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9. The foundations of a new poetical school were already laid. Percy's Collection of Reliques was published between Goldsmith's two poems: and, a little earlier, Macpherson had electrified the republic of letters by Fingal, an ancient Epic Poem." The attention bestowed, not altogether unworthily, on his Ossianic fragments, was a hopeful symptom: so were the attempts made, though mainly for political reasons, to push into fame the elegant but cold Epics of Glover. The seed was sown: but it was long in vegetating. In our own day we still encounter, though not very often, verses of some of the minor poets: such as Armstrong, Smollett, Langhorne, Warton, and Mason; or Bruce, Logan, and Fergusson. Hoole translated Tasso and Ariosto very tamely from the Italian; while the Portuguese poet Camoens was rendered by Mickle with spirit but incorrectness. Some light poetical pieces of our own time, especially satires of Moore, have been modelled on the comic rhymes of Anstey.

The short career of the unhappy Chatterton held out wonder ful promise, both of genius, and of the employment of it in a worthy sphere. But, when we enter "The Botanic Garden" of Darwin, we find that we have been enticed back into the wilderness of didactic verse: while this masterly versifier exemplifies also, almost everywhere, one of the most common of poetical errors; namely, the attempt to make poetry describe minutely the sensible appearances of corporeal objects, instead of being content with communicating the feelings which those objects awaken. b. 1735. Beattie's "Minstrel" presents a marked and agreeable d. 1803. contrast to Darwin. It is the outpouring of a mind exquisitely poetical in feeling, and instinctively true to the just methods of poetical representation. Many of his descriptions are most vividly suggestive; although his strength lies, not so much in illustrating external objects by describing the emotions which they cause, as in the converse process of illustrating mental phenomena by touches of external scenery. Indeed, his deficiency in keen observation of the material world is one of the points in which he falls short of Goldsmith: and another is his want of that dramatic power, by which a poet becomes qualified to represent the character and sentiments of others. The Minstrel is a kind of autobiography, an analytic narrative of the early growth of a poet's mind and heart. Taken all in all, it is one of the most delightful poems in our language.*

*JAMES BEATTIE.

From "The Minstrel :" Book First.

Then grieve not, thou, to whom th' indulgent Muse
Vouchsafes a portion of celestial fire:

10. The poetical annals of our period, opening with Oliver Goldsmith, close with William Cowper and Robert Burns. b. 1781. The unequalled popularity, gained and still preserved d. 1800. by Cowper's poems, is owing to several causes, besides the favour which, in the rarity of good religious poetry, is so readily extended to all productions of that class showing either power or promise. The most powerful of these causes is, doubtless, their genuine force and originality of poetical portraiture. The characteristic features which distinguish this remarkable writer from his recent predecessors are two. Refusing to confine himself to that dignified and elaborate diction which had become habitual in English verse, he unhesitatingly made poetry use, always when it was convenient, the familiar speech of common conversation. He showed yet greater boldness, by seeking to interest his readers in the scenes and relations of every-day life, and in those objects of reflection which are most strikingly real. Yet his language is often vulgar, and not least so when his theme is most sublime; and his most successful passages, his minutely touched descriptions of familiar still-life and rural scenery, are indeed strongly suggestive, but have little of the delicate susceptibility of beauty which breathes through Thomson's musings on nature. Wordsworth, who knew well the importance of classifications of kind, as indicating the particular aim of a poem, and thus modifying all its elements, experienced not a little difficulty in determining the genus to which should be assigned Cowper's masterpiece, "The Task." He regards it as standing, along with "The Night-Thoughts," in a composite class, combining the Phi losophical Satire, the Didactic Poem, and the Idyl or poem of

Nor blame the partial Fates, if they refuse
Th' imperial banquet and the rich attire!

Know thine own worth, and reverence the lyre!
Wilt thou debase the heart which God refined?

No! let thy Heaven-taught soul to Heaven aspire,
To fancy, freedom, harmony resign'd;
Ambition's grovelling crew for ever left behind!

Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Óf charms which Nature to her votary yields!
The warbling woodlands, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, and garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even;

All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of heaven;

Oh, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven!

description and reflection. The poet's paramount aim, in that work as elsewhere, is perhaps didactic: and he often delights us most by exciting trains of thought and feeling, which are not in any just sense poetical. This tendency being united with his idiomatic plainness of style, we seem often as if we were listening to an observant, thoughtful, and imaginative speaker, who now argues and comments in sensible prose, and now breaks out into snatches of striking and poetical verse. Yet, in spite of these things, in spite of the frequent clumsiness of the satire, and the painful impression caused by the gloom which sometimes darkens the devout rapture, the effect is such as only a genuine poet could have produced.*

Perhaps it may be merely an eccentricity of taste, that here suggests a protest on behalf of our poet's neglected version of Homer in blank verse. His Iliad, it must be allowed, if it has the

*WILLIAM COWPER.

From "The Winter Walk at Noon."

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And, as the mind is pitch'd, the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch'd within us; and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away;
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,

And with it all its pleasures and its pains.

*

*

*

*

*

The night was winter in his roughest mood,
The morning sharp and clear.

But now, at noon,

Upon the southern side of the slant hills,

And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,

And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud; and white without a speck
The dazzling splendour of the scene below.
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale,

And through the trees I view th' embattled tower,
Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains;
And settle in soft musings, as I tread

The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms,
Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.

simplicity of the original, wants its warlike fervour; but we cannot help thinking that the romantic adventures of the Odyssey, and, above all, its descriptions of scenery, are rendered with exceeding felicity of poetic effect.

b. 1759.

Our estimate of Cowper's poems is inevitably heightened by our love and pity for the poet, writing, not for fame, but for consolation, and uttering, from the depths of a half-broken heart, his reverent homage to the power of religious truth. Our affection will not be colder, and our compassion is tenfold more profound, d. 1796. Robert Burns. Shutting our eyes to everything in his when we contemplate the agitated and erring life of } works that is unworthy of him, and proud to know that in the rest a Scottish peasant has given to the literature of the AngloSaxon race some of its most precious jewels, we yet cannot but feel, that all which this extraordinary man achieved was earnest of what he might have done, rather than performance adequate to the power and the vast variety of his endowments. His Songs have entranced readers who were at first repelled by their dialect; and it is on these that his fame rests more firmly. No lyrics in any tongue have a more wonderful union of thrilling passion, melting tenderness, concentrated expressiveness of language, and apt and natural poetic fancy. But neither the song, nor any of the higher kinds of lyrical verse, could have given scope for other qualities which he has elsewhere shown: his aptness in seizing and representing the phases of human character; his genial breadth and keenness of humour; and the strength of creative imagination with which he rises into the regions of the allegoric and supernatural. The strange tale of "Tam o' Shanter" is the assay-piece of a poet, who, if born under a more benignant star, might perhaps have been a second Chaucer.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

SECTION FIRST: THE CHARACTER OF THE PERIOD.

A. D. 1800-A. D. 1852.

1. General Character of the Last Fifty Years-Two Ages embraced in the Period.-2. The First Age-Its Poetry-Its Poetical Eminence and Characteristics.--3. The First Age-Its Prose--Novels-The Reviews and other Periodicals--Variety of its Productions.-4. Foreign Impulses affecting the whole Period.-5. The Second Age-Its Mixed Character-Its Social Aspects.

1. THE Nineteenth Century is, naturally, for us, more interesting than any other period in English Literature: and, among all of them, there is perhaps none which will receive more curious attention from literary students, hereafter, than the fifty years of it that have already elapsed.

The intellectual character of the time is so novel as well as so various, as to be in itself peculiarly difficult of analysis: and we, whose minds have been moulded on its lessons, are not favourably placed, either for comprehending it profoundly, or for impartially estimating the value of the monuments it has produced.

Unquestionably it has been, and is, a time of extraordinary mental activity; and that, too, not only exerted by men of very uncommon endowments, but diffusing itself more widely than ever before throughout the nation at large. While books have been multiplied beyond precedent, readers have become more numerous in a proportion yet greater; and the diffusion of general enlightenment has been aimed at, not less zealously than the discovery of new truths. The critical and questioning temper, which cannot but reign in a state of society like ours, has been guided by an eager warmth very unlike to the tendency of the eighteenth century; nor is it less encouraging to observe, how the increasing animation of spirit has arisen out of an increasing inclination among literary men to interest themselves, though not always wisely, in important social problems. While no other time since the birth of our nation has exhibited so surprising a variety in the kinds of literature cultivated, none has been distinguished so honourably by the prevalence of enlightened and philanthropic senti

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