against the requisitions of his own art— "We do it wrong, being so majestical In such a spirit much of endur- The time has now passed away when the supernatural, being degraded to the lev of the super stitious, it was deemed vorthy employm it. for the poets of the eighteenth century to expend their keen wit in efforts to make it wholly ridiculous. We begin to feel that it is the great and peculiar privilege of the Imagination, to sympathise with forms of beauty, which, unreal as they may be for the understanding, are eternal truths for all who can feel the "lovely and immortal power of genius, that can stretch its hand to us out of the wastes of time, thousands of years back." The Imagination demands not the reality of these beings, but simply that they should be such as to win upon our sympathy. "Their possibility, if the poet will it, is to be conceded; the problem is the creature being given how to square its actions with the probability, according to the nature assumed of it. The skill and beauty of these fictions, lies in bringing them within the regions of truth and likelihood. Hence the serpent Python of Chaucer Sleeping against the sun upon a day,' when Apollo slew him! Hence the chariot-drawing dolphins of Spenser, 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 together again like quicksilver, and picking up his head when it is cut off, sometimes by the hair, sometimes by the nose! This, which would be purely childish and ridiculous in the hands of an inferior poet, becomes interesting, nay grand, in Ariosto's, from the beauties of his style, and its conditional truth to nature. The monster has a false hair on his head-a single hair-which must be taken from it before he can be killed! Decapitation itself is of no consequence without that proviso. The Paladin, Astolfo, who has fought this phenomenon on horseback, and succeeded in getting the head, and gallopping off with it, is, therefore, still at a loss what to be at. How is he to discover such a needle in such a bottle of hay? The trunk is spurring after him to recover it, and he seeks for some evidence 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 alloy pallido e brutto, Travolse gli occhi, e dimostrò a l' occaso Per manifesti segni essco crndutto El busto che segnia troncato al callo, Di sella cadde, e diè l' ultinio crollo. "Then grew the visage pale and deadly wet; The eyes turned in their sockets drearily; And all things showed the villain's sun was set. Ilis trunk that was in chase fell from its horse, And giving the last shudder, was a corse.' "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 in structive 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 be 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 his 'Jacob's Dream.' His Bacchuses will never 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 supernatural 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, as in this case by the usual opposition of the natural to the supernatural. If such suggestive comments on the meaning of words as they affect the truth of things were often used, one fertile source of idle theorizing would be removed. Shakespere, 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 shep Mr. Hunt's account and illustrations of the Imagination, are, we must think, superior to those of Fancy—interesting as many of these last are. After hav. ing 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 Shakspeare, to breathe the drawing-room atmosphere of genteel society which was the natu ral 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 years of imprisonment in the "cloven pine," would prove less fatal to Ariel (as Mr. Hunt beautifully describes him,) "the delicate, yet powerful spirit, jealous of restraint, yet able to serve; living in the elements 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 drawing-room graces of the genteel and modish guardian, of Pope's coquettish heroine, who thus harangues his compeers the sylphs and gnomes : "Ye sylphs and sylphids, to your chief give ear, Fays, fairies, genii, elves, and demons hear, Ye know the spheres and various tasks assign'd By laws eternal to the aerial kind. * * Our humbler province is to tend the fair Not a less pleasing though less glorious care; To save the powder from too rude a gale, Nor let the imprison'd essences exhale; To draw fresh colours from the vernal flowers, To steal from rainbows ere they drop in showers A brighter wash to curl their waving hairs, Assist their blushes and inspire their airs ; Nay oft in dreams invention we bestow To change a flounce, or add a furbelow." The very increased delight with which wereperuse 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 harmonised 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 sympathising with the true heroic contributed to his success here. He used conventional forms as best suited to conventional subjects, and was himself artificial even while ridiculing artificiality. Perhaps we may seem to some inconsistent 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 endeavour 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 armour, and surmounted by, not a helmet, but a wig. Pope, endued with a keen perception of the ridiculous, proceeded to satirise this mock-heroism, as it appeared in poetical 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 pcpular 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 endeavours of earnest minds, struggling to the light.Often they sprang from the opposition mistakenly 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 : 66 ACT III. SCENE I.-The Wood. "Enter QUINCE, SNUG, BOTTOM, FLUTE, &c. "Bot. Are we all met? 66 Quin.-Pat, pat! and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehear sal; 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. "Bot.-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. How answer you that? 66 "Snout-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 prologue. "Snout-Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion? Snug. I fear it, I promise you. Bot.-Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves to bring in God shield us! A lion among ladies; for there is not a more peaceful wild fowl than a lion living, and we ought to look to it. "Snout-Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion. "Bot.-Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck, and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect-Ladies, or fair ladies, I would wish you, or I would request 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 man as other men are;' and then indeed let him name his name, and tell them plainly he 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 humour 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.' Absurd merely when considered as the deliberate 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 neces Mean sities 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 association with the other. How much is there, in the stirring 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. while, 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 unobtrusive element as manifesting the inmost spirit of poetry. He well observes: "Variety in versification consists in whatsoever can be done for the prevention of monotony, by diversity of stops and cadences, distribution of emphasis, and retardation and acceleration of time; for the whole secret of 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 numbers, of accent and quantity, will no more impart it, than a knowledge of the Guide to Music' will make a Beethoven or a Paisello. It is matter of sensibility and imagination; 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 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 syllableslong 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, on that prime requisite verse-swedess:--- "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 idolator of Spenser, ventured to wish the following line in the Fairy Queen': And was admired much of fools, women, and boys,' altered to And was admired much of women, fools, and boys,' 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. Sweetness is the smoothness of grace and delicacy of the sympathy with the pleasing and lovely. Spenser is full of it; Shakspeare, Beaumont Fletcher, and Coleridge. Of Spenser's and Coleridge's versification, it is the prevailing characteristic. Its main secrets are, a smooth progression between variety and sameness, and a voluptuous sense of the continuous-linked sweetness long drawn out.' Observe the first and last lines of the stanza in the Fairy Queen,' describing a shepherd brushing away the gnats. The open and the close e's in the one As gentle shepherd in sweet ēventide,' and the repetition of the word oft, and the fall from the vowel a into the two u's in the other- |