ble to the human will. operation of the human will, from poetry altogether, is what we do not affirm; but we mean to say that where this operation is the more complete and manifest, as in the creation of given objects, or regulation of certain feelings, there the spring of poetry, i. e. of passion and imagination, is proportionably and much impaired. We are masters of Art, Nature is our master; and it is to this great power that we find working above, without, and within us, that the genius of poetry bows and offers up its highest homage. If the infusion of art were not a natural disqualifier for poetry, the most artificial objects and manners would be the most poetical: on the contrary, it is only the rude beginnings, or the ruinous decay of objects of art, or the simplest modes of life and manners, that admit of or harmonize kindly with, the tone and language of poetry. To consider the question otherwise is not to consider it too curiously, but not to understand it at all. Lord Byron talks of Ulysses striking his horse Rhesus with his bow, as an instance of the heroic in poetry. But does not the poetical dignity of the instrument arise from its very commonness and simplicity? A bow is not a supererogation of the works of art. It is almost peculiar to a state of nature, that is, the first and rudest state of society. Lord Byron might as well talk of a shepherd's crook, or the garland of flowers with which he crowns his mistress, as images borrowed from artificial light. He cannot make a gentleman-usher's rod poetical, though it is the pink of courtly and gentlemanly refinement. Will the bold stickler for the artificial essence of poetry translate Pope's description of Sir Plume,

That we are to exclude art, or the

Of amber-headed snuff-box justly vain,
And the nice conduct of a clouded cane,—

into the same sort of poetry as Homer's description of the bow of Ulysses? It is out of the question. The very mention of the last has a sound with it like the twang of the bow itself; whereas the others, the snuff-box and clouded-cane, are of the very essence of effeminate impertinence. Pope says, in Spence's Anecdotes, that "a lady of fashion would admire a star, because it would remind her of the twinkling of a lamp on a ball-night."

This is a much better account of his own poetry than his noble critic has given. It is a clue to a real solution of the difficulty. What is the difference between the feeling with which we contemplate a gas-light in one of the squares, and the crescent moon beside it, but this-that though the brightness, the beauty perhaps, to the mere sense, is the same or greater, yet we know that when we are out of the square, we shall lose sight of the lamp, but that the moon will lend us its tributary light wherever we go; it streams over green valley or blue ocean alike; it is hung up in air, a part of the pageant of the universe; it steals with gradual, softened state into the soul, and hovers, a fairyapparition, over our existence! It is this which makes it a more poetical object than a patent-lamp, or a Chinese lanthorn, or the chandelier at Covent-garden, brilliant as it is, and which, though it were made ten times more so, would still only dazzle and scorch the sight so much the more; it would not be attended with a mild train of reflected glory; it would “denote no foregone conclusion," would touch no chord of imagination or the heart; it would have nothing romantic about it.—A man can make anything, but he cannot make a sentiment! It is a thing of inveterate prejudice, of old association, of common feeling, and so is poetry, as far as it is serious. A "pack of cards,” a silver bodkin, a paste buckle, " may be imbued" with as much mock poetry as you please, by lending false associations to it; but real poetry, or poetry of the highest order, can only be produced by unravelling the real web of associations, which have been wound round any subject by nature, and the unavoidable conditions of humanity. Not to admit this distinction at the threshold is to confound the style of Tom Thumb with that of the Moor of Venice, or Hurlothrumbo with the Doge of Venice. It is to mistake jest for earnest, and one thing for another.

How far that little candle throws its beams!

So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

The image here is one of artificial life; but it is connected with natural circumstances and romantic interests, with darkness, with silence, with distance, with privation, and uncertain danger: it is common, obvious, without pretension or boast, and

therefore the poetry founded upon it is natural, because the feelings are so. It is not the splendour of the candle itself, but the contrast to the gloom without,-the comfort, the relief it holds. out from afar to the benighted traveller, the conflict between nature and the first and cheapest resources of art, that constitutes the romantic and imaginary, that is, the poetical interest, in that familiar but striking image. There is more art in the lamp or chandelier; but, for that very reason, there is less poetry. A light in a watch-tower, a beacon at sea, is sublime for the same cause; because the natural circumstances and associations set it off; it warns us against danger, it reminds us of common calamity, it promises safety and hope: it has to do with the broad feelings and circumstances of human life, and its interest does not assuredly turn upon the vanity or pretensions of the maker or proprietor of it. This sort of art is co-ordinate with nature, and comes into the first class of poetry, but no one ever dreamt of the contrary. The features of nature are great leading landmarks, not near and little, or confined to a spot, or an individual claimant; they are spread out everywhere the same, and are of universal interest. The true poet has therefore been described

as

Creation's tenant, he is nature's heir.

L

What has been thus said of the man of genius might be said of the man of no genius. The spirit of poetry and the spirit of humanity are the same. The productions of nature are not locked up in the cabinets of the curious, but spread out on the green lap of earth. The flowers return with the cuckoo in the spring the daisy for ever looks bright in the sun; the rainbow still lifts its head above the storm to the eye of infancy or age

So was it when my life began:

So is it now I am a man,

So shall it be till I grow old and die;

but Lord Byron does not understand this, for he does not understand Mr. Wordsworth's poetry, and we cannot make him. His Lordship's nature, as well as his poetry, is something arabesque and outlandish.-Again, once more, what, we would ask,

makes the difference between an opera of Mozart's, and the singing of a thrush confined in a wooden cage at the corner of the street in which we live? The one is nature, and the other is art: the one is paid for, and the other is not. Madame Fodor sings the air of Vedrai Carino in Don Giovanni so divinely because she is hired to sing it; she sings it to please the audience, not herself, and does not always like to be encored in it; but the thrush that awakes us at day-break with its song does not sing because it is paid to sing, or to please others, or to be admired or criticised it sings because it is happy: it pours the thrilling sounds from its throat, to relieve the overflowings of its own breast the liquid notes come from, and go to, the heart, dropping balm into it, as the gushing spring revives the traveller's parched and fainting lips. That stream of joy comes pure and fresh to the longing sense, free from art and affectation; the same that rises over vernal groves, mingled with the breath of morning, and the perfumes of the wild hyacinth; that waits for no audience, that wants no rehearsing, that exhausts its raptures, and is still

Hymns its good God, and carols sweet of love.

There is this great difference between nature and art, that the one is what the other seems, and gives all the pleasure it expresses, because it feels it itself. Madame Fodor sings, as a musical instrument may be made to play a tune, and perhaps with no more real delight: but it is not so with the linnet or the thrush, that sings because God pleases, and pours out its little soul in pleasure. This is the reason why its singing is (so far) so much better than melody or harmony, than bass or treble, than the Italian or the German school, than quavers or crotchets, or half-notes, or canzonets, or quartetts, or anything in the world but truth and nature!

To give one more instance or two of what we understand by a natural interest ingrafted on artificial objects, and of the principle that still keeps them distinct. Amelia's "hashed mutton" in Fielding is one that we might mention. Hashed mutton is an article in cookery, homely enough in the scale of art, though far removed from the simple products of nature; yet we should

say that this common delicacy which Amelia provided for her husband's supper, and then waited so long in vain for his return, is the foundation of one of the most natural and affecting incidents in one of the most natural and affecting books in the world. No description of the most splendid and luxurious banquet could come up to it. It will be remembered, when the Almanach des Gourmands, and even the article on it in the last Edinburgh Review, are forgotten. Did Lord Byron never read Boccaccio? We wish he would learn refinement from him, and get rid of his hard bravura taste, and swash-buckler conclusions. What makes the charm of the story of the Falcon? Is it properly art or nature? The tale is one of artificial life, and elegant manners, and chivalrous pretensions; but it is the fall from these, the decline into the vale of low and obscure poverty, the having but one last loop left to hang life on, and the sacrifice of that to a feeling still more precious, and which could only give way with life itself,—that elevates the sentiment, and has made it find its way into all hearts. Had Federigo Alberigi had an aviary of hawks, and preserves of pheasants without end, he and his poor bird would never have been heard of. It is not the expense and ostentation of the entertainment he sets before his mistress, but the prodigality of affection, squandering away the last remains of his once proud fortunes, that stamps this beautiful incident on the remembrance of all who have ever read it. We wish Lord Byron would look it over again, and see whether it does not most touch the chords of pathos and sentiment in those places where we feel the absence of all the pomp and vanities of art. Mr. Campbell talks of a ship as a sublime and beautiful object in art. We will confess we always stop to look at the mail-coaches with no slight emotion, and, perhaps, extend our hands after some of them, in sign of gratulation. They carry the letters of friends, of relations; they keep up the communication between the heart of a country. We do not admire them for their workmanship, for their speed, for their livery-there is something more in it than this. Perhaps we can explain it by saying, that we once heard a person observe" I always look at the Shrewsbury mail, and sometimes with tears in my eyes: that is the coach that will