PREFACE.

My late friend Mr. JAMES MONTGOMERY observed after quoting some lines from King's memorial of his wife, that he did not dare to offer a comment on the oldfashioned couplets, lest he should disturb the sanctity and repose which they were calculated to inspire. I share the apprehension. Our old Poems leave on the mind the same impression as our old Sermons. They are alike distinguished by intensity of purpose and naturalness of sentiment. We do not pray, was the complaint of COLERIDGE, with that entire, unsuspecting, childlike truthfulness which shines so beautifully in JEREMY TAYLOR and ANDREWS. And surely our praise and thankfulness rarely swell with the fervour and exultation which inflame the songs of CRASHAW and HERBERT. Nor is the elevation of thought, so conspicuous in our elder literature, commonly noticeable in the modern. Along the high argument of SPENSER the spiritual ear is braced, as the traveller loses his deafness on the top of the Pyramid.

PREFACE.

A remembrance of our Worthies is not unneedful; the grey fathers of learning and imagination recede every day further from the eye. Science has a phrase-acoustic shadow-which is significant and suggestive. In a great city you may hear the chime of bells in one street, and lose it in the next; the buildings bury the sound. Application of the comparison is easy: our times do not favour the diffusion of solemn, thoughtful strains; frequent obstacles come between the music and the hearers. The chime is broken by the objects that intercept it. The old is scattered by the new.

The parallel between our Poets and Preachers might be pleasantly enlarged. What BUTLER said of DONNE is true of the lighter fancies of his and the succeeding age. The poem, like the discourse, is often a voluntary, without any particular design of air; the composer changes the key at will; whereas, in some of our finest modern works, is traced a regular and consecutive advance in the order of the lines, causing the effect, according to its degree, which is felt in an oratorio of HANDEL. The labour, which modern writers bestow on the expression of thought, was lavished by their ancestors on the thoughts themselves. Style is contrasted with conception; the armour with the giant who wears it. Indeed, the weight of sense and the gathered richness of illustration. are distinguishing features of the seventeenth century, in prose, and verse. You must work a poem, as you work a problem. In a foreign language, the case of MICHAEL

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PREFACE.

ANGELO may recur to the memory, and exemplify the remark. WORDSWORTH, who translated ARIOSTO at the rate of a hundred lines in the day, was only able to finish one out of the fifteen sonnets which he attempted, and he frankly confessed that the others were too much for him."

Of course, harshness of diction is the frequent and inevitable companion of compression. The line of beauty is broken under the screw. The stream runs sluggishly with the gold that enriches it. Compensation is given. in vigour you miss grace, and find strength. COWPER considered the result satisfactory, and playfully illustrated a critic's treatment of a poem, by the homely image of a cook fastening the legs of a dead turkey to a post, and drawing out all its sinews. The robust roughness of versification has a charm. In an organ the quality of tone chiefly depends on the material of the pipes. The ear is conscious of a soothing, plaintive softness in the hard and knotty rhymes of HENRY VAUGHAN, which it does not recognise in smoother words. Without believing a poem, like a Cremona, to be absolutely improved by its years, I think that it frequently gains beauty from them. The tint that mellows glass is the effect of time.

I had inserted ampler specimens of our elder verse, but circumstances made their erasure necessary. The specimens of old poetry should be printed without alteration; these medals ought to appear with their rust.

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PREFACE.

COLERIDGE failed to embody in type his notion of a Poetical Filter, which he proposed to construct on the principle of omitting from pieces of lyrical poetry those parts, in which the bad taste of the author, or the fashion of the age, prevailed over his genius. Doubtless, a large number of exquisite wholes might, as COLERIDGE affirmed, be made by such a process. But the picture is injured by the partial cleaning. And even the faults of the poem may sometimes heighten the beauties. The wall of the old church is never improved by sweeping away the moss and weather-stains. The result would be similar in poetry. Lovely lines are connected by a discordant stanza. The contrast cannot be avoided. You must have lead-work in the painted window.

In perusing this Volume I would ask the reader to remember the remark of Dean ALFORD, which Mr. WORDSWORTH quoted with much approval:- I mean the distinction drawn between religion in poetry, and versified religion. The poet does not display all the varied influences which his own heart recognises, but only those which he considers himself able, as an artist, to set forth with advantage. Sometimes this exhibition is made indirectly, and, as it were, unconsciously. THOMSON'S "Hymn" is one example. GRAY'S "Elegy" is a

second. POPE'S "Messiah" is a third.

Devotional poetry, though represented in the following pages, does not occupy a prominent place. A picture

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