We believe that Hazlitt is the first who has told us in definite terms, that as the boundaries of science are enlarged, the empire of imagination is diminished. The position is quite true, and confirmed by every-day observation. Indeed it could not possibly be other

MADAME DE STAEL.

wise; if for a moment we will only consider, what it is the object of a poet to accomplish. He does not set himself, like the mathematician, to the exposition of abstract truths; nor, like the historian, does his merit depend upon his unbiassed fidelity of statement. The

office of the poet is entirely different; his study is to adorn and embellish, to represent objects, not only in their most striking lights, and their most fascinating colours, but to add to them new properties, and represent them in all the splendour of redundant beauty; or, when he condescends to strict delineation, it is only in the most beautiful objects, which defy his skill to represent them with borrowed grace, for who would try

To gild refined gold, to paint the rose, Or add fresh perfume to the violet? From this it is plain and evident, that he is the greater poet who can conjure up the most splendid of these exaggerations, and possesses the greater fluency and command in the management of these illusions; who can add a double poignancy, and a deeper gulph for the whirlpools of passion, and represent external objects in the most fascinating or sublime point of view. Whatever may be advanced or urged to the contrary, we decidedly think that it must be allowed, that romances, legends, and tales of heroism or superstition, everything, in short, that relates to the marvellous, the tragic, or the supernatural, makes its deepest impression on the mind of youth; from our susceptibility at that period, in some measure, perhaps, from our then not exactly discriminating the impossibility of the events narrated, and imagining that there may be more Elysian scenes in nature and life than have then fallen within the scope of our actual observation. Consequently there are more of the elements of poetry afloat in the mind during boyhood and early youth, than during any other period of human existence. A great deal of the finest poetry that the world can boast of, is merely the embalmed feel ings and recollections of what had passed through and enchanted the mind of the writer in former days; and many poets, and poetical writers of prose, as Cowley, Cowper, Wordsworth, and Rousseau, have felt a delight in solitude, from their feelings not being there so much exposed to those jarring discrepancies of society which tend to lower our ideas of human nature.

It may be very pertinently asked then, why are not young men the best poets? This we readily own is not the case, but the question is irrelevant, for the obvious reason, that writings deeply embued with the feelings and per

ceptions of poetry may, after all, be far from being excellent, from deficiency in the mechanical part, and from the absence of those finer shades of language, which can only be acquired by long study of the best models, and after long practical experience in composition.

The trains of thought and associations of ideas, which it is the business of the professional man and the poet to follow out, are diametrically opposite. The one exercises his judgment, and plods on with calm and patient research in the path of utility; the other gives the reins into the hands of imagination; usefulness is an object of secondary consideration, and the only standard of excellence which he acknowledges, is that of comparative sublimity or beauty.

Professional avocations have a deadening influence on the finer sensibilities of the mind; they destroy and annihilate our loftier aspirations, and reduce all that we perceive and feel to the dull standard of reality. Many of the great poets lived in the infancy of science, and the great ones who have lived as it was approaching maturity, have endeavoured as much as possible to blind their eyes to its progress; and to represent things as they seem, and not as they can be demonstrated to be. A few have thought otherwise, and they have failed;-for scientific poets we have no relish; they mistake the very nature of their art.

Poetry is only one of the many methods of deceiving; and the greater will be our poetical delight, the more entirely we allow ourselves to enter into the spirit of the illusion, and be carried away by the deception. It is cold and absurd to say of fine poetry, that it is physically or metaphysically untrue; it is quite enough if we can imagine things or sentiments to be so; or if we can feel them to be beautiful in their represented state. The natural lover of poetry " is pleased, he knows not why, and cares not wherefore." "The peasant," says Mackenzie, "who enjoys the beauty of the tulip, is equally delighted with the philosopher, though he knows not the powers of the rays from which its colours are derived; and the boy who strikes a ball with his racket, is as certain whether it will be driven by the blow as if he were perfectly conversant in the dispute about matter and motion. The

music, the painting, the poetry of the passions, is the property of every one who has a heart to be moved; and though there may be particular modes of excellence, which national or temporary fashions create, yet that standard will ever remain which alone is common to all." A poetical reader can suppose, for example, that the stars are what Byron has emphatically denominated them," the poetry of heaven," and that out of them we may read the destinies of men, and that we may claim a kindred with them ;* but the physical philosopher will find it impossible to conceive them other than material and far distant worlds, revolving in systems, and kept together by the law of gravitation. Virgil tells us that a star descended over Mount

Ida to point out to Eneas the path which the Gods intended him to follow:

"Subitoque fragore Intonuit lævom, et de cælo lapsa per umbras

Stella facem ducens multa cum luce cucurrit.

Illam, summa super labentem culmina

tecti

Cernimus Idæa claram se condere silva + Signantemque vias."

The astronomer will tell us, that the idea of the poet is absurd, and that the laws of nature would not be suspended for even a greater event than the foundation of such an empire as Rome. Yet Horace tells us that the Tiber overflowed its banks, and overthrew the temple of Vesta on account of the vices of the people; and Shakespeare ushers us to the catastrophe of Cæsar's death, by the appearance of signs in heaven, and the sheeted dead walking upon the streets.§ The astronomer also shows the moon to be a planetary body, lighted up by the reflected glory of the sun, governing the tides, and performing its stated revolutions; and that it is not a sentient being hiding itself in "its interlunar cave' -a beautiful female capable of the passion of love-the Goddess of the silver bow-the Proserpine, who spends one half of the year in the infernal regions. To your mere man of science the rainbow is not "the arch of God's promise,

Oxygen, or vital air; the Hydrogen, or inflammable air; the Nitrogen, which does not support life, and a small quantity of Carbonic Acid." He smiles in contempt at the sublime question of Job

Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder ?” "The ancients," adds he, 66 to have had very absurd ideas of celestial phenomena."

seem

I came to the place of my birth, and said, The friends of my youth where are they?' and Echo answered, where are they?"".

"What after all is an Echo, but the reverberation of sound."

Pro

Enough of this-let us return to the main subject of our essay. fessional avocations, we repeat, are entirely at variance with the phantasms of imagination. It is theoretically a fine thing, for instance, to make the practice of law a profession, to devote our lives to the distribution of justice, to settle the differences of our neighbours, to come forward as the advocate of the oppressed, to plead the cause of the innocent, and to be the champion of those who have no earthly help. Nor is it a less fine thing to alleviate the corporeal sufferings of our fellow creatures, to smooth the pillow of sickness, to disseminate the blessing of health, and to cause the languid and filmy eye of the dying man to look a blessing on our kind, though unavail

ing endeavours. Turn the picture; and what do we behold in the actual and breathing world? The lawyer selling his eloquence to the support of any cause, and prostituting his talents for the sake of gain; while the physician measures out his kindnesses and attentions in the direct ratio of his expectations of being repaid.

It is not to be supposed that a divine, one who has made the oracles of

truth his chief study, and the promulgation of them the serious business of his life, could even for a moment throw over his lines the flush of the ancient superstitions, at once so imaginative and poetical; and describe Jupiter in the conclave of Deities on the top of Olympus, instead of the everlasting and omnipresent "I AM," whose shadow Moses saw in the burning bush ; and, instead of the sun and moon, which he has created, delineate Apollo with the golden bow," the lord of poesy and light," and, Diana with her wood-nymphs.

It is not to be supposed that he will coincide in the opinions of a Dante, or a Homer, or promulgate their sublime, but often vague and absurd illustrations of religion and morality; in making the princely game of war the theme of his muse, and accounting the savage valour of the combatants as the acme of perfection; or distort the doctrine of future rewards and punishments into a scheme of his own formation. His poetry must of necessity be regulated by the principles he professes, and by the views which it is his duty to inculcate.

Can it for a moment be supposed that a physician, one whose business it is to be acquainted with the weaknesses and miserable diseases to which our bodies are subject; that one whose daily occupation is the inspection of loathsome sores, and putrifying ulcers, could, in despite of his own observation, preserve in the penetralia of his mind, a noble and unblemished image of human beauty; or that the anatomist, who has glutted over the debasing and repellent horrors of a dissecting table, where the severed limbs of his fellow creatures," the secrets of the grave," are displayed in hideous deformity, to satisfy the hyena lust

*

of knowledge, could look upon a female face with the rapture, which the mind that conceived Shakespeare's Juliet must have done; or with that sense of angelic delicacy, which must have penetrated the mind of Spenser, ere he conceived the glorious idea of "Heavenly Una, with her milk-white lamb ?"

Nor is it to be supposed that the lawyer, one whose youthful days, the days of the romance and chivalry of the imagination, are spent in poring over volumes, which can only operate in rendering "darkness visible," and in wrapping up that in mystery and clouds, which nature intended to form as clear as 66 daylight truth's salubrious skies," should unlearn what he has learned, and deeming

" where ignorance is bliss "Tis folly to be wise,' at length accord to the omnipotence of Virtue, and agree with Milton in his Comus, that the lion of the desert itself would turn away abashed from the face of innocent beauty. Lord Mansfield, ere he devoted his attention to "law's dry musty arts," shewed so great an aptitude for polite letters, that Pope himself bewails

"How sweet an Ovid was in Murray lost."

And Judge Blackstone, ere he thought of composing his Commentaries on the Laws, wrote verses,† which at least augured well of what he might have accomplished in that way. Akenside brought out his Pleasures of Imagination, when a very young man; took to the study of medicine, was made physician to the Queen, and then published lyrics, which nobody cares about reading.

As Wordsworth most truly and poetically observes,

"The world is too much with us, early

and late."

Counting-houses and ledgers have taken the place of generosity, romance, and chivalry; and though they have made us richer, have undoubtedly added little to our intellectual character as a nation. Life has become a scene of every-day experience, of sickness, dulness, and formality; etiquette has succeeded to simplicity, and ardour of spirit has left its place to politeness.