ly assigned to the poet is, in our day, a joy and privilege granted to those only who have joined to those gifts which, Alfred Tennyson has told us, form the poet's dower "The hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, The love of love," whom they have delighted and enlightened. But the subject is exhaustless, and while we may look forward to the fuller development of Mr. Hunt's views in the promised volumes of further selections, we hasten to acknowledge the instruction which we have derived from the present interesting essay. His observations have, to a great extent, been suggested by the peculiar relations of our modern society to the poetic art. Prudently avoiding all those abstract, and, generally speaking, purely verbal controthe merits of the so-called Real and Ideal versies, which have long agitated critics on schools of poetry, he yet conveys definite ideas on the specific questions involved in the discussions. We have been particularly struck by the manner in which he vindicates to the supernatural elements of our nature their poetical rights. The time has now passed away when, the supernatural being degraded to the level of the superstifor the poets of the eighteenth century to tious, it was deemed a worthy employment expend their keen wit in efforts to make it wholly ridiculous. the not less necessary, and, therefore, hardly less noble acquirements of a cultivation, providently directing them into their proper and peculiar channels, and subjecting them to the eternal laws of nature, and of art, the child of nature. Science and history are rapidly entering those regions which we have till now held the consecrated and exclusive ground of art. The emotions roused by the contemplation of stupendous revolutions of systems; by the marvellous discoveries and inventions of science now far outstripping the wildest dreams of poetical romance; by the union of epic dignity, and dramatic excitement with the charms of narrative, in our great living historians; may prove at once sources of fear and of hope to the poet; of fear, should he wilfully sin against the requisi-peculiar privilege of the Imagination, to We begin to feel that it is the great and tions of his own art-of hope, as stirring the general mind to a participation in the sympathize with forms of beauty, which, noble impulses and divine affections, unreal as they may be for the understandwhich, shining throughout all his works, ing. are eternal truths for all who can feel manifest the law and impulse of his spirit. that can stretch its hand to us out of the the "lovely and immortal power of genius, The public, too, must share in his enlight-wastes of time, thousands of years back." enment on art, as we believe it formerly did in the "high and palmy" days of our ty of these beings, but simply that they The Imagination demands not the realidrama. We do not at all wish to be under-ty of these beings, but simply that they should be such as to win upon our sympastood as advocating that exclusive habit of thy. analyzing emotions, which most artists very wisely contemn. Such processes of "Their possibility, if the poet will it, is to narring "the beauteous forms of things" be conceded; the problem is the creature being are characteristic of the meddling intellect given how to square its actions with the probwhich "murders to dissect." The meta-ability, according to the nature assumed of it physical critics of the eighteenth century were occupied with little else. To such rude questioning the spirit of poetry will not unveil its secrets-coming as from a different sphere-uttering "things which no gross ear can hear"-passing coldly by such as are unable, or care not to listen reverently "We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence." In such a spirit much of enduring memory has been effected by Hazlitt, Wilson, Knight, whose labors, prompted by the love, and justified by the knowledge of art, have been gratefully welcomed by those bringing them within the regions of truth and The skill and beauty of these fictions, lies in likelihood. Hence the serpent Python of Chaucer Sleeping against the sun upon a day,' when Apollo slew him! Hence the chariotdrawing dolphins of Spen r, softly swimming along the shore lest they should hurt themselves against the stones and gravel! Hence Shakspere's Ariel, living under blossoms, and riding at evening on the bat! . . . In the Orlando Furioso' (Canto xv. Stanza 65) is a wild story of a cannibal necromancer who laughs at being cut to pieces, coming togethhead when it is cut off, sometimes by the er again like quicksilver, and picking up his hair, sometimes by the nose! This, which would be purely childish and ridiculous in the ture. 80. hands of an inferior poet, becomes interest- as in this case by the usual opposition of ing, nay grand, in Ariosto's, from the beauties the natural to the supernatural. If such of his style, and its conditional truth to na- suggestive comments on the meaning of The monster has a false hair on his words as they affect the truth of things were often used, one fertile source of idle theorizing would be removed. Shakspere, as great a critic when it suited his purpose, as he was a poet, has a passage (Winter's Tale, Act IV., Scene 3,) which, considered independently of its dramatic propriety and beauty, contains a philosophy of art which, with exquisite felicity illustrates, or rather identifies the artistic with the natural. It occurs where Perdita as a shepherdess receives "the guests" in the cottage of her supposed father, and presenting to each such flowers as "fits his age," says:— head-a single hair-which must be taken from it before he can be killed! Decapitation itself is of no consequence without that proviThe Paladin, Astolfo, who has fought this phenomenon on horseback, and succeeded in getting the head, and galloping off with it, is, therefore, still at a loss what to be at. How is he to discover such a needle in such a bot tle of hay? The trunk is spurring after him to recover it, and he seeks for some evilence of the hair in vain. At length he bethinks him of scalping the head. He does so; and the moment the operation arrives at the place of the hair, the face of the head becomes pale, the eyes turn in their sockets, and the lifeless pursuer tumbles from his horse, "Li fece il viso allov pallido e brutto, Travolse gli occhi, e dimostrò a l'occaso "Sir the year growing ancient Not yet on summer's death, nor the birth seasons, Are our carnations and streaked gilly-flowers, Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden, Per. For I have heard it said Pol. Say there be. marry Yet nature is made better by no mean This is an art "It is thus, and thus only, by making nature his companion wherever he goes, even in the most supernatural region, that the poet, in the words of a very instructive phrase, takes the world along with him. It is true, he must not (as the Platonists would say) humanize weakly or mistakenly in that region; otherwise he runs the chance of forgetting to be true to the supernatural itself, and so betraying a want of imagination from that quarter. His nymphs will have no taste of their woods and waters; his gods and goddesses he only so many fair or frowning ladies and gentlemen, such as we see in ordinary paintings; he will be in no danger of having his angels likened to a sort of wildfowl, as Rembrandt had made them in the Imagination, are, we must think, supehis 'Jacob's Dream' His Bacchuses will nev-rior to those of Fancy-interesting as maer remind us, like Titian's, of the force and fury, as well as the graces of wine. His Jupiter will reduce no females to ashes; his fairies be nothing fantastical; his gnomes not of the earth earthy. And this again will be wanting to nature; for it will be wanting to the super natural as nature would have made it working. in a supernatural direction." The final clause of the last sentence which we have marked in italics exhibits, with singular power, the manner in which the critic may, by a delicate adjustment of language, reconcile the common and partial meaning of a word with one truer and more extensive, and thus correct the false or inadequate impressions which might be conveyed by the imperfection of language, Mr. Hunt's account and illustrations of ny of these last are. After having seen him characterize the Ariel of Pope's admirable mock heroic the "Rape of the Lock," as the "Imagination of the Drawing-room," we were somewhat surprised at his condemning the delicate Ariel," of Shakspere, to breathe the drawing-room atmosphere of genteel society which was the natural birth-place and home of the other. He assigns the "Midsummer's Night Dream," and in part the " Tempest," as offspring of the same power which produced the "Rape of the Lock"-that designated by him as Fancy. Is it not unjust to both, that we should be excited to compare beings so alien in their nature, and differing as widely from each other, as the poets whose inspiration gave them being. The weary used conventional forms as best suited to years of imprisonment in the "cloven conventional subjects, and was himself artipine," would prove less fatal to Ariel-(as ficial even while ridiculing artificiality. Mr. Hunt beautifully describes him,) "the delicate, yet powerful spirit, jealous of restraint, yet able to serve; living in the clements and the flowers; treading the edge of the salt deep, and running on the sharp wind of the north; feeling for creatures unlike himself; flaming amazement on them too, and singing exquisitest songs," than the polished proprieties and drawingroom graces of the genteel and modish guardian, of Pope's coquettish heroine, who thus harangues his compeers, the sylphs and gnomes: A brighter wash to curl their waving hairs, The very increased delight with which we re-peruse this unparalleled burlesque, strengthens us in the conviction that it is in no way akin to the song of the Ariel. "Where the bee sucks there suck I, There I couch. When owls do cry, The mannerism which pervaded the whole tenor of men's lives, penetrating their actions and judgments on all, even the highest subjects, and forcing them to cross the narrow boundary which separates the sublime and heroic from the ridiculous, suggested to Pope the idea of a burlesque style as the appropriate frame of the picture with which it harmonized so admirably. Even the repulsive formality and wearying smoothness of his style, which flowed from, and pointed to those more radical deficiencies which incapacitated him from sympathizing with the true heroic contributed to his success here. He Perhaps we may seem to some inconsis tent in praising the force and artistic skill of its intentional burlesque, while we own a preference for a different style of art on the grounds of its ranging over wider subjects and treating them in a more natural manner. We shall endeavor to explain our meaning by illustrations, which will, we hope, vindicate also the importance we attach to perfection of form in poetic art. We select the "Rape of the Lock," and a scene from Shakspere as our examples. The ludicrous effect resulting from the incongruous mingling of a taste for a perverted heroism with the conventional manners of existing French society, spread over Europe by the Court of Louis the Fourteenth, is not inaptly represented even in affairs of costume, by that of a statue of this king, which represented him in Roman armor, and surmounted by, not a helmet, but-a wig. Pope, endued with a keen percepthis mock-heroism, as it appeared in poetition of the ridiculous, proceeded to satirize cal productions, by boldly parodizing the style, machinery, sometimes even the thoughts of the Epic. The artificial and arbitrary nature of his materials forbade any attempt to ally the characters and actions with beings of a different sphere from that of the life which surrounded him. He must laugh directly at these identical objects. He attempts no disguise deeper than a change of name. Belinda and Sir Plume have little interest for an age which has lost, chiefly, perhaps, owing to these satirists, these particular affectations. The attendant sylphs and gnomes are as artificial and as little in earnest as their mistress. They embody nothing of general interest, and were meant to be viewed merely as caricatures of the spirits of the popular creed. The result is an admirable burlesque. "Men's minds are parcel of their fortunes ;" and Pope did all that could be done. But it is no disparagement to him to say, that Shakspere was thrown on happier days, and gifted with proportionably greater powers. He, too, had to combat with grievous and wide-spread errors in matters poetical; still they were not the offspring of frivolity, but were rather the crude endeavors of earnest minds struggling to the light.— Often they sprang from the opposition mis takenly supposed between the functions of the Imagination and the authoritative commands of our moral nature. Poetical fiction was arraigned in the austere moral code of the Puritans, before a Court of Conscience as a falsehood. Gosson wrote a book, in Shakspere's youth, against poetry and the drama, and founded his arguments on the supposition that a poetical fiction was incapable of being distinguished from a reality. Shakspere intended, we think, to ridicule this notion in the play performed by the "hempen homespuns" of the Midsummer Night's Dream. Let us observe the transformations which it underwent through the marvellous alchemy-converting lead into gold-of his genius. We must first give the passage at length:- "ACT III.-SCENE 1.-The Wood. quest you, or I would entreat you, not to fear, not to tremble; my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of very life. No, I am no such thing; I am a him name his name, and tell them plainly he man as other men are;' and then indeed let is Snug the joiner." This entire episodical play is indeed a continued satire on the old and cotemporary performances of the stage. But these taken singly were merely absurd, and had they been thus represented by Shakspere, we might have had a burlesque superior perhaps in degree to the "genteel comedies" of our stage, and even more amusing and facetious than Sheridan's "Critic;" but the rich vein of humor and covert irony which was all the poet's own giving, would have been wanting. He transplanted all these barren crudities into a soil where they obtain, in our eyes, what Mr. Hunt justly calls "a conditional truth to nature." Ab "Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, &c. surd merely when considered as the delibe "Bot.-Are we all met? “Quin.—Pat, pat! and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal; this green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake our tiring house, and we will do it in action as we will do it before the duke. "Bol.-Peter Quince. "Quin.-What sayest thou, bully Bottom? "Bot.-There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself, which the ladies cannot abide. swer you that? How an "Shout-By'r larkin, a parlous fear. "Snug-I believe we must leave the killing out when all is done. Bot.-Not a whit. I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say that we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom, the weaver; this will put them out of fear. “Quin.—Well, we will have such a pro rate opinions of reflecting men, they partake of the humorous in being delineated as natural to the character and circumstances of these "rude mechanicals." While laughing with increased enjoyment at the things ridiculed, we entertain, on the whole, a liking for the subjects of our merriment; and nourish a feeling which wholly rejects the idea of laughing derisively at them, and recognizing some essential community of character lying below the particular follies, does not so much tolerate, as in a manner sympathize with the individual actors; a wonderful result of the many-sidedness of the "myriad-minded" intellect which, able to work for the necessities of the day in building for a never-ending future, could thus vindicate to genius its rightful alliance with humanity, and give to each its highest fulfilment, by as sociation with the other. How much is there, in the stiring interest of our own day, partaking of this character of universality, and ready to start into an enduring poetic or dramatic life, at the summons of the Artist, possessed of the talisman. The French people have hailed the coming of such an one in the person of their great poet, Beranger. Meanwhile, we cannot do better than decipher, as we best can, the meaning of the written records of poetry bequeathed to us by the past; seeking for it in history, in criticism, in all the "various language of nature and art. Verse is often supposed to be only the outward garb of the poetic spirit; but Mr. Hunt has, we think, taken a truer view of this important but unobtru- | Coleridge's versification, it is the prevailing sive element as manifesting the inmost characteristic. Its main secrets are, a smooth progression between variety and sameness, spirit of poetry. He well observes :and a voluptuous sense of the continuousVariety in versification consists in what-linked sweetness long drawn out.' Observe soever can be done for the prevention of mo- the first and last lines of the stanza in the notony, by diversity of stops and cadences, Fairy Queen,' describing a shepherd brushdistribution of emphasis, and retardation and ing away the gnats. The open and the close acceleration of time; for the whole secret of e's in the one :versification is a musical secret, and is not attainable to any vital effect, save by the ear of genius. All the mere knowledge of feet and the repetition of the word oft, and the fall and numbers, of accent and quantity, will no from the vowel a into the two u's in the more impart it, than a knowledge of the other 'Guide to Music' will make a Beethoven or a 'As gèntle shèpherd in swēēt ēventide,' murings.' "So in this description of two substances, in the handling both equally smooth : : Each smoother seems than each, and each than each seems smoother.' Paisello. It is matter of sensibility and im-She brusheth 'oft, and oft doth mar their muragination; of the beautiful in poetical passion, accompanied by the musical-of the imperative necessity for a pause here, and a cadence there, and a quicker or a slower utterance in this or that place, created by analogies of sound with sense, by the fluctuations of feeling-by the demands of the gods and graces that visit the poet's harp, as the winds visit that of Eolus. The same time and quantity which are occasioned by the spiritual part of this secret, thus become its formal ones-not feet and syllables-long and short iambics, or trochees, which are the reduction of it to less than dry bones." And, in illustration of this theory, he offers many pleasing and excellent comments, as on that prime requisite of verse -sweetness : "Sweetness, though not identical with smoothness, any more than feeling is with sound, always includes it; and smoothness is a thing so little to be regarded, for its own sake, and, indeed, so worthless in poetry, but for some taste of sweetness, that I have not thought necessary to mention it by itself. Though such an all-in-all versification, was it regarded not a hundred years back, that Thomas Wharton himself, an idolater of Spenser, ventured to wish the following line in the Fairy Queen': C And was admired much of fools, women, and boys,' altered to 'And was admired much of women, fools, and boys,' "An abundance of examples from his poetry will be found in the volume before us. His beauty revolves on itself with conscious loveliness, and Coleridge is worthy to be named with him, as the reader will see also. Let him take a sample, meanwhile, from the poem called The Day Dream.' Observe both the variety and sameness of the vowels, and the repetition of the soft consonants:— 'My eyes make pictures when they're shut; And thee and me and Mary there. What Mr. Hunt has said of the poet, in his relation to nature, we may surely apply to the critic-that "It is a great and rare thing, and it is a lovely imagination, when the critic can write a commentary, as it were, of his own, on such sufficing passages of poetry, and be thanked for the addition." It is a privilege enjoyed only by the genial expounders of the excellencies of others, to be thus associated with them in the grateful memory of poetical readers. And we answer, as regards ourselves, for the truth of this, in many passages of this volume, in those even which had been most familiar to us. Spenser is deservedly a great favorite with Mr. Hunt; and unless we much mistaken, he will speedily become so with the readers of these selections:— are thus destroying the fine scornful emphasis on the first syllable of women' (an ungallant intimation, by the way, against the fair sex, very startling in this no less woman-loving, than great poet). Any poetaster can be smooth. Smoothness abounds in all small poets, as sweetness does in the greater. Sweet- Spenser's great characteristic is poetic ness is the smoothness of grace and delicacy-luxury. If you go to him for a story you will of the sympathy with the pleasing and lovely. be disappointed; it for style, classical or conSpenser is full of it; Shakspere, Beaumont, cise, the point against him is conceded; if for Fletcher, and Coleridge. Of Spenser's and pathos, you must weep for personages half |