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Professor Aytoun does not stand in the ordinary position of a Lecturer . He is the editor of a renowned and wide-circulated Magazine , and he is Professor of Rhetoric in the Edinburgh University ; thus , both as critic and teacher of future critics , we are called on to scrutinise closely the principles he adopts . If he should ever publish the Lectures he is now delivering in London , we shall have an opportunity of expressing in detail what can now only be glanced at ; but without waiting for such an opportunity , we must at once declare that we consider his Philosophy of Poetry radically incomplete and superficial . A question of Taste we might reasonably pass over in silence . Let Professor Aytoun prefer war songs to sonnets , Scott to Wordsworth and Goethe , if the bent of his mind
be that way ; no one will dispute his right to an opinion , or his ability in defending it . But when he quits the personal limitations of Taste for the impersonal domain of Art , and ventures on the philosophic principles which should guide public opinion in Art , it behoves us to be vigilant . He adopts the very common , and , as we think , very erroneous notion , that Verse is not necessary to Poetry , one reason being that Prose is often poetical , —i . e ., warmed with the emotion , lighted up with the irradiation of the spirit of Poetry . The reasoning is inaccurate . In not recognising Verse as essential to Poetry , he overlooks the distinction between Poetry and Poesy , or Poetry as a Sentiment , and Poetry as an
Artj the distinction , in short , between the general and the particular . We say , and justly say , there is poetry in a Landscape , poetry in a Melody , poetry in a Statue ; but it would be as great , though not so obvious an abuse of language , to call a Landscape , a Melody , and a Statue , poems , as to call the prose works of Milton , Jeremy Taylor , Hall ,, and others , poems . A picture is no more a picture without colour , than a poem is a poem without verse . Art is essentially a Form , as Goethe repeatedly tells us ; and the special Arts are the special Forms given to the sentiment common to them all . The poet expresses his emotions in verse , the
painter in colour , the sculptor in plastic substance , the musician in melody . When we say that Raphael and Beethoven are Poets , we mean that they are men largely endowed with the sensibility and imagination which shapes the Beautiful into various and appropriate Forms . On the other hand , it is true that Verse is not Poetry ; nor is Colour Painting ; and this is the origin of the common mistake . A man may handle the pencil with skill , and yet not be a painter ; he may write readable verse , and yet not be a poet . But it still remains true that for Painting you must have Colour , for Poetry you must have Music .
Beside this fundamental mistake of Poetry as an Art , it is natural to see the Professor laying down another fundamental canon respecting popularity as a test . He thinks Scott the greatest of modern poets , and somewhat sarcastically compares the number of those who can repeat passages of Wordsworth with those who can repeat p assages of Scott . The exploded story of Mo mere reading his works to his old woman is made to do duty as illustration . But to make popularity a test , it must be the popularity of peers ! Dutch Boors by Teniers would otherwise rank infinitely higher than the Madonna di San Sisto of Raphael . The Satan of Robert Montgomery would completely eclipse Tennyson ' s Ulysses . The " old-woman" test is not a bad one for a dramatic work , because in
proportion as a work deals with elemental passions and ideas , it must submit to elementary judgments ; but in proportion as it rises above the general experience , and appeals to higher culture both of feeling and of thought , a more cultivated audience is needed to enjoy it . We could not resist a smile as we noticed the Toryism of the Critic m his utter forgetfulness of such a thing as progressive development in Art , as elsewhere Poems originally were recited , not read . Hence he thinks But
those are the greatest poets who are best adapted to recitation . Milton Wordsworth , and Goktiik wrote for readers ; they knew they would be read—not listened to—and their works were adapted to the new machinery . To suppose thin a retrogression is pure Toryism ; not retrogression , but development ! Professor Aytoun naturally adopts Macaulay ' b paradox , that the earliest poets were the best ; a paradox which Reason and History emphatically disprove . Setting Homkb aside , on account of the many it is clear that the greatest
difficult questions clustering round his name , poets , Soi'iiooLics , Dante , Shakhi'KAKk , Milton , and Gobtiik , are poets of late and civilized periods , and none of them very amenable to the " old-woman test , " for even Siiaksi-eahk , who by reason of Ins passion and dramatic movement does greatly interest the uneducated masses . would stand but an indifferent chance against Kotssbihik or Dwmah , it subjected to that test . If CiiAUCBit is to rank as an early poet , hi Hj . ite ot his classic ; predecessors , yet Ciiaucbu ' s contemporaries — Occlkvi ., Lydoatb Gowkr , and Bari . ouh , although much earlier than Words , worth yRon . S lULL . Y , Kkath , Colkuiihib , and TicNNYHON , are Ztu * IV -counted better poets . As to IIomkk , the Professor ui , hesita in . lv Llievcs in his individuality , believes him to have been blind , 7 n without rc-nnl to that vrmata qucestio of cxi . sten . Hr , asks why no i . ^ il him 7 For ourselves , we profoundly disbelieve in hi ! i £ cc and iu the unrivalled excellence of the Homenc poems . It
is perfectly true that the poems are of unrivalled interest—and there are many sources of interest in them—but their unrivalled intrinsic merit as poetry we question . Dante , Shakspeare , Milton , and Goethe surpass this merit on all points .
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The new number of the British Quarterly Review opens with an eloquent and extremely interesting article on Madame Guyon and Mysticism in general . The writer properly denounces the danger—the religious danger of mysticism—as a thing in itself untrue and fatal in the effort to transcend our nature . "It would seclude the soul too much from the external ; and , to free it from a snare , removes a necessary help . Like some overshadowing- tree , it hides the rising plant from the force of storms , but it also intercepts the appointed sunshine —it protects , but it deprives—and beneath its boughs hardy weeds have grown more vigorously than precious grain . Removing , more or less , the counterpoise of the latter , in its zeal for the spirit , it promotes an intense and morbid self-consciousness . „ " The traditions of every nation have embellished with their utmost wealth of imagination some hidden spot upon the surface of the earth , which they have portrayed as secluded from all the tumult and the pain of time—a serene Edenan ever-sunny Tempe—a vale of Avalon—a p lace beyond t he sterner laws and rougher visitations of the common world—a fastness of perpetual calm , before which the tempests may blow their challenging horns in vain—they can win no entrance . Such , to the fancy of the Middle Age , was the famous temple of the Sangreal , with its dome of sapphire , its six-and-thirty towers , its crystal crosses , and its hangings of green samite—guarded by its knights , girded by impenetrable forests—glittering on the onyx summit of Mount Salvage , for ever invisible to every eye impure , inaccessible to every failing or faithless heart . Such , to the Hindoo , was the Cridavana meadow , among the heights of Mount Sitanta , full of flowers , of the song o { birds , the hum of bees' Languishing winds and murmuring falls of water . ' Such was the secret mountain Kinkadulle , celebrated by Olaus Magnus , which stood in a region , now covered only by moss or snow , but luxuriant once , in less degenerate days , with the spontaneous growth of every pleasant bough and goodly fruit . What places like these have been to the popular mind—even such a refuge for the Ideal from the pursuit of the Actual—that the attainment of Ecstasy , the height of Contemplation , the bliss of Union , has been for the mystic . He aims , by painfully unclothing his nature of all the integuments of sense , of passion , of imagination , of thought , by threading back the path of being to its Source—to reach a simplicity and a rest in which the primal essence of himself will be overshadowed by the immediate presence of the Infinite ; and , lost in glory , will love and gaze and know , without the gro ? ser appliances of visible media , beyond the laborious processes of the reason , or the phantasmagoria of the imagination , by a
contact « above all means or mode / ineffable as Deity itself . But the unnatural ambition defeats itself , and the aspirant , instead of soaring to the empyrean , drifts , buffeted about , in the airy limbo of hallucination . Instead of rising above the infirmities of our nature , and the common laws of life , he becomes the sport of the idlest phantasy , the victim of the most humiliating reaction . The excited and overwrought temperament mistakes every vibration of the fevered nerves for a manifestation from without ; as iu the solitude , the silence , and the glare of a great desert , travellers have seemed to hear distinctly the church bells of their native village . In such cases an extreme susceptibility of the organ , induced by peculiarities of climate , gives to a mere conception or memory the power of an actual sound ; and , in a similar way , the mystic has often both tempted and enraptured himself—his own breath has " made both the ' airs from heaven , ' the ' blasts from hell ; ' and the attempt to annihilate Self has ended at last in leaving nothing but Self behind . When the tide of enthusiasm lias ebbed , and the channel has
become dry , simply because humanity cannot ; long endure a strain so excessive , then that magician and master of legerdemain , tho Fancy , is summoned to read , to eke out , or to interpret the mystical experience ; then that fantastic ncrobat , Affectation , is admitted to play its tricks . just an when the waters of the Nile aro withdrawn the canals of Cairo are made tho stngo on which the jugglers * exhibit
their feats of skill to the crowds on either bank . ' And further on : — " Madame Guyon knew little of theology , had little to put off , and could speedily reduce herwelf to this ' divine ignorance . ' This is the practicable part of mysticism . It confounds tho indefinite with tho infinite . Its great error in this rosiHSct consists in supposing that by denuding ourselves of definite apprehension , shutting out all positive notions and distinction * , wo therefore rise above them . We arc not higher , but lower , as the consequence . A vague eonseiounm * H of awe in not a better substitute , but a worn ) , for clear practical convictions resting on a given revelation . "
A pleasant paper on the Study of Natural History is followed by one on Old German Story-books . India , JSunsrn , Gold , and America , arc treated of in other papers ; but the novelty of the number is in the greater space and care devoted to the reviews of now works , which now form a feature . The new number of the North British is varital and able , but presents no article which tempts us to comment here , unless we opened discussions which our space forbids .
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HOOKS ON OlHt TAltLK . The IMucntioiuil Expositor , for April . No . H . . IMilcd by I . Tulo , F . R . A . S ., and J . Tillenni . KlUJ . H . Longman . TliiH is tho second number of a periodical , wliich is , in truth , a herald of nroerroHH in every houbo of tho word . It , is characterized »> y one rare quality in « uch organs impartiality . Whilst it professe * to allow full , free , and fnir discussion of any question connected with practical education , it does not withhold the necessary intelligence to enable its renders to form just conclusions . While it gives tho system and life of I ' estalo / . / . i , it docH not pass hy Lord Hroiurlnun ' H eulogy of ifoliert Owen , the author of I nliint Schools . While It uduiiiv an article ) on the Theory of Analytic Teaching , which , referring to the Church Catechism , Hays , " It woro vain to attempt to improve it by tho addition or sub-
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Orittcs are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—tney interpret and try to enforcethem . —Edinburgh Review .
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JM at 14 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 473
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Leader (1850-1860), May 14, 1853, page 473, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1986/page/17/
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