Early Reviews of English Poets

by John Louis Haney

His Lordship, we believe, is acquainted with ancient authors. Let him turn to Quinctilian, and he will find a whole chapter to prove that a great writer must be a good man. Let him go to Longinus, and he will read that a man who would write sublimely, "must spare no labour to educate his soul to grandeur, and impregnate it with great and generous ideas"—that "the faculties of the soul will then grow stupid, their spirit will be lost, and good sense and genius lie in ruins, when the care and study of man is engaged about the mortal, the worthless part of himself, and he has ceased to cultivate virtue, and polish his nobler part, his soul." Or, if poetical authority alone will satisfy a poet, let him learn from one of the finest of our modern poems:

"But of our souls the high-born loftier part,
Th' ethereal energies that touch the heart,
Conceptions ardent, laboring thought intense,
Creative fancy's wild magnificence,
And all the dread sublimities of song:
These, Virtue, these to thee alone belong:
Chill'd, by the breath of vice, their radiance dies,
And brightest burns when lighted at the skies:
Like vestal flames to purest bosoms given,
And kindled only by a ray from heaven."[K]

That the object of poetry, however, is not simply to instruct, but to "instruct by pleasing," is too obvious to need a proof. However the original object of measure and rhythm may have been to graft truth on the memory, and associate it with music; they are perpetuated by the universal conviction that they delight the ear. Like the armour which adorns the modern hall, they were contrived for use, but are continued for ornament.

Assuming this, then, to be a just definition of poetry, we repeat our assertion, that, in the work before us, the temperament of mind in the poet creates the grand defect of the poetry. If poetry should instruct, then he is a defective poet whose lessons rather revolt than improve the mind. If poetry should please, then he is a bad poet who offends the eye by calling up the most hideous images—who shews the world through a discoloured medium—who warms the heart by no generous feelings—who uniformly turns to us the worst side of men and things—who goes on his way grumbling, and labours hard to make his readers as peevish and wretched as himself. The tendency of the strain of Homer is to transform us for the moment into heroes; of Cowper, into saints; of Milton, into angels: but Lord Byron would almost degrade us into a Thersites or a Caliban; or lodge us, as fellow-grumblers, in the style of Diogenes, or any of his two or four-footed snarling or moody posterity. Now his Lordship, we trust, is accessible upon much higher grounds; but he will perceive that mere regard for his poetical reputation ought to induce him to change his manner. If, as Longinus instructs us, a man must feel sublimely to write sublimely, a poet must find pleasure in the objects of nature before him, if he hope to give pleasure to others. Let him remember, that not merely his conceptions, but his mind and character are to be imparted to us in his verse. He will, in a measure, "stamp an image of himself!" The fire with which we are to glow must issue from him. Till this change take place in him, then, he can be no great poet. It is Heraclitus who mourns in his pages, or Zeno who scolds, or Zoilus who lashes; but we look in vain for the poet, for the living fountain of our innocent pleasures, for the artificer of our literary delight, for the hand which, as by enchantment, snatches us from the little cares of life, whirls us into the boundless regions of imagination, "exhausting" one "world," and imagining others, to supply pictures which may refresh and charm the mind.[L] Lord Byron shews us man and nature, like the phantasmagoria, in shade; whereas, in poetry at least, we desire to see them illuminated by all the friendly rays which a benevolent imagination can impart.

We have hitherto confined ourselves to an examination of the influence of the principles and temper of this work upon its literary pretensions; but his Lordship will forgive us if we now put off the mere critic for a moment, and address him in that graver character which we assume to ourselves in the title of our work. In truth, we are deeply affected by the spectacle his poem presents to us. As the minor poems at the conclusion of the work breathe the same spirit, suggest the same doubts, and employ the same language with the "Childe Harold" we are compelled to recognise the author in the hero whom he has painted. In fact, the disclaimer, already noticed in the Preface, seems merely like one of those veils worn to draw attention to the face rather than to baffle it: and in the work before us we are forced to recognise a character, which, since Rousseau gave his Confessions to the public, has scarcely ever, we think, darkened the horizon of letters. The reader of the "Confessions" is dismayed to find a man frankly avowing the most disgraceful vices; abandoning them, not upon principle, but merely because they have ceased to gratify; prepared to return to them if they promise to reward him better; without natural affection, neither loving, nor beloved by any; without peace, without hope, "without God in the world." When we search into the mysterious cause of this autobiographical phenomenon, we at once discover that Rousseau's immeasurable vanity betrayed him into a belief, that even his vices would vanish in the blaze of his excellencies; and that the world would worship him, as idolaters do their mishapen gods, in spite of their ugliness. The confessions of Lord Byron, we regret to say, bear something of an analogy to those of the philosopher of Geneva. Are they, then, to be traced to the same source? He plainly is far from indifferent to the opinion of by-standers: can he, then, conceive that this peep into the window of his breast must not revolt every virtuous eye? Can he boldly proclaim his violations of decency and of sobriety; his common contempt for all modifications of religion; his monstrous belief in the universal rest or annihilation of man in a future state; and forget that he is one of those who

"Play such tricks before high heaven,
As make the angels weep;"

as offend against all moral taste; as attempt to shake the very pillars of domestic happiness and of public security?

It is, however, a matter of congratulation, that his Lordship, in common with the republican Confessor, has not revealed his creed without very honestly displaying the influence of this creed upon his own mind. We should not, indeed, have credited a man of his sentiments, had he assured us he was happy: happiness takes no root in such soils. But it is still better to have his own testimony to the unmixed misery of licentiousness and unbelief. It is almost comforting to be told, if we dared to draw comfort out of the well of another man's miseries, that

"Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though pleasure fires the maddening soul,
The heart—the heart is lonely still."

It is consolatory also to contrast the peace and triumph of the dying Christian, with the awful uncertainty, or rather the sullen despair, which breathe in these verses.