cultivates and cherishes the noblest faculties of his nature, we have to thank the Giver of all our enjoyments, the Creator of all our capabilities. How are these faculties now cultivated? | "Knowledge is power." But neither is knowledge all that we live for, nor power all that we enjoy. There are deep mysteries in the book of nature which all can feel, but none will ever understand until the veil of mortality shall be withdrawn. There are stirrings in the soul of man which constitute the very essence of his being, and which power can neither satisfy nor subdue. Yet this mystery reveals more truly than the clearest proofs or mightiest deductions of science, that a master hand has been for ages, and is still at work, above, beneath, and around us; and this moving principle is for ever reminding us that in our nature we inherit the germs of a future existence over which time has no influence, and the grave no victory. Far be it from every liberal mind to maintain the superiority of feeling over the other faculties of our nature. In forming a correct opinion on any subject of taste, it is necessary to examine, compare, and criticise, with an eye familiarized to what is most admirable, and a judgment controlled by a strict adherence to the rules of art. No argument is required to prove that were feeling allowed to be the sole impulse of our actions, we should become as culpable in morals, as absurd in our pursuits; or that the man gifted with the quickest perceptions and keenest sensibility, yet untutored in scientific rules, would expose himself to well-merited ridicule, should he attempt in a poem or a picture, to delineate his own conceptions of grandeur or beauty. Even were he able to throw into his performance the force of the most daring genius, or the most inextinguishable enthusiasm, it would prove in the end, no better than a mockery of art, and remain a memorial of his own madness and folly. Nor, on the other hand, will he who is by nature destitute of sensibility, or he who has spent the spring-time of existence in the crowded city, and expended all the fresh energies of his mind in the bustle and hurry of sordid occupations, having laid up no secret store of associations with what is noble, lovely or refined in nature, be able to produce a poem or a picture that will please the imagination or warm the heart, even though in his laboured performance, the critic should find no fault with the harmony of his numbers, the choice of his colouring, or the subjects of both. The qualifications of a true poet are, in the first place, natural capacity, and favourable opportunity for receiving impressions; and in the second, ability to arrange, compare, and select from these impressions. Without the former, he must be deficient in materials for his work; without the latter, he must want the power to make a rational use of any materials whatever. It is the former alone that we can suppose to be wanting in the present day; for though the human mind unquestionably retains the same capabilities it possessed in the last century, it is possible that opportunities for imbibing strong impressions from external nature may not now be afforded with the same facility; and that in the present rapid march of intellect, the muse of poesy may be so hurried out of breath, as not to find time to chant her charmed lays. The same causes which tend to destroy that taste, which would ensure to the works of our poets a welcome reception in refined and intellectual circles of society, necessarily operate against the production of poetry; and thus, while we refuse to feast our minds with ideas of the sublime and beautiful, we must naturally lose the higher sensibilities and finer perceptions of our nature. To awaken these sensibilities, and quicken these perceptions, by pointing out what it is which constitutes the poetry of life, will be the task of the writer through the following pages; to prove, that in order to see, think, or write poetically, it is necessary that we should at some period of our lives, have had time and opportunity to receive deep and lasting impressions; and that out of these impressions is woven the interminable chain of association which connects our perceptions of things present, with our ideas or conceptions of those which are remote. In commencing a serious and arduous task, it would ill become an accountable agent to neglect the important inquiry of what may be the moral good of such an un 8 THE POETRY OF LIFE. dertaking; and here the question will naturally occur to many, whether poetry is of any real value in promoting the happiness of man. England is a commercial country, and we know that poetry has little to do with increasing the facilities of commerce, as little as with the better regulation of the poor laws, or with the settlement of any of those leading questions which at present agitate the political world. But poetry has a world of its own-a world in which, if sordid cal- | culations have no place, the noble, the immortal part of our nature is cherished, invigorated and refined. In touching upon this inspiring theme, it is impossible not to feel the inadequacy of moderate powers when compared with those of perhaps the most luminous writers of the present day, whose review of Milton's works contains in direct relation to this subject, the following eloquent and inimitable appeal to the highest feelings of human nature. I quote at great length, because I would not break the charm of the whole passage by garbled extracts; and I risk the quotation at the peril of having the rest of my book contrasted with these pages, like a chaplet of mock gems, in which is one true diamond. "Milton's fame rests chiefly on his poetry, and to this we naturally give our first attention. By those who are apt to speak of poety as light reading, Milton's eminence in this sphere may be considered as only giving him a high rank among the contributors to public amusement. Not so thought Milton. Of all God's gifts of intellect, he esteemed poetical genius the most transcendant. He esteemed it in himself as a kind of inspiration, and wrote his great works with something of the conscious dignity of a prophet. We agree with Milton in his estimate of poetry. It seems to us the divinest of all arts; for it is the breathing or expression of that principle or sentiment, which is deepest and sublimest in human nature; we mean of that thirst or aspiration, to which no mind is wholly a stranger, for something purer and lovelier, something more powerful, lofty, and thrilling than ordinary and real life affords. No doctrine is more common among Christians than that of man's immortality, but it is not so generally understood, that the germs or principles of his whole future being are now wrapped up in his soul, as the rudiments of the future plant in the seed. As a necessary result of this constitution, the soul, possessed and moved by these mighty, though infant energies, is perpetually stretching beyond what is present and visible, struggling against the bounds of its earthly prison-house, and seeking relief and joy in imaginings of unseen and ideal being. This view of our nature which has never been fully developed, and which goes farther towards explaining the contradictions of human life than all others, carries us to the very foundation and sources of poetry. He, who cannot interpret by his own consciousness what we have now said, wants the true key to works of genius. He has not penetrated those sacred recesses of the soul, where poetry is born and nourished, and inhales immortal vigour, and wings herself for her heavenward flight. In an intellectual nature, framed for progress, and for higher modes of being, there must be creative energies, powers of original, and ever-growing thought; and poetry is the form in which these energies are chiefly manifested. It is the glorious prerogative of this art, that it makes all things new' for the gratification of a divine instinct. It indeed finds its elements in what it actually sees and experiences, in the worlds of matter and mind, but it combines and blends these into new forms, and according to new affinities; breaks down, if we may so say, the distinctions and bounds of nature; imparts to material objects life, and sentiment, and emotion, and invests the mind with the powers and splendours of the outward creation; describes the surrounding universe in the colours which the passions throw over it, and depicts the mind in those modes of repose or agitation, of tenderness or sublime emotion, which manifest its thirst for a more powerful and joyful existence. To a man of a literal and prosaic character, the mind may seem lawless in these workings; but it observes higher laws than it transgresses, the laws of the immortal intellect; it is trying and developing its best faculties; and in the objects which it describes, or in the emotions which it awakens, anticipates those states of progressive power, splendour, beauty and happiness, for which it was created. "We accordingly believe that poetry, so far from injuring society, is one of the great instruments of its refinement and exaltation. It lifts the mind above ordinary life; gives it a respite from depressing cares, and awakens the consciousness of its affinity with what is pure and noble. In its legitimate and highest efforts, it has the same tendency and aim with Christianity; that is, to spiritualize our nature. True, poetry has been made the instrument of vice, the pander of bad passions; but when genius thus stoops, it dims its fires, and parts with much of its power; and even when poetry is enslaved to licentiousness or misanthropy, she cannot wholly forget her true vocation. Strains of pure feeling, touches of tenderness, images of innocent happiness, sympathies with suffering virtue, bursts of scorn or indignation at the hollowness of the world, passages true to our moral nature, often escape in an immoral work, and show us how hard it is for a gifted spirit to divorce itself wholly from what is good. Poetry has a natural alliance with our best affections. It delights in the beauty and sublimity of the outward creation and of the soul. It indeed portrays with terrible energy the excesses of the passions; but they are passions which show a mighty nature, which are full of power, which command awe, and excite a deep, though shuddering sympathy. Its great tendency and purpose is, to carry the mind beyond and above the beaten, dusty, weary walks of ordinary life; to lift it into a purer element; and to breathe into it more profound and generous emotion. It reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the springtime of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feeling, knits us by new ties with universal being, and through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life. "We are aware that it is objected to poetry, that it gives wrong views, and excites false expectations of life; peoples the mind with shadows and illusions, and builds up imagination on the ruins of wisdom. That there is a wisdom against which poetry wars, the wisdom of the senses, which makes physical comfort and gratification the supreme good, and wealth the chief interest of life, we do not deny; nor do we deem it the least service which poetry renders to mankind, that it redeems them from the thraldom of this earth-born prudence. But passing over this topic, we would observe, that the complaint against poetry as abounding in illusion and deception, is in the main, groundless. In many poems, there is more truth than in many histories and philosophic theories. The fictions of genius are often the vehicles of the sublimest verities, and its flashes often open new regions of thought, and throw new light on the mysteries of our being. In poetry, the letter is falsehood, but the spirit is often profoundest wisdom. And if truth thus dwells in the boldest fictions of the poet, much more may it be expected in his delineations of life; for the present life, which is the first stage of the immortal mind, abounds in the materials of poetry; and it is the high office of the bard to detect this divine element among the grosser labours and pleasures of our earthly being. The present life is not wholly prosaic, precise, tame, and finite. To the gifted eye, it abounds in the poetic. The affections which spread beyond ourselves, and stretch far into futurity; the workings of mighty passions, which seem to arm the soul with almost super-human energy; the innocent and irrepressible joy of infancy; the bloom, and buoyancy, and dazzling hopes of youth; the throbbings of the heart, when it first wakes to love, and dreams of a happiness too vast for earth; woman, with her beauty, and grace, and gentleness, and fulness of feeling, and depth of affection, and her blushes of purity, and the tones and looks which only a mother's heart can inspire;-these are all poetical. It is not true that the poet paints a life which does not exist; he only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence; arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, brings together its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined but evanescent joys; and in this he does well; for it is good to feel that life is not wholly usurped by cares for subsistence, and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be in definitely enlarged, sentiments, and delights worthy of a higher being. This power of poetry to refine our views of lif and happiness, is more and more needed as society advances. It is needed to withstand the encroachments of heartless and artificial manners, which make civilization so tame and uninteresting. It is needed to counteract the tendency of physical science, which being now sought, not as formerly for intellectual gratification, but for multiplying bodily comforts, requires a new development of imagination, taste, and poetry, to preserve men from sinking into an earthly, material, Epicurean life." 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, WHY CERTAIN OBJECTS ARE, OR ARE and it becomes indescribably wearisome and NOT, POETICAL. 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 artisan, 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 companion, 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, 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 of fended by the colouring, and the taste chocked 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 up-turned 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 for some stir or sound, that may assure us of its life; yet is the fancy of the little sleeper busy, and every artery and every pulse of its frame engaged in the work and growth of secretion, though his breath would not stir the smallest insect that sported on his lips-though his pulse would not lift the flower leaf of which he dreamed from his | bosom: yet, following this emblem of tranquillity into after life, we see him exposed to every climate-contending with every obstacle-agitated by every passion; and under these various circumstances, how different is the power and the degree of the heart's action, which has not only to beat, but to beat time through every moment of a long and troubled life."* We feel in reading this passage, even if we have never felt before, that there is poetry in an infant's sleep. Its waking moments are less poetical, because of the many little cares and vexations they force upon us; and no power on earth could convince us that there was poetry in an infant's cry. Yet is it neither softness nor sweetness which always constitutes the poetry of sound; for what can be more discordant in itself than the caw of the rook, the scream of the seagull, or the bleating of the lamb? There is poetry in the low-roofed cottage standing on the skirts of the wood, beneath the overshadowing oak, around which the children of many generations have gambolled, while the wreathing smoke coils up amongst the dark green foliage, and the gray thatch is contrasted with golden moss and glittering ivy. We stand and gaze, delighted with this picture of rural peace, and privileged seclusion. We long to shake off the shackles of artificial society, the wearying cares of life, the imperative control of fashion, or the toil and traffic of the busy world, and to dwell for the remainder of our days in a quiet spot like this, where affection, that is too often lost in the game of life, might unfold her store of fire-side comforts, and where we and ours might constitute one unbroken chain of social fellowship, under the shelter of security and peace. But let us enter this privileged abode. Our ears are first saluted by the sharp voice of the matron, calling in her tattered rebels from the common. They are dragged in by violence, and a scene of wrath and contention ensues. The fragments of the last meal are scattered on the floor. That beautifully curling smoke, before it found a way to escape so gracefully has made many a circuit round the dark and crumbling walls of the Dr. James Willson. |