“An elegant sufficiency! content,
Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Progressive virtue, and approving heaven!”
Guido Sorelli beautifully says, “I learn the depth to which I have sunk, from the length of chain let down to updraw me.” Without inquiring into his wisdom in publishing his “Confessions,” (written for the public, apparently, and not for Silvio Pellico), they certainly have, as he says, a tendency to bring the reader to “a saddening contemplation of his own heart.” This sensitive Italian was converted by the Bible, which he, in the first instance, read for an hour daily, and completely perused in three months; never opening it without first praying for humility. Nor did he ever commence his daily seven hours’ task of translating “Paradise Lost,” without imploring divine assistance; and the last four years of his ten years’ labour of love, “bore the impress,” he tells us, “of a happiness almost beatific.” Such are the silent, satisfying rewards which high and virtuous art bestows on her children, wholly independent of fame or emulation. Like the exquisite fanatico per la musica, in La Motte Fouquè’s “Violina,” they “carry on their labour as a sweet secret, hardly knowing at the time whether they shall ever feel inclined to make it known.” The “last infirmity of noble minds,” is their seeking the confirmatory sentence of some master-spirit, whom the voice of the world, and their own cordial acknowledgment, place far above themselves. All beyond this opens the door to rivalry and uneasiness. Once know that you do a thing well, and the calm pleasure needs not to be augmented by everybody’s owning it.
If a botanist ranges over an entire meadow, and find one or two new specimens, he thinks his labour not in vain. And if I find one or two noteworthy passages in a book, I am glad I have read it. Here, now, is the life of Pollok. What true soul of art has not experienced, at some period of its existence, the depression and despondency, the suspicion of its own self-delusion, thus expressed by the young Scottish poet?—
“The ideas,” he says, “which I had collected at pleasure, and which I reckoned peculiarly my own, were dropping away one after another. Fancy was returning from her flight—memory giving up her trust; what was vigorous becoming weak, and what was cheerful and active, dull and indolent.” And yet he was at this time on the brink of writing an immortal poem! One December night, sitting alone in his lodgings in great desolation of mind, he, to turn his thoughts from himself, took up the first book within reach, which happened to be Hartley’s “Oratory.” He opened on Lord Byron’s “Darkness,” and had not read far when he thought he could write something to the purpose on the subject of the general resurrection. After revolving his ideas a little, he struck off about a thousand lines—the now well-known passage, beginning,—
“In ’customed glory bright!”
Soon afterwards he wrote to his brother, that “he had lately been soaring in the pure ether of eternity, and linking his thoughts to the Everlasting Throne!” “And I knew,” says his brother, “that he had now found a subject to write on.” “May the eternal and infinite Spirit,” wrote this sympathizing brother in return, “inform your soul with an immortal argument, and enable you to conduct it to your own happiness in time, and blessedness in eternity; and to His praise, honour, and glory for ever!”