GERMANIZED ENGLISH. BRITISH CRITICS.

W. Stop; that is quite enough.

XXV

A. No, no. "The alleys and gardens speak in low tones, like men when deeply moved ”...

W. For Heaven's sake, my dear ERNEST!...

A. "And around the leaves fly the gentle winds, and around the blossoms the bees, with a tender whisper."

W. Ha, ha! No more, I beseech you.

A. Yes; let me finish the paragraph. "Only the larks, like man, rise warbling into the sky, and then, like him, drop down again into the furrow; while the great soul and the sea lift themselves unheard and unseen to heaven, and rushing, sublime and fruit-giving; and waterfalls and thunder-showers dash down into the valleys." Stay, I must give you the beginning of the next paragraph: it will raise you to the seventh heaven. "In a country house on the declivity of the Bergstrasse, an unspeakably sweet tone rises from a woman's breast, like a trembling lark."

W. By the Lord! is L-GF— -w crazed?

A. I know not; but we will shut him up, and his friend Jean Paul, with the guardian spirit of the journalist. There you are, on the shelf again, with Rubeta. Dodo, mes enfants.

W. What is that has dropped ?

A. Where? O! Will you have it? It is a notice of Mr. Sergeant TALFOURD's very ingenuous and sincere praise of Velasco, in a private letter to the author.

W. Thank you: I am quite contented with the specimens of Mr. TALFOURD's criticism (on Elia, I think,) which you gave in the Vision.

A. True. They should be enough to satisfy any man of ordinary stomach. But, now I am at the shelves, I will take down a volume of MURRAY'S Byron, and open it at hazard, to show you how other distinguished critics write. Volume VIII., page 139. Sir EGERTON BRYDGES on the third canto of Childe Harold. "In the first sixteen stanzas there is yet a mighty but groaning burst of dark and appalling strength." That will do,

xxvi

NEGLECT OF VERBAL CRITICISM.

I think. I will not trouble you with Professor WILSON, and others, who, thanks to Mr. MURRAY, have bordered poor Byron with their fustian patches. They are all of a piece, eulogizing or condemning in bad and turgid language the matter of the poems, which speaks for itself, and totally neglecting the manner, on which a just criticism would be of service to the general reader. In fact, the criticism of the day would seem to be based upon the supposition, that every reader is a judge of language, but that few are capable of appreciating a sentiment, or of distinguishing good matter from bad; while the very reverse is the fact.

W. But do you mean me to infer that in their examination of the sentiments, or of the descriptive passages, or of the narrative of a poem, modern critics are usually correct?

A. Eh! God forbid! for then I should ascribe to them the very highest merit in their assumed profession; whereas I have called them false critics; which implies, that even in the part they undertake, they betray insufficience, and are guilty of frequent, if not constant, misrepresentation. If the setting sun did not warn me of the hour, I could, in any volume of the work I took up last, show you page after page of such gross absurdities as would make you smile, and would give you quite as much surprise as amusement.

W. It would not be necessary; for I have noticed them myself; and I know not whether with amusement most, or indignation.

A. Well said; for falsehood in the criticism of sentiment may lead to serious mischief in morals. But, passing this particular topic, there is one consequence of the neglect of verbal criticism, - a consequence at once, and cause, - - that has had a most pernicious effect on the poetry of the day, and has given rise to what we may distinguish as two schools, the prosaic and the florid. Nor is it one of the least singular characteristics of the present era of letters, that two kinds of poetry so diametrically opposed to each other should flourish at one

time, and have equally ardent supporters, and, what is more, supporters who uphold both sides at once!

W. Is not this one of the direct consequences of the neglect you speak of?

A. You are right. For the criticism, that would trample the prose of one class in its native dust, would be exerted equally in pruning the scentless and unproductive luxuriance, and in exscinding the excrescences, of the poetry of the other. Here, therefore, extremes, according to the vulgar saying, meet. And first, let us take a glance at the pretensions of what I have called the prosaic school, which arrogates to itself alone the knowledge and the representation of nature, and which depreciates every thing like art, as unworthy of true genius, and inconsistent with true poetry. Let me ask, then, what is all nature but the result of art? of art divine; for none of us will suppose that its Author acted without rule, where order is universally to be perceived. Now, art among men is but the imitation of this nature, whether as it comes directly from the hands of the Deity, or as modified by secondary causes; and we select, as the object of imitation, what in it is pleasing, or rather, what is attractive. If we paint horrors, we but imitate them, to produce that effect by representation, which they have upon the mind when really perceived; and our pleasure... W. Pleasure?

A. Yes, pleasure of a painful kind; our satisfaction, perhaps I should have said, arises from the truth of the delineation; for let it but be false, and we perceive something ridiculous where before we admired. Now, how is this effect produced? We observe the lights, and shades, the shapes and proportions, and lay on our colors after the prescription, so to speak, of our model. What is this but art? Yet you say, when the effect is produced, How natural it is! I approve of this artist, or this author, because he is so natural! Does this mean that the poet, painter, or sculptor acted without rule? Quite the contrary, I conceive. It is his observation, his careful study, his

xxviii

POWERS OF THE IMAGINATION

knowledge of the principles of his art as taught by sound criticism, which criticism is founded upon the analysis of the works of others, which works are the improvements of consecutive ages, one upon another, the remotest being the rough copy of nature itself, without skill or judgment, like the vermilion ornaments of an Indian tent, or the ancient ballad of Chevy-Chase. Do you see this?

W. Perfectly. And thus it would not be difficult to show nature in Pope, and art in Shakspeare.

A. Certainly not. Who that is competent to judge of both would doubt it? Equally easy would it be to show a compar ative want of them in Wordsworth. But we will pass him, merely saying in the language of DRYDEN, Let him walk on foot with his pad in his hand, but let not those be considered no poets, who mount and show their horsemanship.

W. "Glorious JOHN!" (1) Why there is more imagination in one line of his prose than in a dozen lines of his defamer's

verse.

A. True; and what is quite as valuable, more sense. But your speaking of imagination leads me to notice another mistake into which people have fallen through the misguidance of false critics. The world in general has very little idea of the real merit of a poet as tested by the intrinsic difficulty of his composition, of the facility of composition where the imagination is excited, and of the labor which attends it in proportion as the imagination is kept subordinate to other rarer faculties, I would say, to judgment and reason. If it had, POPE would readily reascend to his proper elevation, and the horde of rhymers that, unlike him, are content to always wander in the maze of fancy, would be very little estimated.

W. But you do not mean to undervalue the powers of the imagination?

A. Not when I assign them their due place. I think it could be easily proved, that of all the faculties that which WORDSWORTH claims to be the first, and which, curiously enough,

(1) CLAUD HALCRO, in the Pirate.

IN THE COMPOSITION OF POETRY.

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he least possesses, is in reality the most common. We find it strong in women, and more fervid in our youth than when the mind is matured. However, without wasting time upon this point, if you practise yourself, endeavour to versify while reasoning, try to make a philosophic poem, and afterwards give the fancy full play, and you shall see. The labor of the latter is one of love, the former needs all your art, all the stores of wit you have gathered in all your life, to keep it from languishing. It is this which makes the composition of occasional pieces no test of ability; for they are written in the heat of fancy, and words and rhymes flow readily with the images; they come of themselves and are not to be sought for. But in a long composition, where connection is to be studied, characters are to be distinguished, and maintained in their distinctness, where variety is to relieve from weariness without distracting the mind from the subject, where, in short, imagination is directed by art, and is subservient to reason, here will you see of what stuff the poet is indeed made. And hence your inferior writers, with few exceptions, confine themselves to small effusions, which are poured out as some incident may tickle the dormant fancy, and enthusiasm may supply the inspiration which the true poet can derive from any subject, be it, as has before been said, a broomstick. And this brings me to what we agreed to call the florid style. We see it frequently asserted, that such and such a one's prose is full of poetry, sparkles with poetry, glows with the most poetical conceptions, and such other phrases; and what kind of writing do we usually find it to be? Merely fustian, some such stuff as PHILIPS' eulogy of WASHINGTON, and, like it, fit for the declamation of school-boys. And this is another of the ideas of poetry which prevail at the present day: it can be written by any one who has imagination which he cultivates at the expense of his reason! that is to say, by fifty-nine young women out of sixty, of whom the sixtieth shall be only half-educated. Is then the talent to produce poetry so common a gift of nature? Can all indeed write it that can dash together stars and