20 WHY CERTAIN OBJECTS ARE, OR ARE THAT a book, a picture, and sometimes a very worthy man, are without Poetry, is a fact almost as deeply felt, and as well understood, as the memorable anathema of Shakspeare against the man who had not music in his soul. In many books this is no defect, in all pictures it is a striking and important one; while in men it can only be a defect proportioned to the high standing they may choose to take in the scale of intellect or feeling. The spirit of Poetry has little to do with the labours of the artizan, nor would our tables be more plentifully supplied, were they furnished under the direction of the muses. But who would feel even the slightest gratification in reading Wordsworth's Excursion, with a com panion, who could not feel poetically? or who would choose to explore the wild and magnificent beauties of mountain scenery, with one whose ideas were bounded by the limits of the Bank of England? When our nature is elevated above the mere objects of sense, there is a want created in us of something, which the business of the world, nay, even science itself, is unable to supply; for not only is the bustling man of business an unwelcome associate in the wilderness of untrodden beauty, but even he becomes wearisome at last, who applies his noisy hammer to every projection of rock, and peeps into every crevice, and up the side of every precipice, with eyes, thoughts, and memory for nothing but strata; precisely as it is presented to his vision then and there, without once giving himself time to draw deductions from what he discovers, to make an extended survey of the distant scenery, or to drink in the enjoyment of the magnificent whole. In the general contemplation of external nature, we feel the influence of Poetry, though chiefly and almost exclusively in objects which are in themselves or their associations beautiful or sublime. Thus we are pleased with a widely-extended view, even over a level country, purely because the sublime idea of space is connected with it; but let this expanse be travelled over, closely inspected, and regarded in its minutia, and it becomes indescribably wearisome and monotonous. The fact is, the idea of space is lost, while the attention is arrested and absorbed by immediate and minor circumstances. The mind is incapable of feeling two opposite sensations at the same time, and all impressions made upon the senses being so much more quick and sudden than those made through them upon the imagination, they have the power to attract and carry away the attention in the most peremptory and vexatious manner. All subjects intended to inspire admiration or reverence, must therefore be treated with the most scrupulous regard to refinement. It is so easy for the vulgar touch to "Turn what was once romantic to burlesque." A tone of ridicule may at once dispel the charm of tenderness, and a senseless parody may for awhile destroy the sublimity of a splendid poem. Among the works of art, the influence of poetic feeling is most perceptible in painting and sculpture. A picture sometimes pleases from a secret charm which cannot well be defined, and which arises not so much from the proper adjustment of colour and outline according to the rules of art, as from the sudden, mysterious, and combined emotions which the sight of it awakens in the soul. But let any striking departure from these rules arrest the attention, let the eye be offended by the colouring, and the taste shocked by the grouping or perspective-the illusion is destroyed, and the poet awakes from his dream. It is precisely the same with sculpture, that most sublime production of the hand of man, which by its cold, still, marble beauty, unawakened by the shocks of time, unmoved by the revolutions of the world, has power to charm the wandering thoughts, and inspire sensations of deep reverence and awe. But let us suppose the enthusiast returning to gaze upon the statue, which has been through years of wandering little less than an idol to his enraptured fancy, and that hands profane (for such things are) have presumed to colour the pupils of the upturned eyes-let any other sensation whatever, directly at variance with what the figure itself is calculated to inspire, be made to strike the attention of the beholder, and he is plunged at once down that fatal and irrevocable step, which leads from the sublime to the ridiculous. The human face, the most familiar object to our eyes since they first opened upon the world, may be, and often is, highly poetical. Who has not seen amidst the multitude some countenance to which he turns, and turns again, with strange wonder and delight, assigning to it an appropriate character and place in scenes even the most remote from the present, and following up, in idea, the different trains of thought by which its expression is varied, and its intelligence communicated? Yet this face may not be in itself, or strictly speaking, beautiful; but, like the painting or the statue, it has the power to awaken the most pleasing associations. With such power there can be combined no mixture of the grotesque or vulgar; for though poetry may be ridiculous, it is impossible for the ridiculous to be poetical. There is Poetry in an infant's sleep. How much, let abler words than mine describe. "So motionless in its slumbers, that in watching it we tremble, and become impatient. |