LILIES. "Look to the lilies how they grow!" Then mourn not we for those we love, Shall He, who paints the lily's leaf, And leave His image, Man, to death? The following extracts from his "Sketches of Poetical Literature for the Past Half Century," will give some idea of Dr. Moir as a most tasteful and judicious critic: HEBREW POETRY. The most sublime poetry, by far, to which the world has ever listened, is that of the Hebrew. It is immeasurably beyond all Greek and all Roman inspiration; and yet its sole theme is the Great Jehovah, and the ways and wonders of His creation. All is simply grand, nakedly sublime; and man before his Maker, even in the act of adoration, is there made to put his lips in the dust. So have done the great bards of succeeding times: Milton, and Young, and Thomson, and Cowper, and Pollok. In approaching the shrine, they take off the sandals from their feet, well knowing that the spot whereon they stand is holy ground. But all not being great, alas! all do not so behave; and hence, in common hands, sacred poetry has become, not without reason, a subject of doubt and discussion; for in them error has dared to counsel infallibility -ignorance to fathom omniscience—and narrow-minded prejudice to circumscribe the bounds of mercy-the human irreverently to approach the Divine-and "fools to rush in where angels fear to tread." GENIUS. Genius is not to be regarded by the gifted as a toy. It is a dread thing. It is like a sharp two-edged sword placed in the hand of its possessor, for much of good or of evil; and the results are exactly as it is wielded, whether to the right hand or to the left. To claim exclusive moral-say rather immoral-privileges for men of genius, as men of genius, is absurd. They ask none, they need none. Eccentricity and error may be coupled with genius, but do not necessarily arise from it—as Shakspeare, Milton, and Scott have lived to illustrate. They spring from quite another source, for they are found a thousand times oftener without such companionship than with it, and verify the epigram of Prior: "Yes! every poet is a fool, By demonstration Ned can show it: Prove every fool to be a poet." Not only should the man of genius be measured by a high standard, but exactly in proportion to the extent and elevation of his powers is he doubly or triply accountable. We may rest assured that there is no discrepancy between the great and the good, for that would be quite an anomaly in the Creator's government of the universe. Only the silly and the shallow, the poetaster, the pretender, and the unprincipled, will seek to skulk behind such a transparent bulwark. Almost all the great poets of ancient and modern times (a few rare exceptions only go to strengthen the rule) have been men who reverenced Heaven and respected themselves, nobly fulfilling their destinies: those-in the pleasant valleys opening up innocent fountains of ever-new delight, for solacing the depressed and refreshing the weary: these-laboring through the defiles of the difficult mountains for flowers of beauty and gems of price, unselfishly and unreservedly to be at once thrown into the general treasury-store of humanity. THE FINEST POETRY-WHAT. We The finest poetry is that (whatever critical coteries may assert to the contrary, and it is exactly the same with painting and sculpture) which is most patent to the general understanding, and hence to the approval or disapproval of the common sense of mankind. have only to try the productions of Shakspeare, of Milton, of Dryden, of Pope, of Gray and Collins, of Scott, Burns, Campbell, and Byron, indeed, of any truly great writer whatever in any language, by this standard, to be convinced that such must be the case. Verse that will not stand being read aloud before a jury of common-sense men, is—and you may rely upon the test-wanting in some great essential quality. It is here that the bulk of the poetry of Shelley -and not of him only, but of most of those who have succeeded him in his track as poets-is, when weighed in the balance, found wanting. And why? Because these writers have left the highways of truth and nature, and, seeking the by-lanes, have there, mistaking the uncommon for the valuable, bowed down to the idols of affectation and false taste. MYSTICAL AND METAPHYSICAL POETRY. Passing at a tangent from the tame, the artificial, the conventional school of Hayley, and the hyperbolical extra-mundane one of Lewis, I am willing to admit that the poetry of Joanna Baillie and William Wordsworth may have rested too exclusively on mere simplicity or naturalness of sentiment and emotion; that Scott, on the other hand, may have too unreservedly hinged on action and description; and that the Italianisms of Hunt, Keats, and Cornwall, no doubt occasionally merged into affectation. But it was scarcely to be expected, even ere Campbell had passed away from among us, and who had given us such admirable illustrations of the classical and romantic combined-that he was to see the rise, and shudder over the progress of a school-as I know he did- which was to rejoice in poetical conception without poetical execution-which was to substitute the mere accumulation of the raw materials for the triumph of art in their arrangement;-in short, to displace the Parthenon by a Stonehenge. Such, however, has been the case, and such the course of events, to whatever cause the anomaly is to be traced,-whether to the wearing out or case-hardening of the soil by the great masters, who have illuminated our age; or to the main current of the national mind having been diverted into quite another channel-that of physical scienceleaving poetry to harp to the winds or to an audience sparse and select. Simple utterance of feeling-with a mystical commentary on such utterance—is all that the purest disciples of this newest of our schools aspire to. Fine images, allegorical symbols-hyeroglyphic meanings speculative thought, we have in superfluity, but no apparent aim, and seldom any attempt at composition. Tares and wheat are allowed to grow up together to one unweeded harvest, and often the bugloss and the poppy, scattered plentifully throughout the field, look very like flowers in their respective blue and 'Undoubtedly a most true criterion: how then would the greater part of the poetry of Wordsworth or of Tennyson stand this test? scarlet jackets. But who would term this either agriculture or gardening? Mysticism in law is quibbling; mysticism in religion is the jugglery of priestcraft; mysticism in medicine is quackery-and these often serve their crooked purposes well. But mysticism in poetry can have no attainable triumph. The sole purpose of poetry is to delight and instruct, and no one can be either pleased or profited by what is unintelligible. It would be as just to call stones and mortar, slates and timber, a mansion; or to call colors and canvas a picture, as to call mystical effervescences poetry. Poems are poetical materials artistically elaborated; and if so, the productions of this school, from Emerson to Browning, cannot be allowed to rank higher than rhapsodical effusions. It is necessary for a poet to think, to feel, and to fancy; but it is also necessary for him to assimilate and combine-processes which the pupils of this transcendental academy seem indeed to wish understood either that they totally overlook, or affect to undervalue as worthless. Resultsproducts conclusions—not ratiocinations are expected from the poet. "His heart leaps up when he beholds a rainbow in the sky;" but the laws of refraction producing this emotion he leaves to be dealt with as a fit subject for science. It is the province of the poet to describe the western sunset sky "dying like a dolphin" in its changeful hues, not the optical why and wherefore of twilight. In short, his business is with enunciations, not with syllogisms. The poet springs to conclusions not by the logic of science, but by intuition; and whosoever, as a poet, acts either the chemist, the naturalist, or the metaphysician, mistakes the object of his specific mission. Philosophy and poetry may, in most things, not be incompatible; but they are essentially distinct. Metaphysical analyses cannot be accepted as substitutes either for apostrophes to the beautiful, or for utterances of passion. I hold them to be as different from these as principles are from products, or as causes from effects. THOMAS MOORE, 1779-1852. THOMAS MOORE, the son of a respectable tradesman of Dublin, was born in that city on the 28th of May, 1779. After the usual preparatory course of study, he entered Trinity College, in his native city, where he graduated in November, 1799. He then went to England, and became a student in the Middle Temple; but, though ultimately called to the bar, he gave up his time chiefly to literary pursuits. In 1800, he published his translation of the "Odes of Anacreon," which T were received with great favor, and elicited from the Hon. Henry Erskine the following complimentary impromptu :— "Ah! mourn not for Anacreon dead Ah! weep not for Anacreon fled- Soon after this he published his miscellaneous poems, under the title of "The Poetical Works of the late Thomas Little,"-a volume which was censured, and censured severely, for its licentiousness, and of which the author, many years afterwards, was heartily ashamed. In 1806 he visited our country, and published, shortly after his return to England, his remarks on American society and manners, in a volume entitled "Epistles, Odes, and other Poems," which was reviewed with great and deserved severity in the "Edinburgh Review," by Mr. Jeffrey.' In 1812 appeared his celebrated "Intercepted Letters, or The Two-Penny PostBag, by Thomas Brown the Younger." This was followed by the "Fudge Family in Paris," and "Fables for the Holy Alliance,"-all satires upon the passing topics of the day; but-though evincing great wit, and a rich playful fancy, and for the time extremely popular--all destined to pass away and be forgotten. But not so his "Irish Songs and Melodies," and his "Hebrew Melodies," which display a depth of fervor, a richness of fancy, and a touching pathos, united to exquisite beauty and polish of versification, that will cause them to be read and admired as long as the English language endures. In 1817 appeared his most elaborate poem, "Lalla Rookh," an oriental romance the accuracy of which, as regards topographical, antiquarian, and characteristic details, has been vouched for by numerous competent authorities; and which unites the purest and softest tenderness with the loftiest dignity, while its poetry is brilliant and gorgeous-rich to excess with imagery and ornament— and oppressive from its very sweetness and splendor. The genius of the poet moves with grace and freedom under his load of eastern magnificence, and the reader is fascinated by his prolific fancy, and the scenes of loveliness and splendor which are depicted with such vividness and truth. In 1823 came out "The Loves of the Angels," which contains many passages of great beauty, but, as a whole, inferior to his former productions. The poem is founded on "the Eastern story of the angels Harut and Marut, and the Rabbinical fictions of the lives of Uzziel and Shamchazai," with which Moore shadowed out "the fall of the soul from its original purity—the loss of light and happiness which it suffers in the pursuit of this world's perishable pleasures--and the punishments, both from conscience and Divine justice, with which impurity, pride, and presumptuous inquiry into the awful secrets of Heaven, are sure to be visited." In 1825 was published his "Life of Sheridan," which, "with some omissions. and perhaps a few mistakes, some little faults of style, and some precipitate "The author may boast, if the boast can please him, of being the most licentious of mo dern versifiers, and the most poetical of those who, in our times, have devoted their talents to the propagation of immorality. We regard this book, indeed, as a public nuisance, and would willingly trample it down by one short movement of contempt and indignation, had we not reason to apprehend that it was abetted by patrons who are entitled to a more respectful remonstrance, and by admirers who may require a more extended exposition of their dangers."-Edinburgh Review, viii. 456. |