Richard of Scott's Ivanhoe; or in fancying the Augustan age, are willing to forget that it took its name from 'him who murder'd Tully, That cold villain, Octavius.' "Conformably to the laws of our better nature, our imagination is most readily attracted by what is most excellent in man. While viewing a beautiful tract of country with which we are not familiar, we can hardly refrain from idealizing its supposed inhabitants, and giving them somewhat of a poetical character, or, in other words, a character agreeable to our best feelings. So it is in casting our view over past ages. Our sympathies are excited for the hopes and fears, and the virtues, such as they were, of those who have lost all power to injure; and we may even fashion dim images of what they now are, as existing somewhere in the creation of God, divested, perhaps, of the evil that clung to them on earth. The idea of that moral purification and development, which, we believe, is continually going on in the universe, may thus mingle with the contemplation of the past. It is in transferring us into a world in which grateful imaginations are blended with truth, and the harshness of present reality is shut out, that the poetic interest of antiquity principally consists. "Of this, modern poetry and fiction have abundantly availed themselves. But though a shadowy antiquity lay as a background to Greek and Roman civilization, yet it was rarely resorted to by the ancient poets as a source of pleasing or solemn emotions. To them the remoter ages were little more than a desert abounding with monstrous fictions, with licentious and savage divinities, half-brutal demigods, and heroes, and chiefs hardly human, whose fabulous deeds and sufferings present nothing to recommend them to our sense of beauty. In the period following, history assumed at least an air of truth, and men appeared on the stage with human feelings, passions, and virtues. But in looking back upon their earlier history, the ancients seem to have felt but slightly those peculiar sentiments and trains of feeling, which the contemplation of antiquity now awakens in our breasts. In no ancient poet is there a celebration of a hero of his country to be compared with Mrs. Hemans's lines on the Scottish patriot, Wallace, beginning • Rest with the brave, whose names belong There is no appeal to the deeds of their fathers equal to her Spanish war-song, Fling forth the proud banner of Leon again Let the high word Castile' go resounding through Spain.'- No poetic conception of antiquity is to be found resembling the in troduction of her 'Cathedral Hymn,' 'A dim and mighty minster of old time, A temple shadowy with remembrances Of the majestic past. And above all, there is nothing so morally ennobling, so adapted to raise the character of a people, as the verses by which she has con ferred a great obligation on our country, her 'Pilgrim Fathers.' "But, beside the advantages afforded to a modern poet by the religious and moral improvement of our race, which it has been principally our object to point out, there are others at which we may glance. He may look back over many ages, and around upon all countries, and acquaint himself with man, as he has existed and ex ists under circumstances the most dissimilar. He may possess himself of all that knowledge of human nature, which has been gathered MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. เ 553 from long experience, and wide observation, and multiplied opportunities of comparison. He may, like Southey, construct poems, as wild and wondrous, and as morally beautiful as Thalaba,' or as rich with barbaric splendor as The Curse of Kehama,' from the rude materials of Arabian fiction or Hindoo mythology. The treasures of learning and science, so poor in ancient times, have, through succeeding ages, been accumulating to furnish him with thoughts, illustrations, and images. Our conceptions are enlarged, our views raised, the physical as well as the moral universe has been continually opening to the view of man, and knowledge unfolding her everlengthening scroll, of which the ancients had scarcely read the first lines. It was a dream, ridiculed by Plato,* of the extravagant admirers of Homer, that all human and divine learning was to be found in his writings. "In the nature of things art is progressive; its theory and practice are gradually better understood, errors are discovered and corrected, new objects of attainment proposed, and visions of higher excellence revealed to the mind; and thus we may believe, that the character, principles, purposes, and means of poetry are now comprehended more justly than they were in former times. "But it may be said, that in perfection of language, at least, the poets of Greece and Rome must remain unsurpassed. It may be doubted, however, whether we are qualified to pronounce this judgment in their favor. The harmonious flow of articulate sounds in the Greek and Latin languages, particularly in the Latin, is not to be readily attained in some of the principal languages of literary Europe. But if we speak of poetical beauty of expression and harmony of thought, we must recollect, that it is necessary to be acquainted with the train of shadowy associations which follow the direct meaning of a poetical word, before we can determine that word to be well chosen. But such acquaintance implies an intimate knowledge of the use of language and of the state of mind in those addressed, which, as regards the poetry of the ancients, it is very difficult to acquire, and, in many particulars, impossible, yet without which we are liable to fall into great mistakess, and may often be left in much uncertainty. Take, for example, the line,- Quadrupedante outrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.'t It has been admired from the consonance of the sound with the sense. We understand the epithet putris to mean dusty,--the dusty plain; but this epithet is elsewhere applied to a rich, mellow soil, easily broken up, or to a sandy plain. According to either of these uses, it is apparently an epithet unsuitable from its associations to be given to a field described as shaken and resounding with the trampling of a body of horse. As respects, likewise, the epithet quadrupedans, we may doubt whether any modern critic can explain why quadrupedante sonitu is more poetical in Virgil, than its equivalent, the sound of quadrupeds,' would be in a modern poet, if used to express the sound of horses. "Let us take another example: 'Pastor cum traheret per freta navibus * De Republica, Lib. x. p. 598, seq. "Repeated peals of shouts are heard around: The neighing coursers answer to the sound, And shake with horny hoots the solid ground.”--Dryden. Loud shouts arise; the thundering coursers bound Through clouds of dust, and paw the trembling ground."--Pitt I When the perfidious shepherd was bearing away, in Idean ships through nar row seas, Helen, the wife of his host VOL. II.-47 "Why is the word traheret used, which, as employed elsewhere, would imply the taking away of Helen against her will? Does it refer to one version of the story according to which Paris did bear her away by force ? Were this the case, one would naturally expect, considering the reproachful and denunciatory character of the ode, to find that idea brought out more distinctly. Is it intended to express the reluctance with which, though yielding to her love for Paris, she left her husband and her home? This conception is too refined for an ancient poet to trust to its being made apparent by so light a touch, if indeed we may suppose it to have entered his mind. Was traheret then intended, by its associations with an act of violence, to denote the rapidity and fear of the flight of Paris? Or was it merely em ployed abusively, to use a technical term, only with reference to a part of its signification, as words are not unfrequently used in poetry, though it is always an imperfection? "Such cases are very numerous, in which no modern reader can pronounce with just confidence upon the character of the poetical language of the ancients. Instances are frequently occurring in which, if we admire at all, we must admire at second hand, upon trust. The meaning and effect of words have undergone changes which it is of ten not easy, and often not possible, to ascertain with precision. Even in our own language this is the case. Shakspeare says, Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark "Here Johnson understands him as presenting the ludicrous conception of 'the ministers of vengeance peeping through a blanket and Coleridge, as we see by his Table-Talk, conjectured that instead of 'blanket, blank height' was perhaps written by Shakspeare. But by 'Heaven' we conceive to be meant not the ministers of vengeance, but the lights of heaven; and it is not unpoetical to speak of the noon and stars as peeping through clouds. With the word 'blanket, our associations are trivial and low; but understand it merely as denoting a thick covering of darkness which closely enwraps the lights of heaven, and it suits well to its place. But our associations with the word are accidental, there is nothing intrinsically more mean in a blanket than a sheet, yet none would object to the expression of a sheet of light.' The fortunes of the words only have been different, and that, in all probability, since the time of Shakspeare, considering his use of this word, and the corresponding use of the word rug by Drayton.* "If such be the character of poetical language, it is clear that to judge with critical accuracy of that of a distant age or even a foreign land, requires uncommon knowledge and discrimination, as well as an accurate taste; while, unfortunately, profound scholarship and cultivated and elegant habits of mind, have very rarely been united in the study of the ancient poets. The supposition of a peculiar felicity of expression in their writings is to be judged of, in most cases, rather by extrinsic probabilities, which do not favor it, than by any direct and clear evidence of it that can be produced. We are very liable in this particular to be biassed by prepossession and authority; our imaginations often deceive us; we create the beauty which we fancy that we find. "There is perhaps no poet, in whose productions the characteristics of which we have spoken as giving a superiority to the poety of later times over that which has preceded, appear more strikingly than in those of Mrs. Hemans. When, after reading such works as she has written, we turn over the volumes of a collection of English poetry, like that of Chalmers, we cannot but perceive that the greater See examples, in the notes to Shakspeare. JUVENILE POEMS. 555 part of it appears more worthless and distasteful than before. Much is evidently the work of barren and unformed, vulgar and vicious minds, of individuals without any conception of poetry as the glowing expression of what is most noble in our nature, and often with no title to the name of poet, but from having put into metre thoughts toc mean for prose. Such writings as those of Mrs. Hemans at once afford evidence of the advance of our race, and are among the most important means of its further purification and progress. The minds, which go forth from their privacy to act with strong moral power upon thousands and ten thousands of other minds, are the real agents in advancing the character of man, and improving his condition. They are instruments of the invisible operations of the Spirit of God." -From the Christian Examiner of January, 1836. SELECTIONS FROM JUVENILE PCEMS. [In this collected edition of the various writings of Mrs. Hemans, chronological arrangement has been adhered to, in so far as any useful purpose has been attained by it; and, when departed from, it has only been to a small extent, and that for the purpose of giving to each volume a greater degree of variety. In a very general point of view, the intellectual career of Mrs. Hemans may be divided, as we have already hinted, into two separate eras, the first of which may be termed the classical, and comprehends the productions of her pen, from "the Restoration of the works of Art to Italy" and "Modern Greece," down to the "Historic Scenes and the "Translations from Camoens,"-and the last the romantic, which commences with the "Forest Sanctuary," and includes "Records of Woman," together with nearly all her later efforts. In point of poetical merit, there can be little doubt that the last section far transcends the first, and forms the groundwork-whether we regard conception or execution-on which her peculiar fame will be tested by posterity. The former series of poems, however, must be always reckoned valuable, not only in themselves as compositions, but as showing the progress of an intrinsically poetical mind towards its maturity. But as noonday has its morning, so even these were only the blossoms from antecedent buds; and, as matter of literary curiosity, we have appended a selection from Mrs. Hemans's really juvenile efforts, sufficient to show the first expansions of that genius, which time and exertion afterwards ripened into "the bright consummate flower." Even after the early poetical attempts of Cowley and Pope, of Chatterton, Kirke White, and Byron, some of the following outpourings of poetical sentiment may be read with no common interest.] JUVENILE POEMS, BY FELICIA DOROTHEA BROWNE. From a Volume of Poems by FELICIA DOROTHEA BROWNE, published in 1808, containing Pieces written between the ages of eight and thirteen. ON MY MOTHER'S BIRTHDAY. WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF EIGHT. CLAD in all their brightest green, The tuneful birds begin their lay, The breeze is still, the sea is calm, The sky is blue, the day serene, A PRAYER. WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF NINE. Он! God, my Father and my Friend, ADDRESS TO THE DEITY. WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF ELEVEN. THE infant muse, Jehovah! would aspire Source of all good, oh! teach my voice to sing Who saidst to Chaos, "let the earth arise." Oh! author of the rich luxuriant year, Love, Truth, and Mercy, in thy works appear: Ah, no! the theme shall swell a cherub's note ; With angel-songs an artless voice shall blend, |