Biographia Literaria | Page 8

sustained and elevated
style, of the then living poets, Cowper and Bowles [6] were, to the best
of my knowledge, the first who combined natural thoughts with natural
diction; the first who reconciled the heart with the head.

It is true, as I have before mentioned, that from diffidence in my own
powers, I for a short time adopted a laborious and florid diction, which
I myself deemed, if not absolutely vicious, yet of very inferior worth.
Gradually, however, my practice conformed to my better judgment; and
the compositions of my twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth years--(for
example, the shorter blank verse poems, the lines, which now form the
middle and conclusion of the poem entitled the Destiny of Nations, and
the tragedy of Remorse)--are not more below my present ideal in
respect of the general tissue of the style than those of the latest date.
Their faults were at least a remnant of the former leaven, and among
the many who have done me the honour of putting my poems in the
same class with those of my betters, the one or two, who have
pretended to bring examples of affected simplicity from my volume,
have been able to adduce but one instance, and that out of a copy of
verses half ludicrous, half splenetic, which I intended, and had myself
characterized, as sermoni propiora.
Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an
excess, which will itself need reforming. The reader will excuse me for
noticing, that I myself was the first to expose risu honesto the three sins
of poetry, one or the other of which is the most likely to beset a young
writer. So long ago as the publication of the second number of the
Monthly Magazine, under the name of Nehemiah Higginbottom, I
contributed three sonnets, the first of which had for its object to excite a
good-natured laugh at the spirit of doleful egotism, and at the
recurrence of favourite phrases, with the double defect of being at once
trite and licentious;--the second was on low creeping language and
thoughts, under the pretence of simplicity; the third, the phrases of
which were borrowed entirely from my own poems, on the
indiscriminate use of elaborate and swelling language and imagery. The
reader will find them in the note [7] below, and will I trust regard them
as reprinted for biographical purposes alone, and not for their poetic
merits. So general at that time, and so decided was the opinion
concerning the characteristic vices of my style, that a celebrated
physician (now, alas! no more) speaking of me in other respects with
his usual kindness, to a gentleman, who was about to meet me at a
dinner party, could not however resist giving him a hint not to mention

'The house that Jack built' in my presence, for "that I was as sore as a
boil about that sonnet;" he not knowing that I was myself the author of
it.

CHAPTER II
Supposed irritability of men of genius brought to the test of facts--
Causes and occasions of the charge--Its injustice.
I have often thought, that it would be neither uninstructive nor
unamusing to analyze, and bring forward into distinct consciousness,
that complex feeling, with which readers in general take part against
the author, in favour of the critic; and the readiness with which they
apply to all poets the old sarcasm of Horace upon the scribblers of his
time
------genus irritabile vatum.
A debility and dimness of the imaginative power, and a consequent
necessity of reliance on the immediate impressions of the senses, do,
we know well, render the mind liable to superstition and fanaticism.
Having a deficient portion of internal and proper warmth, minds of this
class seek in the crowd circum fana for a warmth in common, which
they do not possess singly. Cold and phlegmatic in their own nature,
like damp hay, they heat and inflame by co-acervation; or like bees
they become restless and irritable through the increased temperature of
collected multitudes. Hence the German word for fanaticism, (such at
least was its original import,) is derived from the swarming of bees,
namely, schwaermen, schwaermerey. The passion being in an inverse
proportion to the insight,--that the more vivid, as this the less
distinct--anger is the inevitable consequence. The absense of all
foundation within their own minds for that, which they yet believe both
true and indispensable to their safety and happiness, cannot but produce
an uneasy state of feeling, an involuntary sense of fear from which
nature has no means of rescuing herself but by anger. Experience
informs us that the first defence of weak minds is to recriminate.

There's no philosopher but sees, That rage and fear are one disease;
Tho' that may burn, and this may freeze, They're both