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ON NATURE AND ART IN POETRY,

[Although the date of the following letter is two years back, yet we consider its subject as one which is always of strong poetical interest. It was, we are assured, not written for publication,—which can, we think, be traced in the familiar tone of the composition—but we have preferred giving it in its present state, to throwing its matter into a more formal and sustained essay.]

MY DEAR H

London, May, 1821.

You ask me for my opinion of Lord Byron's pamphlet. Mr. Bowles' answer has just appeared, and I send it you together with this. The question at issue between the controversialists seems to be simply this"Which is the superior, for the purposes of poetry, Nature or Art?"-From this, however, both have wandered;-Lord Byron from not caring a jot about the point in question, or about his antagonist, or about any thing else in the world, except writing a brilliant and bitter pamphlet, calculated to display his wit, and to

shew up' a few brother poets;-all of whom, by the way, his Lordship has, at various times and in various manners, abused and ridiculed-and if now and then he have given some of them praise, it has been in such a sort as to render it doubtful whether his abuse be not the more desirable of the two. His caresses, indeed, have always very much the air of those of the bear he used to keep when he was at Cambridge.

Mr. Bowles has strayed from the question in debate from having written evidently in great haste, and with very little connection;-for, though he has attempted to classify very much in his titles and headings, his arguments are brought forward in no sort of succession or dependence on each other. I shall, therefore, drop Lord Byron and Mr. Bowles, except where their argu

ments bear directly on mine,-and discuss the question on its own merits.

In the first place, then, I hold, that, though the poetical objects in Nature and in Art heighten and assist each other, yet that Nature has few, if any, unpoetical objects, whereas many of those of Art are so ;-and secondly— That the most poetical objects in Nature are more poetical than the most poetical objects in Art.

With regard to the first of these positions-What object in Nature, unspoiled by man, and still existing as it came from the hand of God, is not highly susceptible of poetry?—I know of none. There are, indeed, few things left with which man has not meddled. But still there are some ;-some which he has hitherto left untouched, others on which his touch is powerless. "Cette superbe mer, sur laquelle l'homme n'a jamais pu imprimer ses traces" still bears, and ever will bear, its own unchangeable aspect. The mountains which soar into the sky, and lift their heads far beyond the reach of man and his power, reign in the majesty of Nature,

"On a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds,
With a diadem of snow."

Many parts of the American forests also are yet untrodden, at least unchanged, by man. And are not they poetical? Those vast woods which cover what in our smaller hemisphere would be the space of kingdomswith all those sights and sounds which embellish and give a charm to forest scenery-fruits and flowers, and leaves of every shade of green, from the shadowy pine to the brilliant acacia-their birds of every conceivable variety of plumage, and modulation of songand those beasts which add to all these things the interest and the dignity of danger-are not, I again ask, forests in this primeval state, in the highest degree

poetical?-And what does Art do here?-the axe resounds and the fire blazes, and the proud trees of the forest become blackened stumps-the beautiful and varied glades are opened into unsightly clearings,-and the picturesque Indian, who pursues his enemy or his game through the almost trackless woods, is replaced by a back-woodsman-the brutal and dissolute savage of civilization, instead of the pure-minded and dignified savage of Nature.

But even the most unpromising things in Nature, such as leafless trees, stagnant pools, and barren heaths, may be adapted with the utmost advantage to the purposes of poetry.

The bleakest rock upon the loneliest heath,
Feels in its barrenness some touch of spring;
And in the April dew or beam of May,

Its moss and lichen freshen and revive *.

Is not this poetry?—and what is its subject ?—
The bleakest rock upon the loneliest heath.

There are few things in Nature of more wretched appearance than a fen, and yet even this has given rise to writing truly poetical. The passage I allude to is in Crabbe's tale of a Lover's Journey-and it is so powerful and extraordinary, that it is well worth quoting:—

On either side

Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide,
With dikes on either hand by Ocean's self supplied:
Far on the right, the distant sea is seen,

And salt the springs that feed the marsh between;
Beneath an ancient bridge, the straiten'd flood
Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud;
Near it a sunken boat resists the tide,
That frets and hurries to th' opposing side;
The rushes sharp, that on the borders grow,
Bend their brown flow'rets to the stream below,
Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow.
Here a grave Flora scarcely deigns to bloom,
Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume;

* Beaumont.

The few dull flowers that o'er the place are spread
Partake the nature of their fenny bed;

Here on its wiry stem, in rigid bloom,
Grows the salt lavender that lacks perfume;
Here the dwarf sallows creep, the septfoil harsh,
And the soft slimy mallow of the marsh;
Low on the ear the distant billows sound,
And just in view appears their stony bound;
No hedge nor tree conceals the glowing sun,
Birds, save a wat'ry tribe, the district shun,

Nor chirp among the reeds where bitter waters run.—

—and what is the subject of this powerful poetry ?-a marsh! To this passage is appended a note, which,

though of course in prose, is so picturesquely and vigorously written, that I shall copy it,-and claim its evidence in my cause, for writing need not be in verse to be poetry. "The ditches of a fen so near the ocean are lined with irregular patches of a coarse and stained lava; a muddy sediment rests on the horse-tail and other perennial herbs, which in part conceal the shallowness of the stream; a fat-leaved pale-flowering scurvy-grass appears early in the year, and the razor-edged bull-rush in the summer and autumn. The fen itself has a dark and saline herbage; there are rushes and arrow head, and in a few patches the flakes of the cotton-grass are seen, but more commonly the sea-aster, the dullest of that numerous and hardy genus; a thrift, blue in flower, but withering and remaining withered till the winter scatters it; the salt-wort, both simple and shrubby, a few kinds of grass, changed by their soil and atmosphere, and low plants, of two or three denominations, undistinguished in a general view of the scenery-such is the vegetation of the fen, when it is at a small distance from the ocean."

I will give another, perhaps still more striking, instance. It is a description in Rob Roy of a barren

moor-of Nature in her very meanest aspect-where,

Far as the eye can reach, no tree is seen,

Earth, clad in russet, scorns the lively green,—

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and yet, see what, in the hands of a master, can be made even of a country like this :-" Huge continuous heaths, spread before, behind, and around us, in hopeless barrenness, now level, and interspersed with swamps, green with treacherous verdure, or sable with turf, or, as they call them in Scotland, peat-bogs, and now swelling into huge heavy ascents, which wanted the dignity and form of hills, while they were still more toilsome to the passenger. There were neither trees nor bushes to relieve the eye from the russet livery of absolute sterility. The very heath was of that stinted imperfect kind which has little or no flower, and affords the coarsest and meanest covering which, as far as my experience enables me to judge, Mother Earth is ever arrayed in."

I have purposely cited nothing in support of the poetical susceptibilities of the higher orders of natural objects-I have confined myself to what relates to Nature's very lowest appearances and attributes, and yet I have, I trust, proved that even these can be, and are, poetical.

Now, that there are numberless objects in Art which cannot by any powers, however great, be made poetical, we have in these days conclusive and most abundant evidence. I do not ask, whether it can be possible for any one to give poetry to the commonest productions of mechanical art,-household utensils, for instance, brooms, mops, pails, and warming-pans ;-but look at the attempts of persons of poetical genius confessedly great, of Mr. Coleridge and Mr. Wordsworth,-to poetize these things;-look at nine-tenths of the lyrical