The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-12 00:00:00

SWAIN'S METRICAL ESSANS
LONDON 1527.
We never remember a period so replete with re-
spectable poetry, so utterly destitute of first-rate
genius, as the present. There are whole shoals of the
small fry now afloat on the surface of English literature,
but not one Leviathan among them all. Byron is dead;
Campbell has turned editor and critic; Wordsworth
is fast asleep on the banks of Rydal Mere; Southey
has devoted himself to prose ; Millman has hung up
the harp of Jerusalem on the willows ; the borough
'and parish officers are materially improved, so Crabbe
has nothing left to carp at ; Moore has (incurably
we fear) wedded himself to politics; Rogers has be-
come a punster; Montgomery a sectarian; Cole-
ridge an opium eater; Wilson a professor of politi-
cal economy; Barry Cornwall an attorney; and
last, not least, Hogg, a sheep doctor. In place of
this glittering galaxy, we are indulged with Mrs.
ileroaas! 4ilfess and feeble elegance; Miss Landon's
impassioned but unformed and monotonous feeling;
Mr. Bernard Barton's drawling insipidity; Allan
Cueningham's vigorous, but rough and incurable
Scotticisms ; Mr. Planche's Vauxhall melodies;
Miss Mitford's limited and prosaic prettiness ;
Delta's dulness; Neele's common-places, together
with a whole host of twinkling luminaries, all more
or less to be commended, but none impregnated with
that " mens divinior," which stamps the true poet.
The very elements of inspiration seem extinct. Like
summer streams, they have run their brief course
and are dried up. We meet with no writer, now-
a-days, who reminds us, however remotely, of the
" beacon lights" of other times—no poetic Prome-
theus has yet thought it worth his while to
steal fire from the sun of Spenser, Shak-
speare, Milton, Dryden, or Pope ; the genius of
modern rhyme runs like a mill-horse, the same small
hacknied and unvaried round : one wit borrows
from another (his or her cotemporary within a few
months), or, if a more aspiring candidate goes as far
back as Wordsworth for a model, he claims merit
on the score of a profound and studious originality.
Viewing the subject in this light—a view not
hastily, though it may be incorrectly formed—there
is now, we think, a really grand opening for a poet.
The public mind has been so long dosed with
opiates, that it will leap at the bare idea of a re-
storative. This restorative, however, to be success-
ful, must be unadulterated. Moreover, it must be
administered with a firm but temperate hand, and,
above all, be adapted to the wants of the inwalid.—
The late Mr. Shelley, from neglect of this last cau-
tion, has consigned himself to eternal oblivion. He
was a sort of poetic Abernethy; skilful but rough
in his profession, and utterly regardless of the
squeamish nerves of his readers. He thought to
shock them into health ; whereas he only confirmed
their disease. A
.;udicious candidate for the laurel
will act otherwise ; he will not fly to eccentricity for
reputation ; but will boldly enter the same arena in
which the noted wrestlers of the Elizabethan and Au-
gustan-schools have combated with such seems
before hims Though far from undervaluing imagina-
tion, 'he will remember that it is "but part and par-
cel" of the poet—that it must have something to
work on, and that this something is common sense.
Our most enduring idols in the temple of fame are
Dees-411y theses ieeeeerrsd *b e& a1,3.;`-i%
on their julgment. This (after all. that may be urged
respecting his wild, lawless, and capricious fancy)
is the secret of Shakspeare's celebrity—and above
all the chief claim of Dryden on posterity. It is
from his deficiencies in this respect that Lee, the
dramatist, slumbers unheeded on the shelves of the
mere scholar or the antiquary. He was a writer of
powerful genius, but wanted discretion ; he never
knew when to stop ; he threw the bridle on the
neck of his imagination, and has consequently been
hurried off the broad highway of fame into the cross
roads of obscurity. In the present sophisticated
age nature alone will never constitute the poet, his
mind must be fashioned an I licked into shape by
art; he must read and reflect, compare and combine,
(still exercising the imaginative faculties), and then
only will his exertions be crowned with success.
Where is there a steadier luminary than Pope; one
more familiar to our minds—more mixed up with
our recollections—more engrained into the very spi-
rit of our conversation ? He is in poetry what
Burke is in politics, the subject of perpetual refer-
ence, yet assuredly his genius was not born with
him; it was an after-birth, the result of varied
thought, sound experience, and extensive study.
We have hazarded these cursory remarks, for the
purpose of doing away with a popular, and, in
our humble opinion, an unfounded notion that
the poet is created, not made. A predisposing
bias may certainly be received from nature, but art
must give it " mark and likelihood." In the hands
of the first it is mere dross ; the other stamps it
current coin. The most valuable portion of English
poetry, is that which appeals to the reason and the
education of its readers. Abstract his fine acquaint-
ance with the Greek Lyrics from Gray; his know-
ledge of life from Pope ; his classical and Italian lore
from Milton; his universal acquirements from
Dryden, (which so aptly point his raorals and adorn
his tales ;) his own rambling personal experience
from Shakspeare, (we are indebted for this to
Drake); and you will leave their works, like the
dry bones in the valley of Jehoran, mere shapeless,
lifeless—though it may be, majestic fragments.
Even Satan himself owes much to Dante, and
Falstaff has taken a hint from Panurge. Against
this—perhaps presumptuous dogma—Burns, and the
earlier English writers, may be instanced. But if
these were great by nature, we see no reason
(arguing from the generality) why they should not
have been improved by art. The mind that could
prove so beautifully that " Man was made to mourn,'?
and guys such thrilling effect to the few Highland
legends, with which it was by accident acquainted;
what might it not. have achieved, had its romance
been cultivated like Scott's, or its ethics enlarged
like Pope's ? Education,- as Mr. Brougham well ob-
served the other day, is far from trammelling or eai-
feebling, it has merely an assuaging influence on
genius; it prunes, without destroying its luxuriances,
and perfects the poet as truly as the orator, the artist,-,
or the actor.
Mr. Swain's " Metrical Essays,—a talented and
unassuming volume, has seduced us into these pre-
liminaries. We recognise in this young writer
a mind, not over-gifted perhaps l y nature, but
manifestly improved by art ; and one that,
to a moderate extent, bears out the justice of
our remarks. Mr. Swain has formed his style on
the purest models; it is expressive, yet devoid of
affectation; eloquent, but not redundant, and illus-
trates natural thoughts in an easy natural manner.
There is no canting lamentations over past pleasures
—no egotism—no hypochondriasm—no affected scorn
of the world,'.to be met with in his pages; he looks
on man with the healthy eye of a lover of his kind,
and can even turn to a sim-set without drivelling over
his declining prospects. The earlier portions of his vo-
lume consist chiefly of small poetic " Essays from His-
tory and Imagination ;" in which Plutarch, and some
few of the Spanish Romancers, are recalled pleasingly
and vividly to our minds. Where, however, the
writer, instead of speaking
for others, has given
vent to his own feelings, he is, we think, more suc-
cessful, chiefly because his mind is more at ease in
its arm chair. Throughout his volume we trace a
pensive moral train of thought, which needs but