The sun of philosophy and science, which had just risen with the most captivating beauty, and which promised a meridian of uncommon splendour, had not yet fully dissipated those mists that for centuries had enveloped and darkened the human mind. What remained, however, of the popular creed, was much less gross and less contradictory to common experience, than what had vanished from the scroll; these reliques were, indeed, such, as either appealed powerfully to a warm and creative imagination, or were intimately connected with those apprehensions which agitate the breast of man, when speculating on his destiny in another and higher order of existence.
Under the first of these classes may be included all that sportive, wild, and terrific imagery which resulted from a partial belief in the operations of fairies, witches, and magicians, and in the reveries of the alchemist, the rosicrusian, and the astrologer; and under the second will be found, what can scarcely be termed superstition in the customary sense, that awful and mysterious conception of the spiritual world, which supposes its frequent intervention, through the agency either of departed spirits, or superhuman beings.
The opinions which prevailed with regard to these topics in the days of Shakspeare, were such as exactly suited the higher regions of poetry, without giving any violent shock to the deductions of advancing philosophy. The national credulity had been, in fact, greatly chastised through the efforts of enquiry and research, and
though it may still appear great to us, was in perfect accordance with the progress of civilisation, and certainly much better calculated for poetic purposes than has been any subsequent though purer creed.
The state of literature, too, was precisely of that kind which favoured, in a very high degree, the nurture of poetical genius. The vocabulary of our language was rich, beyond all example, both in natives and exotics; not only in "new grafts of old withered words[596:A]," but in a multitude of expressive terms borrowed from the learned languages; and this wealth was used freely and without restriction, and without the smallest apprehension of censure.
An enthusiastic spirit for literary acquisition had been created and cherished by the revival, the study, and the translation of the ancient classics; and through this medium an exhaustless mine of imagery and allusion was laid open to our vernacular poets.
Nor were these advantages blighted or checked by the fastidious canons of dictatorial criticism. Puttenham's was the only Art of Poetry which had made its appearance, and, though a taste for discussion of this kind was rapidly advancing, the poet was yet left independent of the critic; at liberty to indulge every flight of imagination, and every sally of feeling; to pursue his first mode of conception, and to adopt the free diction of the moment.
The age of chivalry and romance, also, had not yet passed away; the former, it is true, was verging fast towards dissolution, but its tone was still exalting and heroic, while the latter continued to throw a rich, though occasionally a fantastic light over every species of poetic composition. In short, the unrestricted copiousness of our language, the striking peculiarities of our national superstition, the wild beauties of Gothic invention, and the playful sallies of Italian fiction, combined with a plentiful infusion of classic lore, and operating on native genius, gave origin, not only to an unparalleled number of great bards, but to a cast of poetry unequalled in this
country for its powers of description and creation, for its simplicity and energy of diction, and for its wide dominion over the feelings.
If we proceed to consider the versification, economy, and sentiment of the Elizabethan poetry, candour must confess, that considerable defects will be found associated with beauties equally prominent, especially in the first and second of these departments. We must be understood, however, as speaking here only of rhymed poetry, for were the blank verse of our dramatic poets of this epoch included, there can be no doubt but that in versification likewise the palm must be awarded to Shakspeare and his contemporaries. Indeed, even in the construction of rhyme, the inferiority of our ancestors is nearly, if not altogether, confined to their management of the pentameter couplet; and here, it must be granted, that, in their best artificers of this measure, in the pages of Daniel, Drayton, and Browne, great deficiencies are often perceptible both in harmony and cadence, in polish and compactness. It has been said by a very pleasing, and, in general, a very judicious critic, that "the older poets disdained stooping to the character of syllable-mongers; as their conceptions were vigorous, they trusted to the simple provision of nature for their equipment; and though often introduced into the world ragged, they were always healthy."[597:A] Now versification is to poetry, what colouring is to painting, and though by no means among the higher provinces of the art, yet he who disdains its cultivation, loses one material hold upon the reader's attention; for, though plainness and simplicity of garb best accord with vigour, sublimity, or pathos of conception, raggedness can never coincide in the production of any grand or pleasing effect.