Deserted his poor Bride Could never find him more. d Ruth Thy corpse shall buried be; "God help thee, Ruth!'"-Such pains And all the congregation sing she had That she in half a year was mad And in a prison housed; And there, exulting in her wrongs, "Yet sometimes milder hours she knew, -They all were with her in her cell; "When Ruth three seasons thus had lain But of the Vagrant none took thought; "Among the fields she breathed again; "The engines of her pain, the tools The vernal leaves, she loved them still. "A Barn her winter bed supplies; Sore aches she needs must have! but less And there she begs at one steep place, "That oaten Pipe of hers is mute, This flute, made of a hemlock stalk, Farewell! and when thy days are told, VOL. IV, A Christian psalm for thee." In some respects Mr Wordsworth may be considered as the Rousseau of the present times. Both of them were educated among the mountains, at a distance from the fermentations of social life, and acquired, from their way of existence, certain peculiar sentimental habits of meditation, which were pitched in a different key from the callous, sarcastic, and practical way of thinking, prevalent among their contemporaries of the cities. Rousseau mingled in the throng; but found himself there like a man dropped out of the clouds. The peculiarity of his habits made him wretched; and his irritation perverted the employment of his genius. Mr Wordsworth has acted more wisely in keeping aloof, and continuing to cultivate his mind according to its pristine bias, and forbearing to grapple too closely with the differently educated men of cities. Rousseau makes a fine encomium upon the mountains, which, as it is connected with the present subject, we shall quote:- A general impression (which every body experiences, though all do not observe it) is, that, on high mountains where the air is pure and subtle, we feel greater lightness and agility of body, and more serenity in the mind. The pleasures are there less violent; the passions are more moderate; meditations receive there a certain great and sublime character proportioned to the objects that strike us; a certain tranquil pleasure which has nothing sensual. We are there grave without melancholy; quiet without indolence; contented with existing and thinking, all too lively pleasures are blunted, and lose the sharp points which render them painful; they leave in the heart only a slight and agreeable emotion; and thus an happy climate makes the passions of mankind subservient to his felicity, which elsewhere are his torment. I question whether any violent agitation or vapourish disorder could hold out against such an abode if continued for some time; and I am surprised that baths of the salutary and beneficial air of the mountains are not one of the principal remedies of medicine and morality." 2 L consider as of paramount authority in literature. ON THE REVIVAL OF A TASTE FOR OUR ANCIENT LITERATURE. THE strong disposition that has of late discovered itself in this and other literary countries of Europe, to recover the vestiges of earlier times, and especially to restore its ancient literature, may have been determined, perhaps, in some degree, by accidental causes, and by such as cannot be traced. Yet it seems reasonable also to ascribe such a remarkable turn in the mind of a most cultivated age, appearing at the same time in countries of a very different character, to some more general and necessary cause. And perhaps, without seeming fanciful, something may be shewn to this effect, which may dispose us to regard such an inclination in the genius of an age like our own, as so far from repugnant to its character of extreme civilization, that it may rather seem to arise out of it. Mr Hume has observed, that in the great poem of Spenser, the genius of the author is encumbered and disguised under the antiquated and fantastical costume of chivalry, which he has chosen to assume. We believe there are few readers of poetry of the present day, to whom this very circumstance does not constitute one essential interest and beauty of the work, and few judges of the character of poets to whom the spirit of chivalry does not appear to have raised, refined, and purified even the genius of Spenser that genius which could itself raise, refine, and purify whatsoever it touched. The opinion of that writer upon literature in general, and especially upon such a subject as poetry, may be considered perhaps as the literary opinion of his own, and still more, of preceding age, much rather than as the offspring of his own mind. For judgments on such subjects as these can scarcely be conceived of as native to a mind, in all its own habits of speculation so alien to them. Nor is it very probable, that on subjects on which he could not feel himself strong, he would in a work, not of ingenious and speculative argument, but of grave history, have hazarded himself in opinions, in which he did not secretly feel some countenance from those judgments that he was accustomed to But be this as it may, the great fact in literary history, with which we have supposed Mr Hume's remark to be connected, will hardly be called in question. The feelings with which our ancient poetry was generally regarded at the beginning and at the close of the last century, were essentially different. In our Augustan age, we see the mind of the country tending with determined force from that ancient literature; and in these later days we have seen it returning upon the treasures of those older times, with an almost passionate admiration. How far this revolution of sentiment upon this particular point, may be connected with that great change which, in nearly corresponding time, has manifested itself in the poetical temper of the country, would be a curious and interesting inquiry. It is not what we have now in view. But we cannot help observing, in passing, that the just estimate and passionate feeling of poetry do really appear to have declined and revived amongst us, in point of time at least, in correspondence with the temporary neglect and returning love of our own ancient records. And if some of our readers should be scarcely aware what the estimate of poetry has been in this country in the former part of the last century, we must remind them of that curious literary passage of Goldsmith, who, in his Vicar of Wakefield, puts into the mouth of a speaker, evidently intended as a person of authority of judg ment, high praise of the tragedies of that era of our stage, for their adherence to nature, contemptuously comparing them with the monstrous and gigantic delineation of our elder dra matists, not excepting Shakspeare.→→ It would be well, if those whose reading leads them that way, would put together the evidence they find of the opinions which one age has entertained of another, to be taken in connexion with its own productions, as grounds of the estimate of its mind. two instances we have quoted may not appear, thus solitarily, to have so much weight to our readers as to us; yet surely it must be admitted, that so unpoetical a declaration from the hand of a poet is at least a strong probable indication of the overpowering opinion of his contemporaries, which could so The far repress the native feeling of poetry in his mind. No man will believe that Goldsmith, now living, would have so judged. This return to our Ancient Poetry is with us a part of our general return to the Ancient Literature and the Ancient History of the Country. Our press speaks to the fact of the reviving study of general ancient literature, better than any statement. And, of the cha racter of our Historical researches, the history of England, by Hume, compared with the same history at a later period, by Dr Henry, and with that, at a still later date by Sharon Turner, may be taken in illustration at least, if not in evidence. Each of these last two works, as far as it carries down the history, is marked by an encreasing exactness of minute research, and a fuller and stronger presentation of the extant memorials of the times. In reading the volumes of Mr Turner, we may be excused for expressing the regret which every student of our early history must feel, that a work so valuable by its contents, should have been rendered less interesting, and almost, we might say, of less authority, by the style of the language in which the author has thought fit to convey them. It is to little purpose, however, to cite especial instances; for, after all, there is nothing to be done but to re fer the reader, at last, to his own knowledge for the fact assumed,-that there has been, of late years, and is, at this time, in the mind of the country, as shewn in its literature, a strong determination of inquiry to the monuments of its earlier history, and an earnest desire to recover both for intellectual speculation, and for some thing perhaps of a moral love, the faithful representation of ages which had long been given up without regret or regard, to be lost in the darkness of time. Taking the fact for granted, we wish to propose some conjectures as to the natural causes of such a change. degree, carried into accomplishment. During the period of this progress, an era arrives when so much of refinement is attained, and so much of the pristine barbarism shaken off, that the people of the present age perceives itself to be distinct by civilization from its barbarous ancestors: and, it no sooner discovers the distinction, than its pride steps in to rend wider the separation, while a sort of feeling, even of hostility, ensues, to that dark and inveterate barbarism from which it is accomplishing its deliverance. Against feelings so deeply rooted and powerful, which are motions indeed of the very spirit of the nation, striving with full contention of its powers for highprized and important purposes, those feelings of imagination with which we look back upon antiquity, can have no strength to stand. They are swept down; or, indeed, they scarcely rise into existence;-for intellect and ima gination, and all the higher and subtler faculties and affections of the mind, are involved in that one great movement of the people's spirit ;-the whole mind of the nation looks for ward to futurity. As soon as the pride of this deliverance is felt,-as long as a sense presses of the importance of throwing back to a distance from themselves that antique barbarism, of mak ing wide and impassable the gulph of separation; and, whenever some unwonted conflux of events, inflaming anew the zeal of amelioration, carries the whole passion of men's hearts into the future;-so soon, so long, and so often, will they look with estrangement and aversion on the mighty past, and please and flatter themselves in this conscious exaltation, and in the dawning illumination of a brighter day: This self-separation of the age of civilization from the age of darkness, may be observed, it is probable, in every nation, at different periods, in more or less fulness, according to the circumstances of the times; and the evidence of such a spirit may be found very variously scattered through A people slowly emerging from a the records of human feeling and opicondition of barbarism into civiliza- nion, as they shew themselves now tion, regards the change it is undergo in the workings of a solitary speculas ing with great admiration and pride, tive mind, and now in the consenting and with a stedfast conviction of the passions of a people; at one time in indispensable necessity to its welfare literature, at another in dress, at anos that this change should be, without re-ther in revolutions that overturti Em= mission, and to the utmost possible pires, and lay thrones prostrate. To shew this spirit manifesting itself in its powerful operations during the modern civilization of Europe, will be a work for the historian of the human mind. We have ventured to speak thus hastily on so great a subject, merely to offer grounds of speculation to those to whom these changes, in the character of our own literature, may have an interest. If there be such a spirit as this of which we have spoken there will be a time when its operation will cease or be suspended. When the security of civilization is attained, when that first sense of escape and emancipation is past, and no ferment of mind sends the thoughts of men with eagerness of desire into the future, then a natural temper of judging will take place, and to that natural temper antiquity will appear in its own importance. For it is not necessary to account for an opinion among men of the interest and value of the remains of great ages that are past; it is the cessation and disappearance of such opinions among them that needs to be accounted for. When the causes have ceased to act, by which that natural sense and opinion were held oppressed almost to extinction, it may be thought that the simple feeling of long injustice committed, as well as of great loss no doubt actually incurred, will impart a temper of eager zeal, and even passion, to the returning admiration of a people for the memory of their forefathers, and to their renewed occupation of their own long neglected inheritance. It may, pernaps, be said that, using lofty terms like these to speak of the changes that have taken place in a nation's literature, inspires a suspicion that we may be labouring to dress up in seeming greatness, what is of no real might in the momentous concerns of mankind. It may be so. It is possible that the occupations of the intellect do more and more separate themselves from the real business of human life. Yet it would still be difficult to believe that this is a necessary condition of civilization, and that the same mind which every one, in whom it is cultivated, feels to be by its high cultivation so important to his own life, might not, through the same power, exercise an influence as high and important on the common welfare of a nation. It has been said by a great poet, "The present and the past, Upon whose wings harmoniously conjoined, Moves the great spirit of the universe." And certainly nothing can be imagined more deplorable in the feelings of a people (except in that progressive state which we have alluded to), than the voluntary forgetfulness of the mental achievements of their ancestors. The living and creative spirit of literature is its nationality. Whatever is introduced into it from abroad, or added to it from within, should be, and if it is of any value, must be, in harmony with its past greatness. It was the glory of the Greeks that their literature was native-it was the fatality of the Romans that theirs was imported. But when a nation reaches a high point of civilization, and when its literature is highly refined and perfect, it must then either turn itself to the study, and consequently the imitation, of the literature of other nations, or it must revert to the ancient spirit of its own. Happily for us, The ancient spirit is not dead, Old times, we trust, are living here. And while the worst part of our national literature is forgotten,-all that was meagre and bloodless, or rotten and impure, on the other hand, we have raised up, as it were, from the tomb, a spirit that was only lying asleep, and that now, from the dust and the darkness, walks abroad among us, in the renovation of all its strength and beauty. PREDICTION. He whose experienced eye can pierce th' array ONE of the most curious treatises of Cicero, is that on "Divination,” or the knowledge of future events, which has preserved for us a complete account of those state-contrivances which were practised by the Roman government, to instil among the people those hopes and fears by which they created public opinion. As our religious creed has entirely rendered the Pagan obsolete and ridiculous, this treatise is rarely consulted; it will always however remain as a chapter in the history of man. To these two books of Cicero on "Divination," perhaps a third might be added, and the science of political and moral Prediction may yet not prove to be so vain a thing. Much which overwhelms when it happens may be foreseen, and often defensive measures may be provided to break the waters whose stream we cannot always direct. It is indeed suspected that there exists a faculty in some men which excels in anticipations of the Future, or in the words of Bacon, "making things FUTURE and REMOTE as PRESENT. There seems something in great minds which serves as a kind of divination; and it has often happened, that a tolerable philosopher has not made an indifferent prophet. There may be a kind of Prescience in the vaticinations of a profound politician, and we presume that the facts we shall produce will sufficiently establish this principle. No great political or moral revolution has occurred in civilized society which has taken the philosopher by surprise, provided that this man, at once intelligent in the quicquid agunt homines, and still withdrawn from their conflicting interests in the retirement of his study, be free from the delusions of parties and sects. Barbarians make sudden irruptions, and alter the face of things at a blow; but intellectual nations, like man himself, are still advancing circumscribed by an eternal circle of similar events and like passions. Whatever is to follow, like our thoughts, is still linked to what precedes it; unless the force of some fortuitous event interrupts the accustomed progress of human affairs. In general, every great event has been usually connected with presage or prognostic. Lord Bacon has said, The shepherds of the people should understand the prognostics of statetempests, hollow blasts of wind seemingly at a distance, and secret swellings of the sea, often precede a storm." Continental writers formerly employed a fortunate expression when they wished to have an Historia Reformationis ante Reformationem; this history of the Reformation would have commenced perhaps a century before the Reformation itself. We have indeed a letter from Cardinal Julian to Pope Eugenius IV. written a century before Luther appeared, in which he clearly predicts the Reformation and its consequences. Sir Walter Raleigh fore saw the consequences of the Separatists and Sectaries in the national church about 1530. The very scene his imagination raised has been exhibited to the letter of his description two centuries after the prediction. "Time will soon bring it to pass, if it were not resisted, that God would be turned out of churches into barns, and from thence again into the fields and mountains, and under hedgesall order of discipline and churchgovernment left to newness of opinion and men's fancies, and as many kinds of religion spring up as there are parish churches within England." Are we not struck by the profound genius of Tacitus who foresaw the calamities which have ravaged Europe, on the fall of the Roman empire, in a work written five hundred years before the event. In his sublime view of human affairs, he observes, "When the Romans shall be hunted out from those countries which they have conquered, what will then happen? The revolted people, freed from their oppressor, will not be able to subsist without destroying their neighbours, and the most cruel wars will exist among all these nations." Leibnitz foresaw the results of those selfish, and at length demoralising opinions which began to prevail through Europe in his day, and predicted that revolution in which they closed, when conducted by a political sect of villainous men who tried "to be worse than they could be," as old Montaigne expresses it-a sort of men whom a fashionable prologue-writer of our times had the audacity to describe as "having a taste for evil.' I give the entire passage of Leibnitz,-" I find that certain opinions (approaching those of Epicurus and Spinosa), are insinuating themselves little by little into the minds of the great rulers of public affairs, who serve as the guides of others, and on whom all affairs depend; besides, these opinions are also sliding into fashionable books, and thus they are preparing all things to that generat revolution which menaces Europe; and in destroying those generous sentiments of the ancients, Greek and Roman, which preferred the love of country, and public good, and the cares of posterity, to fortune, and even to life. Our public spirits, as the English call them", excessively diminish and are Public spirit, and public spirits were |
