In the two following lines, for instance, there is nothing objectionable, nothing which would preclude them from forming, in their proper place, part of a descriptive poem : "Behold yon row of pines, that, shorn and bow'd, Bend from the sea-blast, seen at twilight eve." But with the small alteration of rhythm, the same words would be equally in their place in a book of topography, or in a descriptive tour. The same image will rise into a semblance of poetry if thus conveyed: "Yon row of bleak and visionary pines, By twilight-glimpse discerned, mark! how they flee Streaming before them." I have given this as an illustration, by no means as an instance, of that particular excellence which I had in view, and in which Shakspeare, even in his earliest, as in his latest works, surpasses all other poets. It is by this, that he still gives a dignity and a passion to the objects which he presents. Unaided by any previous excitement, they burst upon us at once in life and in power, "Full many a glorious morning have I seen SHAKSPEARE'S SONNET 33. "Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd, And thou in this shalt find thy monument, When tyrant's crests, and tombs of brass are spent." SONNET 107. As of higher worth, so doubtless still more characteristic of poetic genius does the imagery become, when it moulds and colours itself to the circumstances, passion, or character, present and fore most in the mind. For unrivalled instances in this excellence, the reader's own memory will refer him to the LEAR, OTHELLO, in short, to which not of the "great, ever living, dead man's" dramatic works? Inopem me copia fecit. How true it is to nature, he has himself finely expressed in the instance of love, in Sonnet 98. "From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud pied April, drest in all its trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing; That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him. Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue, Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them, where they grew; Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; As with your shadow I with these did play! Scarcely less sure, or if a less valuable, not less indispensable mark Γονίμα μέν Ποιητ - οςις ρημα γενναιον λακοι, will the image supply, when, with more than the power of the paintthe poet gives us the liveliest image of succession with the feeling of simultaneousness! er, With this he breaketh from the sweet embrace Of those fair arms, that held him to her heart, And homeward through the dark lawns runs apace: So glides he through the night from Venus' eye. 4. The last character I shall mention, which would prove indeed but little, except as taken conjointly with the former; yet, without which the former could scarce exist in a high degree, and (even if this were possible) would give promises only of transitory flashes and a meteoric power, is DEPTH, and ENERGY of THOUGHT. man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher. For poetry is the blossom and the fragrancy of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emo No tions, language. In Shakspeare's poems, the creative power, and the intellectual energy, wrestle as in a war embrace. Each in its excess of strength seems to threaten the extinction of the other. At length, in the DRAMA they were reconciled, and fought each with its shield before the breast of the other. Or, like two rapid streams, that at their first meeting within narrow and rocky banks, mutually strive to repel each other, and intermix reluctantly and in tumult; but soon finding a wider channel and more yielding shores, blend, and dilate, and flow on in one current and with one voice. The Venus and Adonis did not, perhaps, allow the display of the deeper passions. But the story of Lucretia seems to favour, and even demand their intensest workings. And yet we find in Shakspeare's management of the tale, neither pathos, nor any other dramatic quality. There is the same minute and faithful imagery as in the former poem, in the same vivid colours, inspirited by the same impetuous vigour of thought, and diverging and contracting with the same activity of the assimilative and of the modifying faculties; and with a yet larger display, a yet wider range of knowledge and reflection; and, lastly, with the same perfect dominion, often domination, over the whole world of language. What then shall we say? even this that Shakspeare, no mere child of nature; no automaton of genius; no passive vehicle of inspiration possessed by the spirit, not possessing it; first studied patiently, meditated deeply, understood minutely, till knowledge, become habitual and intuitive, wedded itself to his habitual feelings, and at length gave birth to that stupendous power, by which he stands alone, with no equal or second in his own class; to that power, which seated him on one of the two glory-smitten summits of the poetic mountain, with Milton as his compeer, not rival. While the former darts himself forth, and passes into all the forms of human character and passion, the one Proteus of the fire and the flood; the other attracts all forms and things to himself, into the unity of his own IDEAL. All things and modes of action shape themselves anew in the being of MILTON; while SHAKSPEARE becomes all things, yet for ever remaining himself. O what great men hast thou not produced, England! my country! truly indeed Must we be free or die, who speak the tongue WORDSWORTH. CHAPTER XVI. Striking points of difference between the Poets of the present age, and those of the 15th and 16th centuries-Wish expressed for the union of the characteristic merits of both. CHRISTENDOM, from its first settlement on feudal rights, has been so far one great body, however imperfectly organized, that a similar spirit will be found in each period to have been acting in all its members. The study of Shakspeare's poems (I do not include his dramatic works, eminently as they too deserve that title) led me to a more careful examination of the contemporary poets both in this and in other countries. But my attention was especially fixed on those of Italy, from the birth to the death of Shakspeare; that being the country in which the fine arts had been most sedulously, and, hitherto, most successfully cultivated. Abstracted from the degrees and peculiarities of individual genius, the properties common to the good writers of each period seem to establish one striking point of difference between the poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and that of the present age. The remark may, perhaps, be extended to the sister art of painting. At least, the latter will serve to illustrate the former. In the present age, the poet (I would wish to be understood as speaking generally, and, without allusion to individual names) seems to propose to himself as his main object, and as that which is the most characteristic of his art, new and striking IMAGES, with INCIDENTS that interest the affections or excite the curiosity. Both his characters and his descriptions he renders, as much as possible, specific and individual, even to a degree of portraiture. In his diction and metre, on the other hand, he is comparatively careless. The measure is either constructed on no previous system, and acknowledges no justifying principle but that of the writer's convenience; or else some mechanical movement is adopted, of which one couplet or stanza is so far an adequate specimen, as that the occasional differences appear evidently to arise from accident, or the qualities of the language itself, not from meditation and an intelligent purpose. And the language from "Pope's translation of Homer," to "Dar win's Temple of Nature," may, notwithstanding some illustrious exceptions, be too faithfully characterized, as claiming to be poetical for no better reason than that it would be intolerable in conversation or in prose. Though alas! even our prose writings, nay, even the stile of our more set discourses, strive to be in the fashion, and trick themselves out in the soiled and over-worn finery of the meretricious muse. It is true, that of late a great improvement in this respect is observable in our most popular writers. But it is equally true, that this recurrence to plain sense, and genuine mother English, is far from being general; and that the composition. of our novels, magazines, public harangues, &c. is commonly as trivial in thought, and enigmatic in expression, as if Ecнo and SPHINX had laid their heads together to construct it. Nay, even of those who have most rescued themselves from this contagion, I should plead inwardly guilty to the charge of duplicity or cowardice, if I withheld my conviction, that few have guarded the purity of their native tongue with that jealous care which the sublime Dante, in his tract "De la nobile volgare eloquenza," declares to be the first duty of a poet. For language is the armoury of the human mind; and at once contains the trophies of its past, and the weapons of its future conquests. "Animadverte, quam sit ab improprietate verborum pronum hominibus prolabi in errores circa res!" HOBBES: Exam. et Exmend. hod. Math.-" Sat vero, in hac vitæ brevitate et naturæ obscuritate, rerum est, quibus cognoscendis tempus impendatur, ut confusis et multivocis sermonibus intelligendis illud consumere non opus est. Eheu! quantas strages paravere verba nubila, quæ tot dicunt, ut nihil dicunt-nubes potius, e quibus et in rebus politicis et in ecclesia turbines et tonitrua erumpunt! Et proinde recte dictum putamus a Platone in Gorgia : ος αν τα ονόματα ειδει, ιζεται και τα πραγματα : et ab Epicteto, αρχη παιδευςεως η των ονομάτων επισκεψις: et prudentissime Galenus scribit, η των ονομάτων χρησις παραχθείςα και την των πραγμάτων επιταparts yvwsiv. Egregie vero J. C. Scaliger, in Lib. 1. de Plantis: Est primum, inquit, sapientis officium, bene sentire, ut sibi vivat : proximum, bene loqui, ut patriæ vivat." SENNERTUS de Puls: Differentia. Something analogous to the materials and structure of modern poetry I seem to have noticed (but here I beg to be understood as speaking with the utmost diffidence) in our common landscape |