I have been urged to communicate, in a preface, the literary results which have necessarily flowed from the examination and comparison of such a mass of poets, but the task is beyond the limits of this humble effort. It would, indeed, be a rich field for a Schlegel or De Stäel.
A few curious speculations, however, may present themselves to the most superficial critic. In Shakspeare, for instance, so affluent in various delineations of character and personal appearance, I looked in vain for places of residence. There seemed not to be even a fair proportion of passages descriptive of musical sounds, hours, seasons, and (except in The Winter's Tale) of flowers.
In Wordsworth, scarcely a flower or musical sound is described. They are alluded to, but not painted out. The poetry of Crabbe, though abounding in numerous characters, could surrender almost none for my purpose, on account of their being woven into the general strain of his narratives. Shelley, Landon, and Howitt, are eminently the poets of flowers, while Darwin, with a whole Botanic Garden before him, and Mason, in his English Garden, gave me, I think, none that I conceived fairly entitled to selection.
Few passages of any sort, except those hackneyed into adages, could be gained from Milton, on account of the abstract, lofty, and continuous flow of his diction. Coleridge has corresponding peculiarities.
Keats and Shelley are the poets of the heavens. Byron, with faint exceptions, does not describe a flower, or musical sound, or place of residence.
The American poets, in contradistinction to their elder and superior brethren of the fatherland, display a more marked devotion to nature, with which a continual glow of religious sentiment aptly harmonizes.
But I am recalled by these lengthening paragraphs to my disclaimer, and only wish that an abler and more philosophical pen than mine could take my recent experience.
After a close examination of the earlier dramatic poets, though I have rescued from them some exquisite gems, it seems to me far from desirable that they should be brought forward as prominently as many of their wordy commentators desire. A kind of pure instinct in the British taste has placed Shakspeare without a brother on the throne. The fathers of dramatic poetry acted according to their light, but it was not the "true light." A few relics, selected with caution, may honor their memory, but we should be careful while warning our youth against the impurities of some modern poets, how we extol these vulgarities of a darker moral age.
Before parting I must ask clemency for classing all my authors among Poets, that great word so deservedly sacred, and to which I bow with deep reverence; but the Parnassus of my Oracles has many steps, and I cannot but feel kindly towards those, who sit gracefully even on the lower platform, nor apprehend that they will do more than look up deferentially to the laurel-crowned worthies at its summit. Besides, it has been the character of my taste, or perhaps philosophy, whenever literally or figuratively I gather a wreath of flowers, to twine the wild blossom as heartily as the exotic, and even insert a weed, if its color or contrast lends beauty to the combination;—and thus with my Oracles.