Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 68, No 420, October 1850

Our expectations were raised to a high pitch by such grandiloquent announcement: and we have found in the Essay – which is unscientific in form – has no method – makes no progress – and is throughout a jumble, – not one bold or original thought.

BULLER

Too much occupied with exposure of vulgar errors – and instances beneath the matter in hand. Great part too —extra thesin.

SEWARD

You expect great things from the title – the Idea of the Poet. You then see that Mr Stewart after all does not intend this, but only certain influences, moral and intellectual, of characteristic pursuits. This, if rightly and fully done, would have involved the Idea – and so a portraiture indirect and incidental – still the features and their proportion. Instead of the Idea, you find —

BULLER

I don't know what.

TALBOYS

The reader is made unhappy, first, by defect, or the absence of principal features – then by degradation, or the low contemplation – and by the general tenor.

NORTH

Why, perhaps, you had better return the Quarto to its shelf in the Van. Yet 'twould be a pity, too, to do so. I am for always keeping our engagements; and as we agreed to have a talk about the Section this evening, let us have a talk. Read away, Talboys – at the very next Paragraph.

TALBOYS

"The culture of Imagination does not diminish our interest in human life, but is extremely apt to inspire the mind with false conceptions of it. As this faculty derives its chief gratification from picturing to itself things more perfect than what exist, it has a tendency to exalt our expectations above the level of our present condition, and frequently produces a youth of enthusiastic hopes, while it stores up disappointment and disgust for maturer years. In general, it is the characteristic of a poetical mind to be sanguine in its prospects of futurity – a disposition extremely useful when seconded by great activity and industry, but which, when accompanied, as it too frequently is, with indolence, and with an overweening self-conceit, is the source of numberless misfortunes."

BULLER

Why, all this is —

NORTH

Stop. Read on, Talboys.

TALBOYS

"A thoughtlessness and imprudence with respect to the future, and a general imprudence in the conduct of life, has been often laid to the charge of Poets. Horace represents them as too much engrossed and intoxicated with their favourite pursuits to think of anything else —

BULLER

Leave out the quotation from old Flaccus – and go on.

TALBOYS

"This carelessness about the goods of fortune is an infirmity very naturally resulting from their studies, and is only to be cured by years and experience; or by a combination – very rare, indeed – of poetical genius with a more than ordinary share of that homely endowment COMMON SENSE."

BULLER

Speak louder – yet that might not be easy. I feel the want of an ear-trumpet, for you do drop your voice so at the end of sentences.

TALBOYS

"A few exceptions" —

BULLER

Stentor's alive again – oh! that I were head over ears in a bale of cotton.

TALBOYS

"A few exceptions to these observations may undoubtedly be found, but they are so very few, as, by their singularity, to confirm rather than weaken the general fact. In proof of this, we need only appeal to the sad details recorded by Dr Johnson in his Lives of the Poets."

BULLER

Skip – skip – skip —

SEWARD

Skip – skip – skip —

TALBOYS

May I, sir?

NORTH

You may.

TALBOYS

"Considered in its moral effects on the mind, one of the most unfortunate consequences to be apprehended from the cultivation of a poetical talent, is its tendency, by cherishing a puerile and irritable vanity, to weaken the force, and to impair the independence of character. Whoever limits his exertions to the gratification of others, whether by personal exhibition, as in the case of the actor and mimic, or by those kinds of literary composition which are calculated for no end but to please or to entertain, renders himself, in some measure, dependent on their caprices and humours."

BULLER

Skip – skip – skip —

TALBOYS

"In all the other departments of literature besides, to please is only a secondary object. It is the primary one of poetry. Hence that timidity of temper, and restless and unmanly desire of praise, and that dependence on the capricious applause of the multitude, which so often detract from the personal dignity of those whose productions do honour to human nature."

NORTH

I don't quite understand what Mr Stewart means here by "the culture of Imagination." I see three senses of the word. First, the cultivation by the study of written Poetry and the poetical arts, and of the poetry poured through the Universe – to those minds which receive without producing – a legitimate process. Secondly, the cultivation as in Edwin, Beattie's young Minstrel, the destined and self-destining Poet – a legitimate process. And thirdly, the self-indulgence of a mind which, more sensitive than volitive, more imaginative than intellectual, more wilful than lawful, more self-loving than others-loving – turns life into a long reverie – an illegitimate process. Which of these three classes of minds does Stewart speak of? Strong native imagination in a young powerful enthusiastic mind, tutored by poetical studies, but whom the Muse has not selected to the services of her shrine? Or the faculty as in the Poet-born self-tutored, and now rushing into his own predestined work? Or the soft-souled and indolent fainéant Dreamer of life? Three totally distinct subjects for the contemplation of the Philosopher, but that here seem to hover confusedly and at once before our Philosopher.

BULLER

By his chosen title of the Section, The POET, he was bound to speak of him according to Bacon, d'Alembert, and Aristotle.

NORTH