599 On the Genius and Writings of Wordsworth. who has called forth the holiest of our sympathies, and told of the hopes of man and his immortal destiny-of one who has lived in this "bright and breathing world," and has not lived in vain. We wish them to look on those visions of glory and immortality, which this poet has prepared for them, and to follow us into those regions of love and of beauty, where we have "garnered up our hearts." In the poetry of Wordsworth, there is not any thing to which the mind does not at any time recur with pleasure. His chief subjects are Life, Death, Childhood, and Old Age; and over these he casts a naked majesty of feeling, which we cannot but revere and love. He calls forth no lurking disease of the heart, and pictures no vitiated hero-he brings before us no object but what is bright and pure, and tells us of no passions but those which are, and ever should be, a Poet's fairest creations. He binds man and the universe by that "natural piety" which awakes all our dearest sympathies, and conducts the current of our affections into those fairy channels where they can have their "pleasant excercise of hope and joy." To him, the "bare earth and mountains bare" are a delight. He looks upon Nature in all her changes, with a mind abstracted from every thing worldly, and to him the meanest flower that blows upon the desolate heath, can raise up thoughts which "do often lie too deep for tears." He has written nothing that we could wish to see cancelled-he has not given us any terrific or startling subjects-subjects, which however they may astonish, and however forcibly depicted, never find any true sympathy in the human heart-but he has passed over the beaten paths of our existence, and guided us to many a sweet spring of joy and consolation, which flows by the way-side of humanity. He looks upon this world as from a higher sphere, and "lives along" the tender ties of love and affection that bind the great family of man together. He delights to call forth the holiest associations, and trace them to their final destiny-to picture the sweet and happy dreams of infancy and youth, and to tell of That first mild touch of sympathy and thought 600 We have said some little upon Mr. Wordsworth; let him now speak for himself. One or two extracts will suffice to shew that he may deservedly claim a very high station amongst the living poets. How intensely does he picture the feelings of one of Nature's lovers, in the following lines. Oh then what soul was his, when on the tops Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth touched, And in their silent faces did he read Nothing can be more artless and to the 66 66 I have seen within Were heard, sonorous cadences! whereby, 601 Chequered Life of Man. Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times, 602 lumes are not seen on every table, they are seen on the tables of those who are allowed to be the choicest spirits of the age, and the approbation of one man of genius is worth the applause of a whole multitude of inferiors. The proper estimate of a work, is not, how much is it read, but by whom is it read; and it is not a Neither has he been wanting in loftier subjects. Mr. Wordsworth man's powers, that his name should just criterion of the worth of any has passed over the field of Waterloo, be blown into every corner of the and so has Lord Byron-but in what earth by the four winds of heaven. do they differ? The former has given Had, however, Mr. Wordsworth been to the world, in his Thanksgiving Odes, that ordinary versifier which some a train of thought the most sublime declare he is, he would not have mainthe latter has looked upon that Gol-tained his name in public opinion so gotha of his fallen countrymen, and sneered at the conquest. It would be impossible to offer any adequate idea of Mr. Wordsworth's odes; we will however give one of his sonnets, written upon the same occassion. The Bard, whose soul is meek as dawning day, away: Assoiled from all incumbrance of our time, Beholding, welcomed with a choral shout. Surely there is no one but must perceive great power in this sonnet. It will be a lasting stain upon the name of Byron, that he should have trodden over the ground whereon his countrymen fought their greatest battle, and achieved their noblest conquest, and address them as he has done. Did he breathe a word in his country's cause? Did he exert his genius in her behalf? Did he celebrate her triumphs? No: Rome was in flames, and Nero sat playing on his harp. There is not any living poet who has rested so much upon the bare strength of his own powers, as Mr. Wordsworth; and that man is only to be long, much less would he have been ever rising in it; and as to the egotism so loudly complained of, there is not half the quantity to be found in all he has ever written, as there is in the single production of Childe Harold. With regard to Childe Harold, altho' it is imbued with the intensest passion, and displays the noblest genius, yet there is that inherent in its nature which will be its destruction; and Lord Byron, with all his genius, and with all his power, is only like the fabled phoenix bird of the east, kindling the flame that will consume him. Men do not love to dwell long on those cheerless pictures-those gloomy wanderings of feeling in which that poem abounds; and it is for this sole reason, that the name of Byron is losing ground, and must still continue to do so. When the fever of excitement is past, and the reign of misanthropy over, then will poetry like that of Wordsworth's become universally read; and instead of our being satisfied with those writings which tell us that man is a villain, and this "bright and breathing world" a wilderness, we shall turn with delight to the imagination of him which lives in the rainbow, and plays among the plighted clouds." Bridge-street, Derby. G. M. THE CHEQUERED LIFE OF MAN. pitied who can read many of his son- LIFE is not entirely made up of great nets, the ode on the Intimations of evils, or heavy trials, but the perpeImmortality, and above all, that no-tual recurrence of petty evils and blest philosophical poem which this small trials, is the ordinary and apage has produced, the Excursion, and pointed exercise of the Christian represent their author as an object fit graces. for scorn to point its" slow unmoving finger at." If Mr. Wordsworth's voNo. 29.-VOL. III. To bear with the infirmities of those about us, with their failings, their b 2 Q 603 Observations on Study and Learning. judgments, their ill breeding, their perverse tempers; to endure neglect, where we feel we have deserved attention, and ingratitude where we expected thanks; to bear with the company of disagreeable people, whom Providence has placed in our way, and whom perhaps he has provided on purpose for the trial of our virtue, these are the best exercises, and the better, because not chosen by ourselves. To bear with vexations in our business, with disappointments in our expectations, with interruptions to our retirement, with folly, intrusion, disturbance, in short, with whatever opposes our will, or contradicts our humour; this habitual acquiescence appears to be more of the essence of self-denial, than any little rigours or inflictions of our own impressing. 604 truths, growing in any man's mind, become a public benefit? And has not society a right to exclaim against the idle drone, who contributes nothing to the common stock? Is not the applause of successive generations well bestowed upon such as elevate Mind, and bring a more than common quantity into general use? "Has a man any family connection? does he belong to any body, or does any body belong to him? let every one recollect, and he will find in his immediate parents, or his remoter ancestry, some name to be supported, some talent to excite emulation, some progress made in science, art, or usefulness, which should stimulate him to push forward in a career so glorious, so important. Brothers invite, and sisters urge the youth, whose happiness it is to own titles so dear, so influential. Let there be no one of the little circle deficient, no one TO THE EDITOR OF THE IMPERIAL stone in the concentric arch untrue to MAGAZINE. SIR,-The following excellent observations, are from the pen of the celebrated Isaac Taylor and although they are not a direct answer to the Query, (col. 374,)" What are the best methods to be adopted, in order to induce a person who has leisure to give his attention to Study and Learning?" yet they bear so much on the question, and seem so very applicable to the design of the Querist, that, if admitted into your very popular and useful work, as a kind of "addenda" to a regular answer, or as a rear guard, after the first rank, I augur they will be beneficial and acceptable to the Querist, and the generality of your readers. S I am, Mr. Editor, your's, &c. A. B. C. -n, Cleveland, Yorkshire. "THE public cry out, and justly, of the millions of acres suffered to lie waste, which are capable of considerable and annually increasing produce. It is a debt due to society to bring them into cultivation. It has obtained as an axiom, that he who causes an ear of corn to grow, where none ever grew before, is a public benefactor. Has not society an equal claim, a much more important right, to call on every man not to let his mental powers lic waste? Will not a rich harvest of ideas, principles, and its proper station: be able to meet their eyes without the conscious blush of indolence, or the hardened stare, which custom in shameful but unshaming backwardness, is apt to assume. Be one of us; an honour to the family, to the name already brightening in the records of useful and honourable fame. "He who gives to every one the talents he possesses, will expect them to be put to their proper uses; well knowing that much increase may be thus obtained. The man who is content merely to vegetate, who has powers of life given him; content just to exist, when he might grow, and rise, and shine, be useful, be honourable; surely such a man, if man he deserves to be called, will be found an unprofitable servant, will be adjudged to have hid his talent in a napkin, and wasted his master's goods. He, on the contrary, who has used his various powers honourably, as he certainly will gain other talents, two, or five, or ten; will have that best of all commendation,-Well done, enter thou into joy. "When the mind begins to try its own powers, the exertion will repay itself, by the pleasure it affords. To find a purse on the road, yields not more gratification to the sordid, than the finding out truth (especially if on some new view of it) gives to the inquisitive mind. To be in the conti 605 Anecdote.-Remarks on the PastoralPoets of Italy. 606 nual habit of such gratifications, is | farmer, who felt conscious of having to make life pleasant indeed. Trea- frequently indulged himself with a sure found as before supposed, may nap during the Doctor's sermon. be lost again; but knowledge once obtained can never be stolen away. It remains; and the joy of finding, when settled into satisfaction of possessing, continues to yield out its beneficial influence without failing. "If a man pass all his days dozing upon a bed, or lounging on a sofa, we can scarcely repress the smile of contempt at limbs so useless; especially, if by nature they are strong or beautiful. But if mind be thus indolent, if its active powers sink into lethargy, if it be not roused to action; the soul of an oyster might do as well for such a man. An intellectual spirit is lost, unless its activities are employed; and that upon something noble, useful, and worthy its high dignity. › "The husbandman glows with joy as he sees the plantations spring, as he finds the toil bestowed is now likely to be rewarded. He knows his honest fame will be sure he will be well distinguished from the sluggard at the first glance, and honoured accordingly. Every man owes this duty to himself. To neglect his mind, is a crime of no small magnitude, a sort of felo de se, deep indeed in guilt, because destructive, not to his body merely, but to his nobler powers; to his better self; to that intellectual spirit, which denominates him Man." ANECDOTE OF DR PALEY. REMARKS ON THE PASTORAL POETS OF ITALY: AND MR. LEIGH HUNT'S "Mira cio che sa fare anco ne' petti Più semplici e più molli, amore industre." GUARINI. THE reed, though not the loudest, or the most celebrated, of musical instruments, is at least the oldest and most simple. Its music was, perhaps, the first to win the ear of love, to express the charms of external nature, or the peace and love of patriarchal or wandering tribes, during the golden and Arcadian days. If we may be permitted to speak allegorically, its music is also most like that of nature,-and we might imagine that its sad and lonely voice heard whispering in the whistling winds, from its wild and solitary bed, first inspired some poetic spirit with the desire of giving a voice to the genuine impulses of song. The shepherd on the mountain, the huntsman in the forest, and the angler over the stream, were in the earliest periods of society sensible of the charm which it shed over their wayward and solitary life. In all ages, and in every nation, it is the earliest, the most spontaneous, and the most delightful, of all poetry: for it combines the description of nature, with that of the most beautiful of the human passions-love. It is therefore as universal as nature herself, and as old as the world we live in. The Icelander borne on his sledge over unvaried tracts of snow-the Arab in his sandy desert, and the wild Indian in his mighty forests, as well as the milder offspring of southern climes, are all equal sharers in its universal influence the poets of nature singing their wild and untutored strains of love or warfare, of domestic and rural joys. DR. Paley having naturally a weak voice, submitted to the Churchwardens of Dalton, near Carlisle, (of which place he was vicar,) the propriety of having a sounding board put over his pulpit. While the matter was discussing in the vestry, "Oh!" said a thrifty farmer, "if the Doctor would but speak as loud in the pulpit as he does at christening and tithe days, faith, I think there would be no occasion to put the parish to the expense of a sounding box." The Doctor, Among the people of the south and with his characteristic mildness, re- the west, this earliest species of poetry torted, "Friend, you are mistaken; assumed a richer and more luxurious you hear much better out of church character, partaking of the sweetness than in it. When a man's worldly in- and beauty of the climate in which it terest is concerned, he is so sharp- sprung, inspiring feelings highly faeared, that he can hear even in a whis- vourable to the development of gevoice of John the Baptist, to rouse the tual powers. Thus the Greeks and per, but the preacher needs even the nius, and refinement of the intellecsleepers." This silenced the satirical Italians are no less celebrated for the 607 Remarks on the Pastoral Poets of Italy. 608 that Mr. L. H. would lose nothing in point of solidity, and strength of hand, were he to cultivate the acquaintance of Homer. He would then find, that not even the Romans originated any new spe magic of their pencil, than of their voice; and we perceive that poetry and painting never flourished with such consummate triumph of mind, as in the two aras-of their rise in Greece, and of their revival in Italy. The difference between the two na-cies of poetry, but that there once tions is that the Greeks invented, and the Italians for the most part imitated, these arts. And the latter do not, as Mr. L. H. erroneously supposes in his preface, lay claim, among their other inventions, to the merit of even having created the pastoral drama. The Italians are an ingenious, but an imitative rather than an inventive people; they amassed, but did not create their wealth;-they are only the heirs of Greece and Rome, and their claim to immortality rests, not in having in any species originated, but in having carried the discoveries of the Greeks in every branch of the fine arts, to an exquisite degree of perfection. Not that we mean to assert, that the Greeks have an exclusive privilege to all invention; if we cannot trace them so plainly, it is, perhaps, because we know none of those poets before them, of whom they may have borrowed the materials of art. We are certain, for instance, that many among the Greeks who came after Homer, borrowed from his poems, and even he was accused of destroying the productions of those who wrote before him, that his plagiarisms might not be detected. As these, however, are not known, we must still look up to the Greeks as the fathers of literature and art, though we are told of what they are said to owe to the Egyptians and the Chaldeans. Mr. Hunt's mistake is a very natural one, and we merely mention it to set him right on a subject, in the discussion of which, he has advanced several original and beautiful remarks in his preface to the Amintas. It is the more excusable, as we believe Mr. H. has not had the advantage of an acquaintance with the old writers; as this is an acquisition not easily obtained, except through the medium of a classical education. lived before them such men as Theocritus, Bion, Archilochus, and Mcnander, from whom Virgil, Ennius, Horace, and Terence, drew those pure streams of classic song, which, though long stagnant, again flowed to fertilize the soil of modern Italy. The Italians were indefatigable in the study of the Grecian poets: in the form and body of their works, equally as in the individual parts and single passages, they still made them their models. Their chorus, the dialogue, and the entire drama, is of Grecian origin. Yet while this strict union between them is well known to exist, Mr. H. observes, that the Italians invented the pastoral drama. We wish he would only consult the Eclogues of Virgil, which are scenes and dialogues throughout, as well as most of those of the Greeks. We have excellent translations of both. So far from the Italian Pastoral being discovered, or confined to the few poets Mr. H. imagines, if he will only consult Menage in his observations on Tasso's Aminta, he will find that he counts no less than fourscore pastoral plays in Italian, besides eclogues and piscatory plays, by Sannazaro, Bonarelli, and many others. But a truce to Mr. H.'s preface. In some parts, we think Tasso's Amintas inferior to the similar productions of Guarini and Bonarelli, though Tasso is more simple and easy in the thoughts, language, and the fable. The story of Pastor Fido is more intricate, the composition more laboured, but the dialogues are perhaps more noble and entertaining, though not so well suited for pastoral as Tasso's. The Fille di Sciro, of Bonarelli, is more interesting and surprising, but, like the Spanish plays, too full of conceit. It is most probable, that the design of all these was suggested by the Cyclops of EuriSome men, however, have surmount-pides, as the poet Walsh has judied this difficulty, and become learned, ciously remarked. by the mere force of their own powerful minds. Cato attempted Greek when he was seventy; and we believe But we must now examine into the merits of the version before us. [To be concluded in ur next.] · |