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I leave those to whom “ Nature” is so mysterious, to say which even of these two sentences is most poetical!!

Let Mr. CAMPBELL's wonderful logician, who starts out thus powerful at once, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, let him go yet higher :

“ The sun, stars, planets, and firmament,
“Give light to the ocean and earth!"

He asks “ if this be poetical ?” Answer: More poetical, certainly, than

“ The wax-lights, the lustres, the sconces and the chandeliers, “Give light to the ball-room! !

On Poetry derived from Passions; and Instances

in which what is sublime or pathetic may be affected by unpoetical treatment.

WE have hitherto been speaking only of visible objects of poetical sublimity in Nature. Though I point to my most material proposition, and say,

passions, passions, passions,” are the soul of poetry, it is of no use! It is still asserted that I confine my ideas to minute descriptions of external nature ! that Thomson, according to my principles, is a greater poet than SHAKESPEARE!! I shall therefore say a few words concerning poetry derived from its highest source; and shall take the first examples which occur in the volume that contains the sublimest and most poetical images in the world.

“He bowed the heavens, also, and came down ; and it was dark under his feet: he rode

upon

the cherubims, “ and did fly: he came flying on the wings of the wind.”

It was not even in the power of STERNHOLD and Hopkins to destroy the sublimity of this passage: :

“ The LORD descended from above,

“ And bow'd the heavens most high; “ And underneath his feet he cast

“ The darkness of the sky.

« On cherubs and on cherubim," &c. Now let us take a poetical passage of the most pathetic kind:-" By the waters of Babylon we sat down and “wept, when we remembered thee, oh! Sion."

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With regard to the first of these passages, to shew how just is the general remark of HORACE,

“ Invenias etiam disjecti membra poetæ,” let the images be disjointed how they will, the images being sublime or magnificent in themselves, you cannot destroy them-you will still find, turning them into prose, the same materials of sublimity, the same disjecti membra poetæ. It is exactly the reverse with pathetic poetry. In the Psalm, “by the waters of

Babylon,” words the most simple, combined with the imagery, excite instantaneous feelings of sympathy.

Such being the sublimity and pathos of those two passages from scripture, let us set these performers, THOMAS STERNHOLD, JOHN HOPKINS, and others," to work on them. The first passage, as I have said, they could hardly do otherwise than render sublime, though they were themselves entirely unconscious of it. Now let us see what they can make of the pathetic verse which I have quoted from the Psalms !

“ When as we sat in Babylor,

“ The rivers round about,
“ All in remembrance of Sion,

“ The tears for grief burst out !
“We hung our harps and instruments

“ The willow trees upon;
“For in this place, men, for their use,

Had planted many a one!

Who does not instantly feel the lameness, the dilutedness, the scrannel impotence of the paraphrase ?

If I were to adduce one incident more pathetic than another, in the whole world of writings, I should, perhaps, draw an example from the affecting story of “ Joseph and his brethren." The mind is worked up

to the most intense interest, when his brothers stand before Joseph, who is unknown to them. What is the first word he utters, after he has told them who he is? “I am Joseph your brother:" he stops not a moment for an answer, but instantly, and as scarce breathing, enquires, Does my FATHER yet live? the OLD MAN, « of whom ye spake?” The slightest alteration of these words, so delicate is high-wrought sympathy, would instantly destroy the interest.

One distinction seems to me obvious: by additions, and those chiefly from art, a passage in which sublime objects occur may be made mean, as by Cowley and BLACKMORE; though the objects themselves, abstractedly, cannot be made so. Pathos may be entirely destroyed by bad treatment, or even altering words; but I affirm, as will be shewn afterwards, that no possible treatment can make a really unpoetical image poetical, nor any image from art as sublime as images from nature, or manners as poetical as passions, provided the poet be adequate in genius, as Milton and SHAKESPEARE were; and that, therefore, Pope can never be in the same line with these inmortal poets, let his execution be what it may; never equal to them in sublimity, or in pathos; never equally master of our hearts; and though equalling in execution, pro tanto, (all his works being considered,) never even approaching them in the vastness, richness, copiousness, or affecting beauties, of their several creations,

I have placed, in consequence of the consummate execution of his Eloisa, and Rape of the Lock, POPE before DRYDEN. But if the Flower and the Leaf" of DRYDEN had been original, this exquisite work of

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fancy and execution would have weighed down the Rape of the Lock; but in consequence of this unique, original, and exquisite performance, the Rape of the Lock, and the most finished and passionate Epistle of Eloisa, infinitely superior to any thing of the kind extant, I have ventured to place Pope above Dryden, notwithstanding the superiority of DRYDEN’s Ode. And yet, with this printed and published decision, I am held up as considering that he who could write a sonnet to a lap-dog, a greater poet than Pope.” See a publication called “ The Speculum!"

Such is the periodical press in the year 1822!! Some writers, having been beat out of asserting that I called “ POPE no great poet," turn round and say, if I allow his exquisite Eloisa to be so pathetic, and pathos to be one of the great characteristicks of the bigher orders of poetry, why not place him with SHAKESPEARE? Because “ one swallow does not “ make a summer:” and what comparison is there between Eloisa and Lear?

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