OF THE LITERATURE OF THE ENGLISH.
There are innumerable books; and the conceit of these Barbarians attaches to them as to everything in their Enlightened World (Litz-i-ten). Nothing outside of the Christ-god worshippers is allowed to be enlightened—all else is darkness. This is true as to their opinion, strange as it looks; and all the Literature in every part of it shows this. The attainments and the experience of all to whom this worship is unknown, receive no other than a curious attention from a few of the literati. But we know that this conceit is absurd; ignorant and superstitious Barbarians really think that, without the adoption of their Jah-Christ-Jew superstition, with all the Canons, no true morality, no real civilisation, exists, nor can exist!
This I must premise; because we may dismiss at once the larger portion of the Barbarian Literature, inasmuch as it relates to the great Superstition. It is everywhere, striking into and permeating everything, to be sure; but I refer to works avowedly devoted to it. It makes the Books largely unreadable to one having no sympathy with the author; and it requires patience and a long use to get over the disgust caused by the offensive pretensions and ignorant references.
The Poetry of a people is generally placed first among the Barbarian Literati; and of this form the Western tribes are very fond. The English boast that in this they excel all others; though, for that matter, the same boast is made in everything.
The larger part of the Poetry may be called trash (ru-b-isti). Iterations and reiterations of the same conceits, the same shallow sentiments, the same metaphors, mostly of an amatory and indelicate sort. Poems, often tedious, verbose, strangely mixed with matters of the Superstition and of the ancient (Roman) myths; laudatory performances, beslobbering (spr-au-fo) great men with empty compliments, or giving lying exaltation to the fancied virtues of the eminently bad; dull and long-winded reflections from minds too obscure to reflect anything, unless with an added obscurity; an enormous Waste (Ban-s-he) which the English themselves never traverse.
Poetry with the Barbarians is far more esteemed than with us, although in our annals are found evidences of its immemorial existence. As with us, it takes many forms, and is reduced to an art. The two greatest names are Milton and Shakespeare. The first of these is esteemed as the most sublime of all poets, ancient or modern—but it is needful to fix the quality, the essence of the sublime! Of the gloomy grandeur of the man, and of his power of suggesting the vast and the intangible, there can be no doubt. Nor is he wanting in a mournful sweetness—the plaint of a beneficent being who feels an eternal despair! Nor can it be otherwise, for the grand imagination of Milton is wholly occupied with the devils of the Barbarian Superstition! With its terrible images—with the Hell in which they and lost men for ever burn in eternal fires, and yet are never consumed! He introduces the reader (in his great Poem) to Paradise [Kar-din], where man once lived in perfect wisdom and happiness—and here the Poet is full of that sad, that tender, that inexpressible, sweet despair! From this Paradise (as said elsewhere) man was enticed by Satan, who had been set free from Hell for the very purpose; and then follow all the surprising pictures, vast, terrible, indescribable—only possible to a mind fully possessed by all the horrors of the Jew Jah-god Idolatry.
Shakespeare, with a healthier mind, one not distorted by the Superstition, and with a human, natural vigour and feeling, writes in a manner to interest man. On the whole, the English Barbarians place him far above all others of any time or place—call him the Divine Shakespeare! This is very easy with a people who know nothing of the poetry of the great East, nor of that of our Flowery Kingdom—in truth, have but a slight acquaintance with the writers of the other Barbarians!