Famous Reviews | Page 9

the same low tone of expression throughout, and the
inequality that is consequently introduced into the texture of the
composition. To an author of reading and education, it is a style that
must always be assumed and unnatural, and one from which he will be
perpetually tempted to deviate. He will rise, therefore, every now and
then, above the level to which he has professedly degraded himself; and
make amends for that transgression, by a fresh effort of descension. His
composition, in short, will be like that of a person who is attempting to
speak in an obsolete or provincial dialect; he will betray himself by
expressions of occasional purity and elegance, and exert himself to
efface that impression, by passages of unnatural meanness or absurdity.
In making these strictures on the perverted taste for simplicity, that
seems to distinguish our modern school of poetry, we have no
particular allusion to Mr. Southey, or the production now before us: On
the contrary, he appears to us, to be less addicted to this fault than most
of his fraternity; and if we were in want of examples to illustrate the
preceding observations, we should certainly look for them in the
effusions of that poet who commemorates, with so much effect, the
chattering of Harry Gill's teeth, tells the tale of the one-eyed huntsman
"who had a cheek like a cherry," and beautifully warns his studious
friend of the risk he ran of "growing double."
* * * * *
The style of our modern poets, is that, no doubt, by which they are most
easily distinguished: but their genius has also an internal character; and
the peculiarities of their taste may be discovered, without the assistance
of their diction. Next after great familiarity of language, there is
nothing that appears to them so meritorious as perpetual exaggeration
of thought. There must be nothing moderate, natural, or easy, about
their sentiments. There must be a "qu'il mourut," and a "let there be
light," in every line; and all their characters must be in agonies and
ecstasies, from their entrance to their exit. To those who are acquainted

with their productions, it is needless to speak of the fatigue that is
produced by this unceasing summons to admiration, or of the
compassion which is excited by the spectacle of these eternal strainings
and distortions. Those authors appear to forget, that a whole poem
cannot be made up of striking passages; and that the sensations
produced by sublimity, are never so powerful and entire, as when they
are allowed to subside and revive, in a slow and spontaneous
succession. It is delightful, now and then, to meet with a rugged
mountain, or a roaring stream; but where there is no funny slope, nor
shaded plain, to relieve them--where all is beetling cliff and yawning
abyss, and the landscape presents nothing on every side but prodigies
and terrors--the head is apt to gow giddy, and the heart to languish for
the repose and security of a less elevated region.
The effect even of genuine sublimity, therefore, is impaired by the
injudicious frequency of its exhibition, and the omission of those
intervals and breathing-places, at which the mind should be permitted
to recover from its perturbation or astonishment: but, where it has been
summoned upon a false alarm, and disturbed in the orderly course of its
attention, by an impotent attempt at elevation, the consequences are
still more disastrous. There is nothing so ridiculous (at least for a poet)
as to fail in great attempts. If the reader foresaw the failure, he may
receive some degree of mischievous satisfaction from its punctual
occurrence; if he did not, he will be vexed and disappointed; and, in
both cases, he will very speedily be disgusted and fatigued. It would be
going too far, certainly, to maintain, that our modern poets have never
succeeded in their persevering endeavours at elevation and emphasis;
but it is a melancholy fact, that their successes bear but a small
proportion to their miscarriages; and that the reader who has been
promised an energetic sentiment, or sublime allusion, must often be
contented with a very miserable substitute. Of the many contrivances
they employ to give the appearance of uncommon force and animation
to a very ordinary conception, the most usual is, to wrap it up in a veil
of mysterious and unintelligible language, which flows past with so
much solemnity, that it is difficult to believe it conveys nothing of any
value. Another device for improving the effect of a cold idea, is, to
embody it in a verse of unusual harshness and asperity. Compound
words, too, of a portentous sound and conformation, are very useful in

giving an air of energy and originality; and a few lines of scripture,
written out into verse from the