poetry. The Crusades were not without permanent effects on the state of men; but their poetical interest does not arise from these effects, and it immeasurably surpasses them.

"Whether the voyage of Columbus be destined to be forever incapable of becoming the subject of an epic poem, is a question which we have scarcely the means of answering. The success of great writers has often so little corresponded with the promise of their subject, that we might be almost tempted to think the choice of a subject indifferent. The story of Hamlet, or of Paradise Lost, would beforehand have been pronounced to be unmanageable. Perhaps the genius of Shakspeare and of Milton has rather compensated for the incorrigible defects of ungrateful subjects, than conquered them. The course of ages may produce the poetical genius, the historical materials and the national feelings, for an American epic poem. There is yet but one state in America, and that state is hardly become a nation. At some future period, when every part of the continent has been the scene of memorable events, when the discovery and conquest have receded into that legendary dimness which allows fancy to mould them at her pleasure, the early history of America may afford scope for the genius of a thousand national poets; and while some may soften the cruelty which darkens the daring energy of Cortez and Pizarro, - while others may, in perhaps new forms of poetry, ennoble the pacific conquests of Penn,—and while the gen ius, the exploits, and the fate of Raleigh, may render his establishments probably the most alluring of American subjects, every inhabitant of the New World will turn his eyes with filial reverence towards Columbus, and regard with equal enthusiasm the voyage which laid the foundation of so many states, and peopled a continent with civilized men. Most epic subjects, but especially such a subject as Columbus, require either the fire of an actor in the scene, or the religious reverence of a very distant posterity. Homer, as well as Erçilla and Camoens, show what may be done by an epic poet who himself feels the passions of his heroes. It must not be denied that Virgil has borrowed a color of refinement from the court of Augustus, in painting the age of Priam and of Dido. Evander is a solitary and exquisite model of primitive manners divested of grossness, without losing their simplicity. But to an European poet, in this age of the world, the Voyage of Columbus is too naked, and too exactly defined by his

It

tory. It has no variety, scarcely any succession of events. consists of one scene, during which two or three simple passions continue in a state of the highest excitement. It is a voyage with intense anxiety in every bosom, controlled by magnanimous fortitude in the leader, and producing among his followers a fear, sometimes sub

missive, sometimes mutinous, always ignoble. It admits of no variety of character, no unexpected revolutions. And even the issue, though of unspeakable importance, and admirably adapted to somo kinds of poetry, is not an event of such outward dignity and splendor as ought naturally to close the active and brilliant course of an epic poem.

"It is natural that the Fragments should give a specimen of the marvellous, as well as of the other constituents of epic fiction. We may observe that it is neither the intention nor the tendency of poetical machinery to supersede secondary causes, to fetter the will, and to make human creatures appear as the mere instruments of destiny. It is introduced to satisfy that insatiable demand for a nature more exalted than that which we know by experience, which creates all poetry, and which is most active in its highest species, and in its most perfect productions. It is not to account for thoughts and feelings that superhuman agents are brought down upon earth; it is rather for the contrary purpose, of lifting them into a mysterious dignity beyond the cognizance of reason. There is a material difference between the acts which superior beings perform and the sentiments which they inspire. It is true, that when a god fights against men, there can be no uncertainty or anxiety, and consequently no interest about the event, unless, indeed, in the rude theology of Homer, where Minerva may animate the Greeks, while Mars excites the Trojans; but it is quite otherwise with these divine persons inspiring passion, or represented as agents in the great phenomena of nature. Venus and Mars inspire love or valor; they give a noble origin and a dignified character to these sentiments; but the sentiments themselves act according to the laws of our nature; and their celestial source has no tendency to impair their power over human sympathy. No event, which has not too much modern vulgarity to be susceptible of alliance with poetry, can be incapable of being ennobled by that eminently poetical art which ascribes it either to the Supreme Will, or to the agency of beings who are greater than

human. The wisdom of Columbus is neither less venerable nor less his own because it is supposed to flow more directly than that of other wise men from the inspiration of heaven. The mutiny of his seamen is not less interesting or formidable because the poet traces it to the suggestion of those malignant spirits in whom the imagination, independent of all theological doctrines, is naturally prone to personify and embody the causes of evil.

"Unless, indeed, the marvellous be a part of the popular creed at the period of the action, the reader of a subsequent age will refuse to sympathize with it. His poetical faith is founded in sympathy with that of the poetical personages. Still more objectionable is a marvellous influence neither believed in by the reader nor by the hero: - like a great part of the machinery of the Henriade and the Lusiad, which, indeed, is not only absolutely ineffective, but rather disennobles heroic fiction, by association with light and frivolous ideas. Allegorical persons (if the expression may be allowed) are only in the way to become agents. The abstraction has received a faint outline of form; but it has not yet acquired those individual marks and characteristic peculiarities which render it a really existing being. On the other hand, the more sublime parts of our own religion, and more especially those which are common to all religion, are too awful and too philosophical for poetical effect. If we except Paradise Lost, where all is supernatural, and where the ancestors of the human race are not strictly human beings, it must be owned that no successful attempt has been made to ally a human action with the sublimer principles of the Christian theology. Some opinions, which may, perhaps, without irreverence, be said to be rather appendages to the Christian system than essential parts of it, are in that sort of intermediate state which fits them for the purposes of poetry; sufficiently exalted to ennoble the human actions with which they are blended, but not so exactly defined, nor so deeply revered, as to be inconsistent with the liberty of imagination. The guardian angels, in the project of Dryden, had the inconvenience of having never taken any deep root in popular belief; the agency of evil spirits was firmly believed in the age of Columbus. With the truth of facts poetry can have no concern; but the truth of manners is necessary to its persons. If the minute investigations of the Notes to this poem had related to historical details, they would have been

insignificant; but they are intended to justify the human and the supernatural parts of it, by an appeal to the manners and to the opinions of the age.

"Perhaps there is no volume in our language of which it can be so truly said as of the present that it is equally exempt from the frailties of negligence and the vices of affectation. Exquisite polish of style is, indeed, more admired by the artist than by the people. The gentle and elegant pleasure which it imparts can only be felt by a calm reason, an exercised taste, and a mind free from turbulent passions. But these beauties of execution can exist only in combination with much of the primary beauties of thought and feeling; and poets of the first rank depend on them for no small part of the perpetuity of their fame. In poetry, though not in eloquence, it is less to rouse the passions of a moment than to satisfy the taste of all ages.

"In estimating the poetical rank of Mr. Rogers, it must not be forgotten that popularity never can arise from elegance alone. The vices of a poem may render it popular; and virtues of a faint character may be sufficient to preserve a languishing and cold reputation. But, to be both popular poets and classical writers is the rare lot of those few who are released from all solicitude about their literary fame. It often happens to successful writers that the lustre of their first productions throws a temporary cloud over some of those which follow. Of all literary misfortunes, this is the most easily endured, and the most speedily repaired. It is generally no more than a momentary illusion produced by disappointed admiration, which expected more from the talents of the admired writer than any talents could perform. Mr. Rogers has long passed that period of probation during which it may be excusable to feel some painful solicitude about the reception of every new work. Whatever may be the rank assigned hereafter to his writings, when compared with cach other, the writer has most certainly taken his place among the classical poets of his country."

This was, no doubt, a very acceptable offset to a critique on the same poem which had found its way into the Quarterly Review for the month of March, in the same year. It was written by Mr. Ward, afterwards Lord Dudley, and was alluded to many years afterwards by the Quarterly, as a "masterpiece of damning by faint

praise." The review nettled the poet not a little, as we learn from a letter of Byron's, written in September :

"Rogers has returned to town, but not yet recovered of the Quarterly. What fellows these reviewers are! These boys do fear us all!' They made you fight, and me (the milkiest of men) a satirist, and will end by making Rogers madder than Ajax. I have been reading Memory again, the other day, and Hope together, and retain all my preference of the former. His elegance is really wonderful; there is no such thing as a vulgar line in the book. * Rogers wants me to go with him on a crusade to the Lakes, and to besiege you on our way. This last is a great temptation, but I fear it will not be in my power, unless you would go on with one of us somewhere no matter where.

"P. S. No letter-n'importe. Rogers thinks the Quarterly will be at me this time; if so, it shall be a war of extermination — no quarter. From the youngest devil down to the oldest woman of that review, all shall perish by one fatal lampoon. The ties of nature shall be torn asunder, for I will not even spare my bookseller; nay, if one were to include readers also, all the better."

We do not know if this review prompted a celebrated epigram upon its author by the offended poet, or if the epigram prompted the review. From an allusion to it in Medwin's Conversations with Lord Byron, we should imagine that the poet revenged himself by the satire; but from an allusion in the Quarterly Review we infer that Rogers was the first offender. "Rogers is the only man," said his lordship to Captain Medwin, "who can write epigrams, and sharp bone-cutters, too, in two lines." For instance, that on an M.P. who had reviewed his book, and said he wrote very well for a banker:

"Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it;

He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it."

The Quarterly says that Ward would sometimes quote this distich, admit the point, and return usually a Roland for an OliverBut even Mr. Ward did not fail to recognize the position which the poet had already secured by The Pleasures of Memory. "The first poem in this collection," he says, "does not fall within the province of our criticism. It has been published many years, and has ac