; namely, the scenery, and the characters and actions presented on the stage during the presence of particular scenes. It can therefore be preserved from obscurity only bykeeping the original signification full in the mind. Thus Milton again: "Prepare thou for another scene." G COLERIDGE II The second shall be that noble imitation of Drayton * (if it was not rather a coincidence) in the " JOANNA." "When I had gazed perhaps two minutes' space, That ravishment of mine, and laughed aloud. The third, which is in rhyme, I take from the "Song at the feast of Brougham Castle, upon the restoration of Lord Clifford the shepherd to the estates of his ancestors." 'Quell the Scot,' exclaims the lance! "Which COPLAND scarce had spoke, but quickly every hill, Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud and long, Did mightily commend old COPLAND for her song." 5 ΤΟ 15 20 25 DRAYTON'S POLYOLBION: Song XXX. 5 10 15 20 Is the longing of the shield Tell thy name, thou trembling field !— Mailed and horsed, with lance and sword, To his ancestors restored, Like a re-appearing star, Like a glory from afar, First shall head the flock of war!" Alas! the fervent harper did not know Love had he found in huts where poor men lie: The sleep that is among the lonely hills." The words themselves, in the foregoing extracts, are no doubt sufficiently common for the greater part. (But in what poem are they not so, if we except a few misadventurous attempts to translate the arts and sciences into verse?) In the "Excursion" the number of polysyllabic (or what the 25 common people call, dictionary) words is more than usually great. And so must it needs be, in proportion to the number and variety of an author's conceptions, and his solicitude to express them with precision. But are those words in those places commonly employed in real life to express the 30 same thought or outward thing? Are they the style used in the ordinary intercourse of spoken words? No! nor are the modes of connections; and still less the breaks and transitions. Would any but a poet-at least could any one without being conscious that he had expressed himself with 35 noticeable vivacity-have described a bird singing loud by, "The thrush is busy in the wood ?"-or have spoken of boys with a string of club-moss round their rusty hats, as the boys "with their green coronal?”. -or have translated a beautiful May-day into "Both earth and sky keep jubilee?" or have brought all the different marks and circumstances of a sealoch before the mind, as the actions of a living and acting 5 power? Or have represented the reflection of the sky in the water, as "That uncertain heaven received into the bosom of the steady lake?" Even the grammatical construction is not unfrequently peculiar; as "The wind, the tempest roaring high, the tumult of a tropic sky, might well be dangerous food 10 to him, a youth to whom was given, &c." There is a peculiarity in the frequent use of the ȧovvápryrov (i. e. the omission of the connective particle before the last of several words, or several sentences used grammatically as single words, all being in the same case and governing or governed 15 by the same verb) and not less in the construction of words by apposition (to him, a youth). In short, were there excluded from Mr. Wordsworth's poetic compositions all, that a literal adherence to the theory of his preface would exclude, two-thirds at least of the marked beauties of his poetry 20 must be erased. For a far greater number of lines would be sacrificed than in any other recent poet; because the pleasure received from Wordsworth's poems being less derived either from excitement of curiosity or the rapid flow of narration, the striking passages form a larger proportion of 25 their value. I do not adduce it as a fair criterion of comparative excellence, nor do I even think it such; but merely as matter of fact. I affirm, that from no contemporary writer could so many lines be quoted, without reference to the poem in which they are found, for their own independent 30 weight or beauty. From the sphere of my own experience I can bring to my recollection three persons of no every-day powers and acquirements, who had read the poems of others with more, and more unalloyed pleasure, and had thought more highly of their authors, as poets; who yet have con- 35 fessed to me, that from no modern work had so many passages started up anew in their minds at different times, and as different occasions had awakened a meditative mood. CHAPTER XXI Remarks on the present mode of conducting critical journals. LONG have I wished to see a fair and philosophical in5 quisition into the character of Wordsworth, as a poet, on the evidence of his published works; and a positive, not a comparative, appreciation of their characteristic excellencies, deficiencies, and defects. I know no claim that the mere opinion of any individual can have to weigh down the 10 opinion of the author himself; against the probability of whose parental partiality we ought to set that of his having thought longer and more deeply on the subject. But I should call that investigation fair and philosophical, in which the critic announces and endeavours to establish the 15 principles, which he holds for the foundation of poetry in general, with the specification of these in their application to the different classes of poetry. Having thus prepared his canons of criticism for praise and condemnation, he would proceed to particularize the most striking passages to which 20 he deems them applicable, faithfully noticing the frequent or infrequent recurrence of similar merits or defects, and as faithfully distinguishing what is characteristic from what is accidental, or a mere flagging of the wing. Then if his premises be rational, his deductions legitimate, and his con25 clusions justly applied, the reader, and possibly the poet himself, may adopt his judgement in the light of judgement and in the independence of free-agency. If he has erred, he presents his errors in a definite place and tangible form, and holds the torch and guides the way to their detection. |