Examples of such ardent aspirations after the grande et immensum, are frequent among our best poets. Let the following from Lord Byron suffice. In this will plainly appear that agony in giving birth to the sublime conceptions of his imagination, which metaphysicians say is a sure mark of lofty genius. After describing a terrific thunderstorm in language suited to the majesty of his subject, he proceeds:
| "Could I embody and unbosom now That which is most within me,—could I wreak My thoughts upon expression, and thus throw Soul, heart, mind, passions, feelings, strong or weak, All that I would have sought, and all I seek, Bear, know, feel, and yet breathe—into one word, And that one word were lightning, I would speak; But as it is, I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword." |
The same burning enthusiasm prevails throughout the odes of Collins, whose works breathe as much the soul of poetry as is shown by any bard of Greece or Rome.
This trait of genius often betrays young writers into a style of affected grandiloquence, which their feebleness of thought makes doubly ridiculous. Yet this pompous style of writing is often a genuine mark of superior powers. Quintilian thinks extravagance a more favorable sign in a very young writer, than a more sedate simplicity; for his maturer judgment may be safely left to prune such luxuriance, but where the soil is barren by nature, no art of cultivation will produce a vigorous growth. Scarcely any writer was ever guilty of more extravagance than Lucan; but his poem was written in the earliest spring of manhood, and shows such strength of genius as would probably have made him equal to Homer, had his rising powers been suffered to reach their utmost elevation, and receive the corrections of his finished taste.
But here it may not be amiss to mention that a style of such affected pomp is tolerable only in young writers. When the fancy is fresh and vigorous, and the judgment unformed, redundance in words and ornament may be pardoned; but it is a sure evidence of feeble genius to continue the same style in riper age. Hortensius, Cicero's rival, was in his youth admired for his florid oratory; but in after life was justly despised for the same childish taste. The most elegant writers always select the simplest words. Learning should appear in the subject, but never in the language. Even the powers of Johnson were too weak to preserve his ponderous learned style from ridicule. It may be assumed as a universal rule, that when two words equally express the same meaning, the shortest and simplest is always the best.
When the enthusiasm of poetry is joined with a correct and chastened judgment, the utmost fastidiousness in composition is often produced. To this may be ascribed the small number and extent of writings left by some of our best authors. "I am tormented with a desire to write better than I can," said Robert Hall in a letter to a friend: and yet his works are said by Dugald Stewart (himself an admirable writer in point of style) to combine the beauties of Addison, Johnson and Burke, without their defects, and to contain the purest specimens of the English language. And of Pascal too, it is told that he spent much time in revising and correcting what to others appeared from the first almost too perfect for amendment. Gray, who had genius to become a pre-eminent poet, was never content with the polish which repeated revisions were able to give his works. The conclusion of Boileau's second Satire is so appropriate to my purpose, that I will give it in full.
| "Un sot, en écrivant, fait tout avec plaisir: Il n'a point en ses vers l'embarras de choisir; Et toujours amoureux de ce qu'il vient d'écrire, Ravi d'étonnement, en soi-meme il s'admire. Mais un esprit sublime en vain veut s'élever A ce degré parfait qu'il tache de trouver; Et, toujours mécontent de ce qu'il vient de faire, Il plait a tout le monde, et ne saurait se plaire." |
And in a note on this passage, "Voila, s'écria Molière, en interrompant son ami a cet endroit, voila la plus belle vérité que vous ayez jamais dite. Je ne suis pas du nombre de ces esprits sublimes dont vous parlez; mais tel que je suis, je n'ai rien fait en ma vie dont je sois veritablement content." Horace too speaks much the same language in several places.
Of Shakspeare, the greatest poetical genius probably which the world ever produced, our ignorance of his life permits us to speak only from his works. But the fact that he scarcely ever condescended to revise his plays, and took no care to preserve them from oblivion, is ample proof how little his mind was satisfied with its own sublime productions. Shakspeare is an illustrious example of transcendent genius joined with unfinished taste. He had to depend entirely on his own resources, for the best models he had access to were not more faultless than his own writings, while they fell infinitely below him in every positive excellence. His works, in parts, show sublimity, delicacy, and grace of poetry, unequalled perhaps by the productions of any writer before or since. Yet his warmest admirers are often scandalized by the strange conceited witticisms and other evidences of bad taste so abundant in his writings. Still, the Bard of Avon's works will ever rank among the noblest efforts of dramatic poetry.
Poetical genius is always united with a love of sympathy. This is the reason why men of warm imaginations so seldom fully relish a poem when read alone. Robert Hall, in one remarkable passage, says, that the most ardent admirer of poetry or oratory would not consent to witness their grandest display on the sole condition that he should never reveal his emotions.