The Being whose Omnipotence pervades
All deserts and all depths, and hallows loneliest shades.”
[In the spring of 1820, Mrs Hemans first made the acquaintance of one who became afterwards a zealous and valuable friend, revered in life, and sincerely mourned in death—Bishop Heber, then Rector of Hodnet, and a frequent visitor at Bodryddan, the residence of his father-in-law, the late Dean of St Asaph, from whom also, during an intercourse of many years, Mrs Hemans at all times received much kindness and courtesy. Mr Reginald Heber was the first eminent literary character with whom she had ever familiarly associated; and she therefore entered with a peculiar freshness of feeling in to the delight inspired by his conversational powers, enhanced as they were by that gentle benignity of manner, so often the characteristic of minds of the very highest order. In a letter to a friend on this occasion, she thus describes her enjoyment:—“I am more delighted with Mr Heber than I can possibly tell you; his conversation is quite rich with anecdote, and every subject on which he speaks had been, you would imagine, the whole study of his life. In short, his society has made much the same sort of impression on my mind that the first perusal of Ivanhoe did; and was something so perfectly new to me, that I can hardly talk of any thing else. I had a very long conversation with him on the subject of the poem, which he read aloud, and commented upon as he proceeded. His manner was so entirely that of a friend, that I felt perfectly at ease, and did not hesitate to express all my own ideas and opinions on the subject, even where they did not exactly coincide with his own.”
The poem here alluded to was the one entitled Superstition and Revelation, which Mrs Hemans had commenced some time before, and which was intended to embrace a very extensive range of subject. Her original design will be best given in her own words, from a letter to her friend Miss Park:—“I have been thinking a good deal of the plan we discussed together, of a poem on national superstitions. ‘Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain,’ and in the course of my lucubrations on this subject, an idea occurred to me, which I hope you will not think me too presumptuous in wishing to realise. Might not a poem of some extent and importance, if the execution were at all equal to the design, be produced, from contrasting the spirit and tenets of Paganism with those of Christianity? It would contain, of course, much classical allusion; and all the graceful and sportive fictions of ancient Greece and Italy, as well as the superstitions of more barbarous climes, might be introduced to prove how little consolation they could convey in the hour of affliction—or hope, in that of death. Many scenes from history might be portrayed in illustration of this idea; and the certainty of a future state, and of the immortality of the soul, which we derive from revelation, are surely subjects for poetry of the highest class. Descriptions of those regions which are still strangers to the blessings of our religion, such as the greatest part of Africa, India, &c., might contain much that is poetical; but the subject is almost boundless, and I think of it till I am startled by its magnitude.”
Mr Heber approved highly of the plan of the work, and gave her every encouragement to proceed in it; supplying her with many admirable suggestions, both as to the illustrations which might be introduced with the happiest effect, and the sources from whence the requisite information would best be derived. But the great labour and research necessary to the development of a plan which included the superstitions of every age and country, from the earliest of all idolatries—the adoration of the sun, moon, and host of heaven, alluded to in the book of Job—to the still existing rites of the Hindoos—would have demanded a course of study too engrossing to be compatible with the many other claims, both domestic and literary, which daily pressed more and more upon the author’s time. The work was, therefore, laid aside; and the fragment now first published is all that remains of it, though the project was never distinctly abandoned.]
ITALIAN LITERATURE.[147]
THE BASVIGLIANA OF MONTI.
FROM SISMONDI’s “LITTERATURE DU MIDI.”
[147] “About this time (1820) Mrs Hemans was an occasional contributor to the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, then conducted by the Rev. Robert Morehead, whose liberal courtesy in the discharge of his editorial office associated many agreeable recollections with the period of this literary intercourse. Several of her poems appeared in the above-mentioned periodical, as also a series of papers on foreign literature, which, with very few exceptions, were the only prose compositions she ever gave to the world; and indeed to these papers such a distinctive appellation is perhaps scarcely applicable, as the prose writing may be considered subordinate to the poetical translations, which it is used to introduce.”—Memoir, p. 41.
Vincenzo Monti, a native of Ferrara, is acknowledged, by the unanimous consent of the Italians, as the greatest of their living poets. Irritable, impassioned, variable to excess, he is always actuated by the impulse of the moment. Whatever he feels is felt with the most enthusiastic vehemence. He sees the objects of his thoughts—they are present, and clothed with life—before him, and a flexible and harmonious language is always at his command to paint them with the richest colouring. Persuaded that poetry is only another species of painting, he makes the art of the poet consist in rendering apparent, to the eyes of all, the pictures created by his imagination for himself; and he permits not a verse to escape him which does not contain an image. Deeply impressed by the study of Dante, he has restored to the character of Italian poetry those severe and exalted beauties by which it was distinguished at its birth; and he proceeds from one picture to another with a grandeur and dignity peculiar to himself. It is extraordinary that, with something so lofty in his manner and style of writing, the heart of so impassioned a character should not be regulated by principles of greater consistency. In many other poets, this defect might pass unobserved: but circumstances have thrown the fullest light upon the versatility of Monti, and his glory as a poet is attached to works which display him in continual opposition to himself. Writing in the midst of the various Italian revolutions, he has constantly chosen political subjects for his compositions, and he has successively celebrated opposite parties in proportion to their success. Let us suppose, in his justification, that he composes as an improvisatore, and that his feelings, becoming highly excited by the given theme, he seizes the political ideas it suggests, however foreign they may be to his individual sentiments.[148] In these political poems—the object and purport of which are so different—the invention and manner are, perhaps, but too similar. The Basvigliana, or poem on the death of Basville, is the most celebrated; but, since its appearance, it has been discovered that Monti, who always imitated Dante, has now also very frequently imitated himself.