The people, again, who praise so extravagantly and erringly the present, are in general not so unjust to the past as ignorant of it. "Out of sight, out of mind." But ear and eye are for ever ministering love, and joy, and pride, till their life is felt to be, in its fulness, the only life-their age the only age. All around them are bold bright breathing realities; nor dream they of awaking from their tombs, unsubstantial phantoms. The dead have buried the dead-let the living love and eulogize the living-with their lofty heads let them all strive to strike the stars.

But we are philosophers. To us there is no past-no present-no future-no Time. We are a man but of one Idea-of BEING. We are happy or miserable according to the light shining on-is. Has-has been-is is. It is lovely or terrible-good or Pindar-Sophocles-Virgil-Dante

or

-Milton-Shakspeare - Byron · Wordsworth-Scott-all are; standing together like great trees-and we in our worship are the old Druids. But we are waxing mystical. All we mean to say is, that the Good and the Fair live in the amalgamating and immortalising spirit of Love-and that Love has but to open its eyes to behold the Good and the Fair, of which the horizon is boundless. But Love may be moody and capricious; may wink or drop its eyelids, or look askance, and then it sees imperfectly or amiss; or may hold its hands before its all-seeing orbs,till its brain be blind as dust. Then, as a picture to a blind man's eyes," or to a brute's, is not only the material creation but the spiritual too, even to the eyes of Love; and this life loses the light of poetry, just as the earth is darkened by a Total Sun Eclipse.

66

The grand secret, then, is to preserve in us the spirit of Love. That

is indeed

"The consecration and the poet's

dream;"

and that dead or inert, "how stale, flat, and unprofitable, seem to us all the uses of this world!" and unexistent the world of imagination. While that lives, and moves, and has its being, it never wants fitting food; nor need ever be famished or satia ted in dearth or plenty-little suffi

cing-and all not being overmuch. But how many causes are constantly at work to smother that mounting flame! Even in the noblest natures, how utterly, at times, it seems to be extinguished, as if frost were on the fuel with which they feed it! The more comprehensive it is, the more intense; for while it gathers, as it spreads, all substances in which the element lurks, the very atmosphere is rarified, and there is no vapour to damp the fire. But see how men of genius, false to themselves and to the cause they were sent to champion, the cause of truth, narrow their sympathies, hedging them within a pale of prejudices, and in literature, poet, ry, and philosophy, and

"To party give up what was meant for mankind!"

minds, whose sympathies with genius Thus, there are richly endued might have been universal, that will admire no poetry but that of the Elizabethan age. Others eschew Shakspeare, and kiss the toe of Pope. Many are all for Byron, the poet, they say, of the darker, the sterner, and the fiercer passions. Scott's admirers are all chivalrously disposed, while the Wordsworthians worship the stillness of nature in the religion of the woods. But what should hinder the same mind from being elevated by delight in the study of one and all of the great masters? Nor is admiration of all inconsistent with preference of one; according to that mysterious constitution of each individual soul, which, though the senses are nearly the same in all men, gives a different shape and seeming to all objects, so that the same rose is a different rose to every pair of eyes in this world, and so also is the rainbow.

At the bottom of many of such prejudices and bigotries lies pride. By exclusive worship, men imagine they elevate the character of its object, and likewise their own—or rather their own reputation. "There is an Idol! You think it mean; but we tell you it is magnificent, and that what you think clay and iron, is gold and ivory. Were you as wise as we, you too would fall down and worship it, as we do in spirit and in truth." Converts are made; and the sect, as it is enlarged, becomes more and

more intolerant alike of any other faith and of any other good works, Göethe was a great man; but his devotees see but Göethe in the uni

verse

But such love, though narrow and exclusive, may be steadfast; and, indeed, is sometimes as permanent as it is passionate. Weaker minds fluctuate in their affection for the beautiful, and in poetry change their religion every year. They are incapable of attachment. For novelty is the charm most powerful over their whole nature; and novelty carries its own death-warrant in its name. Fickle in literature as in love, they have forgotten in autumn the lay and the lady they raved about in spring. Rogers-Campbell-Moore - Southey-Scott-Byron-have all in.succession had their day of dominion over such subjects, who now do no homage to those " grey discrowned heads," but, after a six months' allegiance to Barry Cornwall, have paid their court on bended knee to the Kings and Queens of the Annuals, and finally settled down into chief contributors to their own Albums, where they reign in state over the royal family of the Fugitives and the Ephemerals.

Sad and sorry are we to think that the Love of Poetry is not what it should be in the land where the genius of Poetry has achieved its highest triumphs. If at first sincere, it will be faithful to the last. For it flows not from sensibility alone, but from reason," and is judicious;" it may be chastened without being chilled; and a tempered delight, such as can never die, arises, in the course of nature, from that enthusiasm that cannot survive the season of youth. But then, as Thought is the chief element of the imaginative as of the moral state of the soul, people who give up thinking, or worse still, perhaps, who turn all their thoughts into worldly channels, lose not only their power but their sense of the poetical, and become aware of something not a little absurd in Shakspeare.

and that too most strenuously, delivered up bound, soul and body, to pursuits, high or low, of worldly ambition. To them Poetry either is not, or they regard it but as a matter of amusement or moonshine; or they turn from it with scorn; or they desire to forget it as something that they know to be too high for them, and reminding them, with the pain of regret and shame, of their better being now repressed or oppressed within them by the calls or necessities of the lot they have chosen in life.

It would seem as if the multitude of persons who give up thinking altogether, as they advance if not in life at least in years, is in this country very great; and we have but to look about us to see how mighty is the number of those who do think,

Yet apart and aloof from all such, though often seeming to be of them, how many thousands on thousands of pure, high, and strong spirits, must there be in this our Britain, who feel and know right well what true poetry is, and who, whether famous or obscure, are the true poets! There may be some defects in our system of education, but our schools and colleges annually send forth into the walks of the world many noble youths who have drunk at the well-heads of inspiration. There may be some defects, too, in our system of domestic life, but round how many happy hearths are the Manners and the Virtues assembled, and where else, in all the world, are maids and matrons so innocent, so thoughtful, as in British homes?

The Reading Public is a huge unwieldy blue-stocking, but the Reading Private is a slim-ankled lady, with hose as white as snow. To be praised in reviews, and magazines, and newspapers, may be all very pleasant, but the poet's heart must be touched with divinest joy to know that his lays, if true to nature, will be read and listened to, perhaps with tears and sobs, by simple spirits in simple dwellings, where all life is simple, and poetry akin to religion.

In the great world there is a fashion in poetry as in all other things; yet 'tis but rarely that bad poetry is fashionable-at least in our country and in our age. But not unfrequently the poetry matronized by fashion is sufficiently so-so-ish; and in those instances, as in Byron's, where it has been of the highest excellence, circumstances, accidental or extrinsic, have kindled the rage which expired or cooled, when they ceased, or lost their chief power of excitement. In

the world of fashion the finest things in Byron could, except by the few of nobler nature, who cannot help belonging to it, have been but very imperfectly understood; and though glorious poetry will make itself felt almost anywhere, and bursts of passion electrify even the palsied into convulsive life, yet commonly the most questionable passages were most spouted, and often some, of which the expression was as imperfect as the sentiment was false. All who know what poetry is, and what fashion, know this-that strains of the very highest mood would in that irrational world be utterly unintelligible; and that the diviner spirit of poetry never there received even a pretended homage.

But the true love of true poetry never dies-and we wish to withdraw our words, if we said that it is not strong now in the nation's heart. But it is deep, not loud. And we are too wise a people, with all our follies, to prate about poetry, when we should be employed about things prosaic. How many libraries there are in this island! Few containing fifty volumes, that have not two or three of poetry; and thousands on thousands, where are ranged in all honour all the works immortal of all the great sons of song. Nor of them only, but of the POETA MINORES, too, who, however they may dislike the epithet, are distinguished among the millions of their fellow-creatures, by the possession of some portion of that divine flame of which no spark ever fell without something beautiful beneath it springing up to life.

The love of literature in a nation so highly civilized as ours, yet so ardently engaged in affairs of life, is a strong steady under-current that keeps flowing constantly on, while the upper waters are ruffled or tempested by opposing blasts that darken the surface or whiten it with spray. Thought, Feeling, Imagination, have their own ample and serene domain, where they are not indolent or idle, but alive and active in their delight. In such quiet regions there is better talk than about the "last new Poem." Good books win their way, sooner or later, and by many pleasant paths, into the peaceful repositories of knowledge; and fine thoughts and noble sentiments are participated,

and sympathized with, far beyond what humble or desponding genius, unassured of its sway over the heart, might hope or suspect. The restless desire of novelty is there unknown; books are valued by their worth, and that worth is appreciated by their effect on sound heads and sincere hearts, that think and feel for themselves, without slavishness as without presumption. A good book bought and paid for is a treasure to the enlightened and loving mind of one not rich in this world's goods; it is not perused with that vain and giddy passion of curiosity which expends itself on a single reading, and never more returns to the object it burned to enjoy; but recurrence is had to its pages in many an hour of leisure from household cares and duties, and the thoughtful spirit overflows again and again with a new and an increased delight.

If all this be matter of fact, it is cheering to the heart of the benevolent critic; for he feels assured, that provided he but pour out his own opinions and sentiments in the fervour of truth, on any subject of permanent interest-on any good book -new or old-in few hands or in all-his effusions will give gratification to no inconsiderable number of congenial and kindred spirits. It is especially so with Poetry. It flourishes in immortal youth. Who ever tired of reading Homer, or Spenser, or Milton, or Shakspeare? or of reading what has been written about them by not unworthy critics? Why, there were our own articles about the "blind old man of Scio's rocky isle," thrown off, each at a heat, from no other impulse than that of admiration and wonder; and late in the day as they were produced, they appear to have been perused with pleasure by many who, till thus reminded of them, had forgotten Homer and his Iliad.

It may still be the same even with Shakspeare. The Myriad-minded has had many million worshippers. His tragedies are all revelations. But not yet have the mysteries therein been elucidated beyond need of farther light. He may yet be more clearly understood, more profoundly felt

new vistas may be opened up in that magnificent umbrage, shewing gleams of sea or shadows of moun

span over the Land of Faery. Compare Voltaire with Schlegel! and what advance in the world's knowledge of the Prophet and Priest of Nature! How the black-letter dogs barked at the Swan of Avon! But what was the worth of the whole pack in estimation with the wit and wisdom of Charles Lamb! Samuel Johnson himself, though one of the grandest of God's creatures, comprehended not, in full, the genius of the greatest of all poets. He passed from reverence to disdain-from wonder to contempt-measuring all he found there by the standard of his own experience "of man, of nature, and of human life," forgetting that what he judged was-Inspiration. For how long, and by how many, even of the most enlightened, were Shakspeare's women thought poor pictures of the brighter and better half of humanity! Considerate persons sought for causes to account for that deplorable deficiency; and the good-natured easy world was satisfied with the explanation, that in those days female characters were enacted by boys, and that therefore poor Shakspeare had nothing for it but to accommodate them all to the capacities of such representatives. But the blind eyes of heresy were couched, and she became a true believer in the angelical being of woman, as revealed from heaven to hea ven's own darling genius; and in the stainless robes of their flowing beauty, arose before the eyes of love and pity, Hermione, and Imogen, and Desdemona, and Cordelia, and the rest, whose aspect is as the calm of the superior skies, " inaccessible to earth's pollution," though saddened, even in that their own region, with its mortal troubles. And have we not again seen, how female genius has rendered "the beauty still more beauteous," and shewn in woman's heart, "even in the lowest depths a lower deep," of love, of innocence, of virtue, of religion?

Exhausted indeed! What-and the subject-Shakspeare! The characteristics of women-exhausted! No -not till Joanna Baillie, "Tragic Queen," has dropt her lyre for ever -not till the Hemans has ceased her wild and melancholy strains-not till the rich-toned voice of fair Landon

It may be all very well for you to say so, who are an elderly unmarried man, with a worthy widow woman for your housekeeper. No doubt she has been exhausted long since-and during the process of her exhaustion, many a bottle, too, of ratifia. But in woman's heart know that there are a thousand springs one and all inexhaustible, though they keep flowing for ever. Woe to the hand that infuses bitterness there, for in nature they are most sweet; woe to the hand that muddies them, for untroubled they are limpid at their source as when given back in dew from heaven to earth, dropt tremblingly on the rose's leaf in the breathless twilight!

We cannot bid farewell to the "Characters of the Affections" so beautifully developed in our last Number by the most enlightened eulogist of Shakspeare's loveliest idealities. Hermione!

"A perfect woman, nobly plann'd To warn, to comfort, and command!"

Yet warning, comforting, and commanding all in vain-such the infatuated jealousy of her unworthy lord. 'Tis the meanest-the basest of all passions-when causelessly it inflames a narrow and a shallow heart. Invading a large heart, 'tis like a grim army of demons-terrible. Shall conjugal love not exultingly enjoy the privilege of friendship? Next to her husband Leontes, is Polixenes, the brother of his soul, dear to Hermione. To Sicily sacred is her life-to Bohemia her hand is open. Of friendship she is lavish as of love, and both are clear as day in her holy innocence. But in the midst of her stately happiness, the Queen, the matron, and the mother, is covered all at once with dishonour as with a garment. Odious in her husband's eyes, before ours she waxes brighter and more bright "with something of an angel light." Disbelieved but by one human being, she appeals to Heaven, and Heaven declares her sinless. At such a crisis of her fate, conscience communes willingly with the sky, and we are not startled by the sublime fiction of the response and judgment of an Oracle. The