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POETRY

OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

The poetry of the eighteenth century abounded in the poetic forms of language, as distinguished from the poetry of thought. To excel in delicacies of expression, and to prove themselves masters of the charms of style, was the highest ambition of the writers of this period, and they did not attempt to produce anything touching or deeply interesting. Dryden perfected the language, and Pope improved upon perfection itself. The most inferior poets of his school, and of those times, were scrupulous about the dress of their thoughts, and most of them attained a faultless style. Gardening and the fine arts generally, were carried to the last degree of refinement: nature was lost sight of in the adornment of art, and every thing was calculated to please the eye and ear without affecting the heart. The influence of the institutions of the middle ages, which were calculated to engender fiction, had ceased; the race of fabulous beings, fairies, genii, and gnomes, with their charms, incantations and enchantments, had departed; the pastoral character, the minstrel and the troubadour had disappeared, the distinctive

characters of society had softened, and become blended, and the elements of poetry were few and simple. To these, obedient to the dictates of a fastidious taste, the poet sedulously employed himself.

The charms of language, and the music of verse ceased at length to interest: the eye was satiated with beauty, and the ear with sweet sounds, and a new path to fame was marked out.

After the poetry of natural scenery and rural life, which succeeded that of wit, had become exhausted, men returned again to the fictions of thought and feeling.

The poetry of this century is characterized for sweetness, sensibility, delicacy of feeling. Coleridge, Campbell, Wordsworth, Scott, Byron, Shelley and Keats are names of magic. They are enshrined in every heart: their works are too popular to require comment; they are not confined to the shelf; they are incorporated with real life, and form a part of the spirit of the times.

The elegance and polish of Rogers' poetry allies him to a preceding age. His Pleasures of Memory have a higher finish, with less power of thought than the Pleasures of Imagination. He had the taste and genuine simplicity of Burns. He did not possess a creative imagination, but the purity, the refined sentiment, and the harmony of his verse, give it an indestructible charm.

The romance, the tenderness, and the sublimity of Coleridge, are equal to the elegance and grace of Rogers. Coleridge had a mind that seized the elements of things, separated them from their concomitants,

and formed them to an ideal standard. He had the subtlety and dreamy wildness of the German mind, and he infused into poetry a spiritual philosophy, and gave to it lucid and gorgeous imagery. He is the sweetest and most musical of poets.

Campbell is the last representative of the elaborate eloquence of Pope. He is emphatically the poet of rhetoric: his patriotism and his thrilling numbers will always find a welcome reception in the human breast. His Pleasures of Hope, and Lochiel's warning are the offspring of the noblest enthusiasm, and have a wild sweep of harmonious energy. Crabbe's poetry has as much energy of thought, without the tenderness, the hope and harmony: neither is his taste as correct or his fancy as fine as Campbell's.

Southey's early poetry is his best: the vein of enthusiasm, of mild and touching moral reflection that pervades this, renders it more pleasing than the impressive grandeur, and the abruptness of his later works. The wild fancy, and the marvellous invention of these give them an air of heroism and magnificence too extravagant for credulity, and too much affected for admiration.

Such works display the master mind, but they do not come home to the heart like the fine fancies, and the joyous melodies of Moore. Moore has the most sparkling wit, the most playful and brilliant fancy of any writer of our age. What tenderness, what beauty, what melody breathes in every line? He is full of vivacity; he has the life of the most elastic spirit, but not the vigor of the most contemplative mind.

He has as much wit, a richer vein of fancy, and more intensity of feeling than Suckling. He has a more caustic vein of irony, without the spleen of Swift.

Wordsworth is no wit, but the want of it is more than made up in his delicate sensibility to the impression of beauty. His mind is "a mansion for all lovely forms;" his memory

"As a dwelling-place,

For all sweet sounds and harmonies,"

and his heart has kept "the holy forms of young imagination pure." He looks on nature with a contemplative eye, with chastened and subdued feeling, and he feels "the joy of elevated thoughts, and a sense sublime," which the true poet feels. He excels all other poets in elevating what is low, and magnifying what is small, and he can rise into grandeur and sublimity by the simple majesty of thought, and without the least apparent effort. He displays profundity of genius in the execution of his simplest subjects. He has a kind heart, "the sad music of humanity" is not "harsh nor grating" to his ear.

Mrs. Barbauld has the most classic taste of any female writer in the language. She has been termed, and with great significance, the female Johnson. She has the Johnsonian polish, with greater ease of expression, and exquisite tenderness. She has imagination, pathos and sublimity. Hannah More's poetry has a severe terseness, and is imbued with a spiritual philosophy. Baillie has a great dramatic power, and gorgeous imagery. Landon abounds in fresh flowers,

and sweet odors, and the poems of Hemans are sparkling and gem-like. What a lovely constellation of female genius do they form! The rich wreaths which they have added to English literature, give immortal honor to the sex.

Shelley's unique sensibility and delicacy ally him to these paragons of intellectual beauty. His organization, was almost too delicate to "bear the weight of the superincumbent air." By acting in obedience to his own notions of justice, he was at war with everything that was not founded in reason, though his life does not entirely coincide with his aspirations after human perfectability. His is the poetry of sentiment and intellect, of intense feeling, and the most ethereal spirit. He, with his strong sympathy and ethereal genius, is the very being that he likens his Skylark to: -A poet hidden

In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
'Till the word is wrought

To sympathize with hopes and fears it heeded not.

He has as fine a fancy as Coleridge, with more intense and lofty feeling. He has not the artistic grace of Coleridge, nor the classic taste and elegance of Leigh Hunt, but he has more rapture, more brilliancy than either, and he can accumulate images with imposing grandeur.

Keats was even more sensitive than Shelley, without his fortitude and native independence of character. He possessed originality of thought, but he had not sufficient energy of character to give perfection to

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