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 nature. The monster has a false hair on his suggestive comments on the meaning of head-a single hair-which must be taken words as they affect the truth of things from it before he can be killed! Decapitation were often used, one fertile source of idle itself is of no consequence without that provi- theorizing would be removed. Shakspere, so. The Paladin, Astolfo, who has fought as great a critic when it suited his purpose, this phenomenon on horseback, and succeeded as he was a poet, has a passage (Winter's in getting the head, and galloping off with it, Tale, Act IV., Scene 3,) which, considered is, therefore, still at a loss what to be at. How independently of its dramatic propriety and tle of hay? The trunk is spurring after him to beauty, contains a philosophy of art which, recover it, and he seeks for some evilence of with exquisite felicity illustrates, or rather the hair in vain. At length he bethinks him identifies the artistic with the natural. It of scalping the head. He does so; and the occurs where Perdita as a shepherdess remoment the operation arrives at the place of ceives "the guests" in the cottage of her the hair, the face of the head becomes pale, supposed father, and presenting to each the eyes turn in their sockets, and the lifeless such flowers as "fits his age," says:pursuer tumbles from his horse,

is he to discover such a needle in such a bot

"Li fece il viso allov pallido è brutto,

Travolse gli occhi, e dimostrò a l'occaso
Per manifesti segni esseo erndutto
E'l busto che segnia troncato al cællo,
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.
His trunk that was in chase fell from its horse,
And giving the last shudder, was a corse.'

"Sir the year growing ancient

Not yet on summer's death, nor the birth
Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' the

seasons,

Are our carnations and streaked gilly-flowers,
Which some call nature's bastards; of that kind
Our rustic garden's barren, and I care not
To get slips of them.

Pol. Wherefore, gentle maiden,
Do you neglect them?

Per. For I have heard it said
There is an art which, in their piedness, shares
With great creating nature.

Pol. Say there be.

marry

Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean; so o'er that art
That nature makes. You see sweet maid we
Which you say, adds to nature, is an art
A gentler scion to the wildest stock;
And make conceive a bark of baser kind
By bud of nobler race. This is an art
Which does mend nature; change it rather: but
The art itself is nature.”

"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 rnistakenly 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 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 ny of these last are. After having seen fury, as well as the graces of wine. His Jupi-him characterize the Ariel of Pope's admiter will reduce no females to ashes; his fairies rable mock heroic the "Rape of the Lock," 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."

Mr. Hunt's account and illustrations of

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 The final clause of the last sentence natural birth-place and home of the other. which we have marked in italics exhibits, He assigns the "Midsummer's Night with singular power, the manner in which Dream," and in part the "Tempest," as offthe critic may, by a delicate adjustment of spring of the same power which produced language, reconcile the common and par- the "Rape of the Lock"-that designated tial meaning of a word with one truer and by him as Fancy. Is it not unjust to both, more extensive, and thus correct the false or inadequate impressions which might be conveyed by the imperfection of language,

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 Perhaps we may seem to some inconsisdelicate, yet powerful spirit, jealous of re- tent in praising the force and artistic skill straint, yet able to serve; living in the of its intentional burlesque, while we own clements and the flowers; treading the a preference for a different style of art on edge of the salt deep, and running on the the grounds of its ranging over wider subsharp wind of the north; feeling for crea-jects and treating them in a more natural tures unlike himself; flaming amazement manner. We shall endeavor to explain on them too, and singing exquisitest songs," our meaning by illustrations, which will, 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,
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 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,
In a cowslip's bell I lie :

There I couch. When owls do cry,
On the bat's back I do fly,
After summer, merrily!
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now

Under the blossom, that hangs on the bough."

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 carnest 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.

But

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 "Men's minds are parcel of their fortunes ;" the narrow boundary which separates the sublime and heroic from the ridiculous, and Pope did all that could be done. suggested to Pope the idea of a burlesque it is no disparagement to him to say, that style as the appropriate frame of the pic- Shakspere was thrown on happier days, ture with which it harmonized so admira- and gifted with proportionably greater powbly. Even the repulsive formality and ers. He, too, had to combat with grievous wearying smoothness of his style, which and wide-spread errors in matters poetical; flowed from, and pointed to those more still they were not the offspring of frivolity, radical deficiencies which incapacitated but were rather the crude endeavors of him from sympathizing with the true heroic contributed to his success here.

earnest minds struggling to the light.— He Often they sprang from the opposition mis

"Enter QUINCE, Snug, Bottom, FLUTE, &c. surd merely when considered as the delibe

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 an-munity of character lying below the parswer you that?

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 spirit of poetry. He well observes :— progression between variety and sameness, and a voluptuous sense of the continuous"Variety 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

'As gèntle shèpherd in swēēt ēventide,'

other

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.'

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 'Guide to Music' will make a Beethoven or a 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."

"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':

'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;
I see a fountain large and fair-
A willow, and a ruined hut,

And thee and me and Mary there.
O Mary! make thy gentle lap our pillow;
Bend o'er us, like a bower, my beautiful green
willow.'

his relation to nature, we may surely apply What Mr. Hunt has said of the poet, in 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 ite with Mr. Hunt; and unless we to us. Spenser is deservedly a great favormuch 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- 66 Spenser's great characteristic is poetic ness is the smoothness of grace and delicacyof the sympathy with the pleasing and lovely. Spenser is full of it; Shakspere, Beaumont, Fletcher, and Coleridge. Of Spenser's and

luxury. If you go to him for a story you will be disappointed; if for style, classical or concise, the point against him is conceded; if for pathos, you must weep for personages half

real and too beautiful; if for mirth, you must laugh out of good breeding, and, because it pleaseth the great sequestered man to be facetious. Bnt if you love poetry well enough to enjoy it for its own sake, let no evil reports of his allegory' deter you from his acquaintance, for great will be your loss. His allegory, it self, is but one part allegory and nine parts beauty and enjoyment; sometimes an excess of flesh and blood. His forced rhymes and his sentences, written to fill up, which in a less poet would be intolerable, are accompanied with such endless grace and dreaming plea

sure fit to

Make heaven drowsy with the harmony,' that although it is to be no more expected of any to read him through at once, than to wander days and nights in a forest, thinking of nothing else, yet any true lover of poetry, when he comes to know him, would as soon quarrel with repose on the summer grass. You may get up and go away, but will return next day at noon to listen to his waterfalls. and to see, with half shut eye,' his visions of knights and nymphs, his gods and goddesses, whom he brought down again to earth in immortal beauty."

6

We have next a long "Gallery of Pictures from Spenser," where he is considered as the "Poet of the Painters :"

|

"In corroboration of the delight which Spenser took in this more visible kind of poetry, it is observable that he is never more free from his superfluousness than when painting a picture. When he gets into a moral, or intellectual, or narrative view, we might often spare him a good deal of the flow of it; but on occasions of sheer poetry and painting, he is too happy to wander so much from his point. If he is tempted to expatiate, every word is to the purpose. Poetry and painting, indeed, would in Spenser be identical, if they could be so; and they are more so, too, than it has latterly been the fashion to allow; for painting does not deal in the purely visibleit deals also in the suggestive and the allusive, therefore, in thoughts beyond the visible proof of the canvass; in imitations of sound, in references to past and future. Still the medium is a visible one, and is at the mercy of the spectator's amount of comprehension."

"The great privilege of the poet is that, using the medium of speech, he can make his readers poets; can make them aware and possessed of what he intends, enlarging their comprehension by his details, or enlightening it by a word. A painter might have the same feeling as Shakspere respecting the moonlight "sleeping" on a bank; but how is he to "I think," says Mr. Hunt, "that if he had not evince it? He may go through a train of the been a great poet, he would have been a profoundest thoughts in his own mind; but ingreat painter, and in that case there is ground to what voluminous fairy circle is he to comfor believing that England would have pos- press them? Poetry can paint whole gallesessed, and in the person of one man, herries in a page, while her sister art requires Claude, her Annibal Carracci, her Correggio, her Titian, her Rembrandt, perhaps even her Raphael. I suspect that if Spenser's history were better known, we should find that he was a passionate student of pictures, a haunter of the collections of his friends, Essex and Leicester. In speaking of a Leda, he says, bursting into an admiration of the imaginary painter

The wondrous skill, and sweet wit of the man
That her in daffodillies sleeping made,
From scorching heat her dainty limbs to shade.'
"And then he proceeds with a description,
full of life and beauty, but more proper to be
read with the context, than brought forward
separately. The coloring implied in these
lines is in the very core of the secret of that
branch of the art; and the unpainted part of
the tapestry is described with hardly less
beauty-

For round about, the walls 'y clothed were,
With goodly arras of great majesty,
Woven with gold and silk so close and near
That the rich metal lurked privily,
As feigning to be hid from envious eye,

Yet here, and there, and every where, un

awares,

It showed itself, and shone unwittingly,

the help of canvass to render a few of her powers visible. This, however, is what every body knows. Not so that Spenser emulated the Raphaels and Titians in a profusion of pictures, many of which are here taken from their walls. They give the Poets' Poet a claim to a new title-that of Poet of the Painters. I have attached to each of the pictures in this Spenser Gallery the name of the painter of whose genius it reminded me; and I think the connoisseur will allow that the assignment was easy, and that the painter poet's range of art is equally wide and wonderful."

We must content ourselves with a single example, before we take leave of "Imagination and Fancy."

"An Angel with a Pilgrim and a Fainting Knight. Character-Active Superhuman Beauty, with the finest coloring and contrast. Painter-Titian.

'During the while that Guzon did abide

In Mammon's house, the palmer whom whilere That wanton maid of passage had denied

By further search had passage found elsewhere;