THE CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PRESENT AGE OF POETRY.

WERE I called upon to state what the Characteristic of the present age of Poetry, in my opinion, was, I should without any hesitation reply-Sensuality.

The language of philosophy is almost always the same, but the different ages of polite literature have their corresponding characteristics; in fact, it is from the existence of such distinct characteristics, that the whole period of a nation's literature is divided into ages. Thus the golden age of English poetry (otherwise called the Elizabethian) is differenced from all those which succeeded it, by the characteristic of energetic simplicity,-a characteristic which unites the two best qualities of language, strength and artlessness. The tinsel age (that of Charles II.) is characterized by meretricious superficiality. It is not easy to conjecture by what stretch of metaphor the epithet of golden age could be applied to the reign of our "good Queen Anne;" its characteristic elaborate elegance,cer tainly entitles it to no higher name than the silver, or, rather, the plated age. Whether its impudence, in calling itself the "Augustan," should not mark it as the age of brass, may be a question. Finally; Lord Byron has denominated the present the age of bronzebut this is said in a general moral respect, not in a purely literary. If the characteristic of sensuality be rightly assigned, the age of copper would be a more

appropriate name,-that being the metal which denotes, astronomically, the queen of physical pleasure. ›

Let me first explain the term I have used, and then adduce the proofs that it is rightly applied. Modern poetry is addressed almost exclusively to the senses : its subject-matter consists almost wholly of voluptuous pictures, on which the eye of the imagination may gloat till it grows dim with the vicious exercise; of descriptions,-of forms, whose touch, even in thought, sets the libertine blood on fire, of odours and relishes which debauch the mental taste by their intensity, of sounds too grossly delicious for the ear of fancy to admit without becoming depraved. The feelings, the earthly desires, the animal passions, are alone and always the object of appeal; a modern author seldom deals in imagery which can be held as intellectual; we do not often meet, in a work of the present age, such lines as these, where there is nothing of "sensuous" pleasure annexed to the images presented: (Macbeth reflecting upon the innocence of his intended victim)

-

And pity, like a naked new-born babe

Striding the blast, or heav'n's cherubim horsed

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind:

Or these: (the Lady in Comus speaking of her brothers)

They left me then, when the gray-hooded Even (Like a sad votarist in Palmer's weeds,)

Rose from the hindmost wheels of Phoebus' wain:

and still more infrequently with such as these, where ideas of sense are altogether excluded: (Macbeth regretting the effects of his crime)- ··

I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf:
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but in their stead,
Curses, not loud, but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

In a word, modern poetry, as to its matter, is little more than a huge pile of luxurious descriptions; as to its language, little else than an immense and somewhat confused heap of glittering periods and richlyworded phrases, slippery without being very sweet, oppressing the ear without ever taking it prisoner. We seldom find the memory dwelling on the fall of a modern cadence, or the chambers of the brain reechoing with the sound of a modern line. Reading a poem of the present day, is like floating upon a river of tepid wine, where the fumes and vapours dull both the senses and the current scenery in like manner, we glide over a stream of modern eloquence, without almost thinking of what we are doing, or where we are going; the mind is in such a state of poetical inebriation, that the imagery appears all confused to the eye, and the language altogether mystified to the ear, -the one is dazzling and the other is lubricous, but neither is impressive: they fleet with the movement.

If we examine the works of the most celebrated poets of the modern school, Byron, Moore, Cornwall,

&c.* we shall find ample proof that, generally speaking, the character of the thoughts and language to be found there, is such as I have assigned. The modern muse is certainly endowed with an uncommonly flexible tongue: Hippocrene overflows with a perennial discharge of waters, more luxurious than the bee of Athens ever sucked through the stem of the fountainflowers. I award to the writers of the present day this praise of splendid fluency, without any qualifica-tion if Pactolus had one of them for his river-god, his sands would turn sooner to gold-dust, than if all the long-eared kings that the world ever worshipped, had been drowned in his channel. Our poets are not bees laden with sweets, but jars cheek-full of liquid bullion; their lips drop not honey, but gold, and of all these yellow-mouthed ewers, Byron is the richest :

-a most prodigal stream of eloquence rolls perpetually off his tongue, but its lustre blinds the eye, its plenty chokes the ear, without enlightening or filling the mind, as considered distinctly from the senses. One of the very finest specimens of modern poetry, is the following from the Doge of Venice; and it is written in a glorious vein of eloquence,--but the animal shows its cloven foot all through, the five organs of sensile pleasure alone are titillated, it is sensual, " morbidly" sensual, like all the poetry of the same magnificent and loquacious voluptuary, and, indeed, of the age:

The music, and the banquet, and the wine-
The garlands, the rose-odours, and the flowers-

* I do not mean to include such authors as Campbell, Rogers, Crabbe, &c.; they belong rather to the silver age of poetry.

The sparkling eyes, and flashing ornaments-
The white arms and the raven hair-the braids

:

And bracelets; swan-like bosoms, and the necklace, An India in itself, yet dazzling not

The eye like what it circled; the thin robes

Floating like light clouds 'twixt our gaze and heaven;
The many twinkling feet so small and sylph-like,
Suggesting the more secret symmetry

Of the fair forms which terminate so well-
All the delusion of the dizzy scene,

Its false and true enchantments-art and nature,
Which swam before my giddy eyes, that drank
The sight of beauty as the parched pilgrim's
On Arab sands the false mirage, which offers
A lucid lake to his eluded thirst,

Are gone-Around me are the stars and waters—
Worlds mirror'd in the ocean, goodlier sight,
Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass,
And the great element, which is to space
What ocean is to earth, spreads its blue depths,
Soften'd with the first breathings of the spring;
The high moon sails upon her beauteous way,
Serenely smoothing o'er the lofty walls

Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces,

Whose porphyry pillars, and whose costly fronts,
Fraught with the orient spoil of many marbles,
Like altars ranged along the broad canal,
Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed,

Rear'd up from out the waters, scarce less strangely
Than those more massy and mysterious giants

Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics,

Which point on Egypt's plains to times that have
No other record, &c.