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We do not understand the caprices of our extraordinary world . We have a great respect for its opinions in the main ; but we cannot help thinking that they are sometimes wofully inconsistent . For example : some two thousand years ago , ( we use that convenient chronology , the poetical , ) there lived , in one of the summer isles pf the iEgaean , a lady , whose name was Sappho . We
understand that she wrote most spirit-stirring verses , and sang them to a lyre that was not unworthy of them . Her fame has become immortal , and her very name a proverb for female poetical genius . The beauty of her compositions we do not mean to dispute ; but the subject of her finest lyric is such as , in our days , would scarcely have permitted her to reach the Cape of Leucadia : but her writings are in Greek , and her fame is immortal .
Now what we complain of is this—not that Sappho is celebrated , but that the admiration of antiquity should make us unjust to the merits of our contemporaries . We may be alone in saying so , but we nevertheless affirm it , that Felicia Hemans has written many things which would not disgrace the inspiration of the Lesbian Pythoness . We maintain that our gifted countrywoman has not yet
had justice done to her exquisite and nobly-used gifts ; and it is for the noble use of those gifts that we honour her more , and think her more deserving of honour , than for their transcendency or fertility . The stream is as pure as it is apparently inexhaustible . Many of her songs have breathed the inspirations of sorrow ; but we know of none that have not evinced an equal loftiness of thought and holiness of feeling . She is a true poetess , and a true woman .
We use the term , not in levity , but in reverence . Sappho wrote from her passions ; but our countrywoman has found a Castaly that springs higher and flows purer . She is the Sappho of the affections : she uses her power so as to make it a blessing . One only charge have we to bring against her—there is too much cypress in so beautiful a garden . Nothing indeed Bi / ronian , nothing either remorseful , misanthropical , or sentimental ; but
still there is too much of * sorrow in her song , ' as we fear there has been too much of winter in her year . ' Weep for the deep of heart ! A melancholy gift is sometimes theirs , and one the pain of which may , perhaps , be balanced against all the power it exerts , and all the distinction it may confer .
But as we meant our own remarks merely to serve for the thread on which should be * strung at random' the ' orient pearls ' which might apologize for them and hide them , we will proceed to quote ( from memory ) some of the sweet strains , which yet
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ON THE CONNEXION BETWEEN POETRY AND RELIGION . Art . HI . DIDACTIC AND DEVOTIONAL SPIRIT OP THE MODERN POETS . FELICIA HEMANS .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1832, page 817, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1826/page/25/
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