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Untitled Article
t ^ the stories kre linked together in men ' s minds as never before were human productions and divine , indissolubly and for ever * . The same faculty was conspicuous in his copies or restorations of artificial scenery , of palace , castle , or cathedral , the village or the city . How well did he rebuild , not only the Kenilworth of Elizabeth ' s days , but the London of King James's . Streets and
squares never stood in the way of his imagination , if fields and gardens had been there ; he laid them out again in all their antique order , and the changes and additions of centuries were ' though they ne ' er had been . ' This conception of the past was the source of a most extraordinary power for its re-production . As easily as Mephistopheles evoked Helena to gratify Faust , could he have rebuilt Troy had Constable or Murray bespoke its reedification .
In the narration of events , the record of a battle , trial , coronation , or any other complicated transaction , we recognize the same predominant faculty , and find it producing the same pre-eminent excellence . We doubt whether any account of * the current of a heady fight * has ever been presented to the world either in prose or rhyme , fictitious tale or faithful chronicle , half so intelligible as that in < Paul ' s Letters to his Kinsfolk , of the battle of Waterloo . Here , as in his fictions , he commenced by studying the
scene , and it is very much owing to the reader s being previously made so well acquainted with the localities , that he so perfectly comprehends and enters with so much interest into the details of the action . Nor is less skill displayed when the object was to pre-• The soliloquy of Fitzjames is a beautiful illustration of the kind of associations -which such scenery as that around Loch Katrine suggested in the author ' s mind , and shadows forth the mode in which it is probable the frame-work of his stories was constructed .
From the steep promontory gazed The stranger , raptured and amazed . And , What a scene were here , he cried , For princely pomp , or churchman ' s pride 1 On this bold brow , a lordly tower , In that soft vale , a lady ' s bower , On yonder meadow , far away ,
The turrets of a cloister grey . How blithely might the bugle horn Chide on the lake the lingering morn . How sweet at eve the lover ' s lute , Chime , when the groves were still and mute . And when the midnight moon should lave Her forehead in the silver wave , How solemn on the ear would come
The holy matin ' s distant hum . While the deep peal ' s commanding tone Should wake in yonder islet lone A sainted hermit from his cell To drop a bead with every knell—And bugle , lute , and bell , and all , Should each bewildered stranger call To friendly feast , and lighted hall .
Untitled Article
T 24 On the Intellectual Character
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1832, page 724, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1824/page/4/
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