once gave rise to poetic ecstasy, and poetic enchantments?

Mr. Dugald Stewart, in his concluding Essay "on the Culture of certain Intellectual Habits," has benevolently established a theory from which might arise a new order of things; the harshness and coarseness of the worldling would be softened and eradicated, and the man of genius and sensibility protected from hypochondriacism, despair and insanity. But alas! although the genius of Mr. S. has formed a fairy paradise, it is yet to be feared, that it is founded less on the cold principles of truth and reason, than on the creations of his own vivid imagination.

With regard to engrafting "habits" of taste and refined enjoyment on the man of business, the politician or the lawyer, it is a hopeless task; all the eloquence of Cicero would here be ineffectual. And as to the poet, it is sufficient to observe "poeta nascitur non fit." The poetical character is not amenable to human laws; in proof of which, it is only necessary to advert to the fact, that all other characters may be formed by human art. Education, even after the age of forty, may create a metaphysician, a mathematician, a lawyer, a grammarian, &c. &c.; but the inspiration of a Divine Power only can bestow the "Divinæ particula auræ" of the poet.

If any real cure can be found for the sufferings of men, such as Burns, or Cowper, or Collins, or Tasso, or Chatterton, it is to be sought in that elevation of soul, and confidence in their own powers, inculcated by Beattie, "Know thine own worth, and reverence the lyre." Inspired by such a sentiment, the man of true genius exists continually in a world of his own.

Like an enthusiastic

lover, he beholds only one object.

Protected, as if by an invincible talisman, he moves amid the splendour and tumult of courts; amid all the folly and coarseness of ordinary life, he replies mechanically to the frothy nothings and ceremonious salutations of every-day characters; and smiles to think, that he carries within himself inexhaustible sources of exalted enjoyment, for which alone he lives, and which have elevated his mind far above each ignoble feeling, and above the weakness of being interrupted or distressed by ordinary causes; but alas! even all this is but a phantasm; self-possession is not to be acquired by those whose vital organs are worn out by the workings of a too powerful spirit, whose nerves are trembling with irritability, and whose detestation of vice and folly, of coarseness and meanness, and error and obstinacy, and vulgar prejudice and presumption, is too strong to permit them to move through the disgusting circles of ordinary life, with a mind "unclouded and at rest."

H. F. A.

N° LXXXI.

On the culture of Taste and Imagination.

TO THE RUMINATOR.

Oct. 1812.

SIR,

IF, according to the benevolent theory of Mr. Stewart, it were possible to excite the dormant faculties of taste and imagination in worldly-minded people, it would probably be effected by the perusal of our best poetry, in the quiet and seclusion of the country, at those very seasons of the year which are described by the poet, and amid scenery similar to that by which the inspired strains were fostered Amid the bustle and tumult of a city life, it is in vain to hope that undivided attention can be bestowed on the divine strains of a Milton, or a ThomTheir gilded volumes repose undisturbed, as a mere ornament, on the tables of the boudoir, or the crowded saloon;" or, if opened, they are perused with sickly and undisguised disgust, or faint and affected commendation.

son.

It is justly and beautifully observed by the Edinburgh reviewers, that "There is a sort of poetry no doubt, as there is a sort of flowers, which can bear the broad sun and the ruffling winds of the world; which thrive under the hands and eyes of indiscriminating multitudes, and please as much in

hot and crowded saloons, as in their own sheltered repositories; but the finer and the purer sorts blossom only in the shade, and give out their sweets but to those, who seek them in the quiet and seclusion of the scenes which gave them birth. There are torrents and cascades, which attract the admiration of loitering parties, and of which even the busy must turn aside to catch a transient glance: but the haunted stream steals through a still and a solitary landscape, and its beauties are never revealed but to him who strays in calm contemplation by its course, and follows its wanderings with undistracted and unimpatient admiration."

But, at this delightful season of the year, is it possible, when residing in the country, to read the exquisitely correct, and inchanting delineations of Thomson's "Autumn," or the fascinating pages of

66

Mary de Clifford," and look abroad to the breathing commentary on the words of the poet, without feeling that the beauties of every scene are enhanced, and a 'sweet and indissoluble connection" gradually formed, between the intellectual and material world; a connection which forms the indispensable basis of taste and imagination, and mental refinement?

i The Editor doubts whether he ought to suffer this praise to stand; but it comes from a partial friend, and he will not strike it out. EDITOR.

How infinitely more delightful are the recollections I preserve of Cicero's Tusculan Questions, and Homer's Odyssey, which I happened to read of my own free choice, amid the freedom and tranquillity of rural scenery, than even of Virgil, and Horace, and Theocritus, which were conned ever under the eye of a master, amid the constraint and the pestilential atmosphere of a crowded seminary!

But I could dwell with yet more pleasure on my first perusal of T, Warton's " Ode on the Approach of Summer," of Milton's "Lycidas," and the morning hymn, in "Paradise Lost." My reading was generally commenced at the twilight hour, -I began with Warton. As I recited the passage, beginning "Oft when thy season, sweetest queen," how delightful to meet in reality every image and every charm which they described! My temples were fanned by the western "breezes that rustled over the deep embattled corn;" my path was illuminated with lingering light, from the "ruby chambers of the west;" the "mild radiance," fell on the mouldering " towers" of Kilchurn, or Dunstaffnage castle, and illuminated the grey rocks and purple heath of the mountain summit, after every object beneath was lost in obscurity. But I must conclude abruptly, from an apprehension that such egotism cannot be forgiven.

H. F. A.