told, made the reader inattentive to negli- Even the direction given to the traveller The tendency of poetry to become national, was in more than one case remarkable. While the Scottish middle age inspired the most popular poet perhaps of the eighteenth century, the national genius of Ireland at length found a poetical representative, whose exquisite ear, and flexible fancy, wantoned in all the varieties of poetical luxury, from the levities to the fondness of love, from polished pleasantry to ardent passion, and from the social joys of private life to a tender and mournful patriotism, taught by the melancholy fortunes of an illustrious country, with a range adapted to every nerve in the composition of a people susceptible of all feelings which have the colour of generosity, and more exempt probably than any other from degrading and unpoetical vices. the very reverse of unfriendly feelings, we observe that erroneous theories respecting poetical diction,-exclusive and proscriptive notions in criticism, which in adding new provinces to poetry would deprive her of ancient dominions and lawful instruments of rule, and a neglect of that extreme regard to general sympathy, and even accidental prejudice, which is necessary to guard poetical novelties against their natural enemy the satirist,-have powerfully counteracted an attempt, equally moral and philosophical, made by a writer of undisputed poetical genius, to enlarge the territories of art, by unfolding the poetical interest which lies latent in the common acts of the humblest men, and in the most ordinary modes of feeling, as well as in the most familiar scenes of nature, The various opinions which may naturally be formed of the merit of individual writers, form no necessary part of our consideration. We consider the present as one of the most flourishing periods of English poetry: but those who condemn all contemporary poets, need not on that account dissent from our speculations. It is sufficient to have proved the reality, and in part perhaps to have explained the origin, of a literary revolution. At no time does the success of writers bear so uncertain a proportion to their genius, as when the rules of judging and the habits of feeling are unsettled. in which he has attained such high degrees of kinds of excellence so dissimilar, as are seen in the Sick Chamber and the Butterfly. The first has a truth of detail, which, con house,—and of the Savoyard recalling the mountainous scenery of his country,—and the descriptive commencement of the tale in Cumberland, have remained most deeply impressed on our minds. We should be dis-sidered merely as painting, is admirable; posed to quote the following verses, as not surpassed, in pure and chaste elegance, by any English lines: "When Joy's bright sun has shed his evening rav, And Hope's delusive meteors cease to play; When clouds on clouds the smiling prospect close, Still through the gloom thy star serenely glows: Like yon fair orb she gilds the brow of Night With the mild magic of reflected light." The conclusion of the fine passage on the Veterans at Greenwich and Chelsea, has a pensive dignity which beautifully corresponds with the scene :— 66 Long have ye known Reflection's genial ray Gild the calm close of Valour's various day." And we cannot resist the pleasure of quoting the moral, tender, and elegant lines which close the Poem: "Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions fly, Pour round her path a stream of living light; And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest!" The descriptive passages require indeed a closer inspection, and a more exercised eye, than those of some celebrated contemporaries who sacrifice elegance to effect, and whose figures stand out in bold relief, from the general roughness of their more unfinished compositions:, and in the moral parts, there is often discoverable a Virgilian art, which suggests, rather than displays, the various and contrasted scenes of human life, and adds to the power of language by a certain air of reflection and modesty, in the preference of measured terms to those of more apparent energy. In the View from the House,* the scene is neither delightful from very superior beauty, nor striking by singularity, nor powerful from reminding us of terrible passions or memorable deeds. It consists of the more ordinary of the beautiful features of nature, neither exaggerated nor represented with curious minuteness, but exhibited with picturesque elegance, in connection with those tranquil emotions which they call up in the calm order of a virtuous mind, in every condition of society and of life. The verses on the Torso, are in a more severe style. The Fragment of a divine artist, which awakened the genius of Michael Angelo, seems to disdain ornament. It would be difficult to name two small poems, by the same writer, * In the Epistle to a Friend.-ED. but assumes a higher character, when it is felt to be that minute remembrance, with which affection recollects every circumstance that could have affected a beloved sufferer. Though the morality which concludes the second, be in itself very beautiful. it may be doubted whether the verses would not have left a more unmixed delight, if the address had remained as a mere sport of fancy, without the seriousness of an object, or an appliIcation. The verses written in Westminster Abbey are surrounded by dangerous recollections; they aspire to commemorate Fox, and to copy some of the grandest thoughts in the most sublime work of Bossuet. thing can satisfy the expectation awakened by such names: yet we are assured that there are some of them which would be envied by the best writers of this age. The scenery of Loch Long is among the grandest in Scotland; and the description of it shows the power of feeling and painting. In this island, the taste for nature has grown with the progress of refinement. It is most alive in those who are most brilliantly distinguished in social and active life. It elevates the No mind above the meanness which it might contract in the rivalship for praise; and preserves those habits of reflection and sensibility, which receive so many rude shocks in the coarse contests of the world. Not many summer hours can be passed in the most mountainous solitudes of Scotland, without meeting some who are worthy to be remembered with the sublime objects of nature, which they had travelled so far to admire. The most conspicuous of the novelties of this volume is the poem or poems, entitled "Fragments of the Voyage of Columbus." The subject of this poem is, politically or philosophically considered, among the most important in the annals of mankind. The introduction of Christianity (humanly viewed), the irruption of the Northern barbarians, the contest between the Christian and Mussulman nations in Syria, the two inventions of gunpowder and printing, the emancipation of the human understanding by the Reformation, the discovery of America, and of a maritime passage to Asia in the last ten years of the fifteenth century, are the events which have produced the greatest and most durable effects, since the establishment of civilization, and the consequent commencement of authentic history. But the poetical capabilities of an event bear no proportion to historical importance. None of the consequences that do not strike the senses or the fancy can interest the poet. The greatest of the transactions above enumerated is obviously incapable of entering into poetry. The Crusades were not without permanent effects on the state of men: but their poeti cal interest does not arise from these effects; and it immeasurably surpasses them. ed to some kinds of poetry, is not an event of such outward dignity and splendour as ought naturally to close the active and brilliant course of an epic poem. Whether the voyage of Columbus be destined to be for ever incapable of becoming the subject of an epic poem, is a question It is natural that the Fragments should which we have scarcely the means of answer- give a specimen of the marvellous as well ing. The success of great writers has often as of the other constituents of epic fiction. so little corresponded with the promise of We may observe, that it is neither the intentheir subject, that we might be almost tempt- tion nor the tendency of poetical machinery ed to think the choice of a subject indifferent. to supersede secondary causes, to fetter the The story of Hamlet, or of Paradise Lost, will, and to make human creatures appear would beforehand have been pronounced to as the mere instruments of destiny. It is be unmanageable. Perhaps the genius of introduced to satisfy that insatiable demand Shakespeare and of Milton has rather com- for a nature more exalted than that which pensated for the incorrigible defects of unwe know by experience, which creates all grateful subjects, than conquered them. The poetry, and which is most active in its highcourse of ages may produce the poetical est species, and in its most perfect producgenius, the historical materials and the na- tions. It is not to account for thoughts and tional feelings, for an American epic poem. feelings, that superhuman agents are brought There is yet but one state in America, and down upon earth: it is rather for the conthat state is hardly become a nation. At trary purpose, of lifting them into a mystesome future period, when every part of the rious dignity beyond the cognizance of reacontinent has been the scene of memorable son. There is a material difference between events, when the discovery and conquest the acts which superior beings perform, and have receded into that legendary dimness the sentiments which they inspire. It is which allows fancy to mould them at her true, that when a god fights against men, pleasure, the early history of America may there can be no uncertainty or anxiety, and afford scope for the genius of a thousand consequently no interest about the event,national poets; and while some may soften unless indeed in the rude theology of Homer, the cruelty which darkens the daring energy where Minerva may animate the Greeks, of Cortez and Pizarro,-while others may, while Mars excites the Trojans: but it is in perhaps new forms of poetry, ennoble the quite otherwise with these divine persons pacific conquests of Penn, and while the inspiring passion, or represented as agents in genius, the exploits, and the fate of Raleigh, the great phenomena of nature. Venus and may render his establishments probably the Mars inspire love or valour; they give a most alluring of American subjects, every noble origin and a dignified character to inhabitant of the new world will turn his these sentiments: but the sentiments themeyes with filial reverence towards Columbus, selves act according to the laws of our naand regard, with equal enthusiasm, the ture; and their celestial source has no tenvoyage which laid the foundation of so many dency to impair their power over human states, and peopled a continent with civilized sympathy. No event, which has not too much men. Most epic subjects, but especially modern vulgarity to be susceptible of alliance such a subject as Columbus, require either with poetry, can be incapable of being ennothe fire of an actor in the scene, or the reli- bled by that eminently poetical art which gious reverence of a very distant posterity. ascribes it either to the Supreme Will, or to Homer, as well as Erçilla and Camoens, the agency of beings who are greater than show what may be done by an epic poet human. The wisdom of Columbus is neither who himself feels the passions of his heroes. less venerable, nor less his own, because it It must not be denied that Virgil has bor- is supposed to flow more directly than that rowed a colour of refinement from the court of other wise men, from the inspiration of of Augustus, in painting the age of Priam heaven. The mutiny of his seamen is not and of Dido. Evander is a solitary and ex- less interesting or formidable because the quisite model of primitive manners, divest-poet traces it to the suggestion of those maed of grossness, without losing their simplicity. But to an European poet, in this age of the world, the Voyage of Columbus is too naked and too exactly defined by history. It has no variety, scarcely any succession Unless, indeed, the marvellous be a part of events. It consists of one scene, during of the popular creed at the period of the which two or three simple passions continue action, the reader of a subsequent age will in a state of the highest excitement. It is a refuse to sympathize with it. His poetical voyage with intense anxiety in every bosom, faith is founded in sympathy with that of the controlled by magnanimous fortitude in the poetical personages. Still more objectionable leader, and producing among his followers is a marvellous influence, neither believed in a fear, sometimes submissive, sometimes by the reader nor by the hero;-like a great mutinous, always ignoble. It admits of no part of the machinery of the Henriade and variety of character, -no unexpected revolu- the Lusiad, which indeed is not only abtions. And even the issue, though of un- solutely ineffective, but rather disennobles speakable importance, and admirably adapt-heroic fiction, by association with light and lignant spirits, in whom the imagination, independent of all theological doctrines, is naturally prone to personify and embody the causes of evil. frivolous ideas. Allegorical persons (if the expression may be allowed) are only in the way to become agents. The abstraction has received a faint outline of form; but it has not yet acquired those individual marks and characteristic peculiarities, which render it a really existing being. On the other hand, the more sublime parts of our own religion, and more especially those which are common to all religion, are too awful and too philosophical for poetical effect. If we except Paradise Lost, where all is supernatural, and where the ancestors of the human race are not strictly human beings, it must be owned that no successful attempt has been made to ally a human action with the sublimer principles of the Christian theology. Some opinions, which may perhaps, without irreverence, be said to be rather appendages to the Christian system, than essential parts of it, are in that sort of intermediate state which fits them for the purposes of poetry;-sufficiently exalted to ennoble the human actions with which they are blended, but not so exactly defined, nor so deeply revered, as to be inconsistent with the liberty of imagination. The guardian angels, in the project of Dryden, had the inconvenience of having never taken any deep root in popular belief: the agency of evil spirits was firmly believed in the age of Columbus. With the truth of facts poetry can have no concern; but the truth of manners is necessary to its persons. If the minute investigations of the Notes to this poem had related to historical details, they would have been insignificant; but they are intended to justify the human and the supernatural parts of it, by an appeal to the manners and to the opinions of the age. Perhaps there is no volume in our language of which it can be so truly said, as of the present, that it is equally exempt from the frailties of negligence and the vices of affectation. Exquisite polish of style is indeed more admired by the artist than by the people. The gentle and elegant pleasure which it imparts, can only be felt by a calm reason, an exercised taste, and a mind free from turbulent passions. But these beauties of execution can exist only in combination with much of the primary beauties of thought and feeling; and poets of the first rank depend on them for no small part of the perpetuity of their fame. In poetry, though not in eloquence, it is less to rouse the passions of a moment, than to satisfy the taste of all ages. In estimating the poetical rank of Mr. Rogers, it must not be forgotten that popularity never can arise from elegance alone. The vices of a poem may render it popular; and virtues of a faint character may be sufficient to preserve a languishing and cold reputation. But to be both popular poets and classical writers, is the rare lot of those few who are released from all solicitude about their literary fame. It often happens to successful writers, that the lustre of their first productions throws a temporary cloud over some of those which follow. Of all literary misfortunes, this is the most easily endured, and the most speedily repaired. It is generally no more than a momentary illusion produced by disappointed admiration, which expected more from the talents of the admired writer than any talents could perform. Mr. Rogers has long passed that period of probation, during which it may be excusable to feel some painful solicitude about the reception of every new work. Whatever may be the rank assigned hereafter to his writings, when compared with each other, the writer has most certainly taken his place among the classical poets of his country, REVIEW OF MADAME DE STAËL'S 'DE L'ALLEMAGNE." TILL the middle of the eighteenth century, part of Europe, and loosened its chains in Germany was, in one important respect, sin- the other; but she was without a national gular among the great nations of Christendom. literature. The country of Guttenberg, of She had attained a high rank in Europe by Copernicus, of Luther, of Kepler, and of discoveries and inventions, by science, by Leibnitz, had no writer in her own language, abstract speculation as well as positive know-whose name was known to the neighbouring ledge, by the genius and the art of war, and above all, by the theological revolution, which unfettered the understanding in one From the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxii. p. 168.-ED. nations. German captains and statesmen, philosophers and scholars, were celebrated; but German writers were unknown. The nations of the Spanish peninsula formed the exact contrast to Germany. She had every mark of mental cultivation but a vernacular literature: they, since the Reformation, had ceased to exercise their reason; and they retained only their poets, whom they were content to admire, without daring any longer to emulate. In Italy, Metastasio was the only renowned poet; and sensibility to the arts of design had survived genius: but the monuments of ancient times still kept alive the pursuits of antiquities and philology; and the rivalship of small states, and the glory of former ages, preserved an interest in literary history. The national mind retained that tendency towards experimental science, which it perhaps principally owed to the fame of Galileo; and began also to take some part in those attempts to discover the means of bottering the human condition, by inquiries into the principles of legislation and political economy, which form the most honourable distinction of the eighteenth century. France and England abated nothing of their activity. Whatever may be thought of the purity of taste, or of the soundness of opinion of Montesquieu and Voltaire, Buffon and Rousseau, no man will dispute the vigour of their genius. The same period among us was not marked by the loss of any of our ancient titles to fame; and it was splendidly distinguished by the rise of the arts, of history, of oratory, and (shall we not add?) of painting. But Germany remained a solitary example of a civilized, learned, and scientific nation, without a literature. The chivalrous ballads of the middle age, and the efforts of the Silesian poets in the beginning of the seventeenth century, were just sufficient to render the general defect more striking. French was the language of every court; and the number of courts in Germany rendered this circumstance almost equivalent to the exclusion of German from every society of rank. Philosophers employed a barbarous Latin,-as they had throughout all Europe, till the Reformation had given dignity to the vernacular tongues, by employing them in the service of Religion, and till Montaigne, Galileo, and Bacon, broke down the barrier between the learned and the people, by philosophizing in a popular language; and the German language continued to be the mere instrument of the most vulgar intercourse of life. Germany had, therefore, no exclusive mental possession: for poetry and eloquence may, and in some measure must be national; but knowledge, which is the common patrimony of civilized men, can be appropriated by no people. nature and feeling, were too often tempted to pursue the singular, the excessive, and the monstrous. Their fancy was attracted towards the deformities and diseases of moral nature;-the wildness of an infant literature, combined with the eccentric and fearless speculations of a philosophical age. Some of the qualities of the childhood of art were united to others which usually attend its decline. German literature, various, rich, bold, and at length, by an inversion of the usual progress, working itself into originality, was tainted with the exaggeration natural to the imitator, and to all those who know the passions rather by study than by feeling. Another cause concurred to widen the chasm which separated the German writers from the most polite nations of Europe. While England and France had almost relinquished those more abstruse speculations which had employed them in the age of Gassendi and Hobbes, and, with a confused mixture of contempt and despair, had tacitly abandoned questions which seemed alike inscrutable and unprofitable, a metaphysical passion arose in Germany, stronger and more extensive than had been known in Europe since the downfall of the Scholastic philosophy. A system of metaphysics appeared, which, with the ambition natural to that science, aspired to dictate principles to every part of human knowledge. It was for a long time universally adopted. Other systems, derived from it, succeeded each other with the rapidity of fashions in dress. Metaphysical publications were multiplied almost to the same degree, as political tracts in the most factious period of a popular government. The subject was soon exhausted, and the metaphysical passion seems to be nearly extinguished: for the small circle of dispute respecting first principles, must be always rapidly described; and the speculator, who thought his course infinite, finds himself almost instantaneously returned to the point from which he began. But the language of abstruse research spread over the whole German style. Allusions to the most subtile speculations were common in popular writings. Bold metaphors, derived from their peculiar philosophy, became familiar in observations on literature and manners. The style of Germany at length differed from that of France, and even of England, more as the literature of the East differs from that of the West, than as that of one European people from that of their neighbours. A great revolution, however, at length Hence it partly arose, that while physical began, which in the course of half a century and political Germany was so familiar to terminated in bestowing on Germany a litera- foreigners, intellectual and literary Germany ture, perhaps the most characteristic pos- continued almost unknown. Thirty years sessed by any European nation. It had the ago, there were probably in London as important peculiarity of being the first which many Persian as German scholars. Neither had its birth in an enlightened age. The Goëthe nor Schiller conquered the repug imagination and sensibility of an infant poe-nance. Political confusions, a timid and try were in it singularly blended with the exclusive taste, and the habitual neglect of refinements of philosophy. A studious and foreign languages, excluded German literalearned people, familiar with the poets of other nations, with the first simplicity of * Written in 1813.-ED. |