Uncultured Taste. Born in his wilds, the rude and humble swain, 180 which it is more easy to conceive than define, is less the effect of genius than judgment, and a kind of natural reason wrought to perfection by study. It serves, in composition, to guide and direct the understanding. It makes use of the imagination, but without submitting to it, and keeps it always in subjection. It consults nature universally, follows it step by step, and is a faithful image of it. Uncultured Taste. Who loves to wander o'er romantic plains, 189 * That mind possesses the seeds of taste, and frequently of immitative genius, which is powerfully impressed by the diversified appearances of nature: which is soothed, delighted, and aroused, by the valley, the lawn, the wilderness, the mountain, the rivulet, and the ocean; which listens with correspondent emotions to the whisper of the breeze, and to the howling of the midnight storm. The sense of beauty and of grandeur is peculiar to man. The herd in common with him sensually enjoy the seasons as they roll. They repose upon the bank and beneath the shade of the tree; they receive their nourishment from the pasture and the stream; but man only perceives the images of beauty and sublimity in the skies and in the objects which surround him. The pastoral is generally the most delightful species of poetry to youthful genius. Smitten with the love of nature, her poetical enthusiast dwells unwearied on the pages of those who have depicted her charms; he roves with delight through the divine Georgics,-through Milton's descriptive scenes,--- through the Seasons of Thomson and the Task of Cowper: He adopts the language of the bard of the Castle of Indolence. I care not Fortune what you me deny; You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace, The woods and lawns by living stream at eve. Genius the Gift of Heaven. Judgment to all in every state is given, But Genius is the rarest boon of heaven. The world's small limits can but few contain, [reign; Who more than worlds, hold in their boundless Only an age can give a giant birth, Then more than earthquakes shake the solid earth. Taste is confin'd to rules, it moves in chains, Genius those fetters and those rules disdains; * 200 The "Farmer's Boy" is a fine exhibition of untutored genius. It discovers the powerful influence which the scenes of nature have upon the feeling bosom. The descriptions which it contains are accurate, but they are inferior to those of Burns in a glowing and exciting warmth. ---Cowper, in the fourth book of his Task, beautifully describes the sensations of his early days, when he began to feel the inspiration of the Muse :-- My very dreams were rural; rural too No Bard could please me but whose lyre was tun'd Fatigu❜d me, never weary of the pipe Of Tityrus, assembling as he sung, The rustic throng beneath his favourite beech. New to my taste his Paradise surpass'd * If we examine the greatest works of genius that have Its Impetuosity. No bands can hold her when she upward springs, appeared in the world, we will find that they were all written without attention to the rules or directions of any critic. Milton, though he had Aristotle's writings full in his remembrance, nobly despised them. To impose laws upon Genius, is like hoppling an Arabian courser. After Aristotle wrote his Rhetorick and Poetics, no second Homer, no second Sophocles appeared. The greatest works of Rome were written before the art of poetry existed.--"Imitation (says Dr. Young) is inferiority confessed; emulation is superiority contested or denied; imitation is servile, emulation generous; that fetters, this fires; that may give a name, this a name immortal. This made Athens to succeeding ages the rule of Taste, and the standard of perfection. Her men of genius struck fire against each other; and kindled by conflict into glories which no time / can extinguish. We thank Eschuylus for Sophocles and Parrhasius for Zeuxis; Emulation for both. That bids us fly the general fault of imitators; bids us not be struck by the loud report of former fame, as with a knell which damps the spirits, but as with a trumpet which inspires ardour to rival the renowned." The Genius of Shakespear. The subtle stagyrite then weav'd his rules, 210 Hark! from the heath I hear some footstep dread, Which beats the earth with hollow sounding tread; Hark! from the tomb a voice of terror breaks, The air breathes cold, the ground beneath me shakes, A ghost appears, the moon withdraws her beams, And all the thickets sound with frightful screams; The critic's voice is now as hush'd as death, His eyes are fix'd, we scarcely hear his breath; Great Shakespear* now commands the midnight hour, And o'er the soul extends his dreadful power. 220 name. *So much has been said and written concerning this wonderful man, that no one can add to his praises, and no one without arrogance can attempt to detract from them. In the list of Genius, Shakespeare is, perhaps, the brightest His superiority of invention gives him his superiority of genius. His limited education allowed him little opportunity of being acquainted with the writers of Greece and of Rome. His soul was kindled by no borrowed fire. He was visited by no beams but those of the sun of Nature. In the smaller accomplishments of the poet, he is oftentimes deficient; but the richness of his description, his propriety of sentiment, his accuracy and variation of characters, and above all that inventive power which calls an ideal world into existence, mark the great original. |