fTfiirrally fascinatcil tlie niimis of moii. H(> was
in every sense tiie Hani of Hope. Undouhting
in failli. iintireil in hope, he diseerned tiie Uain-
how o\' IVaee aniid tlie darkest storms of the
moral world.* In the crioomiest disasters he
never despaired of the fortunes of mankind, and
was prepared to light
"The Torch of Hope at Nature's funeral pile."
The experienced in the ways of men will prob-
ably be inclined to regard many of his poems as
Utopian and impracticable — the wise and re-
flecting, as better adapted to a future than the
present state of existence; but the young, the
ardent, and enthusiastic will never cease to
turn to tliem as fraught witii the noblest aspi-
rations of our nature ; and we may despair of
the fortunes of the species when the admiration
(br The Pleasures of Hope begins to decline.
Great as is the reputation of that noble poem,
17. that of his lyric pieces is still greater.
His lyrical They are at present, perhaps, the
poems. most popular poems of the kind in
the English language ; and there is no appear-
ance of their fame diminishing. The Rainbow,
the Mariners of England, the Stanzas to Paint-
ing, Lochiel's Warning, the Ode to Winter, the
Last Man, Hohcnlindcn, the Battle of the Baltic,
have become so engraven on the national heart
that their impression may be regarded as in-
delible. They bear a very close resemblance
to the ballads and poems of Schiller, and share
in all the noble feelings, and yet simple and
homespun images, by which those beautiful
strains are distinguished. They have all the
terseness and felicity of expression which have
rendered Horace immortal, without any of the
licentiousness which disfigures his pages. But
his poems are very unequal : many, especially
of the later ones, are so feeble and inferior, that
it could hardly be believed they proceeded from
the same hand as his earlier productions. No
man was ever more felicitous in his images, or
conveyed a beautiful idea in more pure and
striking metaphor. His well-known image —
" 'Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore.
And coming events cast their shadows before" —
is perhaps the most perfect and unmixed met-
aphor in the English language. His genius was
brilliant, but it was precocious, and declined as
life advanced ; its flame rose up at once to a
towering height, but it did not, like that of
Burke, Bacon, and Rousseau, gather strength
with all the acquisitions of life ; and of him
could not be said, as was done of ancient gen-
ms, " Materia alitur, motibus excitatur, et uren-
do lucescit."
If the Pleasures of Hope to the end of time
* Witness his noble lines on the partition of Poland :
•' Hope for a season bade the world farewell.
And Freedom shrieked as Kosciusko fell ;
Yet thy proud lords, unpitied land ! shall see
That Man hath yet a soul, and dare be free ;
A little while along thy saddening plains
The starless night of Desolation reigns ;
Truth shall restore the light by Nature given.
And, like Prometheus, bring tlie fire of Ileaven.
I'rone to the dust Oppression shall be hurled —
Ua na^e, her n '.ure, withered from the world."
Pleasures of Hope.
will fascinate the young and llie ar- ]s(
dent, those of il/cmwn/ will have equal Rngcrs*
eiiarms for tin' advanced in years and I'l^asure*
tii(> reflecting. Kogeks has struck a ^'M«"">'y
chord which will forever vibrate in the human
heart, and lie has touched it with so much deli-
cacy and pathos, that his poetry is felt as the
more charming the more that the taste ia im-
jiroved and the mind is filled with the recollec-
tions of the past. His verses have not the ve-
hemence of Byron's imagination, nor the ardor
of Campbell's soul : "thoughts that breathe and
words that burn" will be looked for in vain in
his compositions. He was not fitted, therefore,
to reach the highest flights of lyric poetry. He
never could have written the " Feast of Alex-
ander," like Drydcn ; nor the "Bard" of Gray ;
nor the " Stanzas to Painting" of Campbell ; but
he possessed, perhaps, in a still higher degree
than any of them, the power of casting togeth-
er pleasing and charming images, and pouring
them forth in soft and mellifluous language
This is his great charm ; and it is one so great
that, in the estimation of many, particularly
those with whom the whirl and agitation of life
is past, it more than compensates for the ab-
sence of every other. To the young, who have
the future before them, imagination and hope
are the most entrancing powers, for they gild
the as yet untrodden path of life with the wish-
ed-for flowers. But to the aged, by whom its
vicissitudes have been experienced and its en-
joyments known, memory and reflection are
the faculties which confer the most unmixed
pleasure, for they dwell on the past, and recall
its most enchanting moments. Campbell had
the most sincere admiration for Rogers, and re-
peatedly said that he was a greater poet than
himself Without going such a length, it may
safely be affirmed that there is none more
chaste, none more refined ; and that some of
his verses will bear a comparison with the most
perfect in the English language.*
If ever two poets arose in striking contrast
to each other, Rogers and Southey jg
are the men ; and yet they appeared Southey •
in the same age, and flourished abrea.st his peculiiir
of each other. Rogers is the poet of '^''^''acter.
home ; his charm consists in painting the scenes
of infancy — portraying the endearments of
youth ; and he is read by all with such pleas-
ure in mature life, because he recalls ideas and
revives images which all have known, but
which have been almost forgotten, though not
destroyed, by the cares and anxieties of life.
Southey embraces a wider sphere, but one less
calculated permanently to interest the human
heart. His knowledge was immense — his read-
ing unbounded — his memory tenacious ; and he
availed himself of the vast stores these provid-
ed, with graphic power and scrupulous fidelity.
He was a historian in poetry as well as prose ;
and narrated, with all the charm of diction, and
embellished with the richest hues of nature,
many of the most stirring events which have
* As, for example, the Invocation to Memory :
"Hail, Memory, hail! within thy sparkling mine,
From age to age what boundless treasures shine I
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And space and time are subject to tliy sway I
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone,
Tho only pleasures we :an call our own I"
Ptecuiures of Aleitunyi.
Chap. V.]
HISTORY OF EUROPE.
(41
occurred in the annals of mankind. But it is
rare, indeed, to find a mind which can clothe
reality in verse with the charms of fiction. Ho-
mer, Virgil, and Shakspeare, have alone done
so since the beginning of time ; and the secret
of their success was not their graphic power,
nor their brilliant imagination, so much as their
profound knowledge of what is in all ages the
same — the human heart. Southey's Madoc, Don
liodcrick, and the Curse of Kchama, are splendid
metrical histories, but they do not contain the
traits which speak at once to all mankind — they
are addressed to the learned and studious, and
these are a mere fragment of the human race.
Admired, accordingly, by the well-informed,
they are already comparatively unknown to the
great body of readers ; and the author's poetical
fame rests chiefly on Thalaba, in which his brill-
iant imagination revelled without control, save
tliat of high moral feeling, in the waterless des-
erts, and palm-shaded fountains, and patriarchal
}ife of the happy Arabia.
If Southey's knowledge as a historian has
2Q impeded his success as a poet, his
His merits fancy as a poet has not less seriously
as a histo- marred his fame as a historian. He
nan and -.vrote several large historical works,
of which the Annals of the Peninsular
War and the History of Brazil are the most con-
siderable ; but though both possess merits of a
ver>- high order, and abound in passages of great
descriptive beauty, they have never attained
any high reputation, and are now well-nigh for-
gotten. He had not the patience of research
and calmness of judgment indispensable for a
trustworthy historian. His facts in many places
will not bear investigation ; he was credulous
in the extreme, and gravely retailed statements
on the authority of inflamed chronicles which
subsequent inquiry disproved, and common
sense at the moment might at once have dis-
covered to be false. Living secluded and re-
tired, he was entirely ignorant of tlie realities
of life, and never had been brought in contact
with men in their business transactions — the
only way in which a thorough knowledge of
their secret springs of action can ever be at-
tained. The want of this is painfully conspic-
uous both in his historical and social writings ;
but though this deficiency must prevent them
from permanently holding the place in general
estimation which might have been anticipated
from the genius and acquirements of the au-
thor, Ihey must always command respect from
the erudition they disi)lay, the reflection they
evince, and *he elevated moral and religious
feelings by which llicy arc always cliaraclcr-
ized.*
In all these respects, except tlic last, the
neighbor of Southey in the mountains of Cum-
* The author met Soutlicy only once, but he then saw
much of him, under very interesting circumstances.
Traveling through the Highlands of Scotland in ai^tumn,
1819, with his friend Mr. Jlope, the present Lord Justice-
Clerlt of Scotland, they were put into a room ut Fort Au-
gustus, the inn being crowdec" with two other gentlemen,
â– who proved to be Mr. Tclfnnl, Ihc^ cclibraled engineer, a
very old friend of the author, and Sonlbcy. It may read-
ily be believed the conversalioii did not Hag in such soci-
ety ; it continued from nine at niglit till two in the morn-
ing, without a moment's intermission. Southey was very
brilliant, but yet unassuming. He left an im))rcssion on
Ihe mind which has never been elTaced ; and the author
was gratified to find, on sending him a copy of his }{is-
Wry, that he had not forgolien the iioiturnai mceiirg.
berland, Wordsworth, presents the must tie
cided contrast. He had not his in- ^,
formation — was not distracted by -words-
any prose compositions — and made worth : his
no attempt to traverse the numerous character as
and varied fields of thought or indus- grTat'fa' "J"^
try which Southey has tilled with so ^^ ''"*''â–
much zeal. But on that very account he wag
more successful, and has left a far greater rep-
utation. He was less discursive than his brill-
iant rival, but more profound. Little attended to
as works of that stamp generally are in the out-
set, they gradually but unceasingly rose in pub-
lic estimation ; they took a lasting hold of the
highly educated youth of the next generation ;
and he now numbers among his devout worship
ers many of the ablest men, profound think
ers, and most accomplished and discriminating
women of the age. Indeed, great numbers ol
persons, whose mental powers, cultivated taste,
and extensive acquirements entitle their opin-
ion to the very highest consideration, yield him
an admiration approaching to idolatry, and as-
sign him a place second only to Milton in En-
glish poetry. He is regarded by them in much
the same light that Goethe is by the admiring
and impassioned multitudes of the Fatherland.
It may be doubted, however, whether, with
all his depth of thought, simplicity 22
of mind, and philosophic wisdom. Parallel be-
Wordsworth will ever get that gen- tween him
eral hold of the English which and Goethe
Goethe has done of the German mind. The
reason is, that he is not equally imaginative. He
is a great philosophic poet ; and, to minds of?
reflecting turn, no writer possesses more dura-
ble or enchaining charms. But how many are
the thoughtful or reflecting to the great body
of mankind ? Not one in twenty. " C'ept
Fimagination," said Napoleon, "qui domine Ic
monde." Goethe, on the other hand, is not onl>
simple and reflecting, but he is in the highest
degree imaginative. His creative genius trans-
ports us alternately to the Chersonesian Tau-
rus, the palace of Ferrara, and the cliffs of the
Brocken. He is equally at home in the prison
of Count Egmont, the wickedness of Mephis-
topheles, and the jealousy of Tasso Words-
worth had nothing drainatic in his composition ;
he had an eye alive to the t)eauty, a soul re-
sponsive to the melody, of nature ; but he had
not the power of bringing the events of life with
the colors of reality before tlie mind of the read-
er. His reflection was vast on the stream of
human afl^airs, his sagacity great in detecting
their secret springs ; but he viewed tliein as a
distant, unconcerned si)ectator, not an impns
sioned, energetic actor. Goctlu? had as litthi
turn for action as Wordsworth, but he liail in-
comparably more power of narrating its pas-
sions ; he kept out of the whirl liimsclf, i)ut ho
lent tlie whole force of iiis niiiul to delineating
the feelings of those wiio wrro tossed about by
its billows. As tlie active hears so gn at a
proportion to 'the speculative [lart of mankind,
Goethe, who depicts the feelings of the former,
will always be a more general favorite than
Wordsworth, who delineates the specidations
of the latter; but that very circumstance only
enhances the admiration f(>lt for the I'lnglish
poet by tliat small but gifted portion of Ilieliii-
maii s|)ecics who, mingling vvith llie active i..i
HI STOU V OF EUROPE.
[Chap. V
,il"ilu> worlii, yot .)iul<,'i' them witU l\\v powers
ut" tlie s|)('eiilatiV(>. .
Coi KKiDiJK, ill some respeets, bore :i close re-
03 semblaiiee to W'onlswortli, but in oth-
rolcruigr: ers lie Was wuk'Iy (litlereiit. He was
>»i» jioi-iic deep ami rerteetinjr. learned in jiliilo-
characicr. sj,pi,i^, 1j„.j,^ ;„h1 i„,h1 of eritical dis-
quisition. He was Ic-^s abstraet than ^\'(lrds-
wortli. but more draniatie — less philosophic,
but more pietorial. Deeply penetrated with
the genius of Sehillcr, he has transferred the
marvels of two of the great German's immortal
dramas on M'allcnstein to the English tongue
with the exactness of a scholar and kindred in-
spiration of a poet. His ode to Mont Blanc is
one of the sul)limt>st productions in that lofty
style in the English language. But he is far
from having attained the world-wide fame of
Gray, Burns, and Campbell in that branch of
poetry. The reason is, that his ideas and im-
ages are too abstract, and too little drawn from
the occurrences or objects of common life. He
was deeply learned, and his turn of mind strong-
ly metaphysical ; but it is neither by learning
nor metaphysics that lasting celebrity, either in
oratory or poetry, is to be attained. Eloquence,
to be popular, must be in advance of the age,
and but a little in advance. Poetiy, to move the
general mind, must be founded on ideas com-
mon to all mankind, and feelings with whicli
every one is familiar, but yet educe from them
novel and pleasing conceptions. It reaches its
highest flights when, from these common ideas
and objects, it draws forth uncommon and ele-
vating thoughts ; conceptions which meet with
a responsive echo in every breast, but had nev-
er occurred, at least with equal felicity, to any
one before.
The genius of woman at this period produced
24. a rival to Coleridge, if not in depth of
Mrs. He- thought, at least in tenderness of feel-
mans, jpg gj^(^ beauty of expression. Mrs.
Hemans was imbued with the very soul of lyric
poetry ; she only required to have wTitten a Ut-
ile less to be one of the greatest in that branch
that England ever produced. A small volume,
containing twenty or thirty of her best pieces —
and these only such as " The Graves of a House-
hold," "The Deserted Hearth," " The Chffs of
Dover," "The Voice of Spring," "The Ances-
tral Homes of England," and the like — would
at once take its place beside the lyric poems of
Collins, Gray, and Campbell. Melancholy had
marked her for its own ; she was deeply im-
pressed with the woes of life, and it is in work-
ing up mournful reflections and images with the
utmost tenderness and pathos that her great
excellence consists. There she is, perhaps,
unrivaled in the English language. She had un-
dergone more than the usual share of the suf-
ferings of humanity ; for, married early in life,
and, as it proved, unhappily, she was thrown,
in some degree, for the support of herself and
sons, upon the resources of her own genius.
Thence at once her excellence and her faihngs :
her sufTerings made her portray grief with faith-
ful power ; lier circumstances impelled her to
do so in dangerous profusion. It is impossible
to be a great and xoliiminous lyric poet : the
fame of Horace and Pindar rests on as few
great odes as Schiller, Gray, or Campbell have
left to the world. The diamond, the brightest
and jjuresl of all substances, lies hid 111 the re-
cesses of nature, and is diawu forth only in
small portions, and distant intervals, to fascia-
ate the world.
Memorable, indeed, in poetic annals is the
age which produced seven such poets
as those who have now been consider- cra(,j)e.
ed ; and immortal would be the British
muse, if she never added another string to hei
lyre. But there were other poets at the same
I)eriod whose talents adorned the poetic litera-
ture of the day, and whose genius would have
conferred lustre on any precc-ding age. Ckabbb
was a writer of a totally difTercnt character
from any of the preceding ; but, nevertheless,
of very high merit. He had nothing imagina
tive in his disposition — none of the spirit of
chivalry, none of the ardor of romance. But
he had a feeling, sensitive heart — warm sym-
pathy with the sufferings of the poor, great
power of delineating them. Living in a coun-
try viOage, and surrounded with distress, which
his humanity prompted him to seek out, and
affluence did not enable him to relieve, he en-
deavored to support the cause of the poor by
painting their lives, their virtues, their sufTer-
ings, and thus enlisting the sympathy of the
rich in their behalf. In this attempt he was
eminently successful ; and whoever wishes to
obtain a faithful picture of the real condition of
the rural population of England at that period,
will do well to consult his graphic pages. But
their reputation is sensibly on the decline : he
is now seldom read, and still seldomer quoted ;
none of his lines have sunk mto the public mind,
and become as household words. 'I'he reason
is that they want the lofty spirit, the elevating
tendency, which is the only passport to immor-
tality. Such a lofty spirit is perfectly consist-
ent with the delineation of humble life. We
see it in the lives ol the patriarchs in Holy Writ
— we see it in the poems of Burns — we see it
in the talcs of Sir Walter Scott. Gray has made
the most popular poem in the English language
out of the reflections on a country church-yard,
"The short and simple annals of the poor."
But the mere delineation of humble life, with-
out the heroism which dignifies, or the magna-
nimity which rises superior to it, however popu-
lar for a season, never has a durable reputation.
Time ever vindicates the immortal destiny of
man ; nothing can permanently float down its
stream but what is buoyant from its elevating
tendency.
Joanna Baillie is an authoress of a totally
opposite character — of less graphic, but 26.
greater imaginative powers. In the se- Joanna
elusion of a Scottish manse were nur- Baiiiie.
tured in her breast, in early life, the romantic
visions of real genius : the past, with its heroes,
its minstrels, its damsels, its tragedies, floated
before her eyes ; she aimed at delineating the
passions, but it was the passions as they exist
in noble breasts. Less stately and pompous
than Corneille, less vehement and impassioned
than Schiller, her dramas bear a certain affinity
to both ; they belong to the same family, and
give token of the same elevated and heroic spir-
it. The great defect of her tragedies is, that
they want those touches of nature and genuine
pathos which go at once to the soul, ant thrill
CKAP. V.J
HISTORl CF EUROPE.
14i
every succeeding age by the intensity of the
emotions they awaken. Every thing is in so-
norous Alexandrine verses ; stately, dignified,
and often beautiful ; but sometimes tedious,
and often unnatural, at least in impassioned
scenes. She had no conception of stage effect ;
and on this account, as well as from the En-
glish being habituated to the rapid dialogue and
strokes of nature in Shakspeare, her dramas
have never succeeded in actual representation.
But to minds of an elevated and sympathetic
cast, they form, and will ever form, a charming
subject of study in the library ; and whoever
reads them with a kindred spirit will acquiesce
in the elegant compliment of Sir Walter Scott —
"And Avon swans, while rang the grove
Wilh Basil's love and Montfort's hate,
Responsive to the vocal strain,
Deemed their own Shakspeare lived again."
Tennyson belonged to a period in English
annals somewhat later than the one
Tennyson "^^^^ which we are now engaged ; but
the whirl of political events will not
permit a recurrence to the inviting paths of po-
etry and literature — and he will, perhaps, not
regret being placed beside his great compeers.
He has opened a new vein in English poetry,
and shown that real genius, even in the most
advanced stages of society, can strike a fresh
chord, and, departing from the hackneyed ways
of imitation, charm the world by the concep-
tions of original thought. His imagination, wide
and discursive as the dreams of fancy, wanders
at will, not over the real so much as the ideal
world. The grottoes of the sea, the caves of
the mermaid, the realms of heaven, are altern-
ately the scenes of his song. His versification,
wild as the song of the elfin king, is broken
and irregular, but often inexpressibly charming.
Sometimes, however, this tendency leads him
into conceit ; in the endeavor to be original, he
becomes fantastic. There is a freshness and
originality, however, about his conceptions,
which contrast strangely with the practical and
interested views which influenced the age in
which he lived, and contributed not a little to
their deserved success. They were felt to be
the more charming, because they were so much
at variance with the prevailing ideas around
him, and reopened those fountains of romance
which nature has planted in every generous
bosom, Ijut which are so often closed by the
cares, the anxieties, and the rivalry of the
world.
It was hardly to be expected that the same
age was to be eciually celebrated in
Character P^ose compositions ; it is rarely that
of the prose the sober thought rc(iuircd in works
composi- of abstract reasoning, and the ardent
temperament which is tlic soul of po-
etry, coexist in the same generation.
VTet such a union, though unfrequent, is not un-
known ; and the ages of Sophotrles, Socirates,
and Thucydides — of Cicero, Virgil, and Eivy —
of Bossuct, llacine, and Molicre, are sufficient
to prove that, when it does occur, it leads to
the very highest efforts of human intellect. It
could not, in truth, be otherwise ; for repetition
and monotony of ideas arc the bane of litera-
ture not less than of imagination ; and the so-
cial convulsions, which lead to the most daring
flights of the poetic nmse, tend equally to cast
tionsorihe
period.
down the barriers which restrain thought, and
induce the collision of opinions, from whicli,
as fron. the striking of flint and steel, the light
of truth is elicited. It is not at once, how-
ever, that the bright illuitiination always ap-
pears ; clouds and dust often, for a time, fol-
low the shock ; and it is only when they have
rolled away that the pure flame at length shines
forth.
As a philosopher, Dugald Stewart stands at
the head of the writers of the age ; but 29.
yet he belonged rather to the one which Dugald
had preceded it. His writings are the Stewart,
efflorescence of the ideas which grew in the
days of Montesquieu and Helvetius, of Reid
and Hume. French philosophy and Scotch met-
aphysics met in his mind ; but he arrayed the
offspring of the marriage in brilliant colors.
His learning was great, his taste exquisite : all
the philosophy of mind, from the days of Plato,
was present to his memory ; all the images of
poetry, from the time of Homer, floated in his