he took up the book, yielded gradually, and was at length turned into enthusiastic admiration; so that what he had at first read by compulsion, he straightway returned to and read over again for pleasure. Feeling it to be a duty to put as many persons as he could in the way of the same enjoyment, he spared no pains to reveal his marvellous discovery, and Athalie soon asserted the lofty place, which it has ever since occupied, in the literature of France. We do not pretend to any thing like the same influence (even if it were wanted here) which the French critic seems to have possessed, nor is Mr. Pollok's book equal to the noblest specimen of the classic drama that modern genius has ever produced. But without provoking an odious comparison, we may be allowed to say, that we made our author's acquaintance in much the same way, and had the same change of opinion wrought in us by a compulsory perusal of his verses. We undertook this adventure, not without dismal anticipations as we cast a wistful glance over the close printed pages of the volume. "Natheless, we so endured, till on the beach of that inflamed sea we stood"—until we saw that there were visions of glory and lofty raptures in the "Course of Time," which, beyond all doubt, challenge for it a place among the lasting monuments of genius, and would do so, even were its defects much more numerous and considerable than they really are. In the review of Mr. Montgomery's poem "On the Omnipresence of the Deity," (by the bye he is not the Mr. Montgomery we took him to be) we remarked that we thought such subjects could not be successfully treated by men of less than transcendent genius. Our ideas of every thing connected with religion, have been raised to too high a pitch by those sublime and ravishing strains of Hebrew poetry, which are become the common property of Christendom, and by the inspired men who have, in later times, invoked the muse from her dwelling "in Heaven among the blessed quires," or "on the secret top of Oreb or of Sinai." Of the many who have attempted such subjects in our language, only three at present occur to us, who have acquired a wide-spread, permanent reputation, viz. Milton, Young and Cowper, and the two last of these (Cowper especially) rarely venture beyond the region of an elevated, it is true, but rather didactic and unimaginative morality. Milton's great poem, while it has surpassed all the creations of genius-except the Divina Commedia-in sublimity and force of imagination, has, like that wonderful work, been comparatively neglected by the generality of readers. This has been owing to the very excellencies we have just mentioned. There is in "Paradise Lost," nothing (except in distant perspective) of this wicked, but interesting world, with its pursuits and passions, its weaknesses, its tears and its agonies, its hopes and fears, its joys, its sympathies, its love, its madness. The feeling with which we are inspired, from first to last, is admiration-wonder-even amazement, at the creative power of the poet's genius, and the solemn and austere moral grandeur that accompanies it every where. But there is something cold, and as it were, desolate in this feeling. The burning lake, the Archangel ruined, but still rebellious, Pandemonium with its infernal council, the starless darkness which involved the realm of Chaos and Old Night, the battle of the Angels, so improbable and even worse-these daring conceptions are all bodied forth with infinite power of language and imagery, and such as it is not possible for poetry to surpass-but there is nothing there for the heart of man to sympathise with. These devils are, no doubt, most heroic and godlike personages-they are what fallen angels may very well be conceived to be-but there is nothing touching in the iron tears which flow down the cheek of their leader; their harangues are beautiful rhetoric and close logic, but withal a little prosing, and certainly any thing but heartfelt and affecting eloquence. This picture of Hell strikes every one as a fancy piece-it is not regarded as the place which is to receive those who are to be damned, but only those who have been already damned-as a pit especially adapted to the inhabitants it then contained-so that it has no terrors for the sinful reader. This cold distance and abstraction-this air of "an unreal mockery"-pervades the whole poem. Sin and Death are creatures of the imagination-set forth in dreadful and even horrible and revolting portraiture, but the generality of readers stop at the description of the visible monstrosity, and it is the task of a metaphysician, and a deep one too, to look into the accuracy of the likeness and the moral of the allegory. Paradise itself--the only spot of this earth which we catch more than a transient glimpse of, seems not to belong to it. It is not the Fortunate Islands-the sweet and blooming Elysium of ancient poetry, with its tepid and balmy zephyrs, for which a fond heart might in a moment of illusion sigh. Its "airs, vernal airs" do not "breathe the smell of field and grove"-its flowers, though worthy of Paradise, have not the voluptuous odour of a mere earthly spring. The whole garden, if not laid out, is got up with nice art and curious research. It is planted with all trees of the noblest kind, for sight, smell, taste-but then we are reminded that they are plants of an unearthly growth, for in the midst of them stands the tree of life, blooming with ambrosial fruit of vegetable gold, which can never bloom for fallen man, and the only other that we hear of, is equally unknown, we believe, in the natural history of a lost world, the tree of knowledge. A sapphire fount pouring forth its "crisped brooks" over orient pearl and sands of gold, is more magnificent certainly, but not half so cool and refreshing as the "purling streams" of our common-place landscapes, at which Corydon and Thirsis slake their thirst with bona fide draughts of the pure element. Adam and Eve are perfect beings, and Aristotle himself hath said, upwards of two thousand years ago, that a tragic poet (and why not others?) should have nothing to do with perfect beings. Throughout all these descriptions, it is needless to add, that the mighty genius of the poet is every where visible; we are only endeavouring to account for his admitted want of popularity. His style is of a His style is of a piece with the characters and the fable. He speaks as no other man ever spoke. His diction is fraught-overcharged with richness and power, yet every where perspicuous, precise and classical. But a reader must be somewhat of a scholar to have a just idea of its immeasurable treasures. Master of every branch of knowledge, but especially of ancient literature, he turns all he knew into poetry, and this unequalled and astonishing union of a daring creative genius, operating upon materials drawn from every quarter of the universe, and from every repository of learning, is what constitutes at once his peculiar excellence, and with a view to popularity, one of his capital defects. "Old big-wigged Dr. Young," as Blackwood's Magazine most irreverently calls him, placed by the side of Milton, furnishes a striking illustration of Dugald Stewart's distinction between imagination and fancy. Milton's is the creative power. His flight is as sustained as it is lofty. He soars "upon the seraph wing of extacy" through height and depth, through the Empyrean and the abyss, and his ample pinion never for a moment flags-he mounts up to the presence chamber of Deity, where He sits enthroned "in unapproached light," and gazes with a steady and serene eye upon all its unutterable gloriesor utterable to him alone. His whole poem is a creation. Design is evident in every part of it-design projecting, composing, combining, harmonizing all. Whether his plot be interesting and probable or not, needs not here be said; but it is every where definitely marked, strongly brought out, and accurately arranged. Even in the details of his work, in his diction and imagery, the same originality, the same force of invention are every where visible. If, therefore, the term imagination, VOL. II.-NO. 4. 58 is to designate exclusively the creative power, it may be considered as the first faculty of Milton's mind, and he as first among the possessors of that faculty. Dr. Young's fancy was wonderfully active. His flight was certainly not the eagle's, nor did he at any one time fly far or long; but he was always on the wing. Every thing he sees; hears or thinks of-the commonest objects in nature, the most trivial incidents in life, suggest to him impressive and original associations. There is no end to the variety of his goodly conceits, and we know no book that it is better worth while to commit to memory, for the purpose of apt quotation, or as furnishing hints for original thought on a certain order of subjects. But his tone, as is well known, is terribly lugubrious-he is a devout Heautontimorumenos. One were as "well converse with a death's head with a bone in its mouth," for any of the purposes for which poetry is sought after by that familiar and important personage, the "general reader." There is a hum-drum monotony of lamentation on a low key; but "no melodious tear," no lyrical woe, no outpourings of wounded sensibility in strains that pierce and wring the bosom, or melt away the heart in tears; though, indeed, his reflections be full of healing religious consolation for those who are wrapt in a settled and pensive grief. He deals in vigorous, pointed and striking thoughts, rather than in poetical ones. Indeed, we doubt whether they should be classed with poetry at all, for there is no blossom nor fragrance, nor genial warmth, nor gorgeous and dazzling hues, such as the sun gathers about his burning throne in the morning or evening sky; for it is in colours like these-so deep and glowingthat true genius lives and moves "like some gay creature of the element." The nature he depicts is bleak, desolate, sepulchral. He makes a Golgotha of the whole earth, and is even sad, that man-mortal man-should have the presumption to enjoy a moment's happiness. The wood in Dante's Inferno would have been his favourite haunt. Non verdi frondi, ma di color fosco Still the almost Shakspearian fertility of his fancy, and the terrible truth of his reflections upon life, death and immortality, must always secure to Dr. Young, in spite of his inharmonious. versification and prosaic tone, the great popularity he enjoys among those whose character or situation incline them to serious meditation. Cowper, says Byron, is no poet. That is undoubtedly going too far, but not so far, it appears to us, as they have gone who have spoken of him as one of the great names of English literature. He is not remarkable for invention and originality, or deep pathos, or sublime thought. In short, he was not a man of genius-but he had much talent, a ready command of language, and of an easy, flowing versification, and above all, the most perfect purity of heart, and a tenderness and sensibility which overflow in love for all mankind, nav, for all created beings, and which, united with great simplicity, and tinged with a pleasing melancholy, make his verses the delight of sentimental and philanthropic, and especially of pious readers. But it is time we were come to our subject. Mr. Pollok, the author of the volume, of which the somewhat singular title is placed at the head of this article, was (for he is unfortunately no more) a Scottish clergyman of most promising talents and learning. This Poem was published towards the close of the last year—but a few weeks (says a British Magazine) before its excellent author, who had been long lingering under a pulmonary complaint, breathed his last on his way to the South of France, at the early age of thirty years. Deeply, indeed, to be regretted, is this premature extinction of so vigorous a mind which kindling with the fervor of a holy zeal, and "smit with the love of sacred song," had produced first fruits like those before us. It is also stated, in the same journal, that being born in rather humble circumstances, he came late to his studies, and that it was not before his seventeenth year that he began to learn the very rudiments of Latin. There is a passage in his Poem, in which he has traced the course of an aspiring young man, under circumstances so similar to what we suppose to have been his own, that we cannot help thinking it auto-biographical. Few passages of English poetry, in the same kind, are more vigorously executed than that which contains the description of the blank disappointment, the deadly, benumbing, vacant apathy of such a youth, suddenly checked in his lofty career by some insuperable obstacle. We believe, however, that the picture is not less just than it is strong and glowing : "In humble dwelling born, retired, remote, |
