MONTGOMERY AS A SACRED POET.

157

lily, the pink, and the pansy-the musk-rose and the
gilly-flower; but you have no staring sunflowers, no
Brobdignag hollyhocks, no flaunting dahlias-for he clings
to a simplicity that disdains ostentatious ornament; and
thus many are apt to think the stream of his inspiration
shallow, simply because it is pellucid.
It is not easy
to characterise his poetry, so as to convey any adequate
idea of its excellencies-except by saying, in negatives,
that it shuns all glare, glitter, and eccentricity; and that
it cannot be expected to find admirers among those who
bow down at the shrines of exaggeration or false taste.

+

Some have asserted — truly most idly — that the fame of Montgomery was founded on, and has been supported by, his sectarianism. If so, the Moravians are a much more potent body than they are generally accredited to be. However the applause of a class may have originally given an impetus to his popularity, from the very first, as his works attest-and they are full of faith, hope, and charity-he wrote not for a section, but for mankind; and well has Professor Wilson remarked, in reference to this very topic, that "had Mr Montgomery not been a true poet, all the religious magazines in the world would not have saved his name from forgetfulness and oblivion. He might have flaunted his day like the melancholy poppy-melancholy in all its ill-scented gaudiness; but,+ as it is, he is like the rose of Sharon, whose balm and beauty shall not wither, planted on the banks of 'that river whose streams make glad the city of the Lord." "

One word, in conclusion, regarding religious poetryagainst which there have been some able and conscientious objectors. Nor have their reasons been quite groundless.

The most sublime poetry, by far, to which the world has ever listened, is that of the Hebrew. It is immeasurably beyond all Greek and all Roman inspiration; and yet its sole theme is the Great Jehovah, and the ways and wonders of His creation. All is simply grand,

158

LEGITIMATE AIMS OF POETRY.

nakedly sublime; and man before his Maker, even in the act of adoration, is there made to put his lips in the dust. So have done the great bards of succeeding times, Milton, and Young, and Thomson, and Cowper, and Pollok. In approaching the shrine they take off the sandals from their feet, well knowing that the spot whereon they stand is holy ground. But all not being great, alas! all do not so behave; and hence, in common hands, sacred poetry has become, not without reason, a subject of doubt and discussion; for in them error has dared to counsel infallibility-ignorance to fathom Omniscienceand narrow-minded prejudice to circumscribe the bounds of mercy the human irreverently to approach the Divine and "fools to rush in where angels fear to tread."

Genius, therefore, is not to be regarded by the gifted as a toy. It is a dread thing. It is like a sharp twoedged sword placed in the hand of its possessor, for much of good or of evil; and the results are exactly as it is wielded, whether to the right hand or to the left. To claim exclusive moral-say rather immoral-privileges for men of genius, as men of genius, is absurd. They ask none, they need none. Eccentricity and error may be coupled with genius, but do not necessarily arise from it -as Shakspeare, Milton, and Scott have lived to illustrate. They spring from quite another source, for they are found a thousand times oftener without such companionship than with it, and verify the epigram of Prior"Yes! every poet is a fool,

By demonstration Ned can show it :
Happy could Ned's inverted rule

Prove every fool to be a poet."

Not only should the man of genius be measured by a high standard, but exactly in proportion to the extent and elevation of his powers is he doubly or triply accountable. We may rest assured that there is no discrepancy

USE AND ABUSE OF GENIUS.

159

between the great and the good, for that would be quite an anomaly in the Creator's government of the universe. Only the silly and the shallow, the poetaster, the pretender, and the unprincipled, will seek to skulk behind such a transparent bulwark. Almost all the great poets of + ancient and modern times (a few rare exceptions only go to strengthen the rule) have been men who reverenced Heaven and respected themselves, nobly fulfilling their destinies those in the pleasant valleys opening up innocent fountains of ever-new delight, for solacing the depressed, and refreshing the weary: these labouring through the defiles of the difficult mountains for flowers of beauty and gems of price, unselfishly and unreservedly to be at once thrown into the general treasurystore of humanity.

LECTURE IV.

The succession of Lord Byron to the poetical supremacy.

The energy of his genius, and its different phases.-Childe Harold, Turkish and other Tales.— His Pantheistic views. -Extracts from Prisoner of Chillon; from Gaiour; from Bride of Abydos; from Parasina; and from Beppo.-Verses to Mary. -Byron and Burns.-Bishop Heber, Palestine and Hymns.-Dean Milman, Dramatic Poems, and Samor.-Elegiac Verses.-Dr Croly, Paris, Sebastian, Gems from Antique.— Honourable W. Herbert, Icelandic Translations, Helga, and Attila; specimen, Northern Spring. William Tennant, Anster Fair and other poems: extract, Maggy Lauder. - Frere's Whistlecraft; specimen.-Barham and Hood.-Domestic Tragedy from Ingoldsby Legends. -Theodore Hook, his amazing powers of improvisation.-James and Horace Smith, Rejected Addresses.-Thomas Moore.-Anacreon, Odes and Epistles, Satires, Lalla Rookh, Loves of Angels, Irish Melodies. — Lines at Cohos.The Young May Moon. Burns and Moore. Man not cosmopolite; national poetry.

Up to the time at which this Lecture commences, the writings of Wordsworth had been more talked about than read; the fame of Coleridge was limited to a small circle of affectionate admirers; the star of Campbell was still in the ascendant - the cynosure of eyes with the select; Crabbe was quietly but industriously cultivating his own homely peculiar field; while the tide of popularity flowed triumphantly along with Scott, whose fresh free song all the aspiring young bards imitated, like a forest of mocking-birds. Open their tomes where you listed, let it have been at page one, or page one hundred, there were nothing but moss-trooper and marauder-baron bold and gay ladye-hound in leash and hawk in hood- bas

THE POETIC ORIENTAL DYNASTY.

161

tion huge and grey chapelle henchmen and servitors,— slashed sleeves and Spanish boots-steel-barred aventayles and nodding morions-" guns, trumpets, blunderbusses, drums, and thunder." The chivalrous epics of Scott are indeed glorious things-full of vivacity, energy, variety and nature-and will endure while a monument of human genius remains; but their thousand and one imitations have vanished-as I have before mentionedlike the clouds of yesterday. When the mighty master himself, instead of satiating the public, took to another field, that of prose, and left poetry to younger men, arose the Oriental dynasty, under the prime viziership of Lord Byron; and down went William of Deloraine, and Wat of Buccleuch, before Hassan and Selim, Conrad and Medora, the Jereed men and the Janissaries, and all the white turbaned, wide- trousered, hyacinthine - tressed, pearl-cinctured, gazelle-eyed, opium-chewing, loving and hating sons and daughters of Mahomet. Every puny rhymester called the moon Phingari," daggers "ataghans;" drummers "Tambourgis," tobacco-pipes "Chibouques," and women "Houris." It was up with the crescent and down with the cross; and, in as far as scribbling at least went, every poet was a detester of port and pork, and a renegade from all things Christian. Nay, even something like the personal appearance of Childe Harold was aspired at; and each beardless bardling, whether baker's, butcher's, or barber's apprentice, had his hair cut and his shirt-collar turned down à la Byron. Midshipmen perseveringly strove to look Conrad-like and misanthropic; lawyers' clerks affected the most melancholious mood; and half-pay ensigns, contemptuous of county police, or the public safety,

-" with the left heel insidiously aside, Provoked the caper that they seemed to chide;

and on hacks, hired by the hour, adventured imitations of Mazeppa at a hand-gallop along the king's highway.

L