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    prospect of beauty cut down like a flower—the recollection of past afflictions and joy % all come mellowed over the heart by a thousand tender remembrances which take all that is earthly from sorrow . So even death itself is softened in the anticipation , not only by the holy hopes which look

    beyond it , but the images with which fancy encircles its victims . WV think of it as of a placid slumber—as a shadow thrown from a passing cloud—as a humbler of human pride that levels artificial distinctions , and gathers all

    the children of rnen to rest together . The garlands of affection are hung gracefully on the tomb where the weary reclines from his labours ; beauty looks most lovely in the tears it sheds there : and all the malevolent

    passions and uncharitable thoughts of the bitterest foe are melted into tenderness beside it . Images of funereal pomp have charms for the imagination , as well as solace for the heart . This appears the true secret of that mysterious pleasure which we sometimes feel at the exhibition of

    fictitious guilt or distress . They are the mere materials on which the poet works—the back ground of the pictures that delight us . AVe are not gratified because we see our fellow

    creatures in suffering , but because from their suffering they rise triumphant—because in grief the mignty energies of the soul are called forth in the fulness of their strength , or the sweet instances of affection receive a

    holier tinge . It is not the province of a poet merely to draw tears or make us shudder : rather it is his triumph to render grief soothing—to shed a tender enchantment over the scenes of woe— -to break the force of

    affliction by the gentleness of his own imagination , through which he enables us to survey it . If this be not the case , "why is the ** Gamester" inferior to ** Lear / ' or George Barn well" to " Macbeth' * or «« Othello ? " Why are not the works of Mrs . Opie preferable to those of Richardson ? If mere

    horror be required , flow inferior is the tale of Duncan ' s murder to EQ ^ Jjy examples of atrocity with which the Newgate calendar will supply us { The truth is that if a man 01 real genius choose materials of mere human

    interest , he will so adorn them with mild and joyous associations , and so interweave them with th « sweetest

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    emotions of the heart , that the darker shades which remain Will seem rather to blend in harmony than to operate as a contrast . The doctrine of eternal torments is a theme for eloquence , for energy , for passion . But imagination is formed of no

    elements of human passion ; it enters not into the ' intensity / of suffering ; it is too celestial in its movements to beat with the pulse of agony . It < c broods over the vast abyss and makes it pregnant . " It throws its own lovel y radiance over all the objects which it contem plates . It

    softens down all the asperities of things , lightens the sad realities of actual existence , and makes us view a broken and discordant world silent and harmonious as a picture . The popular ideas , therefore , of eternal misery are no themes on which a poet can dwell . *

    Some perhaps may think that these observations may be answered by the word Milton . But a little reflection will convince them that the works of that great po ^ t furnish the best exam

    pie of the position I have ventured to develope . He has indeed the words " Satan" and " Hell / . but O , how unlike are his descriptions of them from the ideas which the orthodox

    receive ! It was impossible for a genius like his to paint the hell of a bigot . Setting out with a vague description of its misery , as if he meant to suit it to the taste of the Assembly

    * The most popular writer in verse ol the present day has , however , thought fit occasionally to hint at eternal torments , merely to add energy to his verse or to point his curses . As it is evident from various parts of his writings that he ntterly disbelieves in the doctrine , he must do it from a mere taste for the shocking . Destitute of any spirit of joy , lie is incapable

    of entering into the true sources of delight , and can , at best , only strew a few flowen over objects of impulsiveness and horror . la one of bis late poems—if so it can be termed—he has wished that the gra *« of a human being may be sleepless . He descends into the regions of datfkness , not

    to break in with the glories of imagination , —not to leave there the imperishable monuments of talent—but to light the torch of personal animosity at the flame * of the furies ! The use he makes of the doctrine of undying woe is a fit example of what its abstract poetical merits are , when it is uot moulded and softened by W magic influences of genius .

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    384 On Poetical Scepticism . . No . IV .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1816, page 384, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2454/page/12/