to his poetry as an entire structure, it has a massive beauties of creation; but it gives his taste a con air of sincerity. It is founded in steadfast princi- tentment and fellowship with humble things. It ples of belief; and, if we may prolong the archi- makes him careless of selecting and refining his tectural metaphor, though its arches may be some- views of nature beyond their actual appearances. times gloomy, its tracery sportive, and its lights and He contemplated the face of plain rural English shadows grotesquely crossed, yet altogether it still life, in moments of leisure and sensibility, till its forms a vast, various, and interesting monument of minutest features were impressed upon his fancy; the builder's mind. Young's works are as devout, and he sought not to embellish what he loved. as satirical, sometimes as merry, as those of Cow- Hence his landscapes have less of the ideally beau per; and, undoubtedly, more witty. But the melan-tiful than Thomson's; but they have an unrivalled choly and wit of Young do not make up to us the charm of truth and reality. idea of a conceivable or natural being. He has sketched in his pages the ingenious, but incongruous form of a fictitious mind-Cowper's soul speaks from his volumes."

His rural prospects have far less variety and compass than those of Thomson; but his graphic touches are more close and minute: not that Thomson was either deficient or undelightful in circumstantial traits of the beauty of nature, but he looked to her as a whole more than Cowper. His genius was more excursive and philosophical. The poet of Olney, on the contrary, regarded human philosophy with something of theological contempt. To his eye, the great and little things of this world were levelled into an equality, by his recollection of the power and purposes of Him who made them. They are, in his view, only as toys spread on the lap and carpet of nature, for this childhood of our immortal being. This reli- mind of the critic, too, would be at once en gious indiference to the world is far, indeed, from lightened and tranquillized by the very greatblunting his sensibility to the genuine and simpleness of the horizon thus subjected to his

survey; and he would probably regard, both subject him to the most furious imputations with less enthusiasm and less offence, those of unfairness and malignity. In point of contrasted and compensating beauties and courage and candour, we do not know any. defects, when presented together, and as it body who would do it much better than were in combination, than he can ever do ourselves! And if Mr. Campbell could when they come upon him in distinct masses, only impart to us a fair share of his eleand without the relief and softening of so va- gance, his fine perceptions, and his conried an assemblage. On the other hand, it ciseness, we should like nothing better tnan cannot be dissembled, that such a work would to suspend, for a while, these periodical lube very trying to the unhappy editor's pro- cubrations, and furnish out a gallery of Livphetic reputation, as well as to his imparti- ing Bards, to match this exhibition of the ality and temper; and would, at all events, Departed.

(August, 1811.)

The Dramatic Works of JOHN FORD; with an Introduction and Explanatory Notes. By HENRY WEBER, Esq. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 950. Edinburgh and London: 1811.

pared to what happens on the breaking up of | forth upon every occasion, and by which they a virgin soil,-where all the indigenous plants illuminated and adorned the darkest and most spring up at once with a rank and irrepressi- rugged topics to which they had happened to ble fertility, and display whatever is peculiar turn themselves, is such as has never been or excellent in their nature, on a scale the equalled in any other age or country; and most conspicuous and magnificent. The crops places them at least as high, in point of are not indeed so clean, as where a more fancy and imagination, as of force of reason, exhausted mould has been stimulated by or comprehensiveness of understanding. In systematic cultivation, nor so profitable, as this highest and most comprehensive sense where their quality has been varied by a of the word, a great proportion of the writers judicious admixture of exotics, and accom- we have alluded to were Poets: and, without modated to the demands of the universe by going to those who composed in metre, and the combinations of an unlimited trade. But chiefly for purposes of delight, we will vento those whose chief object of admiration is ture to assert, that there is in any one of the the living power and energy of vegetation, prose folios of Jeremy Taylor more fine fancy and who take delight in contemplating the and original imagery-more brilliant concepvarious forms of her unforced and natural tions and glowing expressions-more new perfection, no spectacle can be more rich, figures, and new applications of old figures— splendid, or attractive. more, in short, of the body and the soul of In the times of which we are speaking, poetry, than in all the odes and the epics that classical learning, though it had made great have since been produced in Europe. There progress, had by no means become an exclu- are large portions of Barrow, and of Hooker sive study; and the ancients had not yet and Bacon, of which we may say nearly as been permitted to subdue men's minds to a much nor can any one have a tolerably adesense of hopeless inferiority, or to condemn quate idea of the riches of our language and the moderns to the lot of humble imitators. our native genius, who has not made himself They were resorted to, rather to furnish ma-acquainted with the prose writers, as well as terials and occasional ornaments, than as the poets, of this memorable period. models for the general style of composition; The civil wars, and the fanaticism by which and, while they enriched the imagination, and they were fostered, checked all this fine bloom insensibly improved the taste of their suc- of the imagination, and gave a different and zessors, they did not at all restrain their free-less attractive character to the energies which dom, or impair their originality. No common standard had yet been erected, to which all the works of European genius were required to conform; and no general authority was acknowledged, by which all private or local ideas of excellence must submit to be corrected. Both readers and authors were comparatively few in number. The former were infinitely less critical and difficult than they have since become; and the latter, if they were not less solicitous about fame, were at least much less jealous and timid as to the hazards which attended its pursuit.. Men, indeed, seldom took to writing in those days, unless they had a great deal of matter to communicate; and neither imagined that they could make a reputation by delivering commonplaces in an elegant manner, or that the substantial value of their sentiments would be disregarded for a little rudeness or negligence in the finishing. They were habituated, therefore, both to depend upon their own resources, and to draw upon them without fear or anxiety; and followed the dictates of their own taste and judgment, without standing much in awe of the ancients, of their readers, or of each other.

they could not extinguish. Yet, those were the times that matured and drew forth the dark, but powerful genius of such men as Cromwell, and Harrison, and Fleetwood, &c.

the milder and more generous enthusiasm of Blake, and Hutchison, and Hampdenand the stirring and indefatigable spirit of Pym, and Hollis, and Vane-and the chival rous and accomplished loyalty of Strafford and Falkland; at the same time that they stimulated and repaid the severer studies of Coke, and Seld, and Milton. The Drama, however, was entirely destoyed, and has never since regained its honours; and Poetry, in general, lost its ease, and its majesty and force, along with its copiousness and originality.

The Restoration made things still worse: for it broke down the barriers of our literary independence, and reduced us to a province of the great republic of Europe. The genius and fancy which lingered through the usurpation, though soured and blighted by the severities of that inclement season, were still genuine English genius and fancy; and owned no allegiance to any foreign authorities. But the Restoration brought in a French The achievements of Bacon, and those who taste upon us, and what was called a classical set free our understandings from the shackles and a polite taste; and the wings of our Engof Papal and of tyrannical imposition, afford lish Muses were clipped and trimmed, and sufficient evidence of the benefit which re- their flights regulated at the expense of all sulted to the reasoning faculties from this that was peculiar, and much of what was happy independence of the first great wri-brightest in their beauty. The King and his ters of this nation. But its advantages were, courtiers, during their long exile, had of course if possible, still more conspicuous in the mere literary character of their productions. The quantity of bright thoughts, of original images, and splendid expressions, which they poured

imbibed the taste of their protectors; and, coming from the gay court of France, with something of that additional profligacy that belonged to their outcast and adventurer

character, were likely enough to be revolted | fashionable style of writing, and actually feel by the peculiarities, and by the very excel- ashamed of their own richer and more varied ences, of our native literature. The grand productions. and sublime tone of our greater poets, ap- It would greatly exceed our limits to depeared to them dull, morose, and gloomy; scribe accurately the particulars in which and the fine play of their rich and unre- this new Continental style differed from our strained fancy, mere childishness and folly: old insular one: But, for our present purpose, while their frequent lapses and perpetual ir- it may be enough perhaps to say, that it was regularity were set down as clear indications more worldly, and more townish,-holding of barbarity and ignorance. Such sentiments, more of reason, and ridicule, and authoritytoo, were natural, we must admit, for a few more elaborate and more assuming-addressdissipated and witty men, accustomed all ed more to the judgment than to the feelings, their days to the regulated splendour of a and somewhat ostentatiously accommodated court to the gay and heartless gallantry of to the habits, or supposed habits, of persons French manners-and to the imposing pomp in fashionable life. Instead of tenderness and and brilliant regularity of French poetry. fancy, we had satire and sophistry-artificial But, it may appear somewhat more unac- declamation, in place of the spontaneous anicountable that they should have been able to mation of genius-and for the universal lanimpose their sentiments upon the great body guage of Shakespeare, the personalities, the of the nation. A court, indeed, never has so party politics, and the brutal obscenities of much influence as at the moment of a resto- Dryden Nothing, indeed, can better characration: but the influence of an English court terize the change which had taken place in has been but rarely discernible in the litera- our national taste, than the alterations and ture of the country; and had it not been for additions which this eminent person presumed the peculiar circumstances in which the nation-and thought it necessary to make on the was then placed, we believe it would have resisted this attempt to naturalise foreign notions, as sturdily as it was done on almost every other occasion.

productions of Shakespeare and Milton. The heaviness, the coarseness, and the bombast of that abominable travestie, in which he has exhibited the Paradise Lost in the form of an At this particular moment, however, the opera, and the atrocious indelicacy and com. native literature of the country had been sunk passionable stupidity of the new characters into a very low and feeble state by the rigours with which he has polluted the enchanted of the usurpation,-the best of its recent solitude of Miranda and Prospero in the models laboured under the reproach of re- Tempest, are such instances of degeneracy publicanism, and the courtiers were not only as we would be apt to impute rather to some disposed to see all its peculiarities with an transient hallucination in the author himself, eye of scorn and aversion, but had even a than to the general prevalence of any sys good deal to say in favour of that very oppo- tematic bad taste in the public, did we not site style to which they had been habituated. know that Wycherly and his coadjutors were It was a witty, and a grand, and a splendid in the habit of converting the neglected dramas style. It showed more scholarship and art, of Beaumont and Fletcher into popular plays, than the luxuriant negligence of the old merely by leaving out all the romantic sweetEnglish school; and was not only free from ness of their characters-turning their melomany of its hazards and some of its faults, dious blank verse into vulgar prose-and but possessed merits of its own, of a charac-aggravating the indelicacy of their lower ter more likely to please those who had then characters, by lending a more disgusting the power of conferring celebrity, or con- indecency to the whole dramatis persona. demning to derision. Then it was a style Dryden was, beyond all comparison, the which it was peculiarly easy to justify by argument; and in support of which great authorities, as well as imposing reasons, were always ready to be produced. It came upon us with the air and the pretension of being the style of cultivated Europe, and a true copy of the style of polished antiquity England, on the other hand, had had but little intercourse with the rest of the world for a considerable period of time: Her language was not at all studied on the Continent, and her native authers had not been taken into account in forming those ideal standards of excellence which had been recently constructed in France and Italy upon the authority of the Roman classics, and of their own most celebrated writers. When the comparison came to be made, therefore, it is easy to imagine that it should generally be thought to be very much to our disadvantage, and to understand how the great multitude, even among ourselves, should be dazzled with the pretensions of the

greatest poet of his own day; and, endued as he was with a vigorous and discursive imagination, and possessing a mastery over his language which no later writer has attained, if he had known nothing of foreign literature, and been left to form himself on the models of Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton; or if he had lived in the country, at a distance from the pollutions of courts, factions, and playhouses, there is reason to think that he would have built up the pure and original school of English poetry so firmly, as to have made it impossible for fashion, or caprice, or prejudice of any sort, ever to have rendered any other popular among our own inhabitants. As it is, he has not written one line that is pathetic, and very few that can be considered as sublime

Addison, however, was the consummation of this Continental style; and if it had not been redeemed about the same time by the fine talents of Pope, would probably have so

far discredited it, as to have brought us back | tidious, a much deeper and more heartfelt to our original faith half a century ago. The admiration.

extreme caution, timidity, and flatness of this Young exhibits, we think, a curious comauthor in his poetical compositions the nar- bination, or contrast rather, of the two styles rowness of his range in poetical sentiment of which we have been speaking. Though and diction, and the utter want either of pas- incapable either of tenderness or passion, he sion or of brilliancy, render it difficult to be- had a richness and activity of fancy that believe that he was born under the same sun longed rather to the days of James and Elizawith Shakespeare, and wrote but a century beth, than to those of George and Anne:— after him. His fame, at this day stands solely But then, instead of indulging it, as the older upon the delicacy, the modest gaiety, and in-writers would have done, in easy and playful genious purity of his prose style;-for the inventions, in splendid descriptions, or glowoccasional elegance and small ingenuity of ing illustrations, he was led, by the restraints his poems can never redeem the poverty and established taste of his age, to work it up of their diction, and the tameness of their into strange and fantastical epigrams, or into conception. Pope has incomparably more cold and revolting hyperboles. Instead of spirit and taste and animation: buy Pope is a letting it flow gracefully on, in an easy and satirist, and a moralist, and a wit, and a critic, sparkling current, he perpetually forces it out and a fine writer, much more than he is a in jets, or makes it stagnate in formal canals; poet. He has all the delicacies and proprie- and thinking it necessary to write like Pope, ties and felicities of diction-but he has not a when the bent of his genius led him rather great deal of fancy, and scarcely ever touches to copy what was best in Cowley and most any of the greater passions. He is much the fantastic in Shakespeare, he has produced best, we think, of the classical Continental something which excites wonder instead of school; but he is not to be compared with the admiration, and is felt by every one to be at masters-nor with the pupils of that Old once ingenious, incongruous, and unnatural. English one from which there had been so After Young, there was a plentiful lack of lamentable an apostacy. There are no pic- poetical talent, down to a period comparatively tures of nature or of simple emotion in all his recent. Akenside and Gray, indeed, in the writings. He is the poet of town life, and of interval, discovered a new way of imitating high life, and of literary life; and seems so the ancients;-and Collins and Goldsmith promuch afraid of incurring ridicule by the dis- duced some small specimens of exquisite and play of natural feeling or unregulated fancy, original poetry. At last, Cowper threw off the that it is difficult not to imagine that he would whole trammels of French criticism and artihave thought such ridicule very well directed. ficial refinement; and, setting at defiance all The best of what we copied from the Con- the imaginary requisites of poetical diction tinental poets, on this desertion of our own and classical imagery-dignity of style, and great originals, is to be found, perhaps, in the politeness of phraseology-ventured to write lighter pieces of Prior. That tone of polite again with the force and the freedom which raillery-that airy, rapid, picturesque narra- had characterised the old school of English tive, mixed up with wit and naïveté-that literature, and been so unhappily sacrificed, style, in short, of good conversation concentra- upwards of a century before. Cowper had ted into flowing and polished verses, was not many faults, and some radical deficiencies; within the vein of our native poets; and prob--but this atoned for all. There was someably never would have been known among us, if we had been left to our own resources. It is lamentable that this, which alone was worth borrowing, is the only thing which has not been retained. The tales and little apologues of Prior are still the only examples of this style in our language.

thing so delightfully refreshing, in seeing natural phrases and natural images again displaying their unforced graces, and waving their unpruned heads in the enchanted gardens of poetry, that no one complained of the taste displayed in the selection;-and Cowper is, and is likely to continue, the most popular of all who have written for the present or the last generation.

With the wits of Queen Anne this foreign school attained the summit of its reputation; and has ever since, we think, been declining, Of the poets who have come after him, we though by slow and almost imperceptible cannot, indeed, say that they have attached gradations. Thomson was the first writer of themselves to the school of Pope and Addiany eminence who seceded from it, and made son; or that they have even failed to show a some steps back to the force and animation much stronger predilection for the native beauof our original poetry. Thomson, however, ties of their great predecessors. Southey, was educated in Scotland, where the new and Wordsworth, and Coleridge, and Miss style, we believe, had not yet become famil- Baillie, have all of them copied the manner iar; and lived, for a long time, a retired and of our older poets; and, along with this indiunambitious life, with very little intercourse cation of good taste, have given great proofs with those who gave the tone in literature at of original genius. The misfortune is, that the period of his first appearance. Thomson, their copies of those great originals are liable accordingly, has always been popular with a to the charge of extreme affectation. They much wider circle of readers, than either do not write as those great poets would have Pope or Addison; and, in spite of consid- written: they merely mimic their manner, and erable vulgarity and signal cumbrousness ape their peculiarities;-and consequently, of diction, has drawn, even from the fas- though they profess to imitate the freest and