Our works of fiction and
poetry have been overshadowed by the same infectious gloom.
poetry have been overshadowed by the same infectious gloom.
Shelley
Could they listen to the plea of reason who had groaned under
the calamities of a social state according to the provisions of which
one man riots in luxury whilst another famishes for want of bread? Can
he who the day before was a trampled slave suddenly become
liberal-minded, forbearing, and independent? This is the consequence
of the habits of a state of society to be produced by resolute
perseverance and indefatigable hope, and long-suffering and
long-believing courage, and the systematic efforts of generations of
men of intellect and virtue. Such is the lesson which experience
teaches now. But, on the first reverses of hope in the progress of
French liberty, the sanguine eagerness for good overleaped the
solution of these questions, and for a time extinguished itself in the
unexpectedness of their result. Thus, many of the most ardent and
tender-hearted of the worshippers of public good have been morally
ruined by what a partial glimpse of the events they deplored appeared
to show as the melancholy desolation of all their cherished hopes.
Hence gloom and misanthropy have become the characteristics of the age
in which we live, the solace of a disappointment that unconsciously
finds relief only in the wilful exaggeration of its own despair. This
influence has tainted the literature of the age with the hopelessness
of the minds from which it flows. Metaphysics (I ought to except sir
W. Drummond's "Academical Questions"; a volume of very acute and
powerful metaphysical criticism. ), and inquiries into moral and
political science, have become little else than vain attempts to
revive exploded superstitions, or sophisms like those of Mr. Malthus
(It is remarkable, as a symptom of the revival of public hope, that
Mr. Malthus has assigned, in the later editions of his work, an
indefinite dominion to moral restraint over the principle of
population. This concession answers all the inferences from his
doctrine unfavourable to human improvement, and reduces the "Essay on
Population" to a commentary illustrative of the unanswerableness of
"Political Justice". ), calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind
into a security of everlasting triumph.
Our works of fiction and
poetry have been overshadowed by the same infectious gloom. But
mankind appear to me to be emerging from their trance. I am aware,
methinks, of a slow, gradual, silent change. In that belief I have
composed the following Poem.
I do not presume to enter into competition with our greatest
contemporary Poets. Yet I am unwilling to tread in the footsteps of
any who have preceded me. I have sought to avoid the imitation of any
style of language or versification peculiar to the original minds of
which it is the character; designing that, even if what I have
produced be worthless, it should still be properly my own. Nor have I
permitted any system relating to mere words to divert the attention of
the reader, from whatever interest I may have succeeded in creating,
to my own ingenuity in contriving to disgust them according to the
rules of criticism. I have simply clothed my thoughts in what appeared
to me the most obvious and appropriate language. A person familiar
with nature, and with the most celebrated productions of the human
mind, can scarcely err in following the instinct, with respect to
selection of language, produced by that familiarity.
There is an education peculiarly fitted for a Poet, without which
genius and sensibility can hardly fill the circle of their capacities.
No education, indeed, can entitle to this appellation a dull and
unobservant mind, or one, though neither dull nor unobservant, in
which the channels of communication between thought and expression
have been obstructed or closed. How far it is my fortune to belong to
either of the latter classes I cannot know. I aspire to be something
better. The circumstances of my accidental education have been
favourable to this ambition. I have been familiar from boyhood with
mountains and lakes and the sea, and the solitude of forests: Danger,
which sports upon the brink of precipices, has been my playmate.
the calamities of a social state according to the provisions of which
one man riots in luxury whilst another famishes for want of bread? Can
he who the day before was a trampled slave suddenly become
liberal-minded, forbearing, and independent? This is the consequence
of the habits of a state of society to be produced by resolute
perseverance and indefatigable hope, and long-suffering and
long-believing courage, and the systematic efforts of generations of
men of intellect and virtue. Such is the lesson which experience
teaches now. But, on the first reverses of hope in the progress of
French liberty, the sanguine eagerness for good overleaped the
solution of these questions, and for a time extinguished itself in the
unexpectedness of their result. Thus, many of the most ardent and
tender-hearted of the worshippers of public good have been morally
ruined by what a partial glimpse of the events they deplored appeared
to show as the melancholy desolation of all their cherished hopes.
Hence gloom and misanthropy have become the characteristics of the age
in which we live, the solace of a disappointment that unconsciously
finds relief only in the wilful exaggeration of its own despair. This
influence has tainted the literature of the age with the hopelessness
of the minds from which it flows. Metaphysics (I ought to except sir
W. Drummond's "Academical Questions"; a volume of very acute and
powerful metaphysical criticism. ), and inquiries into moral and
political science, have become little else than vain attempts to
revive exploded superstitions, or sophisms like those of Mr. Malthus
(It is remarkable, as a symptom of the revival of public hope, that
Mr. Malthus has assigned, in the later editions of his work, an
indefinite dominion to moral restraint over the principle of
population. This concession answers all the inferences from his
doctrine unfavourable to human improvement, and reduces the "Essay on
Population" to a commentary illustrative of the unanswerableness of
"Political Justice". ), calculated to lull the oppressors of mankind
into a security of everlasting triumph.
Our works of fiction and
poetry have been overshadowed by the same infectious gloom. But
mankind appear to me to be emerging from their trance. I am aware,
methinks, of a slow, gradual, silent change. In that belief I have
composed the following Poem.
I do not presume to enter into competition with our greatest
contemporary Poets. Yet I am unwilling to tread in the footsteps of
any who have preceded me. I have sought to avoid the imitation of any
style of language or versification peculiar to the original minds of
which it is the character; designing that, even if what I have
produced be worthless, it should still be properly my own. Nor have I
permitted any system relating to mere words to divert the attention of
the reader, from whatever interest I may have succeeded in creating,
to my own ingenuity in contriving to disgust them according to the
rules of criticism. I have simply clothed my thoughts in what appeared
to me the most obvious and appropriate language. A person familiar
with nature, and with the most celebrated productions of the human
mind, can scarcely err in following the instinct, with respect to
selection of language, produced by that familiarity.
There is an education peculiarly fitted for a Poet, without which
genius and sensibility can hardly fill the circle of their capacities.
No education, indeed, can entitle to this appellation a dull and
unobservant mind, or one, though neither dull nor unobservant, in
which the channels of communication between thought and expression
have been obstructed or closed. How far it is my fortune to belong to
either of the latter classes I cannot know. I aspire to be something
better. The circumstances of my accidental education have been
favourable to this ambition. I have been familiar from boyhood with
mountains and lakes and the sea, and the solitude of forests: Danger,
which sports upon the brink of precipices, has been my playmate.
