the sands, or to convey it hundreds of miles by subterraneous passages, and that after all it should be found to flow from those parts where it had been fully explored, in a natural and nearly direct course, to the nearest part of the ocean.

W. I. Prescott,

ART. XXIII.-Letter to **** ****** on the Rev. W. L Bowles' Stricture on the Life and Writings of Pope. By the R. H. Lord Byron.

'I will play at Bowls with the sun and moon.'-Old Song. Second edition. London. 1821.

As this work is very amusing, and as our booksellers have not been tempted to give it to the public, we will, after stating the origin of a controversy, which has excited so much interest abroad, make a few copious extracts, for the benefit of such of our readers, as have not met with the English copies. In the year 1806, the Rev. W. L. Bowles published his edition of Pope, with an essay on his life and writings, which was severely censured in the Edinburgh Review, on account of the poetical principles it assumed, and the aspersions it contained upon the character of Pope. In 1819 Mr Campbell, in his Specimens of the British Poets, expressed his disapprobation of the poetical opinions of Mr Bowles; who replied in an elaborate treatise on the invariable principles of poetry,' addressed in the form of a letter to Mr Campbell. In the course of the last year, the London Magazine, and the Quarterly Review, in an article upon Spence, opened a very heavy fire upon the same gentleman, who again defended himself with much spirit and good sense. This was the state of things when Lord Byron, having been incidentally alluded to in the course of the skirmishing, felt himself called on to add one more to the number who so grievously beset Mr Bowles.

After a few prefatory remarks on a conversation which took place at the house of Mr Rogers, 'the last Argonaut of classic English poetry, and the Nestor of our inferior race of living poets,' Lord Byron proceeds to an examination of Mr Bowles' Strictures on the character of Pope. We think here, as throughout, that his Lordship has mixed more of the bitter with the sweet than is altogether palatable in a controversy between gentlemen; but we coincide with him in the opinion

that the r tions, and circumsta doubtful. We wil have so of but proce variable p remarks

among ou question i most poet from natur Byron in It would poetry, an poetry, by from simil may safely suitable to All will cal; and beauty. to be poet sciousness one feels t in short wh are highly gests to us moves the jects, there fecting tha are so, we What, for with more on a fine sp the landsca foliage, the playful rivul the covert; uplands; th grance of f

that the reverend editor has dealt too much in general assertions, and too readily put an unfavorable construction on such circumstances in the life of Pope, as are after all extremely doubtful.

We will not enter upon an investigation of details which have so often and in so many shapes been given to the public, but proceed to his Lordship's discussion of Mr Bowles's invariable principles of poetry.' And first, we would make a few remarks on a subject, which has excited so much sensation among our brethren on the other side of the water. The question is, whether images borrowed from art or nature are most poetical; Mr Bowles maintaining that images derived from nature are intrinsically best suited to poetry; which Lord Byron in the letter before us denies.

It would be well to understand what is meant by the terms poetry, and poetical. We will not attempt to circumscribe poetry, by an exclusive definition, which, if we may judge from similar attempts, may after all be very defective; but we may safely point out what by universal consent are esteemed suitable topics for poetry.

All will admit that a star, a rose bud, a sunny cloud are poetical; and why? because they delight the soul with emotions of beauty. All will allow a mountain, a desert, a whirlwind, to be poetical;-why? because they animate us with consciousness of power, immensity, all that is sublime. Every one feels that tales of love, of revenge, of pining melancholy, in short whatever is built on the passions of the human heart, are highly poetical: and thence we infer that whatever suggests to us sentiments of grandeur, or beauty, and whatever moves the affections, is poetical in that degree. If natural objects, therefore, are more sublime, more beautiful, or more affecting than artificial, they are more poetical; and that they are so, we think it not difficult to prove.

What, for instance, in the material world can furnish us with more beautiful images than those which nature displays on a fine spring morning, when all is quick with joy and life; the landscape glowing in the brightness of a rising sun; the foliage, the spires of grass glittering with dew-drops; the playful rivulet now sparkling in the ray, now hiding itself in the covert; the song of birds; the bleating of sheep on the uplands; the lowing of cattle in the valley; the living fra grance of flowers, yet fresh with childhood; or the same

landscape softened in the grey of twilight; when the glare of day is gone,-when a faint light only hovers on the waters; when no noise is heard save the chirping of the cricket, the sad moan of the whippoorwill, or the indistinct whisper, that seems to float on the distant hills;-when the voice of merriment and of labor have alike ceased; when all is hushed in profound repose, and the soul drinks in the sense of beauty? What can art add that shall chime in with the spirit of these scenes and improve their character?

The white cottage, the tapering spire, the tinkling sheepbell, the cheerful sound of the village flute, the brisk motion of the mill-wheel scattering drops of liquid light, are artificial sounds and sights, and beautiful as they accord with the expression of the morning. At the close of day, the ruined abbey, the chime of distant bells, the slow beat of oars, heard at intervals, are no less beautiful, and in perfect harmony with the temper of the hour, which naturally leads to quiet, soothing meditation. They owe most of their beauty, however, to natural associations. The cottage is the abode of rustic simplicity, and tells us of man. The blithe strains of the minstrel speak of buoyant youth and heartfelt happiness; and the busy wheel reminds us also of plenty and healthful labor. The ruined abbey speaks to the heart of other times, and the music of village bells touches some chord in unison with the hour, till the soul runs o'er with silent worship.' It is to nature that these objects are primarily indebted for their beauty, and even these are beautiful in the landscape only as auxiliaries. Nature is the groundwork; they but swell the tide of feeling which she had first stirred within our bosoms. Nature would of herself have been all-sufficient to have excited these feelings; they could have done little without her; it is

6

The gush of springs,

The fall of lofty fountains, and the bend

Of stirring branches, and the bud which brings
The swiftest thought of beauty.'

It is in a word images borrowed from nature, that excite in us
perceptions of beauty. On these the poet dwells when he
would impart a kindred glow to others; and heightens it by
happy allusions to art;-but nature gives a tone to the whole,
and the images she furnishes are therefore most poetical.

It will be less difficult, we imagine, to show the comparative

1

inferiorit power. dead of moon, 'tl listen to t gathering nable wa nacled i dark four been swe pare with such a sp The ex

a funeral add to the but the m bosoms.

man monu

all conspir with all th

6

in compar from the Andes, a neither hi strongest e scenery, a our imagin over us, ta of our read our images quently and Lastly, w of passions the manners are consequ

We are a

very arbitra very defecti essay.

We

a few of the and such as

ence from th

inferiority of artificial to natural objects in raising emotions of power. Would you call up these feelings; go forth in the dead of night, contemplate the magnificence of heaven, the moon, the stars in their development;' go to the sea-side, listen to the sad and solemn voice of the ocean, watch the gathering tempest, hear the night-winds sigh over the interminable waste; or gaze upon the hills, whose scalps are pinnacled in clouds;' meditate on the might, which cast their dark foundations deep, and the generations of men that have been swept away at their feet. What works of man can compare with these? How far can they even add to the effect of such a spectacle?

The explosion of cannon in the hour of battle, the sound of a funeral bell at midnight are sublime; a ship would no doubt add to the sublimity of a storm, but here it is not the vessel, but the men within her that excite the terrible interest in our bosoms. The pyramids are perhaps the most sublime of human monuments; their age, their magnitude, their situation, all conspire to render them so; but what are the pyramids, with all the notions they suggest to us of power and duration, in comparison with the mountains, whose foundations were from the first. Place them at the foot of the Alps or of the Andes, and let one born in a sandy desert, who has seen neither hills nor pyramids, tell you which fills him with the strongest emotion. We are grown familiar with mountain scenery, and a pyramid produces a disproportionate effect on our imaginations. Yet nature will still maintain her sway over us,tamen usque recurrit,' and if we would lift the souls of our readers to the loftiest tone of enthusiasm, we borrow our images from nature. No one has done this more frequently and more successfully than Lord Byron.

Lastly, we think there can be no dispute that an exhibition of passions founded in nature must move us more forcibly than the manners and forms of artificial life, and that the former are consequently more poetical than the latter.

We are aware that in the foregoing examples we have been very arbitrary, and that the enumeration must of course be very defective; but it could not be otherwise in so short an essay. We have therefore contented ourselves with selecting a few of the images most remarkable for beauty or grandeur, and such as poets have been wont to dwell upon. The inference from the whole is, that natural objects are more affecting,

suggest more lively sentiments of beauty and sublimity, than artificial, and are consequently more poetical. Let us now see how far these sentiments coincide with lord Byron's.

.

I now come,' says he, to Mr Bowles's" invariable principles of poetry." These, Mr Bowles and some of his correspondents, pronounce" unanswerable ;" and they are "unanswered," at least by Campbell, who seems to have been astounded by the title. Mr Campbell has no need of my alliance, nor shall I presume to offer it; but I do hate that word “invariable." What is there of human, be it poetry, philosophy, wit, wisdom, science, power, glory, mind, matter, life, or death, which is "invariable?" Of course I put things divine out of the question. Of all arrogant baptisms of a book, this title to a pamphlet appears the most complacently conceited. It is Mr Campbell's part to answer the contents of this performance, and especially to vindicate his own Ship," which Mr Bowles most triumphantly proclaims to have struck to his very first fire.

'Quoth he, there was a Ship;

Now let me go, thou grey-haired loon,

Or my staff shall make thee skip.'

It is no affair of mine, but having once begun (certainly not by my own wish, but called upon by the frequent recurrence to my name in the pamphlets,) I am like an Irishman in a row," "any body's customer." I shall therefore say a word or two on the "Ship."

66

the

66

Mr Bowles asserts that Campbell's Ship of the Line derives all its poetry not from "art," but from "nature." "Take away the waves, the winds, the sun, &c. &c. one will become a stripe of blue bunting; and the other a piece of coarse canvass on three tall poles." Very true; take away the "waves," "the winds," and there will be no ship at all, not only for poetical, but for any other purpose; and take away "the sun," and we must read Mr Bowles' pamphlet by candle-light. But the "poetry" of the Ship" does not depend on "the waves," &c.; on the contrary, Ship of the Line" confers its own poetry upon the waters, and heightens theirs. I do not deny, that the "waves and winds," and above all the sun," are highly poetical; we know it to our cost, by the many descriptions of them in verse; but if the waves bore only the foam upon their bosoms, if the winds wafted only the sea-weed to the shore, if the sun shone neither upon pyramids, nor fleets, nor fortresses, would its beams be equally poetical? I think not: the poetry is at least reciprocal. Take away "the Ship of the Line" "swinging round" "the calm water," and the calm water becomes a somewhat monotonous thing to look at, particularly if not transparently clear; witness the thousands

coarse ca

is clay, and at least are Did Mr has, at leas sea only, w adjunct? more poeti but fatigui ship? or, i ship which the vessel, into mere a high orde I look up to poets:Southey, pe miles than and have li the whole month out two years ti off Cape Sig coming on a ship would house and m to Abydos, in the Archi ularly short, and broken of the Troad the time. B

New Ser