BARRY CORNWALL.{1}
Barry Cornwall is a poet, 'me saltem judice'; and in that sense of the term, in which I apply it to C. Lamb and W. Wordsworth. There are poems of great merit, the authors of which I should yet not feel impelled so to designate.
The faults of these poems are no less things of hope, than the beauties; both are just what they ought to be,—that is, now.
If B.C. be faithful to his genius, it in due time will warn him, that as poetry is the identity of all other knowledges, so a poet cannot be a great poet, but as being likewise inclusively an historian and naturalist, in the light, as well as the life, of philosophy: all other men's worlds are his chaos.
Hints 'obiter' are:—
not to permit delicacy and exquisiteness to seduce into effeminacy.
Not to permit beauties by repetition to become mannerisms.
To be jealous of fragmentary composition,—as epicurism of genius, and
apple-pie made all of quinces.
'Item', that dramatic poetry must be poetry hid in thought and
passion,—not thought or passion disguised in the dress of poetry.
Lastly, to be economic and withholding in similies, figures, &c. They
will all find their place, sooner or later, each as the luminary of a
sphere of its own. There can be no galaxy in poetry, because it is
language,—'ergo' processive,—'ergo' every the smallest star must be
seen singly.
There are not five metrists in the kingdom, whose works are known by me, to whom I could have held myself allowed to have spoken so plainly. But B.C. is a man of genius, and it depends on himself—(competence protecting him from gnawing or distracting cares)—to become a rightful poet,—that is, a great man.
Oh! for such a man worldly prudence is transfigured into the highest spiritual duty! How generous is self-interest in him, whose true self is all that is good and hopeful in all ages, as far as the language of Spenser, Shakspeare, and Milton shall become the mother-tongue!
A map of the road to Paradise, drawn in Purgatory, on the confines of Hell, by S.T.C. July 30, 1819.
{Footnote 1: Written in Mr. Lamb's copy of the 'Dramatic Scenes'. Ed.}