Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

have had a second, much more violent than the first; and you must not be surprised if, by next post, you hear of a burning mountain sprung up in Smithfield. In the night between Wednesday and Thursday last (exactly a month since the first shock), the earth had a shivering fit between one and two, but so slight, that, if no more had followed, I don't believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake, and had scarce dozed again-on a sudden I felt my bolster lift up my head; I thought somebody was getting from under my bed, but soon found it was a strong earthquake that lasted near half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I rang my bell; my servant came in, frightened out of his senses: in an instant we heard all the windows in the neighbourhood flung up. I got up and found people running into the streets, but saw no mischief done: there has been some; two old houses flung down, several chimneys, and much china-ware. The bells rung in several houses. Admiral Knowles, who has lived long in Jamaica, and felt seven there, says this was more violent than any of them: Francesco prefers it to the dreadful one at Leghorn. The wise say, that if we have not rain soon, we shall certainly have more. Several people are going out of town, for it has nowhere reached above ten miles from London they say they are not frightened, but that it is such fine weather, 'Lord! one can't help going into the country! The only visible effect it has had was on the Ridotto, at which, being the following night, there were but four hundred people. A parson who came into White's the morning of earthquake the first, and heard bets laid on whether it was an earthquake or the blowing up of powder mills, went away exceedingly scandalised, and said, "I protest they are such an impious set of people, that I believe if the last trumpet was to sound they would bet puppet-show against Judgment.' If we get any nearer still to the torrid zone, I shall pique myself on sending you a present of cedrati and orange-flower water; I am already planning a terreno for Strawberry Hill.

gentleman fell in love with her, and was going to be married to her, but the match was broken off. An old fermier-general, who had retired into the province where this happened, hearing the story, had a curiosity to see the victim; he liked her, married her, died, and left her enough not to care for her inconstant. She came to Paris, where the Marechal de l'Hôpital married her for her riches. After the Marechal's death, Casimir, the abdicated king of Poland, who was retired into France, fell in love with the Marechale, and privately married her. If the event ever happens, I shall certainly travel to Nancy, to hear her talk of ma belle fille la Reine de France. What pains my Lady Pomfret would take to provel that an abdicated king's wife did not take place of an English countess; and how the princess herself would grow still fonder of the Pretender for the similitude of his fortune with that of le Roi mon mari! Her daughter, Mirepoix, was frightened the other night with Mrs Nugent's calling out, un voleur! un voleur! The ambassadress had heard so much of robbing, that she did not doubt but dans ce pais cy, they robbed in the middle of an assembly. It turned out to be a thief in the candle! Good night!

THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

Another series of letters, written at this time, has since been published. The collection is far inferior in value, but its author was one of the greatest men of his age-perhaps the first of English orators and statesmen. We allude to a volume of letters written by the Earl of Chatham to his nephew, Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford. This work contains much excellent advice as to life and conduct, a sincere admiration of classical learning, and great kindliness of domestic feeling and affection. Another collection of the correspondence of Lord Chatham was made and published in 1841, in four volumes. Some light is thrown on contemporary history and public events The Middlesex election is carried against the court: by this correspondence; but its principal value is of the Prince in a green frock (and I won't swear, but in a reflex nature, derived from our interest in all that a Scotch plaid waistcoat) sat under the park-wall in relates to the lofty and commanding intellect which his chair, and hallooed the voters on to Brentford. shaped the destinies of Europe. WILLIAM PITT was The Jacobites are so transported, that they are opening born on the 15th of November 1708. He was edusubscriptions for all boroughs that shall be vacant-cated at Eton, whence he removed to Trinity college, this is wise! They will spend their money to carry a Oxford. He was afterwards a cornet in the Blues! few more seats in a Parliament where they will never His military career, however, was of short duration; have the majority, and so have none to carry the for, before he was quite twenty-one, he had a seat in general elections. The omen, however, is bad for parliament. His talents for debate were soon conWestminster; the high-bailiff went to vote for the spicuous; and on the occasion of a bill for registeropposition. ing seamen in 1740, he made his memorable reply I now jump to another topic; I find all this letter to Mr Walpole, who had taunted him on account of will be detached scraps; I can't at all contrive to his youth. This burst of youthful ardour has been hide the seams. But I don't care. I began my letter immortalised by Dr Johnson, who then reported the merely to tell you of the earthquake, and I don't parliamentary debates for the Gentleman's Magapique myself upon doing any more than telling you zine. Johnson was no laborious or diligent notewhat you would be glad to have told you. I told taker; he often had merely verbal communications you, too, how pleased I was with the triumphs of of the sentiments of the speakers, which he imbued another old beauty, our friend the princess.I Do with his own energy, and coloured with his peculiar you know, I have found a history that has great re-style and diction. Pitt's reply to Walpole may semblance to hers; that is, that will be very like hers, if hers is but like it. I will tell it you in as few words as I can. Madame la Marechale de l'Hôpital was the daughter of a sempstress 2 a young

1 The Princess Craon, who, it had been reported, was to marry Stanislaus Leczinsky, Duke of Lorraine and ex-king of Poland, whose daughter, Maria Leczinsky, was married to Louis XV., king of France.

2 This is the story of a woman named Mary Mignot. She was near marrying a young man of the name of La Gardie, who afterwards entered the Swedish service, and became a field-marshal in that country. Her first husband was, if I mistake not, a procureur of Grenoble; her second was the

therefore be considered the composition of Johnson, founded on some note or statement of the actual speech; yet we are tempted to transcribe it, on account of its celebrity and its eloquence:--

Marshal de l'Hôpital; and her third is supposed to have been Casimir, the ex-king of Poland, who had retired, after his abdication, to the monastery of St Germain des Près. It does not, however, appear certain whether Casimir actually married her or not.

1 Lady Pomfret and Princess Craon did not visit at Florence, upon a dispute of precedence.

2 The Pretender, when in Lorraine, lived in Prince Craon's house.

[Speech of Chatham on being taunted on account of youth.]

disease-against the employment of Indians in the war with America, is too characteristic, too noble, to be omitted.

in the war with America.]

Sir-The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has, with such spirit [Speech of Chatham against the employment of Indians and decency, charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience. Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume the province of determining; but surely age may become justly contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings have passed away without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have subsided. The wretch who, after having seen the consequences of a thousand errors, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object either of abhorrence or contempt, and deserves not that his gray hairs should secure him from insult. Much more, sir, is he to be abhorred who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and become more wicked with less temptation; who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country. But youth, sir, is not my only crime; I have been accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language of another man.

In the first sense, sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deserves only to be mentioned that it may be despised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own language; and though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matured by age, or modelled by experience. But if any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, imply that I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon all those forms with which wealth and dignity entrench themselves; nor shall anything but age restrain my resentment; age, which always brings one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious, without punishment. But with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their censure; the heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country which neither hope nor fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect him in his villany, and whoever may partake of his plunder.

We need not follow the public career of Pitt, which is, in fact, a part of the history of England during a long and agitated period. His style of oratory was of the highest class, rapid, vehement, and overpowering, and it was adorned by all the graces of action and delivery. His public conduct was singularly pure and disinterested, considering the venality of the times in which he lived; but as a statesman he was often inconsistent, haughty, and impracticable. His acceptance of a peerage (in 1766) hurt his popularity with the nation, who loved and reverenced him as the great commoner;' but he still shook the senate' with the resistless appeals of his eloquence. His speech-delivered when he was upwards of sixty, and broken down and enfeebled by

I cannot, my lords, I will not, join in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. This, my lords, is a perilous and tremendous moment; it is not a time for adulation; the smoothness of flattery cannot save us in this rugged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth. We must, if possible, dispel the delusion and darkness which envelope it, and display, in its full danger and genuine colours, the ruin which is brought to our doors. Can ministers still presume to expect support in their infatuation? Can parliament be so dead to their dignity and duty, as to give their support to measures thus obtruded and forced upon them; measures, my lords, which have reduced this late flourishing empire to scorn and contempt? But yesterday, and England might have stood against the world; now, none so poor to do her reverence! The people whom we at first despised as rebels, but whom we now acknowledge as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied with every military store, have their interest consulted, and their ambassadors entertained, by your inveterate enemy; and ministers do not, and dare not, interpose with dignity or effect. The desperate state of our army abroad is in part known. No man more highly esteems and honours the English troops than I do; I know their virtues and their valour; I know they can achieve anything but impossibilities; and I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, my lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst ; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much. You may swell every expense, accumulate every assistance, and extend your traffic to the shambles of every German despot; your attempts will be for ever vain and impotent-doubly so, indeed, from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your adversaries, to overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty. If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms: Never, never, never! But, my lords, who is the man that, in addition to the disgraces and mischiefs of the war, has dared to authorise and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage; to call into civilised alliance the wild and inhuman inhabitant of the woods; to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My lords, these enormities cry aloud for redress and punishment. But, my lords, this barbarous measure has been defended, not only on the principles of policy and necessity, but also on those of morality; for it is perfectly allowable,' says Lord Suffolk, to use all the means which God and nature have put into our hands.' I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house or in this country. My lords, I did not intend to encroach so much on your attention; but I cannot repress my indignation-I feel myself impelled to speak. My lords, we are called upon as members of this house, as men, as Christians, to protest against such horrible barbarity! That God and nature have put into our hands! What ideas of God and nature that noble lord may entertain I know not; but I know that such detestable principles are equally abhorrent to religion

6

and humanity. What! to attribute the sacred sanction of God and nature to the massacres of the Indian scalping-knife! to the cannibal savage, torturing, murdering, devouring, drinking the blood of his mangled victims! Such notions shock every precept of morality, every feeling of humanity, every sentiment of honour. These abominable principles, and this more abominable avowal of them, demand the most decisive indignation. I call upon that right reverend, and this most learned bench, to vindicate the religion of their God, to support the justice of their country. I call upon the bishops to interpose the unsullied sanctity of their lawn; upon the judges to interpose the purity of their ermine, to save us from this pollution. I call upon the honour of your lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the Genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry that adorn these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble lord frowns with indignation at the disgrace of his country. In vain did he defend the liberty and establish the religion of Britain against the tyranny of Rome, if these worse than Popish cruelties and inquisitorial practices are endured among us. To send forth the merciless cannibal, thirsting for blood! against whom? your Protestant brethren! to lay waste their country, to desolate their dwellings, and extirpate their race and name by the aid and instrumentality of these horrible hell-hounds of war! Spain can no longer boast preeminence in barbarity. She armed herself with blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives of Mexico; we, more ruthless, loose these dogs of war against our countrymen in America, endeared to us by every tie that can sanctify humanity. I solemnly call upon your lordships, and upon every order of men in the state, to stamp upon this infamous procedure the indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. More particularly I call upon the holy prelates of our religion to do away this iniquity; let them perform a lustration, to purify the country from this deep and deadly sin. My lords, I am old and weak, and at present unable to say more; but my feelings and indignation were too strong to have said less. I could not have slept this night in my bed, nor even reposed my head upon my pillow, without giving vent to my eternal abhorrence of such enormous and preposterous principles.

The last public appearance and death of Lord Chatham are thus described by Belsham, in his history of Great Britain :

"The mind feels interested in the minutest circumstances relating to the last day of the public life of this renowned statesman and patriot. He was dressed in a rich suit of black velvet, with a full wig, and covered up to the knees in flannel. On his arrival in the house, he refreshed himself in the lord chancellor's room, where he stayed till prayers were over, and till he was informed that business was going to begin. He was then led into the house by his son and son-inlaw, Mr William Pitt and Lord Viscount Mahon, all the lords standing up out of respect, and making a lane for him to pass to the earl's bench, he bowing very gracefully to them as he proceeded. He looked pale and much emaciated, but his eye retained all its native fire; which, joined to his general deportment, and the attention of the house, formed a spectacle very striking and impressive.

When the Duke of Richmond had sat down, Lord Chatham rose, and began by lamenting "that his bodily infirmities had so long and at so important a crisis prevented his attendance on the duties of parliament. He declared that he had made an effort almost beyond the powers of his constitution to come

down to the house on this day, perhaps the last time he should ever be able to enter its walls, to express the indignation he felt at the idea which he understood was gone forth of yielding up the sovereignty of America. My lords," continued he, "I rejoice that the grave has not closed upon me, that I am still alive to lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and noble monarchy. Pressed down as I am by the load of infirmity, I am little able to assist my country in this most perilous conjuncture; but, my lords, while I have sense and memory, I never will consent to tarnish the lustre of this nation by an ignominious surrender of its rights and fairest possessions. Shall a people, so lately the terror of the world, now fall prostrate before the house of Bourbon? It is impossible! In God's name, if it is absolutely necessary to declare either for peace or war, and if peace cannot be preserved with honour, why is not war commenced without hesitation! I am not, I confess, well informed of the resources of this kingdom, but I trust it has still sufficient to maintain its just rights, though I know them not. Any state, my lords, is better than despair. Let us at least make one effort, and if we must fall, let us fall like men.' ""

The Duke of Richmond, in reply, declared himself to be "totally ignorant of the means by which we were to resist with success the combination of America with the house of Bourbon. He urged the noble lord to point out any possible mode, if he were able to do it, of making the Americans renounce that independence of which they were in possession. His Grace added, that if he could not, no man could; and that it was not in his power to change his opinion on the noble lord's authority, unsupported by any reasons but a recital of the calamities arising from a state of things not in the power of this country now to alter."

Lord Chatham, who had appeared greatly moved during the reply, made an eager effort to rise at the conclusion of it, as if labouring with some great idea, and impatient to give full scope to his feelings; but before he could utter a word, pressing his hand on his bosom, he fell down suddenly in a convulsive fit. The Duke of Cumberland, Lord Temple, and other lords near him, caught him in their arms. The house was immediately cleared; and his lordship being carried into an adjoining apartment, the debate was adjourned. Medical assistance being obtained, his lordship in some degree recovered, and was conveyed to his favourite villa of Hayes, in Kent, where, after lingering some few weeks, he expired May 11, 1778, in the 70th year of his age.'

Grattan, the Irish orator, has drawn the character of Lord Chatham with such felicity and vigour of style, that it will ever be preserved, if only for its composition. The glittering point and antithesis of his thoughts and language, have seldom been united to such originality and force :

:

'The secretary stood alone. Modern degeneracy had not reached him. Original and unaccommodating, the features of his character had the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind overawed majesty; and one of his sovereigns thought royalty so impaired in his presence, that he conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his superiority. No state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious politics, sunk him to the vulgar level of the great; but, overbearing, persuasive, and impracticable, his object was England, his ambition was fame. Without dividing, he destroyed party; without corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. France sunk beneath him. With one hand he smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the other the democracy of England. The sight of his mind was infinite; and his schemes were to affect,

[blocks in formation]

not England, not the present age only, but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the means by which these schemes were accomplished; always seasonable, always adequate, the suggestions of an understanding animated by ardour and enlightened by prophecy.

ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND MAGAZINES.

DODSLEY, first published in 1748, and which long continued to be a favourite and useful book. It embraced within the compass of two volumes, in octavo, treatises on elocution, composition, arithmetic, geography, logic, moral philosophy, human The ordinary feelings which make life amiable and life and manners, and a few other branches of knowindolent were unknown to him. No domestic diffi-ledge, then supposed to form a complete course of culties, no domestic weakness, reached him; but aloof education. from the sordid occurrences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, he came occasionally into our system

to counsel and to decide.

The age under notice may be termed the epoch of magazines and reviews. The earliest work of the former kind, the Gentleman's Magazine, comA character so exalted, so strenuous, so various, so menced in the year 1731 by Mr Edward Cave, a authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, and the trea-printer, was at first simply a monthly condensation sury trembled at the name of Pitt through all the of newspaper discussions and intelligence, but in the classes of venality. Corruption imagined, indeed, course of a few years became open to the reception that she had found defects in this statesman, and of literary and archæological articles. The term talked much of the inconsistency of his glory, and magazine thus gradually departed from its original much of the ruin of his victories; but the history of meaning as a depository of extracts from newspapers, his country, and the calamities of the enemy, an- till it was understood to refer to monthly miscelswered and refuted her. Nor were his political abi- lanies of literature, such as it is now habitually lities his only talents: his eloquence was an era in applied to. The design of Mr Cave was so successthe senate, peculiar and spontaneous, familiarly ex-ful, that it soon met with rivalry, though it was pressing gigantic sentiments and instinctive wisdom; some time before any other work obtained sufficient not like the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid encouragement to be continued for any lengthened conflagration of Tully; it resembled sometimes the period. The Literary Magazine, started in 1735 thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. by Mr Ephraim Chambers, subsisted till about the Like Murray, he did not conduct the understanding close of the century. The London Magazine, the through the painful subtlety of argumentation; nor British Magazine, and the Town and Country Mawas he, like Townsend, for ever on the rack of exer- gazine, were other works of the same kind, pubtion; but rather lightened upon the subject, and lished with more or less success during the reigns reached the point by the flashings of the mind, which, of George II. and George III. In 1739, the Scots like those of his eye, were felt, but could not be fol- Magazine was commenced in Edinburgh, upon a lowed. Upon the whole, there was in this man someplan nearly similar to the Gentleman's;' it surthing that could create, subvert, or reform; an unvived till 1826, and forms a valuable register of the derstanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon events of the times over which it extends. In the mankind to society, or to break the bonds of slavery old magazines, there is little trace of that anxiety asunder, and to rule the wilderness of free minds for literary excellence which now animates the conwith unbounded authority; something that could establish or overwhelm empire, and strike a blow in ductors of such miscellanies; yet, from the notices the world that should resound through the universe.' which they contain respecting the characters, incidents, and manners of former years, they are generally very entertaining. The Gentleman's Magazine' continues to be published, and retains much of its early distinction as a literary and archæological repository.

ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND MAGAZINES.

The Cyclopedia of EPHRAIM CHAMBERS, published in 1728, in two folio volumes, was the first dictionary or repertory of general knowledge produced in Britain. Chambers, who had been reared to the business of a globe-maker, and was a man of respectable though not profound attainments, died in 1740. His work was printed five times during the subsequent eighteen years, and has finally been extended, in the present century, under the care of Dr ABRAHAM REES, to forty volumes in quarto. Dr JOHN CAMPBELL, whose share in compiling the Universal History has already been spoken of, began in 1742 to publish his Lives of the British Admirals, and three years later commenced the Biographia Britannica ; works of considerable magnitude, and which still possess a respectable reputation. The reign of George II. produced many other attempts to familiarise knowledge; but it seems only necessary to allude to one of these, the Preceptor of ROBERT

[ocr errors]

com

Periodical works, devoted exclusively to the criticism of new books, were scarcely known in Britain till 1749, when the Monthly Review was menced under the patronage of the Whig and low church party. This was followed, in 1756, by the establishment of the Critical Review, which for some years was conducted by Dr Smollett, and was devoted to the interests of the Tory party in church and state. These productions, marked by no great ability, were the only publications of the kind previous to the commencement of the British Critic in 1793.

Another respectable and useful periodical work was originated in 1758 by Robert Dodsley, under the title of the Annual Register, the plan being suggested, as has been said, by Burke, who for some years wrote the historical portion with his usual ability. This work is still published.

Seventh Period.

FROM 1780 TILL THE PRESENT TIME.

HE great variety and abundance of the literature of this period might, in some measure, have been predicted from the progress made during the previous thirty or forty years, in which, as Johnson said, almost every man had come to write and to express himself correctly, and the number of readers had been multiplied a thousandfold. The increase in national wealth and population naturally led, in a country like Great Britain, to the improvement of literature and the arts, and accordingly we find that a more popular and general style of composition began to supplant the conventional stiffness and classic restraint imposed upon former authors. The human intellect and imagination were sent abroad on wider surveys, and with more ambitious views. To excite a great mass of hearers, the public orator finds it necessary to appeal to the stronger passions and universal sympathies of his audience; and in writing for a large number of readers, an author must adopt similar means, or fail of success. Hence it seems natural that as society advanced, the character of our literature should become assimilated to it, and partake of the onward movement, the popular feeling, and rising energy of the nation. There were, however, some great public events and accidental circumstances which assisted in bringing about a change. The American war, by exciting the eloquence of Chatham and Burke, awakened the spirit of the nation. The enthusiasm was continued by the poet Cowper, who sympathised keenly with his fellow-men, and had a warm love of his native country. Cowper wrote from no system; he had not read a poet for seventeen years; but he drew the distinguishing features of English life and scenery with such graphic power and beauty, that the mere poetry of art and fashion, and the stock images of descriptive verse, could not but appear mean, affected, and commonplace. Warton's History of Poetry,' and Percy's 'Reliques,' threw back the imagination to the bolder and freer era of our national literature, and the German drama, with all its horrors and extravagance, was something better than mere delineations of manners or incidental satire. The French Revolution came next, and seemed to break down all artificial distinctions. Talent and virtue only were to be regarded, and the spirit of man was to enter on a new course of free and glorious action. This dream passed away; but it had sunk deep into some ardent minds, and its fruits were seen in bold speculations on the hopes and destiny of man, in the

strong colourings of nature and passion, and in the free and flexible movements of the native genius of our poetry. Since then, every department of literature has been cultivated with success. In fiction, the name of Scott is inferior only to that of Shakspeare; in criticism, a new era may be dated from the establishment of the Edinburgh Review; and in historical composition, if we have no Hume or Gibbon, we have the results of far more valuable and diligent research. Truth and nature have been more truly and devoutly worshipped, and real excellence more highly prized. It has been feared by some that the principle of utility, which is recog nised as one of the features of the present age, and the progress of mechanical knowledge, would be fatal to the higher efforts of imagination, and diminish the territories of the poet. This seems a groundless fear. It did not damp the ardour of Scott or Byron, and it has not prevented the poetry of Wordsworth from gradually working its way into public favour. If we have not the chivalry and romance of the Elizabethan age, we have the ever-living passions of human nature, and the wide theatre of the world, now accurately known and discriminated, as a field for the exercise of genius. We have the benefit of all past knowledge and literature to exalt our standard of imitation and taste, and a more sure reward in the encouragement and applause of a populous and enlightened nation. "The literature of England,' says Shelley, 'has arisen, as it were, from a new birth. In spite of the low-thoughted envy which would undervalue contemporary merit, our own will be a memorable age in intellectual achievements, and we live among such philosophers and poets as surpass, beyond comparison, any who have appeared since the last national struggle for civil and religious liberty. The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The persons in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers. But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve the power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day, without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations, for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age. Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.'

[graphic]
« НазадПродовжити »