38 MAN SHOULD BE INDEPENDENT OF EXTERNALS. mysel, sirs; yet a man shouldna let onything like the chief pairt o' his happiness in this warld be at the mercy o' its Beauty-the slave o' the ear and ee-which that man must be wha habitually draws his veetal bliss frae the bonny colours or sounds o' the mere earth. The human sowl aught to be at last totally independent o' the outer creation, except for meat, drink, house, and claes. I say at last; for at first, and for a lang, lang time, we maun hang, like sookin babies, at the breast o' mother Natur, or gang stacherin' at her knees while she is actin in the capacity and character o' a great big muckle Dry Nurse. Tickler. Skelping your dolp, James, with storm, sleet, snow, and rain, and, by one and the same benign but severe process, invigorating at once head, heart, and hurdies. Shepherd. Fie, fie-that's coorse! What I mean's this: A man, wha aiblins thinks himsel a poet, and wha we shall alloo has poetical propensities, has, by the goodness of Providence, been set doun in a house on a gentle eminence, commandin a beautifu' bend o' the blue braided sky overhead, hills and mountains piling theirsels in regular gradation up, up, up,and far, far, far aff and awa, till you kenna whilk are their rosy summits, and whilk the rosy clouds-and, beyond a foreground o' woods, groves, halls, and cottages, exquisitely interspersed wi' fields and meadows, which, in the dimmest days, still seem spots of sunshine,—a loch! or, supposin the scene in England, a lake, a day's journey round about, always blue or bright, or, if at ony time black, yet then streaked gloriously wi' bars o' sunburst, sae that in the midst o' the foamy gloom o' Purgatory are seen serenely rising the Isles o' Paradise.2 North. Poussin ! Shepherd. -Deil mean him to be cheerfu', and crouse, and talkative, and eloquent on the poetical and picturesqueand, to croon a', proud as Lucifer! But only observe, sirs, the gross delusion into which the cretur has couped ower head and ears, sae lang syne that there's nae chance o' his 1 Stacherin-staggering. 2 This is a very good description of Elleray, Professor Wilson's seat on the heights of Windermere. 3 "Deil mean him to be cheerfu'," &c.,—that is, such a person will have no difficulty in being cheerful, &c. THE POET IS INDEPENDENT OF EXTERNALS. 39. recovery in this life. He absolutely, sirs, thinks that glorious scene-Himsel; Loch Lomond or Windermere-Himsel!— Forgettin, that if either o' them were struck out o' being, the beauty o' the earth would be shorn of its beams—or at least all England and all Scotland-Cockneydom excluded-be desolate; whereas you ken, sir, that were the bit triflin cretur himsel killed by a cherry-stane stickin in the throat o' him, or a sour-cider colic, in nine days he would be nae mair missed in his ain parish—I had amaist said on his ain estate—than a defunck cock-sparrow. Tickler. And what, pray, James, is your drift? Shepherd. My drift? Truthwards on the sea o' philosophy. The delusion's the same wi' a' kinds o' wealth-bonds, bills, bank-stock, or what not,—the man mistakes them for himsel; but the looker-on is free frae that delusion-and sees that in truth he is as poor as Lazarus. Therefore, rug the ane awa frae Loch Lomond or Windermere, I say, and crib, cabin, and confine him in a back parlour in some dingy toun, commanding a view o' a score o' smoky chimleys, and then look into his eyes, and listen unto his voice for his poetry. He is seen and heard to be a Sumph. Rug, in like manner, the man o' money frae his bags,-let the feet o' some great Panic trample out his Ploom,1 as you or me would squash a sour Ploomdamass wi' the heel o' our shae, and in sowl as in body behold a Powper! But bring the POET frae his dwelling amang the licht o' risin and settin suns, and amang the darkness o' thunderous clouds, sae grim that they seem to threaten earthquake,-frae amang the pearlins, and jewels, and diamonds o' mornin, wha adorns the bleakest heath she loves wi' gossamery dewdraps, finer, and fairer, and richer far than all the gems that ever swarthy miners dug out o' the subterranean galleries o' Golconda and Peru,-frae amang the meridian magnificence o' lights and shadows, smiling like angels, or a-frown like demons, shiftin or stationary on the many-coloured mountain's breast, till the earth seems the sea-frae amang the one-star-y-crowned gloaming pensive wi' the wood-lark's sang, or mair than pensive, profoundly melancholy, wi' the far-aff croonin o' the cushat hidden somewhere or ither in the heart o' some auld wood,-frae amang the moonlicht that, after it has steeped a' the heavens, has a still serene flood o' 1 Plumb=£100,000. 2 Powper-pauper. 40 LOVE AND BEAUTY. lustre to pour doun on the taps o' trees, and ancient ruins, and lakes that seem to burn wi' fire, and a' ower the dreamy slumber o' the toil-forgettin Earth! English Opium-Eater. Exquisite ! North. Go on, James-keep moving. Shepherd. Clap him in a garret in Grub Street, and yet shall he, like a fixed star, hang on the bosom o' infinitude, or like a planet pursue his flight, in music, round the Sun. Omnes. Hurra-hurra-hurra! The Shepherd for ever! Hurra-hurra-hurra! Shepherd. Sear his een wi' red-het plates o' airn, or pierce their iris wi' fire-tipped skewers, and soon as the agony has grown dull in his brain-nerves, he will see the Panorama o' Natur still, Mont Blanc and his eagles, Palmyra in the desert, the river o' Amazons, and the sail-swept Ocean wi' a' his isles! English Opium-Eater. Author of Kilmeny! that is IMAGINATION! To the sumph (an admirable word), everything is nothing to the man of genius, nothing is everything. Shepherd. Eh? English Opium-Eater. See how genius throws all that arises within itself, out of itself, making that which in respect of the reality is subjective, in respect of the effect or apprehension, objective. Shepherd. Eh? English Opium-Eater. The joy and the love spring in itself, and remain in itself; but it flings them forth into the object, scattering light as from a golden urn. That joy and that love, now poured upon the object, appears to genius as a property or nature residing therein, which property or nature, gloriously self-deceived by the divinity it bears, it thenceforth acknowledges as-Beauty. In the same way, or a similar, the mind has before given colour to the grass, and light to the sun. Only, that in the attribution of these merely physical properties, it appears to do no more than remove that which is present to it in the eye, to a greater distance from it, out of the eye. Whereas in beauty, you find an union of your soul with the object-that is Love. Develop love infinitely, and you develop beauty. Shepherd. I believe that, sir, to be indeed God's truth. THE CREATIVE POWER OF THE MIND. 41 English Opium-Eater. Both beauty and sublimity—you may remember we touched on these subjects at the last Noctes, and, indeed, an hour ago-appear to be visible in visible objects. When we begin to think, we cannot believe that they are otherwise; and we abhor the metaphysical attempt to take the qualities out of the objects, to make them alien to the eye. Why? Because that attempt dissolves the world. It makes that whereon our love, our soul, has rested as on rock-strong Reality, unreal-mere Figured Air! Shepherd. It would seem, indeed, my dear sir, that our verra life is taen frae us by sic speculations. English Opium-Eater. Be it so. The great question is, will we know, or will we have ignorant bliss? Know we must. We very soon become convinced, by divers reflections, that our first natural and inevitable idea is not strictly true, that the Beauty and the Sublimity are not so imbedded and inherent in the objects as they once appeared to be. We must give up more and more, and shall find no rest till we recognise that they are totally of the mind. Then, indeed, we obtain a support—a life—of a different and more sufficient kind than that which was at first taken away, in the clear consciousness of the creative and illimitable power of the mind. We can rest well in either extreme-but between them, rest is there none. Shepherd. What for do you no write poetry, Mr Quinshy— seein that ye are a poet? But you're prouder o' bein' a pheelosopher. English Opium-Eater. There are two principal ways, Mr Hogg, in which every object can be considered-two chief aspects under which they present themselves to us—the philosophical and the poetical-as they are to reason, as they seem to imagination. Shepherd. Can you, sir, make that great distinction good? English Opium-Eater. Perhaps there is no absolute distinction in the world of nature, or in the human soul. But let me say, we may consider all things, either as intellect without feeling tends to consider them, or intellect with feeling, i. e., causatively and passionately. The great, the most earnestlydesiring inquiry that pure reason makes, is of the causes of things. For this end it comes into the world. To intellect thus working, what it sees is nothing—for what it sees are 42 INTELLECT.-IMAGINATION. signs only of what has preceded—and, therefore, such speculation dissolves the fabric to construct it over again. It builds out of destruction. But intellect working by feeling, i. e., imagination, does quite the reverse. What is, is everything to it. It beholds and loves. Imagination educes from its objects all the passion, all the delight that they are capable of yielding it. It desires, it cares for nothing more. Hence philosophy and poetry are at war with each other, but they are powers which may belong to the service of the same kingly mind. Imagination lives in the present-in the shown-in the apparent in the pavoμevov. From the whole, as it is presented, springs some mighty passion. Disturb the actual presentment, and the passion is gone. "If but a beam of sober reason play, Then Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away." That line, beautiful as it is, and true-is yet inadequate to express the demolition, when is and SEEMS encounter, and the latter is overthrown. Shepherd. Plawto poured out his pheelosophy in Dialogues -and sae, sir, do you-and I'll back ye again' the auld Trojan —that is, Grecian-for a barrel o' eisters. I never understood metafeezics afore-but noo the distinction atween reason and imagination and their objects, is as plain as that atween the pike-staff o' a sergeant o' militia and the sceptre o' Agamem non. North. You have been touching, my dear Opium-Eater, on abstruse matters indeed, but with a pencil of light. Certainly, the effect of right metaphysical study is to dissolve the whole fabric of knowledge. Boscovich has metaphysicized matter, and shown that there need be none-that certain centres of attraction and repulsion are the only things needed. Others have metaphysicized vision. Now, two great bonds of our knowledge are-habit, and the feeling we annex to forms; and we repugn the breaking up of either. How our idea of a house, a palace, a kingdom, a man, the sea, is infused with feeling! To all doctrines that dissolve feelings or habits, we are naturally averse. They are painful-as, for example, that which denies that colour or beauty is in the objects-just like that further discovery of the world, which shows us that those whom we thought all-perfect, have great faults. But this is |