Part 15

1. We will notice _descriptive poetry_ first. 25 Empedocles wrote his physics in verse, and Oppian his history of animals. Neither were poets--the one was an historian of nature, the other a sort of biographer of brutes. Yet a poet may make natural history or philosophy the 30 material of his composition. But under his hands they are no longer a bare collection of facts or principles, but are painted with a meaning, beauty, and harmonious order not their own. Thomson has sometimes been commended for the novelty and minuteness of his remarks upon 5 nature. This is not the praise of a poet, whose office rather is to represent known phenomena in a new connection or medium. In _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_ the poetical magician invests the commonest scenes of a country life with the hues, 10 first of a cheerful, then of a pensive imagination. It is the charm of the descriptive poetry of a religious mind, that nature is viewed in a moral connection. Ordinary writers, for instance, compare aged men to trees in autumn--a gifted 15 poet will in the fading trees discern the fading men.[43] Pastoral poetry is a description of rustics, agriculture, and cattle, softened off and corrected from the rude health of nature. Virgil, and much more Pope and others, have run into 20 the fault of coloring too highly; instead of drawing generalized and ideal forms of shepherds, they have given us pictures of gentlemen and beaux.

Their composition may be poetry, but it is not pastoral poetry. 25

[43] Thus:--

"How quiet shows the woodland scene! Each flower and tree, its duty done, Reposing in decay serene, Like weary men when age is won," etc.

2. The difference between poetical and historical _narrative_ may be illustrated by the Tales Founded on Facts, generally of a religious character, so common in the present day, which we must not be thought to approve, because we use them for our purpose. The author finds in the circumstances of the case many particulars too 5 trivial for public notice, or irrelevant to the main story, or partaking perhaps too much of the peculiarity of individual minds: these he omits. He finds connected events separated from each other by time or place, or a course of action 10 distributed among a multitude of agents; he limits the scene or duration of the tale, and dispenses with his host of characters by condensing the mass of incident and action in the history of a few. He compresses long controversies into a 15 concise argument, and exhibits characters by dialogue, and (if such be his object) brings prominently forward the course of Divine Providence by a fit disposition of his materials. Thus he selects, combines, refines, colors--in fact, 20 poetizes. His facts are no longer actual, but ideal; a tale founded on facts is a tale generalized from facts. The authors of _Peveril of the Peak_, and of _Brambletye House_, have given us their respective descriptions of the profligate times of 25 Charles II. Both accounts are interesting, but for different reasons. That of the latter writer has the fidelity of history; Walter Scott's picture is the hideous reality, unintentionally softened and decorated by the poetry of his own mind. 30 Miss Edgeworth sometimes apologizes for certain incident in her tales by stating they took place "by one of those strange chances which occur in life, but seem incredible when found in writing." Such an excuse evinces a misconception of the principle of fiction, which, being the perfection of 5 the actual, prohibits the introduction of any such anomalies of experience. It is by a similar impropriety that painters sometimes introduce unusual sunsets, or other singular phenomena of lights and forms. Yet some of Miss Edgeworth's 10 works contain much poetry of narrative. Maneuvering is perfect in its way,--the plot and characters are natural, without being too real to be pleasing.

3. _Character_ is made poetical by a like process. 15 The writer draws indeed from experience; but unnatural peculiarities are laid aside, and harsh contrasts reconciled. If it be said the fidelity of the imitation is often its greatest merit, we have only to reply, that in such cases the pleasure 20 is not poetical, but consists in the mere recognition. All novels and tales which introduce real characters are in the same degree unpoetical. Portrait painting, to be poetical, should furnish an abstract representation of an individual; the 25 abstraction being more rigid, inasmuch as the painting is confined to one point of time. The artist should draw independently of the accidents of attitude, dress, occasional feeling, and transient action. He should depict the general spirit of 30 his subject--as if he were copying from memory, not from a few particular sittings. An ordinary painter will delineate with rigid fidelity, and will make a caricature; but the learned artist contrives so to temper his composition, as to sink all offensive peculiarities and hardnesses of 5 individuality, without diminishing the striking effect of the likeness, or acquainting the casual spectator with the secret of his art. Miss Edgeworth's representations of the Irish character are actual, and not poetical--nor were they intended to be so. 10 They are interesting, because they are faithful. If there is poetry about them, it exists in the personages themselves, not in her representation of them. She is only the accurate reporter in word of what was poetical in fact. Hence, 15 moreover, when a deed or incident is striking in itself, a judicious writer is led to describe it in the most simple and colorless terms, his own being unnecessary; for instance, if the greatness of the action itself excites the imagination, or the depth of the 20 suffering interests the feelings. In the usual phrase, the circumstances are left "to speak for themselves."

Let it not be said that our doctrine is adverse to that individuality in the delineation of 25 character, which is a principal charm of fiction. It is not necessary for the ideality of a composition to avoid those minuter shades of difference between man and man, which give to poetry its plausibility and life; but merely such violation of 30 general nature, such improbabilities, wanderings, or coarseness, as interfere with the refined and delicate enjoyment of the imagination; which would have the elements of beauty extracted out of the confused multitude of ordinary actions and habits, and combined with consistency and ease. 5 Nor does it exclude the introduction of imperfect or odious characters. The original conception of a weak or guilty mind may have its intrinsic beauty; and much more so, when it is connected with a tale which finally adjusts whatever is 10 reprehensible in the personages themselves. Richard and Iago are subservient to the plot. Moral excellence in some characters may become even a fault. The Clytemnestra of Euripides is so interesting, that the Divine vengeance, which 15 is the main subject of the drama, seems almost unjust. Lady Macbeth, on the contrary, is the conception of one deeply learned in the poetical art. She is polluted with the most heinous crimes, and meets the fate she deserves. Yet there is 20 nothing in the picture to offend the taste, and much to feed the imagination. Romeo and Juliet are too good for the termination to which the plot leads; so are Ophelia and the Bride of Lammermoor. In these cases there is something 25 inconsistent with correct beauty, and therefore unpoetical. We do not say the fault could be avoided without sacrificing more than would be gained; still it is a fault. It is scarcely possible for a poet satisfactorily to connect innocence with 30 ultimate unhappiness, when the notion of a future life is excluded. Honors paid to the memory of the dead are some alleviation of the harshness. In his use of the doctrine of a future life, Southey is admirable. Other writers are content to conduct their heroes to temporal happiness; 5 Southey refuses present comfort to his Ladurlad, Thalaba, and Roderick, but carries them on through suffering to another world. The death of his hero is the termination of the action; yet so little in two of them, at least, does this 10 catastrophe excite sorrowful feelings, that some readers may be startled to be reminded of the fact. If a melancholy is thrown over the conclusion of the _Roderick_, it is from the peculiarities of the hero's previous history. 15

4. Opinions, feelings, manners, and customs are made poetical by the delicacy or splendor with which they are expressed. This is seen in the _ode_, _elegy_, _sonnet_, and _ballad_, in which a single idea, perhaps, or familiar occurrence, is 20 invested by the poet with pathos or dignity. The ballad of _Old Robin Gray_ will serve for an instance out of a multitude; again, Lord Byron's _Hebrew Melody_, beginning, "Were my bosom as false," etc.; or Cowper's _Lines on his Mother's Picture_; 25 or Milman's _Funeral Hymn_ in the Martyr of Antioch; or Milton's _Sonnet on his Blindness_; or Bernard Barton's _Dream_. As picturesque specimens, we may name Campbell's _Battle of the Baltic_; or Joanna Baillie's _Chough and Crow_; 30 and for the more exalted and splendid style, Gray's _Bard_; or Milton's _Hymn on the Nativity_; in which facts, with which every one is familiar, are made new by the coloring of a poetical imagination. It must all along be observed, that we are not adducing instances for their own sake; 5 but in order to illustrate our general doctrine, and to show its applicability to those compositions which are, by universal consent, acknowledged to be poetical.

The department of poetry we are now speaking 10 of is of much wider extent than might at first sight appear. It will include such moralizing and philosophical poems as Young's _Night Thoughts_, and Byron's _Childe Harold_. There is much bad taste, at present, in the judgment passed on 15 compositions of this kind. It is the fault of the day to mistake mere eloquence for poetry; whereas, in direct opposition to the conciseness and simplicity of the poet, the talent of the orator consists in making much of a single idea. "Sic dicet ille ut 20 verset sæpe multis modis eandem et unam rem, ut hæreat in eâdem commoreturque sententiâ." This is the great art of Cicero himself, who, whether he is engaged in statement, argument, or raillery, never ceases till he has exhausted the 25 subject; going round about it, and placing it in every different light, yet without repetition to offend or weary the reader. This faculty seems to consist in the power of throwing off harmonious verses, which, while they have a respectable portion of 30 meaning, yet are especially intended to charm the ear. In popular poems, common ideas are unfolded with copiousness, and set off in polished verse--and this is called poetry. Such is the character of Campbell's _Pleasures of Hope_; it is in his minor poems that the author's poetical 5 genius rises to its natural elevation. In _Childe Harold_, too, the writer is carried through his Spenserian stanza with the unweariness and equable fullness of accomplished eloquence; opening, illustrating, and heightening one idea, before 10 he passes on to another. His composition is an extended funeral sermon over buried joys and pleasures. His laments over Greece, Rome, and the fallen in various engagements, have quite the character of panegyrical orations; while by the 15 very attempt to describe the celebrated buildings and sculptures of antiquity, he seems to confess that _they_ are the poetical text, his the rhetorical comment. Still it is a work of splendid talent, though, as a whole, not of the highest poetical 20 excellence. Juvenal is perhaps the only ancient author who habitually substitutes declamation for poetry.

5. The _philosophy of mind_ may equally be made subservient to poetry, as the philosophy of nature. 25 It is a common fault to mistake a mere knowledge of the heart for poetical talent. Our greatest masters have known better--they have subjected metaphysics to their art. In Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard, and Othello, the philosophy of 30 mind is but the material of the poet. These personages are ideal; they are effects of the contact of a given internal character with given outward circumstances, the results of combined conditions determining (so to say) a moral curve of original and inimitable properties. Philosophy is 5 exhibited in the same subserviency to poetry in many parts of Crabbe's _Tales of the Hall_. In the writings of this author there is much to offend a refined taste; but, at least in the work in question, there is much of a highly poetical cast. It is a 10 representation of the action and reaction of two minds upon each other and upon the world around them. Two brothers of different characters and fortunes, and strangers to each other, meet. Their habits of mind, the formation of those habits by 15 external circumstances, their respective media of judgment, their points of mutual attraction and repulsion, the mental position of each in relation to a variety of trifling phenomena of everyday nature and life, are beautifully developed in a 20 series of tales molded into a connected narrative. We are tempted to single out the fourth book, which gives an account of the childhood and education of the younger brother, and which for variety of thought as well as fidelity of 25 description is in our judgment beyond praise. The Waverley Novels would afford us specimens of a similar excellence. One striking peculiarity of these tales is the author's practice of describing a group of characters bearing the same general 30 features of mind, and placed in the same general circumstances; yet so contrasted with each other in minute differences of mental constitution, that each diverges from the common starting point into a path peculiar to himself. The brotherhood of villains in _Kenilworth_, of knights in _Ivanhoe_, 5 and of enthusiasts in _Old Mortality_ are instances of this. This bearing of character and plot on each other is not often found in Byron's poems. The Corsair is intended for a remarkable personage. We pass by the inconsistencies of his 10 character, considered by itself. The grand fault is, that whether it be natural or not, we are obliged to accept the author's word for the fidelity of his portrait. We are told, not shown, what the hero was. There is nothing in the plot which results 15 from his peculiar formation of mind. An everyday bravo might equally well have satisfied the requirements of the action. Childe Harold, again, if he is anything, is a being professedly isolated from the world, and uninfluenced by it. One 20 might as well draw Tityrus's stags grazing in the air, as a character of this kind; which yet, with more or less alteration, passes through successive editions in his other poems. Byron had very little versatility or elasticity of genius; he did not 25 know how to make poetry out of existing materials. He declaims in his own way, and has the upper-hand as long as he is allowed to go on; but, if interrogated on principles of nature and good sense, he is at once put out and brought to a 30 stand.

Yet his conception of Sardanapalus and Myrrha is fine and ideal, and in the style of excellence which we have just been admiring in Shakspeare and Scott.

These illustrations of Aristotle's doctrine may 5 suffice.

Now let us proceed to a fresh position; which, as before, shall first be broadly stated, then modified and explained. How does originality differ from the poetical talent? Without 10 affecting the accuracy of a definition, we may call the latter the originality of right moral feeling.

Originality may perhaps be defined the power of abstracting for one's self, and is in thought what strength of mind is in action. Our opinions 15 are commonly derived from education and society. Common minds transmit as they receive, good and bad, true and false; minds of original talent feel a continual propensity to investigate subjects, and strike out views for themselves, so that even old 20 and established truths do not escape modification and accidental change when subjected to this process of mental digestion. Even the style of original writers is stamped with the peculiarities of their minds. When originality is found apart 25 from good sense, which more or less is frequently the case, it shows itself in paradox and rashness of sentiment, and eccentricity of outward conduct. Poetry, on the other hand, cannot be separated from its good sense, or taste, as it is called, which 30 is one of its elements. It is originality energizing in the world of beauty; the originality of grace, purity, refinement, and good feeling. We do not hesitate to say, that poetry is ultimately founded on correct moral perception; that where there is no sound principle in exercise there will be no 5 poetry; and that on the whole (originality being granted) in proportion to the standard of a writer's moral character will his compositions vary in poetical excellence. This position, however, requires some explanation. 10

Of course, then, we do not mean to imply that a poet must necessarily display virtuous and religious feeling; we are not speaking of the actual material of poetry, but of its sources. A right moral state of heart is the formal and scientific 15 condition of a poetical mind. Nor does it follow from our position that every poet must in fact be a man of consistent and practical principle; except so far as good feeling commonly produces or results from good practice. Burns was a man of 20 inconsistent life; still, it is known, of much really sound principle at bottom. Thus his acknowledged poetical talent is in no wise inconsistent with the truth of our doctrine, which will refer the beauty which exists in his compositions to the 25 remains of a virtuous and diviner nature within him. Nay, further than this, our theory holds good, even though it be shown that a depraved man may write a poem. As motives short of the purest lead to actions intrinsically good, so frames 30 of mind short of virtuous will produce a partial and limited poetry. But even where this is instanced, the poetry of a vicious mind will be inconsistent and debased; that is, so far only poetry as the traces and shadows of holy truth still remain upon it. On the other hand, a right moral 5 feeling places the mind in the very center of that circle from which all the rays have their origin and range; whereas minds otherwise placed command but a portion of the whole circuit of poetry. Allowing for human infirmity and the varieties of 10 opinion, Milton, Spenser, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Southey may be considered, as far as their writings go, to approximate to this moral center. The following are added as further illustrations of our meaning. Walter Scott's center is chivalrous 15 honor; Shakspeare exhibits the characteristics of an unlearned and undisciplined piety; Homer the religion of nature and conscience, at times debased by polytheism. All these poets are religious. The occasional irreligion of Virgil's poetry is painful 20 to the admirers of his general taste and delicacy. Dryden's _Alexander's Feast_ is a magnificent composition, and has high poetical beauties; but to a refined judgment there is something intrinsically unpoetical in the end to which it is devoted, the 25 praises of revel and sensuality. It corresponds to a process of clever reasoning erected on an untrue foundation--the one is a fallacy, the other is out of taste. Lord Byron's _Manfred_ is in parts intensely poetical; yet the delicate mind naturally 30 shrinks from the spirit which here and there reveals itself, and the basis on which the drama is built. From a perusal of it we should infer, according to the above theory, that there was right and fine feeling in the poet's mind, but that the central and consistent character was wanting. 5 From the history of his life we know this to be the fact. The connection between want of the religious principle and want of poetical feeling is seen in the instances of Hume and Gibbon, who had radically unpoetical minds. Rousseau, it 10 may be supposed, is an exception to our doctrine. Lucretius, too, had great poetical genius; but his work evinces that his miserable philosophy was rather the result of a bewildered judgment than a corrupt heart. 15