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Untitled Article
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We welcome every effort in this direction , whether it be law or institution , invention or application , song or sermon ; for by any and by all of these may the great object be promoted . From the principles which the philosopher unfolds in his solitude , down to the strain which the ballad-singer chaunts in the street , we would have a common tendency . They should all concur in cherishing
such thoughts , feelings , tastes , and habits as best connect them selves with the improvement of man ' s condition , —individual , social ,, physical , moral and intellectual . The poets have more to atone for than most people . They have brought on poetry itself the imputation of being frivolous or pernicious , of being essentially feudal , aristocratic , warlike , and superstitious . But the revolution has reached even the La Vendee of literature . The Muses cease
from dreaming of the past to prophecy of the future , and begin to pour forth the glowing predictions which are self-fulfilling . Byron scorned the few , though he sympathized not with the many . The purer patriotism of Campbell has ever shone like a bright and steady star ; and now the rich metaphysical melodies of Tennyson , and the untameable vigour of Elliot , ( if Elliot be his name , ) are the first fruits of a nobler vintage than has yet been gathered in between the mount of Helicon and the plains of Marathon .
' The Village Curate' is a fellow labourer not to be despised . There is in him both playfulness and pathos . He laughs heartily and bites hardly ; but his caustic humour only lashes the selfish culprit , and his anger is only the bitterness of indignant benevolence . He evidently knows well the condition and feelings of the poor , and he describes them in verse which deserves to be read on
its own account , in order that the description may turn to their account . He neither takes them as a good subject for the display of his art in the production of a highly-finished cabinet picture , uor does he stand forth from their ranks as their tribune to declare their grievances or demand their rights . He speaks rather as a friendly and well-informed reporter , who has investigated their condition , and describes it to others that they may enter into the convictions and emotions with which a close observation of it has
impressed his own mind and heart . He is a poetical mediator , who speaks to the affluent and instructed on behalf of the ignorant and the famishing . But he shows unsparingly the viciousness of the system which perpetuates ignorance and want , while he does not hide the vice which in turn they generate . The lash falls impartially and unsparingly ; though , as it ought , more heavily
where vice , though veiled , rather appears as the cause , than where , however gross and offensive , it is more justly regarded as the almost unavoidable effect . For it should never be forgotten that the depravity of slaves is the crime of oppressors . The ignorance of the governed is the fault of governors . Even in the days of Homer it had become an established fact , that * for the king ' s offence the people died ; *• and so it has been ever since , and all
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The Village Poor-Hovse . Ib&t
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No . 68 . 2 O
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1832, page 537, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1818/page/33/
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