114 SCIENCE AND POETRY. And the finger o' death's at my e'en, Let nane tell my father, Or my mither sae dear; Apart from mere scholarship, we know what Shakespeare and Scott, what Burns and Bloomfield, what Hogg and Cunningham were, as poets. And the question naturally arises, do Science and Poetry progress together? Poetry may be defined to be-Objects or subjects seen through the mirror of imagination, and descanted on in harmonious language. Such a definition is far from perfect, but it may be accepted as a sufficiently comprehensive one; and, if so, it must be admitted that the very exactness of knowledge is a barrier to the laying on of that colouring by which alone facts can be invested with the illusive hues of poetry. The proof of this would be a reference to what has been generally regarded as the best poetry of the best authors in ancient and modern times. Without interfering with the laws of the world of mind—which, from the days of Plato to Kant, seem involved in the same cloud of uncertainty-let me turn to the external world, and it will be at once apparent that the precision of science, as shown in geographical limits, and in the recognised laws of matter, would at once annul the grandest portions of the Psalms-of Isaiah-of Ezekiel-of Job-of the Revelation. It would convert the mythology of Hesiod and Homer, the "Medea" of Euripides, the "Metamorphoses" of Ovid, and the "Atys" of Catullus, into rhapsodies; and transform "The Faery Queen" of Spenser, "The Tempest" and "Midsummer Night's Dream" of Shakespeare, the "Comus" of Milton, "The Fatal Sisters" of Gray, IMMUTABLE ELEMENTS OF POETRY. 115 "The Ancient Mariner" of Coleridge, the "Thalaba" of Southey, the "Laodamia" of Wordsworth, the "Edith and Nora" of Wilson, the "Kilmeny" of Hogg, and the "Sensitive Plant" of Shelley, in fact, all high imaginative verse-into tissues of rant, bombast, and fustian. In the contest between Bowles and Byron on the invariable principles of poetry, the lesser poet, as I hinted in a preceding lecture, had infinitely the best of the argument; but he did not make the most of it by illustration and example-for no one could be hardy enough to maintain that a castle newly erected is equally poetical with a similar one in ruins, like Tantallon, Dunotter, or Dunstaffnage; or a man-of-war, fresh from the stocks, with one that has braved the battle and the breeze-with Duncan's "Venerable," or Nelson's "Victory." Stone and lime, as well as timber and sail-cloth, require associations to raise them beyond prose. Push the theory to the extreme, and you cannot help proving Pope a greater poet than Shakespeare; and, with regard to Pope's own performances, it would make his "Essay on Criticism" equal to his "Eloïse," for it is written with the same care and power; and it would show that Darwin's "Botanic Garden," and Hayley's "Triumphs of Temper," might stand on the same shelf with Cowper's 66 Task,' or Thomson's "Seasons." Wherever light penetrates the obscure, and illuminates the uncertain, we may rest assured that a demesne has been lost to the realms of imagination. That poetry can never be robbed of its chief ornaments and elements, I firmly believe-for these elements are the immutable principles of our nature; and, while men breathe, there is room for a new Sappho or a new Simonides to melt, and for a new Tyrtæus and a new Pindar to excite and inspire; nor, in reference to the present state of literature, although I shrewdly doubt whether either Marmion or Childe Harold would, even 116 DISENCHANTMENTS. now, be hailed, as we delight to know that they were hailed some thirty or forty years ago; still I do not despair of poetry ultimately recovering from the staggering blows which science has inflicted in the shape of steam conveyance-of electro-magnetism-of geological exposition of political economy-of statistics-in fact, by a series of disenchantments. Original genius in due time must, from new elements, frame new combinations; and these may be at least what the kaleidoscope is to the rainbow, or an explosion of hydrogen in the gasometer to a flash of lightning on the hills. But this alters not my position-that all facts are prose, until coloured by imagination or passion. From physic we have swept away alchemy, incantation, and cure by the royal touch; from divinity, exorcism, and purgatory, and excommunication; and from law, the trial by wager of battle, the ordeal by touch, and the mysterious confessions of witchcraft. In the foamy seas, we can never more expect to see Proteus leading out his flocks; nor, in the dimpling stream, another Narcissus admiring his own fair face; nor Diana again descending on Latmos to Endymion. We cannot hope another Una, making a sunshine in the shady place;" nor another Macbeth, meeting with other witches on the blasted heath; nor another Faust, wandering amid the mysterious sights and sounds of another Mayday night. Robin Hoods and Rob Roys are incompatible with sheriffs and the county police. Rocks are stratified by geologists, exactly as satins are measured by mercers; and Echo, no longer a vagrant classic nymph, is compelled quietly to succumb to the laws of Acoustics. LECTURE III. Ballad Poetry.-The Revival of the Romantic School.-Sir Walter Scott; his poetry and the feudal system; his popularity and imitators; his nationality and transcendent genius-The Lay-Marmion-Lady of the Lake-Lord of the Isles-Songs and Ballads.-Professor Wilson and Lord Byron :-Isle of Palms-City of the Plague-Fairy Legends-Unimore.-Extracts, Morning Picture-The Course of Grief.-Thomas Campbell and James Montgomery; - The Pleasures of Hope-Lyrical Poems-Gertrude of Wyoming.-Early decline of Campbell's powers; his classical elegance and high standard of taste.-Specimens from O'Connor's Child, and Stanzas on Battle of Alexandria.-James Montgomery's Wanderer of SwitzerlandWest Indies-World before the Flood-Greenland-Pelican Island-and Lyrics.-Extracts, The Sky of the South-Prayer.-The legitimate aims of poetry. The use and abuse of genius. COMMON to every human heart there is a certain class of emotions, the expressions of which "turn as they leave the lips to song;" and hence the primitive form of poetry in the ballad. It is also to be remarked, that throughout all countries the themes of these ballads are the same- 66 Ladye love, and war, renown, and knightly worth." So large a portion even of the poetry of Homer takes this shape, that it has been seized upon as a leading feature in the controversy regarding the unity of the authorship of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey"-a controversy first started by Scaliger in his "Poetics," and afterwards followed out by Wolf in his " Prologomena ;" and many of these separate gems of narrative were by Dr Maginn-who at same time repudiated the heresy— disjoined from the context, and translated under the 118 PRIMITIVE FORM OF POETRY IN THE BALLAD. title of "Homeric Ballads." Mr Macaulay thinks it highly probable that the traditionary legends of primitive Rome also existed in the same popular form, and hence their reappearance, under his plastic touch, in the "Ancient Lays." It has been the same "from Zembla to the line;" for, among others, Davis, in his "Researches," mentions those of the Chinese; Sir William Jones, the Persian and Arabic; Leyden, the Malay and Sanscrit; Weber and Jamieson present the Swedish, German, and Danish; Herbert, the Icelandic and Norse; Bowring, the Russian, Polish, and Hungarian ; Lockhart and Frere, the Spanish; Percy, Ellis, and Ritson, the English; Hailes, Scott, Motherwell, and Robert Chambers, the Scottish. In every case these songs and ballads are valuable, not only as poetical, but as historical records. They show the idiosyncrasies of a people-the habits, customs, and manners, which "long wont" has metamorphosed almost into a second nature; and the peculiarities and circumstances which have gone towards the formation of national character at different times in particular regions of the world. To them Scotland in some measure owes its greatest poet, in so far at least as determining the bent of his genius was concerned; for it was while listening with rapt ear to the stirring or plaintive minstrelsies of the Border districts that the fire of song awakened in the young heart of Walter Scott; and his first great appearance was in presenting these traditionary stores in a collected form to the world, accompanied by imitations of their style and manner, so accurate and striking as at once to prove the close study he had given them, and the depth of that impression which the originals had made on his feelings and fancy. In many of these strange wild fragments and relics, there is a pathos and a sublimity which, we are not ashamed to confess, constrain our thoughts into those lacuna-those profound |