The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 / Volume 23, Number 1

THE
Knickerbocker,
NEW-YORK MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
VOLUME XXIII.
NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY JOHN ALLEN, NASSAU-STREET. 1844.
Transcriber’s Note: The page numbers in the index convert to issues in the following way:

Whatever the poets may say, it is incontrovertible that the great majority of men look upon the beauties and glories of Nature that surround them with almost entire indifference. We shall not inquire whether this is the result of a natural incapacity to perceive and admire the beautiful and sublime, or whether it is that their impressions are so deadened by familiarity as to be passed by unnoticed. Probably the former is the case with the greater number; although we cannot believe with some writers, that all our ideas of beauty are but the results of association, or of our perceptions of the proportion, or fitness, or utility of things. When we say that some things are naturally agreeable, and others naturally disagreeable, we have said all that we know about the matter; and this amounts to nothing more than a confession of our ignorance. Yet, if we admit in all men the existence of a natural sense of beauty, daily observation shows us that the pleasure arising from it is in most cases very feeble and evanescent. How many live in the midst of the most magnificent natural scenery, and never perceive its beauties until they are pointed out to them by some intelligent traveller! And often if admiration be professed, it is of that vague, undistinguishing kind, which indicates little knowledge of the causes why they admire. Even among men of cultivated tastes, there is much more of affected than real enthusiasm.
If what we have said be true, it is a curious subject of inquiry why descriptive poetry has been so popular. How happens it that so many who have looked upon Nature herself with great indifference, have been so much delighted with the reflection of her image in the pages of the poets? We suspect, indeed, that a part of the popularity of this class of writers is factitious. Thomson, the most popular, is we suspect oftener purchased than read; and his ‘Seasons’ are not unfrequently spoken of with admiration by those who know little of them but the episodes. The chief interest of the ‘Task’ is to be sought for in other sources than its descriptions, notwithstanding the curiosa felicitas of Cowper’s diction.