Daily national Democrat., 1861-01-26
Injustice to Great Men.

anu uIuh the taDIes Ol nearly every nun VI
taste and refinement in the country. SO far
as the condemnation of Byron, Burns, Camp
bell Moore and Others, their cotemporaries,
may be concerned, we are not so particular
ly interested in refuting the Wholesale char
ges against them; but we do think that the
reflections upon such poets as Bryant and
Longfellow deserve more particular consid-
Grafton, for they are our own American po-
cts, cotemporaneous with ourselves, who
read them, and likely to influence for good or
evil the mind of the Nation If their writings
are pernicious, the sale oftheir works should
be less, and the pen which condemns them is
not uselessly employed.
However, we may very properly devote
few words to the structures Of the Rev'd. Mr.
Haven upon the writings of the poets of the
preceding generation. OF these poets, he
says: "Not one advocated the cardinal doc
trines Of the Gospel" Is it the business Of
poetry to advocate doctrines? Poetry is the
subtle spirit which embodies the essence of
things, and the poet, who is pure and eleva-
ted in his thoughts, breaches as a poet should,
without regard to the nice distinctions of
creeds and sects. Christianity teaches pure
life, does it not Very well, if the song of
the poet is high and clear if Wordsworth
breathes love of truth and virtue in every
strain, is he not as well forwarding the great
cause of truth and virtue as if he didaetical-
Ia, Ea1t tba Of fha Mafhn1isf
the Presbyterian or the Episcopal Church
Where can an impure thought be found in
all of Wordsworth's crystal worded poems
And yet the Rev. Mr.. Haven condemns them
because they do not absolutely teach the
Methodist doctrine. Campbell and Scott
come under his censure for the same reason,
and yet no line of all the magic pages of eth
er is tainted with an evil thought or a SYM
pathy with pernicious things. In Campbell,
there is lofty indignation at the doctrine of
! Chance and AnniLilation. The Immortality
of the soul is the strong, intuitive belief Tor
rather knowledge of his mind. He does not
mere doctrinal points, but the spirit of the
religion of Christ is in his words.
AS for Byron, it is true, he was q dark and
wayward spirit, gifted with vast capacity
the good that was in him should not be
wholly ignored, even by the most virtuous,
on account of the balance or the preponder-
ance of evil on the other side. His belief
in the Immortality of the soul was a great
redeeming feature of his mind, for this belief
is the substratum of all Christianity and
his poems Of religious natnre are among the
finest in the language. Why give him no
credit for these, on the score that he was a
scoffer and unbeliever? The poet writes as
he feels, and Byron's heart was in these po-
ems when he wrote them, whatever moods of
mind may have overcome him afterward-
That he contributed at all to the religious
and orthodox literature of the age, ought to
redeem him from the Wholesale condemna-
ton of the Churches.
So with Burns. Who can read his Cotters
Saturday Night, and not feel how much of
good there was in the man? The Cotters
Saturday Night has done more for virtue and
truth and the Christian religion than thous-
ands of sermons upon mere doctrinal points
Such poems teach men to love purity for its
own sake, and they will be Taught by such
influences, when by no other.
AS for Shelley, his infdelity was appa-
rent, and we have no defence to offer for him,
except that his life was pure and his soul
sincere. and no low thing ever fell from his
pen to blot the pages that he lett as the be-
quest of his transcendant genius to the
world.
But Rev. Mr. Haven is of the opinion that
our American poetry is peculiarly free from
any infusion of piety. AS far as any argu-
mentation of doctrinal points in verse may
be concerned, it is true enough: but we con-
tend that the general spirit pervading the
productions of II majority of most famous
poets, is that of purity, and such purity as is
taught by the Christian creed. There is no
immortality in them, whatever; no sneering
at the Christian institution of marriage; no
scofing at the pulpit; no irreverence for the
standard Christian virtues. On the contrary
kindly regard for the stern morality of the
Puritans, and high reverence for the do
mestic virtues as well as the religious hero
ism, of those early days, are clearly appre.
ciable in many of the finest poems of Long
fellow and Others. Even in the weird gen
ius of Poe, there is nothing unholy.
Mr.. Haven says of Bryant:
"a most dismal and infidel vision Of death
is in the stately Thanatopsis" We do not
agree with him in this criticism. The poem
is calculated to reconcile one with death. |
for it teaches that our mortal frame perishes
but to mingle with the elements of Nature
and we go to sleep in her loving arms
while, on the other hand there is q sufficient
allusion to hereafter to drive away the
thought of the annihilation of the conscious
soul
80 live that, when thy summons comes to ioin
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take |
His chamber IN the silent halls of death
Thou 60 not, like the quarry slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and sooted
By an u1.fauLtertng trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams"
So tipe, is the idea here embraced, that YOU
may not be afraid or unwilling to die. Is
there no belief in immortality here? There
certainly is, and very distinct expression of
it,
Mr. Haven ranks Rrvant's tIIyp,, 30 Do.l, |