feelings of every reader with those of Robinson Crusoe, to render his slightest wants and inconveniencies subjects of our anxious solicitude, and protract a tale, in itself the most unique and simple possible, with unabated interest, through so many pages of minute and trivial incident. In the same manner we lose the author in the admired passages of the Lay and Marmion, because he never seems to think of himself, but appears wholly engrossed with the desire of impressing on the auditor the outlines of a description which is vividly sketched in his own mind. In describing a battle, a siege, or a striking incident of any kind, he seldom brings forward objects unless by that general outline by which a spectator would be actually affected. He enters into no minute detail; it is the general effect, the hurry, the bustle of the scene,— those concomitant sounds of tumult and sights of terror which stun the ear and dazzle the eye, which he details to his readers, and which have often the effect of converting them into spectators. In like manner, in scenes of repose, he seems more anxious to enjoy than to describe them; his ideas crowd upon him, but he dispatches each of them in a line, and leaves the imagination of his reader, if it be capable of excitation, to follow forth and fill up the outline which he has sketched. To an active fancy this is a pleasant task, for which it returns to the author as much gratitude at least as is his due. A slow comprehension, on the contrary, catches the general proposition, and is pleased to escape from that more minute detail, which, however pleasing to true admirers of poetry, seems only embarrassing tautology to those who, with inert imagination, and an indifference to the beauties of protracted description, feel nevertheless a natural interest in the incidents of the tale, and in the animation with which they succeed to each other. Mr Scott, we have remarked, seems to be fully sensible of his strength in thus embodying and presenting his scene to the imagination of his readers, and has studiously avoided sliding into distinct narration. Every incident is usually conveyed by the means of indirect description; and, so remarkably is this the case, that, even when a narrative is placed in the mouth of a personage in the poem, the scene is instantly shifted, and the incidents of that very tale held up in motion and action to the reader, something a-kin to the phenomena observed in dreams, where every thing is presented to the eye, and little or nothing to the ear; and where, if our fancy is crossed by the supposed report of another course of action, that secondary train of ideas is immediately substituted for the original vision, and we imagine ourselves spectators of it instead of being only auditors. It is indisputable, that the art of thus rivetting the attention of the audience forms one great source of this author's popularity. 1 We must not omit to mention Mr Scott's learning, by which we mean his knowledge of the manners of the time in which his scenes are laid. The display of this knowledge has, perhaps, here and there, degenerated into antiquarian pedantry, but the possession of it was essential to the purpose of the author. Sapere est principium et fons. It is the true touch of manners which gives justice to a narrative poem, and discriminates it from those which are either founded upon the vague imagination of an author, or tamely copied from the model of some more original writer. The dif ference can be discovered by the least enlightened, just as an individual portrait can be distinguished from a fancy sketch even by those who are unacquainted with the original. With these remarks upon the truth and spirit of his poetry, we leave Mr Scott, no unworthy member of the triumvirate with whom he has divided the public applause. According to modern custom we should now consider the imitators, or, as the modish phrase is, the school of these respective poets; if that can be called a school where no pupil will heartily yield pre-eminence even to his pedagogue, and where each preceptor would willingly turn his scholars out of doors. Upon professed imitators we shall bestow very short consideration, as the very circumstance of palpable imitation may be considered as decisive against an author's claim to be noticed in such a sketch as we are now drawing of national poetry. The followers and imitators of Campbell would probably rejoice more in being termed of the school of Goldsmith or Johnson: yet when we read the Pleasures of Friendship, the Pleasures of Solitude, the Pleasures of Love, and so forth,-or even when we see such titles in an advertisement, we are naturally led to think the subjects could only have been chosen from the popularity of the Pleasures of Hope, or of the Pleasures of Memory. The latter beautiful poem probably gave Mr Campbell the original hint of his plan, though it expanded into a more copious and bolder field of composition than had been attempted by Mr ROGERS, and contains beauties of a kind so different, that the resem blance of title is almost the only cir cumstance which connects them. The Pleasures of Memory is a gem in which the exquisite polish makes up for the inferiority of the water. There is not a line in it which has not been earnestly and successfully refined to melody, nor is there a description left unfinished, or broken off harshly. The sentiments are easy and elegant, and of that natural and pleasing tendency which always insures a favour. able reception, even when destitute of novelty. We have in Mr Rogers' poetry none of Campbell's sublime bursts of moral eloquence, which exalt us above the ordinary feelings of our nature; but we are gently and placidly led into a current of sentiment most congenial to all the charities and domestic attachments of life. Yet those who have by heart the Deserted Village of Goldsmith, will hardly allow Mr Rogers' title to originality. Something he has gained over his model by an intimate acquaintance with the fine arts, and the capacity of appretiating their most capital productions. The delicacy and accuracy of discrimination inseparable from such attainments, diffuses, through his poetry, a certain shade of classical and chastened taste, which may serve, perhaps, more than any of the circumstances we have mentioned, to discriminate his productions from those of his contemporaries. With the name of Southey those of Coleridge and of Wordsworth are naturally and habitually associated. We do not hold, with the vulgar, that these ingenious and accomplished men are combined to overthrow the ancient land marks of our poetry, and bring back the days of Withers and of Quarles; on the contrary, to those who give themselves the trouble of considering their works attentively, there will appear such points of distinction as argue a radical difference in their taste, and the rules they have adopted in composition Still, however, connected as they are by habits of friendship, vicinity of residence, and community of studies, some general principles may be pointed out common to all three, and enentitling them, more than any other living authors, to the appellation of a school of productions. We regret to say, that the peculiarities which they have in common do not by any means seem to us the most valuable proper ties of their productions. They are all, more or less, favourers of that doctrine which considers poetry as the mere imitation of natural feeling, and holds that its language ought in consequence to be simplified as much as possible to the expressions of passion in ordinary life. To this proposition MrWordsworth adds another yet more doubtful, that the language of low and rustic life ought to be preferred, because, in his opinion, the essential passions of the heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, and because in that condition of life our elementary feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity. Now this appears to us a radical error. Those who have studied the lower orders of society, especially in a mercantile country, must be sensible how much the feelings and talents of that class are degraded, imbruted, and debased by the limited exercise to which they are confined, and the gross temptations to which they hourly give way. Even among the more fortunate inhabitants of a pastoral country, the necessity of toiling for daily bread burthens the mind and quelis the powers of imagination: The few passions by which they are strongly actuated are those which are the most simple, the most coarse, and the worst regula ted; nor can the expressions which they dictate be considered as proper for poetry, any more than the compa ny of the swains themselves for the society of persons of cultivated taste, manners, and talents. The opposite opinion has led to that affectation of a simple nakedness of style, which has, in some instances, debased even the gold of Southey, and forms a far larger alloy to the coinage of his two friends, which we are about to consider. We are, in some degree, uncertain whether we ought to view COLE RIDGE as subject to our critical juris, diction, at least under this depart ment. He seems to have totally abandoned poetry for the mists of political metaphysics,-mists which, we fear, the copious eloquence showered from his cloudy tabernacle will rather increase than dispel. With extensive learning, an unbounded vigour of imagination, and the most ready com mand of expression both in verse and prose,-advantages which none of his predecessors enjoy in a greater, if any possess them in an equal degree; this author has been uniformly deficient in the perseverance and the sound sense which were necessary to turn his exquisite talents to their proper use. He has only prodųced in a complete state one or two smail pieces, and every thing else, begun on a larger scale, has been flung aside and left unfinished. not all: Although commanding the most beautiful poetical language, he has every now and then thought fit to exchange it for the gratuitous pleasure of introducing whole This is stanzas of quaint and vulgar doggrel. These are the passages which render learning useless, and eloquence absurd; which make fools laugh, and malignant critics " dance and leap," but which excite, in readers of taste, grief and astonishment, as evidence of talents misapplied, and genius furnishing arms against itself to lowminded envy. To Mr Coleridge we owe some fragments of the most sublime blank verse, and some lyric passages of a soft and tender nature, we believe unequalled. The verses addressed to "The Memory of a Deceased Friend," and those called "An Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie," are sufficient proofs of our assertion. But these are short or unfinished performances, and others which we could quote from the same author are of a nature so wild, so unrestrained by any rules either in the conception or in the composition; forming such a mixture of the terrible with the disgusting, of the tender with the ludicrous, and of moral feeling with metaphysical sophistry, that we can hardly suppose the author who threw forth such crude effusions is serious in obtaining a rank among the poets of his country, nor do we feel at liberty to press upon him a seat of honour, which, from his conduct, he would seem to hold in no esteem. The feelings of Mr WORDSWORTH appear to be very different. Although hitherto an unsuccessful competitor for poetical fame, as far as it depends upon the general voice of the public, no man has ever considered the character of the poet as more honourable, or his pursuits as more important. We are afraid he will be found rather to err on the opposite side, and, with an amiable Quixotry, to ascribe to those pursuits, and to that character, a power of stemming the tide of luxury, egotism, and corrup tion of manners, and thus of reforming an age, which we devoutly believe can be reformed by nothing short of a miracle. But in this, as in other particulars, the poetry of Mr Wordsworth accords strikingly with his character and habits. We have made it a rule not to draw the character of the man while we reviewed the works of the author, and our sketch has suffered by this forbearance, for we could have shown, in many instances, how curiously they differed or coincided. But if we durst now raise the veil of private life, it would be to exhibit a picture of manly worth and unaffected modesty; of one who retired early from all that sullies or hardens the heart, from the pursuit of wealth and honours, from the bustle of the world, and from the parade of philosophical pursuits; and who, sitting down contented in a cottage, realized whatever the poets have feigned of content and happiness in retirement. It might have been supposed, that, surrounded by romantic scenery, and giving his attention only to poetical image. ry, and to the objects by which they were best suggested, the situation he had chosen was the most favourable for his studies; and that such a happy coincidence of leisure, talents, and situation, ought to have produced poetry more generally captivating than that of Mr Wordsworth has hitherto proved. But we have constant reason to admire the caprices of human intellect. This very state of secluded study seems to have produced effects upon Mr Wordsworth's genius unfavourable to its popula rity. In the first place, he who is constantly surrounded by the most magnificent natural subjects of description, becomes so intimately acquainted with them, that he is apt to dwell less upon the broad general and leading traits of character which strike the occasional visitor, and which are really their most poetical attributes, than upon the more detailed and specific particulars in which one mountain or valley differs from another, and which, being less obvious to the general eye, are less interesting to the common ear. But the solitude in which Mr Wordsworth resides has led to a second and more important consequence in his writings, and has affected his mode of expressing moral truth and feeling, as well as his turn of natural de scription. He has himself beautifully described the truths which he teaches us, as being The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and rests on his own heart. A better heart, a purer and more manly source of honourable and virtuous sentiment beats not, we will say it boldly, within Britain. But the observation of a single subject will not make a skilful anatomist, nor will the copying one model, however beautiful, render a painter acquainted with his art. To attain that knowledge of the human bosom necessary to moral poetry, the poet must compare his own feelings with those of others; he must reduce his hypothesis to theory by actual experiment, stoop to sober and regulated truth from the poetic height of his own imagination, and observe what impulse the mass of humanity receive from those motives and subjects to which he is himself acutely alive. It is the want of this observation and knowledge of the world which leads Wordsworth into the perpetual and leading error of supposing, that trivial and petty incidents can supply to mankind in general that train of reflection which, in his speculative solitude, he himself naturally attaches to them. A reflecting mind and a quick fancy find food for meditation in the most trifling occurrences, and can found a connected and delightful train of deductions upon an original cause as flimsy as the web of a gossamer. The cleaving of a block of wood, the dancing of a bush of wild flowers, the question or answer of a child, naturally suggest matter of reflection to an amiable and reflecting mind, retired from the influence of incidents of a nature more generally interesting. And such are Wordsworth's studies, or, as he himself expresses it, The outward shews of sky and earth, In this situation, the poet's feelings somewhat resemble those of a person accustomed to navigate a small boat upon a narrow lake, to whom, if he possess an active imagination, the indentures of the shore, which hardly strike the passing stranger, acquire the importance of creeks, bays, and promontories. Even so the impressions made upon the susceptible mind of the solitary poet by common and unimportant incidents and the train of sweet and bitter fancies" to which they give rise are, in the eye of the public, altogether ; |