Imatges de pàgina
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brownies, in spirits of the earth, and spirits of the air. They see water-nymphs in the glassy mirror of the fountain, and fairy footprints on the dewy grass of a summer's morning. All parts of creation teem with imagined life. The closeribbed oak is the prison-house of the Dryad. Sylphs and Peris are sucking the perfumes of the liberal' air; and even the bowels of the earth are not without their gnomes and salamanders. The beautiful mythology of the Greeks, and the wild and romantic system of demonology found in the ballads and romances of the middle ages, more particularly the English and Scotch, were both the inventions of a comparatively rude and barbarous people.

But this delusion does not long continue. Men soon become sober-minded and practical. The severe matron, Philosophy, takes the place once occupied by the frolic form of Romance. They speculate and reason, rather than invent; they withdraw from the fair outward creation, its veil of enchantment, and prefer to group into new combinations their old materials, rather than to fashion new ones. The sciences and practical arts of life, occupy a prominent place in the attention of men, and every successive step towards civilization, diminishes the influence of the poetry and romance which were once so absorbing. Poetry, philosophy and criticism, are the characteristics of the three epochs in a nation's literary history. Witness Homer, Plato and Longinus; Chaucer and the ballad writers, Bacon and Locke, and the Edinburgh Review.

The poet or novelist, who is doomed to cater for the fastidious palate of the present age, would do well to throw back as far as possible, the scene of his story, and to shroud his subject in the gloom and mist of by-gone days. His imaginations will not bear the strong light of reality; something 'more must be meant, than meets the eye.' It is the natural tendency of familiarity with objects, to weaken the impression which they produce, and our blunted sensibility requires to be excited by novelty. One half of the pleasure derived from reading a story two or three centuries old, arises from the fact, that we are transported, as it were, into a new world, in which the actors and the scenes are equally strange to us. A modern novel depends for its success on the point and brilliancy of the dialogue, or the bold and graceful delineation of character, rather than on the tangled intricacy of the plot, or the romantic interest of the adventures. These last are entirely precluded by our familiarity with places and persons.

We know the street and number of the hero's residence, and could swear to the boarding school in which the heroine was educated, and the names of the characters are such as we may see every day in the newspapers. All these are essentially unromantic, and he who endeavors to surmount these evils, is sure to make a failure. It may seem singular that we should be so powerfully affected by such trivial things as the names of men and places; but it is no less true than singular; the slightest incongruity is sufficient to break the spell of Romance, and convert the sublime into the ludicrous. With how much more interest should we read of an adventure which happened centuries ago, in the frowning castle of some grim old Baron, with a fine Norman name, than if it had taken place at the villa of a modern peer, where his lordship, as the newspapers have it, 'entertained a highly select and fashionable party!' It is on this principle, that we may account for the ill success of a species of tragedy, which has been attempted in England, and which is commonly called 'domestic.' An apprentice to a thriving tradesman in London is seduced by a lewd woman and murders his uncle. This does not affect me so powerfully, as the story of Rimini or Mirra. Nor can I think that Mr. Beverly, who ruins himself by gaming, is so fine a conception as Shylock or Sir Giles Overreach.

I do not mean to insinuate by what I have said, that there is no longer any room for poetry or romance, and that the materials of fancy have long since been used up. Far from it. As long as man, with his passions and feelings-and nature, with her grandeur and her beauty, exist, there will be eloquence, there will be imagination, there will be poetry. But the task of the poet is more arduous than it was of yore; the highway of romance has been so often trod, that it has long ceased to be interesting: New bye-paths must be continually struck out and explored. The old and well worn similes and illustrations drawn from flowers and forests, and the obvious appearances of nature, have lost their original grace and beauty. We demand new and striking combinations in our fondness for novelty, as well as our taste, shall be gratified. Our poetry must be of course far-fetched, and in some measure, unnatural. But it is a necessary result of cir

cumstances.

The poet, the novel-writer, or the dramatist, who would most successfully appeal to our romantic feelings, must have recourse to the treasured lore of antiquity. He must not present to us events in the reign of George IV., but carry

us back to the stiring times of the lion-hearted Richard, or the equally lion-hearted Elizabeth, where our imagination has free scope and range, and where we are unvexed by the miseries of reality. It is incumbent on us to encourage such feelings, in this 'bank note' age, when all our energies are devoted to the overcoming of physical evils, and to the increasing of our bodily ease and comfort. The adventures of to-day are like a newly painted picture, offensive by its glare of colors and its sharply defined outlines; but the tales of the olden time are like the same picture, when years shall have mellowed its colors, and softened its outlines, and shed over the whole that richness and glow which age alone can give.

MODERN BRITISH ESSAYISTS.

AMONG the prominent contributers of the continental literature of the present day, there are two writers to whom we are indebted for the greatest, because the best, of the obligations of intellect:-the evolution of sound practical principles and truths fitted to occupy man's highest and most benevolent energies. Such food to the mind is as superior to gifts solely designed for the gratification of taste and fancy, as are the laws and productions of the earth to the manifestations of grandeur which naturally flow from them.

In the intellectual world, thought constitutes at once the mind's natural food, and is the fertile source of concomitant beauty. Apparent as is this fact, how seldom is it practically recognised! A high-sounding word, elegantly turned period, unique figure-any thing but thought, deep, thrilling, original thought, is made the beau-ideal of our modern literati. When the grand truth that these are but the frames to the picture, is acknowledged and acted upon, how will the mental banquet be replenished! The frickasies and exquisites will give place to substantials, and intellectual dyspepsia will be quite as rare as any other; for man will no longer attribute to his fellow the stomach of a lion,' and feed him with the 'aliment of a lamb.'

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The writers to whom we allude, stand foremost in the ranks of those who are accelerating the consummation of this auspicious revolution, and their comparative paucity of popular fa

vor is a striking proof of the requisiteness of their labors. The one, by his just and enlightened philosophy, and the other, by his admirable practical disquisitions, are erecting to themselves monuments which, however deficient in perfect symmetry and ornamental detail, possess the massive dignity and grandeur of design, which will ever perpetuate the fame of the architects.

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We can readily understand with what sincere feeling Coleridge must have inwardly, if not audibly, breathed the wish which his pen has recorded: Would that the criterion of a scholar's utility were the number and moral value of the truths which he has been the means of throwing into circulation, or the number and value of the minds which, by his conversation or letters, he has excited into activity, or supplied with the germs of their after growth!' *

An excessive refinement in argument and mysticism of language, are, perhaps, most generally considered the leading faults of this writer. His works, however, essentially differ in regard to the developement of these, and perhaps they may, in some instances, at least, be referred to special causes.— That they are faults, whatever be their origin, is admitted, but it is an undeniable fact that they have been prejudicial to an extent altogether beyond their legitimate tendency.

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We would fain adopt an expedient of Lord Bacon's in reference to individuals thus influenced, who directed the attention of certain ill-judging fault-finders to the Elogie Alcibiades gave of his master Socrates, whom he compared to the Gallipots of the Apothecaries, which on the outside were drawn with apes, owls and antiques, but contained within precious liquors and sovereign confections, acknowledging that to vulgar capacities and popular report, he was not without some superficial lenities and deformities, but was inwardly replenished with excellent powers and virtues.'

A simple medium is confessedly the best for the transmission of thought, but it is the complaint of an over fastidious taste, when an obscure arcana of nature is illuminated, that its interior is not rendered clearly perceptible to the untried and indiscriminating vision of the multitude.

John Foster possesses a signal advantage over Coleridge, in point of popularity, from the fact that most of his works are directly addressed to an enlightened self-interest, and of consequence, are better appreciated by those who possess

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even a moderate share of this rare and invaluable quality, than labors of the same character, but not of such obvious and immediate utility, at least, in the apprehension of the many.

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What an absolute treasure, considered with regard to their appropriate results, are his Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions.' The single but great truth of the independence of belief on the will' so amply and powerfully enforced in that volume, is fraught with unmeasurable good. Some of these effects he has specified, but there are innumerable others, less prominent indeed, but as truly knit into the well-being and advancement of society.

Few, who are habitually observant, can have failed to remark the guarded conduct of many individuals, perhaps imprudent in other respects, as relates to the expression of their opinions, which, as far as it is the result of conscientiousness, is doubtless commendable, but which, not unfrequently, appears to spring from a self-distrust, almost amounting to moral cowardice.

Now we conceive it impossible for a candid individual to peruse the evidence and effects of the truth of which we are speaking, as illustrated by Mr. Foster, without feeling that, as opinions are unvoluntary and consequently not subjects of moral approbation or disapprobation,' it behoves him, while he sedulously follows candor in the formation of opinions, to listen with renewed faithfulness to the dictates of his own judgment, and fearlessly to declare its oracles, whenever private friendship or social duty shall claim its aid.

Yet the times have yet to come when the names of Coleridge and Foster will be engraved in the indelible characters of the popular voice upon the escutcheon of true glory. And the approach of this period will assuredly be retarded, as long as phraseological faults are magnified into paramount objections. But their fame is founded upon a noble sentiment of our nature-intelligent gratitude, or the thankfulness of the improved understanding for the light which has warned into happy existence its latest and unlimited powers.

ADDISON, JR.

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