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Untitled Article
green in our eyes , as when the palm is intertwined with the laurel ; and we do not think that he has lived in vain , who has given but one pure song to virtue and to Crod . We do not apprehend that any difficulty will occur , in assenting to the proposition upon which these papers are to be founded .
We should have entitled them , ' Papers on the Connexion between Poetry and Religion , as exemplified by passages from recent or living British Poets ;'—and we shall not fail to take advantage of the vagueness and latitude of the title . The connexion between them is mutual ; their influences upon each other are reciprocal ; and it is difficult tp form an opinion , as to which has gained the most by the association . As this paper is merely meant to be introductory , we , will premise a few remarks on the reciprocal nature of these influences , not with a view to a philosophical
account of it , but simply as laying down a few popular observations , to show how little we intend to philosophise on the subject . Could we succeed in inducing the young to take a higher view af the lore they love , than that which regards it only as affording amusement to the vacant and excitement to the romantic , we should feel a pleasure little inferior tp that of haying produced a great part of what we shall point out to their attention .
Religion , in the first place ,, influences poetry . We do not place this proposition before its converse , because we believe that such is the most correct arrangement . The powers of the mind , from which both arise , are equally inherent in it ; and , in a certain sense , it may be said that their developments are simultaneous . If veneration has its cerebral organ > so also has imagination : if men were venerative enough to reverence their God , they were also sufficiently imaginative to praise him . We do not , therefore , place the position , that religion influences poetry , before its converse , because we are persuaded that such is their natural order , but simply because we must mention them separately , and the precedency must be given to the one or the other . The position itself admits of no hesitation . We accede to it , as soon as we hear it . Setting aside even the noblest of its proofs and examples , — -those contained in the writings of the inspired sacred poets of the ancient Jewish theocracy , —we need but advert to the fact , that , among every people , the veneration of whatever was believed to be divine created the hymns which were the vehicles of their devotion ; and that few nations , if any , have
had any religion at all , who have not also possessed some lyrics , however rude , inspired by its genius and consecrated to its worship . The red hunter of America chanted the praises of the Manitou * , and the hymn of the Druid was heard amid the oaks of Mona . On the banks of the Nile and the Indus , of the Orinoco and the Obi , the religion of each people has inspired the strains of its worship ; and the mythological hymns of Homer and Callimachus did but that , in the most tuneful of hunaan
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4 S& On the Connexion between Poetry and Religion *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1832, page 486, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1816/page/54/
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