The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-06-01 00:00:00

SECOND LECTVR

I come now to take a glance at the efforts of our modern
British literature. Its leading primciples—its laws—have
ever been the same, but in form it is partially changed, and
have, in time, been instrumental in passing to the surface
those forms of literature which were found most desirable
for their purpose. But even more remarkable than these
changes, or the causes from which they sprung, is this
fact,

, that in almost every age you find all the principal
forms of literature existing more or less distinctly marked.
There is the drama, which may be traced to that principle
in the human mind by which we desire to make ourselves
a participator in whatever comes before our eyes. The
reaction brings from it that fine spirit by which, in every
thinking mind, that passes, or rather blossoms, into
poetry. The sacred poem, on the other hand, springs
from that principle within us which recognises our
Supreme Creator without ; it puts us in the situation
of the blind man. The essay contains in it parts chiefly
devoted to lighter, and every-day aspects of things. The
ode transposes the track which leading men have made.
But I must notice the principal efforts of literature, and
race theth to individual principles in the f man.

mind o.
ne fact is that the form of literature may often change,
they are never altogether lost. My object in speaking of
the efforts of British literature, is rather to give a sort of
scale of the degrees of influence and power exerted by each
of the principal forms of literature in our day. And in
forming such a scale, I will only have in fact to reverse
that which might have been drawn of the various forms of
-attire, with their influence and power, about a century

Then ti

scale consisted of the poem, the transla-
- Ind, lastly.

tion, the historic, ti
the newspaper. T 1
opposite way, in point of respectability and pow(
first effort I would mention, in point of influence, is

prose f

ale may nor

rranged in tlie
The

his was, in

°wale, mute else than a record of home gossip and foreign
war ; in the days of Cowper, it was a little folio of four
pages, quite enough for critics. Now what is it ?—what
is it not ? We see it a Proteus of power ; a politician,
a draconis, a barrister, a judge, a critic, an historian, a
poet, a painter, a sculptor, often a buffoon, sometimes a
calumniator and a liar, a promoter of happiness, now a
lullaby to peace, and now a trumpet of war,—everythii
by turns and nothing long. It I

s dray
Poe

every other

:ry and steam

[el urod

ous literature of its o

is but literature con-
)er is pursuing, with

traded, and yet still the old newspal,
unabated vigour, its career, multiply

adding to its resources, exposing its sails to every breath,
and flying with a power that we cannot follow far, or
compute as to its future progress to rush into its favourite

aaaa a livwnig sea.
Next in point of influence or power is prose fiction. In
connexion with this the supremacy of a man like Charles
Dickens, in one particular deparment of our literature, is
to me one of the most remarkable liana ‘,4' _

ti ith no vast or profound intellect
-Inch beyond that of a gohnnl_hnw

with no learning

no very great or
creative imagination, he has attained a popularity and influ-
ence which not even Shakspeare, nor Byron, nor perhaps,
He is ever ruling over us like
Prince Prettyman." Strong men as well

Scott, ever acquired

as weak, young as well as old bow to the magic of his
tiny rod. Many of the admirers of Dickens, (and I rank
myself among his warm admirers, though not approving
of his style), having been seduced by the grace and ele-
gance of his notions,—by the very grace and beauty of
his pictures, and by the simple, sweet-smiling which plays
about his tiny mouth—have compared him with Shakspere
and Scott. Ido not say that he may be compared, but
they have fallen into a most egregious mistake. Now he
has never trod out of the path of the octave—the note
which nature gave him, which is littly else than that of a
chirruping little " Cricket on the Hearth." Once, indeed,
he attempted to describe Niagara, but would have been
far more successful in describing the next pump. Yet no
music of literature can ever invade our heart, or more
lift up a moral lesson than his own dear " Tim "—dressed
in almost as dandified a style as his own " Lord Terence
Verysoft,"—he is as full of the milk of human kindness
as his own " Brothers Cheryble,"—and you cannot re-
cognise a man who does this, and not find something to
pity in his " Nicholas Nickleby,"—and while wandering
to the length of his books for scenes, or to see the " Red
Letters ; '.' and while expressing our opinions as to the
greatness or pre-eminence of our author, let us own it
is_upoi. the score of gentility, and unite in wishing lone

life and prosperity to bonny

Prince Charley

The ilea

who resembles an historian more than bard, though he
is ever singing of whatever of the heroic he can find.
We find in these degenerate days the writings of Macrie,
Akenside, and your _ own illustrious townsman

Roscoe. But the nobility of history expired in Dr.
Arnold. In Arnold there dwelt a sympathy with real
imazeiv and sense. This had never forsook him in the

deepest tragedies, or in the severest trials. History will
peal the loss of his services ; and we are tempted to cry
out, " Spare him, spare him—destroy not a thing so
beautiful !" Who could say, with Arnold, " How I
thirst for Austerlitz, Agincourt, Poictiers, and Waterloo !"

After having wound up the business of the session, and
made arrangements for going to his house in Cumberland,
and inscribed in the pages of his diary his last prayer—
and a most affecting one it is—he went to rest. He awoke
in the morning with the death-rattle in his throat, and in
a short time he was no more. We take up die language
of Scripture, and say, " He was not, for God took him."
The next form in the descending scale is the translation,
which has been productive of some exquisite specimens of
translated prose and verse, from the great German,
Grecian, and Italian authors. There is, for example,
Schiller's story of the " Diver." The translation may
not be true to the original of Schiller, but it preserves in
it a spirit of reality. Ido not know if any critic or com-
mentator has preceded me in this remark, but he could
not b-"---- "b 'chill

.
Jut nave seen that __der intended a strong moral
in this tale of the " Diver ;" and the moral is—great
deeds may be done for fashion, but the greatest of all can
only be done in the fear of God. I pass lastly to say a
word or two on what has been called the decline and fall
of the poem. It has been asked, "is poetry extinguished ?"
It is extinct at present. What is called poetry has fairly
died away, and to be published and proclaimed " poet'
has become one of the shabbiest of the literary retinue.
The public taste is depraved by the sale of worthless
poetry, and it has become a distinct branch of public
imposition. - But still we are far from believing that
poetry is dead. We know not the age in which poetry
was dead. Where are the " dark ages poetical," is it
asked ? Yes. For then, as now, there. was the passion,
the brief, the dark religion, and there was danger,
despair. But we would be told that this is a mechanical
age, and the conclusion is, that no true poetry can be
written in it. The man who says so lies !—lies under a
mistake. Mechanical machines contain a sort of poetry,
machines having an emotion which nothing else can give.
I can never hear the shriek of a railway train without
thinking that that train is shrieking for the commencing
of. its poetry, and shall not always shriek in vain. But we
are told the present age would not read the best of poetry,
though it was presented. " Why throw pearls before
swine ?" has been asked. I say this is rather an odd
Compliment to the 19th century. Try it—throw down
the pearls, and then you may call the men of the age
" swine." The age will not, indeed, read everything that
passes for poetry; it will not read 10th-rate imitations of
10th-rate productions of great authors. It wants poetry
to be poetry, and try the description of a poet by his
works: it wants making, and when the maker comes he
ls
w arrival.
e have
will find his audience again ready, and awaitingl
The truth is, the age will not read poetry, because
poetryf few o r noof poets.
all f 0 n
nTsh e
ofs e poe
humant su t; i s icnogm,
py
oo
sui
twi
oonu 1
ad ppr findapproaches
e thathe
s
nearest to the Divine messengers—to the prophets ; first,
to the awful utterances which have come to us from the
hand of God ; so the poet would stand in the character of
teacher to the age_; and then the good old time would
arrive again when the terms of poet and prophet Werethe
same.