OBJECT OF THIS COURSE OF LECTURES. "Nor such the spirit-stirring note When the live chords Alcæus smote "And not unhallowed was the page, Love listening while the Lesbian maid 31 Let me here remark that the purpose of this course is not to encourage poetical composition. I have no such thought; but I am not without a hope that it may so far contribute to the appreciation of the poetic function as to prevent the puny ambition of weaving verses under the delusion that the production is poetry. It is a weak waste of time, requiring very little intellect, no feeling, and no imagination, and yet very apt to foster a habit of self-beguiling vanity. This course on the English Poets Is to persuade not to the writing, but to the reading, of poetry. Where the rare inspiration does exist, it is a fire self-sustaining in the spirit to which it is given, and the stranger's hand can neither fan nor quench it. It has been finely remarked that there can be poetry in the writings men, but it ought to be in the hearts and lives of all. This cause just noticed is not adequate fully to explain the phenomena of opinions under discussion. There must be some deeper and more abiding motive for the tendency to disparage the productions of imagination. of few *Wordsworth's "September." The defence of poetry is no new topic. In entering on the illustration of this department of English Literature, I feel as if I could scarce venture to advance without vindicating the worth and dignity of the subject; and' when I reflect that, very nearly three hundred years ago, there was given to the world a celebrated treatise on this very subject, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that there must be some cause, deep seated in the nature of mankind and stronger than any temporary or local influence, which engenders mistaken notions respecting this department of imaginative literature. I cannot omit commending to the student of English literature the treatise alluded to,-"The Defence of Poetry, by Sir Philip Sydney," as well for its intrinsic merit, and as the production of the earliest good prose-writer in the language, as for the distinguished interest attaching to the personal character and history of the author, the matchless model of a modern knight, a soldier, a statesman, and a scholar, over whose early death on the field of battle a whole kingdom mourned, and of whom a literary antiquary has asserted that two hundred authors could be counted who have spoken his praises. "I have," are Sydney's words, "just cause to make a pitiful defence of poor Poetry, which, from almost the highest estimation of learning, has fallen to be the laughing-stock of children." He figuratively addressed his contemporaries "as born so near the dull-making cataract of Nilus that they could not hear the planet-like music of Poetry; as having so earth-creeping minds that they could not lift themselves to the sky of Poetry." Some verses written by an obscure poet shortly after the "Defence" thus acknowledged the benefit it conferred :— But, after all, poetry must be its own vindication; and it is an interesting fact that, at the very time Sydney was composing his defence, Spenser and Shakspeare were revolving the elements of their great imaginings. The dulness Sydney complained of was the dark hour before the coming dawn. His plea touched the slumbering spirit of his nation, like the breath of morning, waking them to a day more glorious than ever shone on the human intellect. I have alluded to Sir Philip Sydney's work, not only because its rank in English literature entitles it to passing notice, but because it shows a depreciation of the poetic art in various ages. I doubt not it is a prejudice as ancient as poetry itself, and that it will last while the world lasts, modified, indeed, as I shall endeavour presently to show, by the distinctive spirit of the times. The constitutional infirmity of man is his proneness to materialism. I use the word in its largest sense, to express the tendency to limit our aims and desires to results which are called practical because they are palpable and mea surable; the overvaluing the world of sense and the consequent undervaluing the world of spirit; the forgetfulness of the nobler part of our complex nature, the inner life, because the calls for outward life are louder and unceasing. It brings, too, the inability to rise under the pressure of that narrow period enveloping each passing point of time which we call the present; and thus, just in proportion as the heart becomes materialized, does it go stumbling on in its blindness, borrowing no ray from past or future, each step with no more than its own light, and that not from the spiritual within, but the dim glimmering of the senses. One generation may be more imbruted in its sensuality than another,—one race more than another; as the same clime where breathed the Athenian fed the Spartan and the Boeotian. But the common curse upon humanity is that it is of the earth, earthy. Whatever conflicts with this corruption is doomed to encounter neglect and obloquy. The functions of all true poetry are spiritual. Whatever form the prejudice may assume,whether ignorant or contemptuous neglect or direct reprobation,—the solution of it is to be found in the contrariety between the works of pure imagination and a corrupt tendency of human nature; that which is material perpetually striving for ascendency over that which is spiritual. In the palmy days of Grecian mythology there were, I doubt not, those who deemed the acorns that fell from the mysterious oaks at Dodona more precious than the inspirations uttered from those sacred groves. This influence, common to all ages of the world because constitutional to humanity, may be aggravated by other agencies in different ages of civilization. Our own SPIRIT OF OUR TIMES. 35 35 has its marked characteristics,—its good and its evil tendencies. I should very inadequately discuss the subject under consideration were I to omit to inquire in what the spirit of our times affects the appreciation of the works of imagination; whether the faculty embodies the creations on the canvas, or in marble, or in the noblest mould of inventive genius,-in language. The principles of this discussion have, it may be readily seen, an application to the province of the painter and the sculptor as well as to the most intellectual of the Fine Arts, which forms our subject. The age we live in claims to be in an uncommon degree enlightened. And what are the grounds of its pride? During the past thirty or forty years, advances have been made in the physical sciences transcending, as far as we have the means of comparison, any thing achieved in the same department in any former period of the world. The results of this development are manifest in all the avenues of civilization; and so multitudinous are the combinations of material agencies, such the intellectual mastery over the blind elements, that no limit seems to be set in this respect to human expectation. The mind has scarce time to recover from its admiration of some invention or achievement by powers disclosed by mechanical science, before it is called away to some new exploit. It is but lately, for instance, that the continents of Europe and America have suddenly been, to all practical purposes, brought twice as near to each other as they ever were before. Again, within a year or so, we were told that a French chemist had gained the power of giving permanency to the fleeting reflections of a mirror: that was listened to with astonishment, and something of incredulity, which have now passed wholly |