superiority, which ought either to be wished for, or admired ». << No work ever sinks so deep into amiable minds or recurs so often to their remembrance, as those which embody simple and solemn and reconciling truths in emphatic and elegant language, and anticipate, as it were, and bring out with effect those salutary lessons which it seems to be the great end of our life to inculcate. .The pictures of violent passion and terrible emotion; the breathing characters, the splendid imagery and bewitching fancy of Shakespeare himself are less frequently recalled, than those great moral aphorisms in which he has so often « Told us the fashion of our own estate; and in spite of all that may be said by grave persons of the frivolousness of poetry, and of its admirers, we are persuaded that the most memorable and the most generally admired of all its productions, are those which are chiefly recommended by their practical wisdom, and their coincidence with those salutary intimations, with which nature herself seems to furnish us from the passing scenes of our existence »>. « In this poem we have none of the broad and blazing tints of Scott nor the startling contrasts of Byron nor the anxious and endlessly repeated touches of Southey but something which comes much nearer to the soft and tender manner of Campbell, with still more reserve and caution perhaps, and more frequent sacrifices of strong and popular effect, to an abhorrence of glaring beauties, and adisdain of vulgar resources »>. XXI. EXAGGERATIONS OF CRITICAL CENSURE. The same Number of the Review last cited contains the following important confession and apology of the severities of that Journal. It is contained in a Critique On CAMPBELL'S POETS. (See p. 492). « We are most willing to acknowlege that the defence of BURNS against some of the severities of this Journal is substantially successful, etc. » On looking back on what we have said on these subjects, we are sensible that we have expressed ourselves with too much bitterness, and made the words of our censure far more comprehensive than our meaning. A certain tone of exaggeration is incident, we fear, to the sort of writing in which we are engaged. Reckoning a little too much on the dulness of our readers, we are too often led insensibly to overstate our sentiments in order to make them understood; and when a little controversial warmth is added to a little love of effect, an excess of colouring is apt to steal over the canvas which ultimately offends no eye so much as Qur own ». XXII. BUSY AND INTRIGUING AUTHORS. Petrarch has the following passage in his Senilia, Lib. V. Epist. III. << Sunt homines non magni ingenii, magnæ vero memoriæ, magnæque diligentiæ, sed majoris audaciæ : regum ac potentum aulas frequentant, de proprio nudi, vestiti autem carminibus alienis; dumque quid ab hoc aut ab illo exquisitius in materno præsertim caractere dictum sit, ingenti expressione pronunciant, gratiam sibi nobilium ac pecunias quærunt, et vestes, et munera ». This passage may be in some degree applied to the character of DAVID MALLET (1), of whom Johnson says, that «His works are such, as a writer bustling in the world, shewing himself in public, and emerging occasionally, from time to time, into notice, might keep alive by his personal influence; but which, conveying little information, and giving no great pleasure, must soon give way, as the succession of things produces new topics of conversation, and other modes of amusement », — (1) He died in April, 1765. XXIII. GENIUS OF BURNS. There is a genuine charm both about the personal character and about the poetry of Burns, which eludes analysis. I sometimes fancy it to be sincerity: the result of an enthusiasm which was never affected; and of a force which was never artificial. But sincerity would be but little, unless it should be a sincerity in what is noble, or beautiful, or amiable. This was the case with Burns. He was open to momentary seductions; he could feel unkind passions, or little ones; and when they came he had not the hypocrisy to conceal them, if he had not the due self-controul to suppress them. He might therefore raise fear or dislike, when men more deserving it, escaped it. The same freedom that shewed his ill-humours, made him more bold in the display of those which were good; and secured a better reception for them. or Every thing in the mind of Burns was disposed, arranged, poetically. The imagination of the poet is exercised in rejection, as well as in addition; in dismissing all but leading circumstances; and in giving effect to the features of what it represents by new positions. Many of this Poet's Songs are written in his own character; but often under imaginary incidents when he writes in the character of another, he identifies himself with it; and represents it only under the influence of an imaginative mood. It is this habitual presence of Genius that renders the narration of all the little events of his life so attractive. At the plough, at the feast, or strolling on the banks of « the winding Ayr », he is still the same magical Being; the Bard whose glowing mind no familiar occupation, no practical employment, can cloud. But of all that the fire of this unqualified, inextinguishable genius produced, (perhaps of all the short pieces of imagination in the English language ), the most brilliant, 2 the most electrifying, the most inimitable, is the TALE of Tam o' Shanter (1). TAM is returning from the market of Ayr of a dark night. His wife had warned him, before he set out, not to be late, with the reproach, « That frae November till October, Ae market-day he was nae sober »>. << She prophesy'd, that late or soon, Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, By Alloway's auld haunted kirk ». « The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter: The hour approaches Tam maun ride; That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, (1) He had originally written this very beautifully in prose in a Letter to GROSE, the Antiquary. See Censura Literaria. |