On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
HH Qn ^ Bw&epmtnt qf Genwe .
Untitled Article
Bards began with battles some thousands of years ago , and yet nobody ever wrote the fight of Flodcten-field tiii it was indited by Scott ; nor did any one anticipate Campbell ' s glorious ballad of the battle of Hohenlinden . Genius is never anticipated . No wit ever complained that all the good things had been said ; nor will 9 . ny poet , to the world ' s end , find that all worthy themes have
been sung . Is not the French revolution as good as the siege of Troy ? And the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers on the shores of America , as that of the Trojan fugitives on the coast of Italy ? * * * * The great principle of human improvement is at
work in poetry as well as every where else . What is it that is reforming our criminal jurisprudence ? What is shedding its lights over legislation ? What purifies religions ? What makes all arts and sciences more available for human comfort and enioyraent ? Even that which will secure a succession of creations
out of the unbounded and everlasting materials of poetry , our sver-growing acquaintance with the philosophy of mind and of man , and the increasing facility with which that philosophy is applied . This is the essence of poetic power , and he who possesses it never need furbish up ancient armour , or go to the Hast Kehajna-hutiting or bulbul-catehing * .
So much for the materials which modern civilization places at the disposal of modern genius , to be arranged and wrought up at her bidding . Such is the prospect which now woos the active , ardent , faithful , patient putting forth of man ' s best powers . ; a prospect incomparably more rich and diversified , more gay and brilliant in its outward lineaments , more promising of inward and
exhaustless wealth , than that which spread itself out under the eye of a Homer or a Plato , when , looking down from their intellectual Pisgah , they went forth conquering and to conquer . A question of a widely different , but perhaps of a still more urgent nature , now rises before us . Has modern intellect the requisite vigour and activity to avail itself rightly of the treasures
thus liberally put within its reach ? Is its might as clear as its right to enter and take possession of this vast inheritance ? Is i £ not , on the contrary , enfeebled and overborne rather than vivified and sustained , by this superfluity of nutriment ? Is not its vision -r—* ' blasted with excess of light ?'
" We aYe sensible that very much might be said on this part of the subject which would militate strongly against the general conclusion we wish to establish . We at once perceive that there will be not a few of our readers * who , concurring with us to the fnll as far as we have gone , will hesitate before proceeding farther ; many who , seeing and confessing the amplitude of the existing resources of genius , may yet see ground for maintaining its
ina-* Pp . 31 ? , 213 .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1832, page 562, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1818/page/58/
-