STUDIES OF THE POETS. BY GEORGE PACKER. I. INTRODUCTORY.-THE PLACE OF POETRY. JOETRY is one of the most ancient arts. It existed before the Flood. The "Song of the Sword," sung by Laban, is a literary relic of the antediluvian world. In the early ages of our race, before the invention of writing, poetry was used as the vehicle for conveying, from one generation to another, the doctrines and ceremonies of religion, the wisdom of sages, the warlike exploits of heroes, unusual appearances in the heavens, aberrations of the laws of nature, and revolutions in society. The gradual development of the art of writing led to great advances in learning and civilization, but its knowledge was for centuries confined to a select few, and poetry was still the chief medium for the information of the people. Tradition was early discovered to be a very unsafe vehicle of knowledge. Unassisted by poetry, tradition admitted of innumerable embellishments and variations of the events it handed down. A song was found to fix them definitely, and was more easily remembered by the common people. The song composed by Moses, and sung by Miriam and her musical assistants, recounts the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, and the overthrow of Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. It was frequently sung in after years when both Moses and Miriam had passed away. The Jews were essentially a poetical people, and many of their chief national deliverances and military triumphs have been handed down to posterity through the medium of song. Poetry rose to its highest development with the Greeks. This cultured and accomplished people attained such a pre-eminence in poetry and art that their masterpieces of song, and of sculpture and painting, constitute the standard by which all similar work is still judged. In scientific discovery, in political art, in mechanical achievements, and in mental philosophy, we have left them far behind. In these respects they occupy a position absolutely insignificant compared with the attainments of the present day. Theirs was the immaturity of infancy; ours is the ripeness of manhood. But no modern poetry has surpassed that of classic Greece. Their poets were styled the votaries of Apollo. Apollo, the god of poetry, was supposed to dwell on Parnassus and Helicon, and all who drank the waters that flowed at the foot of these hills were filled with poetic inspiration. Amongst the Greeks poetry was blended with religion and philosophy. The priest and the sages made it the medium of conveying their instructions to the people. But whilst poetry attained its most magnificent flights amongst the Greeks, no country and no people, however rude or barbarous, has ever been discovered without some traces. of its influences. In crude forms indeed, and without many of the refinements of which it is so susceptible, but with more or less of beauty and vigour, it has been discovered amongst the Red Indians of America, the swarthy inhabitants of Central Asia, and the dusky races of Africa. Great poets may be rare in every clime, but this universality shows an appreciation of their eloquent utterances as common as our humanity. The inference is that the poetic instinct is a native impulse of the soul, and that God, who, for wise purposes, has cast our lot in a world where there is often painful suffering, and always stern toil, has in mercy given us the counterbalancing ability of investing common affairs with a splendour and glory drawn from the imagination. This, perhaps, is what Shakespeare meant when he spoke of the "force of Heaven-bred poesy." Endeavours have been frequently made to define poetry, but the result has not been encouraging. The completest definition only covers part of the subject. The starry constellations are grander than the best treatise on astronomy, and the plants and flowers of field and garden more beautiful than any dissertation on botany; and all our" systems" are but "broken lights" of the realities they attempt to describe. It is easy to say that poetry is the language of the emotions, or that it is the art of expressing our thoughts by fictitious ideas and images, or that it is a mode of expressing thought and feeling suitable to the imagination when excited or elevated. But while all this is true, it is only a small part of the truth. Something is said, but more is left unsaid. Everybody would say that the definition of a man would be inadequate which should simply describe him as a creature having legs and being able to walk. How impossible for us to have a concise definition of poetry, we may infer from so gifted a critic as Coleridge, who affirms of this branch of literature that it "is the blossom and fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotion, language." P. J. Bailey, himself a poet of brilliant powers, writes- "The poet's pen is the true divining rod Which trembles towards the inner founts of feeling; As does the needle." The main object of poetry is to confer pleasure. It refines the mind indeed, it conveys instruction, it is often the instrument of moral improvement; but valuable as these ends are, they are only secondary. It is its business to represent nature and human life as they are seen by the light within, and not by the mere external vision. The same landscape to different minds presents an appearance altogether contrary. A man labouring under the influence of deep sorrow will note chiefly the sombre shades and the melancholy sighing of the wind in the trees, whereas a joyous mind would chiefly contemplate the happy flight and song of birds, the gentle motion of the murmuring stream, and the gay hues of the foliage. If objects are described from the stand-point of the emotions, and it is from this point that the poet must describe them, a picture strikingly different from that presented to the common gaze will be placed before us. The poet sees quite different things in the heavens to what is beheld by the astronomer. His account of the fields varies greatly from that of a land-surveyor or a farmer. His views of society and political affairs are not those of the historian. The light by which he walks is that "that never was on sea or shore "-it breaks from within, and he describes all the objects he sees by the help of vivid and picturesque metaphors, that others may be raised to his own altitude, and all their emotions be quickened by new views of life and nature. Instruction is sure to attend the study of all good poetry, for it opens to us the mysterious depths of our own consciousness, and through knowledge of our own souls comes the knowledge of others and the knowledge of God; but the primary purpose of embellishing common things with the glories of the imagination is that interest and pleasure in them may be kindled and maintained. The materials with which the poet works lie all around him. The beauty of the rising or setting sun, the brilliant lights that stud the midnight sky, the ocean gleaming, now with rainbow hues in the sunlight, and now tossing and roaring in answer to the battling air and skies, the glories of Nature as they are varied by the stately progress of the seasons; these all supply him with striking images. All history too he ransacks to supply his needs. But his chief themes are found in the moral and intellectual faculties of the human soul. "The proper study of mankind is man." So wrote Pope, giving a modern turn to the legend placed on the Delphic shrine, "Know thyself." This study need not be an exclusive one, but it should have the chief place in our time and attention. The moods and feelings and passions of the human soul are profoundly interesting. Every mind must be fired with interest as the poet depicts the fortunes, the character, the thoughts and actions of men, changing in their ever-shifting phases as rapidly as the waves of the Atlantic roll onward and break into wild spray on the rocky coast. He avails himself of a license none others are allowed to take, representing things in an unusual combination, provided always that the combination be not far removed from the limits of likelihood. The poets of three hundred or three thousand years ago might allowably introduce witches, elves, fiends, and fairies, because such creatures were then universally believed to exist. But |