ON PARTIES IN POETRY.

15

of his lines bears no resemblance to Pope's smooth poignancy, and his exclusive attention to the forms of external nature prevents any similitude of matter. Of Hayley we know nothing. Rogers still survives, like one of those gentlemen of the old court, whom we occasionally meet with in society, obstinately retaining their satin waistcoats and ruffles, their low bows, and antiquated gallantry.

Meanwhile, all things were preparing for change. The minds of men were called to the contemplation of first principles. Dogmas, which had been held indisputable, were weighed in the balance and found wanting; and the portentous creations of German fancy affected poetry much as the American revolution influenced politics. It is not from a mere coincidence of time that we have bestowed on a modern class the title of the Revolutionary School, nor solely from that audacity of innovation, that contempt for established authorities, which was so remarkably contrasted with the prescriptions of the Legitimates. There is a yet deeper propriety in the name. Both the politicians and the poets of this school referred everything to nature, to pure unmodified nature, as they imagined her to exist before the growth of social institutions, Whatever was acquired, whatever was positive, whatever would not bow to a levelling, universal reason, was to be cast as a noisome weed away. Some, indeed, pretended to a certain imitation of classical models, especially in those points, such as metres and universal suffrage, in which the ancients had been formerly supposed least imitable; but the greater

part set up for unmitigated originality; and, doubtless, much that was original, much that was of great promise, much that will be remembered, when the storms that accompanied its birth are but remembered, was produced at that time.

But licence sprang up with liberty; the strong used their strength tyrannously, and the feeble, casting away the restraints which had served to conceal and bolster up their feebleness, exposed themselves pitiably. All mankind became statesmen, and a very large part of them, to say nothing of womankind, became poets; and the Revolutionists of both classes had a strong tendency to form associations, as witness the "Florence Miscellany," and the "Corresponding Society." Happily, the poetical anarchy has not been succeeded by despotism; but, on the other hand, many approaches have been made to the restoration of the true old Constitution.

Still, however, our poetical theories are almost as imperfect as our political ones; and, as we have already hinted, from similar causes—namely, a partial view of nature, an exclusive devotion to some of the elements of society, with a total disregard of the rest.

It is too often forgotten, moreover, that neither states nor men can return to infancy, They may, indeed, sink back to its ignorance and impotence; but its beauty, its innocence, and docility, once past, are flown for ever. It is a paradise from which we are quickly sent forth, and a flaming sword prohibits our regress thither. Those who cry up the sim

Human

plicity of old times ought to consider this. nature, and entire human nature, is the poet's proper study. With external nature he has nothing to do, any farther than as it influences the passions, the affections, or the imaginations of his fellow-men. Besides, Nature, as presented to the senses, is mere chaos. It is the mind that gives form, and grace, and beauty, and sublimity; and from that same mind the institutions and the prejudices of social life derive their being. Poetry, in short, has become too romantic, and the world is too little so.

The Revolution has not yet subsided, but the rage of late has been rather for Restoration and importation, than for absolute novelty. Our elder dramatists

have been closely imitated by men who have succeeded in giving their bloom and fragrance, but the soul and substance are still to be supplied. The lighter Italian poets have been felicitously imitated. The heathen deities have been recalled from the transportation to which they were sentenced by the gruff infallibility of Johnson; and a recent attempt has been made to accommodate us with a Grecian metre.

It is a little remarkable, that the most strenuous supporter of poetical Legitimacy in the present day should be the encomiast of Napoleon, and the derider of all social institutions; while the most loyal of laurelled Bards continues a decided Revolutionist in the state of the Muses.

Nov. 1821.

VOL. I.

THERSITES.

C

ON THE POETICAL USE OF THE

HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY.

"These were immortal stories."-Barry Cornwall.

THE present is, doubtless, an æra of restorations and revivals, political and poetical. The Bourbons have returned to the throne of France, and the Gods and Goddesses of classic fame, with all the noblesse of Fauns and Satyrs, Dryads and Hamadryads, are beginning to re-occupy, with limited sway, their ancient places in poetry.

Keats, Cornwall, and Shelley have breathed a new life into the dry bones of old mythology; and even Mr. Wordsworth, notwithstanding his avowed preference for the merely and familiarly natural, has not only done ample justice, in one of the finest passages of the Excursion, to the creating spirit of ancient fable, but has shown a fondness, of late, for classical tales and images.

We cannot help thinking, however, that the immortal emigrants have acquired new manners, and almost new faces, in their exile. They seem to rely less on their antiquity, and more on their beauty and accomplishments. They are far less obtrusive and assuming; but, at the same time, they have lost

somewhat of that strength and manliness which distinguished them in the best periods of Greece and Rome, and are become refined and delicate, almost finical. They are invested with an exquisite tenderness; a soft and melting radiance; a close and affectionate affinity to the gentler parts of nature; but they have no longer that stern and venerable simplicity with which they appeared in nations where they were the objects of adoration. A similar change took place in the later times of Roman, and even of Grecian literature, particularly among the Sicilian and Alexandrian writers. Bion, and Moschus, and Theocritus represent their deities as most delightfully pretty and feminine, except they introduce them expressly as objects of terror. Indeed Claudian and Statius occasionally dilate, with such elaborate and brilliant minuteness, on the smallest beauties of form or hue, that their descriptions convey no more feeling of substance than the prismatic colours on a sheet of paper. But this sort of frigid Dutch painting is seldom to be found in the Greeks, whose Gods are generally tangible as well as visible. But when physical strength ceases to be regarded with esteem, it is very difficult to impart awe or reverence to finite forms. The gradual decay of polytheism may very perceptibly be traced from Homer to the last profane writers of the lower empire. In fact, the Romans had ceased to be a religious before they became in

Even while they were

any degree a poetical people. so famed for devoutness, it is more than probable that their theological system had very little of the