appears absurd and unaccountable. His enthusiasm is red with a cold smile, and his grief with wonder and contemp pity. To add bitterness to these mortifications he is often dered either affected or insane. Even sensible and well me people are sometimes utterly unable to appreciate a man of g How frequently are the acquaintances of celebrated men, ast ed at their success! The annals of Literary Biography teen the mistaken notions of the early friends and companions master-spirits of mankind. We rarely indeed meet wit near relative, or intimate associate of a poet, who does not of him with irreverence, or what is still more intole an air of indulgent patronage. Is it then to be wondered with thoughts that lie too deep for tears," and unpartici feelings, he shrouds himself in a world of his own, and is s ry in the midst of crowds? From being thus checked in so and unappreciated in personal intercourse, the poet devotes self more exclusively to the cultivation of his divine art, by he is enabled as it were in his deep retirement, to touch th neral pulse with the magic of his appeal. But his love of kind is still conspicuous. He clings to the sympathies o manity, and rejoices in stirring with kindred feelings the b of thousands to whom he is personally unknown. 66 He feeds his inmost spirit with the manna of praise, and upon the public breath. When he fails to give delight, he capable of receiving it. His existence is inseparably con ed with that of his fellow creatures, and a mental isolation v be worse than death. His pride and happiness consist in power he possesses over the human heart. How glorious i poet who thus shrouded in personal obscurity, causes the v of human passion to rise and fall at his command; who w countless multitudes with his own enthusiasm, and stamp mortality on every burning word! It is the fashion of the day to disparage both Poetry Poets, and the Utilitarians would persuade their disciples to unfold the profoundest secrets of the human heart, a thrill, refine and elevate the soul, with "Those thoughts, that wander through eternity," is an idle and profitless amusement, and unworthy the attenti a man of sense. The blind, cold and grovelling spirit, of thi vel doctrine is one of the signs of the times that is far from g fying to a truly philosophical observer. It has become an ine able heresy to speak of the utility of such men as Shakespeare Milton, who are actually degraded in the scale of writers b Jeremy Bentham and Mr. Mill! These sages would make m mere automaton, a mechanical machine, whose motions are r lated by unalterable rules. Every thing approaching to enthusi and intensity of sensation is regarded by the new school of philosophy as an evidence of morbid irritability, and is treated as a disease. If poets have hitherto been reserved in society how much more so, must they become in proportion to the prevalence of these opinions. When they find themselves characterized as insignificant triflers, and their art considered an ingenious jugglery, they will speedily shrink from all personal contact with the world. It is the aim of the new sect to erect an eternal barrier between Poetry and Philosophy. They speak of the first as a fable, and of the second as "the only true thing." But while the Muse is represented as a painted and frivolous coquet, Philosophy is a coarse, and sensual being, who can scarcely see a yard before her, and who must touch every thing she hears of before she is convinced of its existence. Her eyes are ever bent upon the ground, her voice is exerted in endless complaints of the extravagance of the world, and her soul is rapt in paltry calculations. She is, in fact, a selfish and narrow-minded economist. If Poetry present her with the crystals of Castalian streams, her first and last question is how much they will produce, and to what account they can be turned. She has not even the dignity of a merchant, but is a petty retail dealer in the meanest wares. This degrading and disgusting spirit has seized for a while upon the public mind, but it cannot possibly continue unless the very elements of our human nature are decomposed by the chemistry of utilitarianism. While there is beauty in the universe, and it is acknowledged to be the production of a beneficent Power, who gives us nothing that is useless, Poetry, who bathes herself in the light and loveliness of nature, will never wholly cease to enchant and refine the heart of man. We entertain a somewhat higher opinion not only of Poetry but of Philosophy, than the Utilitarians appear to do, and presume that those divine spirits were meant to be companions and not rivals of each other. The word utility is one of the rocks on which the Benthamites have been wrecked. Now it is admitted, nothing is useful but as it contributes more or less to the happiness of mankind. The Benthamites maintain that happiness consists in sensual enjoyments-in eating and drinking-in good clothes and comfortable houses. The poets do not deny the value of these things, in their way, but maintain that the cultivation of the heart and mind is more essential, when it is considered that we have something superior to mere animal existence. To this the Benthamites rejoin that before we can exert the mental faculties we must support life. We must live before we can think. Therefore it is of more consequence to live than to think, and therefore those articles that support life are more useful than poetry. Would not the same style of argument prove the inutility of virtue? If the ha ness of human life resembled the happiness of brutes, the Bentl ites would have the best of the controversy. It may be urged we are caricaturing the Utilitarians, and we do not mean to a that the entire philosophy of these people is compressed into rapid statement, but that we have given a fair representatio the case between Poetry and Utilitarianism. We see not objectionable in the opposition of the Benthamites to the com systems of education, by which boys are taught words inste things, and every language but their own :-nor are we disp to question the truth of the celebrated doctrine respecting greatest happiness of the greatest number." We think the U tarians have argued on these points with great acuteness and s city, and are likely to benefit mankind by their labours. It gainst their views of the effects of the Fine Arts and Poetry, the elegancies and refinements of life, that we are desirous to m a stand, and we feel the more inclined to do so, because we persons on all sides of us, whose talents demand our est who have not escaped the contagion of the new mania, and actually talk with indifference and contempt of those very complishments which have elevated their characters, and i them what they are. .66 If the word Utility, has been used with no definite mean that of Poetry, has been still more vaguely understood. M tolerably educated people can discover no difference bety the Rhymester and the Poet, and when they hear Poetry sp of as one of the loftiest exertions of the human intellect, are very apt to cast up their eyes in amazement. This confo ing of the mechanism of Poetry with the spirit, is one of the causes of the little estimation, in which the "art divine" is too held, even by persons of liberal views, and superior underst ing. But, if Poetry be so mean a thing as to consist in mere jingling of rhymes, how is that there are so few gen Poets, and so many pretenders, and that the notion has so prevailed, that Poeta Nascitur, non fit. It is generally allo that no art or labour will make a Poet, though mere industry good sense may accomplish almost every other attainment. fact is that genius of the highest order is essential to the true I and it is on his knowledge of the human heart, and his exqu sense of moral and external beauty, that he must dep for success in the cultivation of his art. We shall conclude remarks, with quoting a few words on the same subject, by of the most profound and original-minded men of the present -William Wordsworth. "There are people," says he, "who talk of Poetry as of a matte amusement and idle pleasure; who will converse with us as gra about a taste for Poetry, as they express it, as if it were as in lifferent a thing as a taste for rope-dancing, or Frontignac or Sherry Aristotle, hath said, that Poetry is the most philosophical of all writing; it is so: it's object is truth, not individual and local, but general and operative ; not standing upon external testimony but carried alive into the heart by passion, truth which is its own testimony, which gives strength and divinity to thetribunal to which it appeals, and receives them from the same tribunal. Poetry is the image of man and nature. The obstacles which stand in the way of the fidelity of the Biographer and Historian, and of their consequent utility, are incalculably greater than those which are to be encountered by the Poet who has an adequate notion of the dignity of his art. The Poet writes under one restriction only, namely, that of giving immediate pleasure to a human being possessed of that information which may be expected from him, not as a lawyer, a physician, a mariner, an astronomer or a Natural Philosopher, but as a Man! "The knowledge both of the Poet and the man of Science, is pleasure, but the knowledge of the one clings to us as a necessary part of our exis tence, our natural and unalienable inheritance; the other is a personal and individual acquisition, slow to come to us and by no habitual and direct sympathy connecting us with our fellow-beings.*** Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of Science.**** The objects of the Poet's thoughts are every-where; though the eyes and senses of man, are. it is true, his favorite guides, yet he will follow wherever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in which to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of man!" R. AUTUMN. AUTUMN! and the red sun thro' mottled clouds, And gilds with glory all the saffron sheaves, R. C. C. ON THE ABOLITION OF SUTTEE. "In a just Government the life of the meanest subject is held precious."-Mont THE surest tests of civilization are the value of human life the treatment of women. Where life is held so cheap, little repugnance is felt at taking it by violence; and w woman is less the companion and the friend of man tha slave-we need look no further to be convinced that civiliz amongst a people exhibiting these conclusive signs must be imperfect. He There is a certain principle of destructiveness, so to ex it, that pervades no less a state of society perfectly barbarous a state of society even considerably advanced in civilizatio In the first; it is the effect of necessity. In the second i custom derived perhaps from the barbarous precedent of the Thus the Cannibal has not the slightest repugnance to kil and devouring his neighbour, whom in fact he considers as better than so much walking' provan'-nor does his consci give him the slightest whisper that he is doing wrong. eat his neighbour or starve. Let this Cannibal againplenty of fish and the flesh of sheep, goats, &c. and a few lent roots or vegetables, and he will no longer attack his n bour to eat him. The barbarism of necessity now at an endcomes the barbarism of custom. Cannibals familiar with sight of human beings slaughtered for food-have a ce yearning for the pomp and circumstance of the thing-th no longer impelled to it by hunger. Accordingly, when one beats another in battle, some of the prisoners are made slaves kind of festival in honour of the event; a festival rendered haps the more acceptable inasmuch as both tribes may happ be some days journey from their goats or hogs, and esculent Some bright genius of a chief accordingly, proposes that they s slaughter and cook a few of their prisoners. In process of however they are weaned from anthropophagy entirely, still a hankering for slaughter remains, and a religious char is given to what formerly was a mere Cannibal festival, the prisoners are offered up, as victims on the altars of their or as sacrifices to the manes of their deceased friends. The principle of destructiveness being now associated wit ligion or the doctrine of the soul's immortality falsely unders leads as it has done in many quarters of the world to fred suicide, mutilation, and murder. |