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

One reason, drawn from the sublimity of his being, stands ever nigh to bow the pliant neck of his Will under the lowly yoke. He must– because, according to the manner in which the All-Disposer saw good to order and adjust the constituents and conditions of our human life here below, in him who, of his own will and deed, lays himself under a bond to live by unearned bread, the Moral Soul dies.

SEWARD

The Poet is not – and he is – improvident. Nothing in his genius binds him to improvidence. Prudence may accompany sensibility – may accompany ample and soaring contemplations – may accompany creative thought – may accompany the diligent observation of human life and manners – may accompany profound insight into the human heart. These are chief constituents of the poetical mind, and have nothing in them that rejects Prudence.

BULLER

Neither do I believe that the more distinguished Poets generally have been culpably unforethinking —

"Vatis avarus

Non temere est animus!"

I hope so. I should be exceedingly sorry to think that the Bard were apt to give into the most odious of all vices. But the interval is wide from vicious negligence to vicious care: and I hope that somewhere between, and verging from the Golden Mean a little way towards the negligent extreme, might be the proper and earned place of the Poets.

TALBOYS

We must confess to some negligent tendencies in the Poet. The warm sympathies give advantage to designing beggars of different ranks – and are themselves betraying advisers. The law of the poetical mind to accept Impression, and let it have its way, if it overflow its legitimate channel of poetical study and art, and irregularly lay the conduct of life under water, may leave behind it something else than fertility. The dwelling in pleasure may make the narrow and exact cares of economy irksome. But why shall we expect that a man of high, clear, and strong mind shall not learn how to – cut his coat according to his cloth?

NORTH

I am afraid that the high faculties of a Poet threaten to endanger his vulgar welfare. The foundation of his poetical being and power, as you well have hinted, Talboys, is the free spontaneity of motion in his own mind – the surrendering of his whole spirit to influxes and self-impulses. The spontaneous movement allies his temperament to common passion, which founds upon this very characteristic. And you sometimes see, accordingly, that the Poet is a victim sacrificed for the benefit of the rest. Not that it need be so – for he has his own means of protection; but powers delicate, sensitive, profound, must walk perilously in a lapsed world.

SEWARD

Let it be allowed, then, to Dugald, that the poetical temperament is adverse to getting – and to keeping – money – and that a touching picture might be drawn of the conflicts of spirit between a Poet and his false position in a counting-house – or with "poverty's unconquerable bar."

NORTH

"This carelessness about the goods of fortune," says Mr Stewart, "is an infirmity very naturally resulting from their studies, and is only to be cured by years and experience, or by combination (very rare indeed) of poetical genius with a more than ordinary share of that 'homely endowment called common-sense.'" And wherefore any infirmity? Why not have portrayed rather – or at least kindly qualified the word – in winning hues, or in lofty shape – the delicious or magnanimous Unworldliness of the poetical character? That most ennobling, and most unostentatious quality, which dear and great Goddess – in lovingly tempering a soul that from its first inhalation of terrestrial air to the breath in which it escapes home, she intends to follow with her love – commingles in precious and perilous atoms that, in consecrating, destine to sorrow.

SEWARD

An infirmity? A charm – a grace – and a virtue! Alas! sir, a virtue too suitable to the golden age to be safe in ours.

TALBOYS

Ay, Seward, a virtue demanding the correction or the protection of some others, which the iron generations countenance or allow – such as Prudence, Justice, Affection for those whose welfare he unavoidably commixes with his own.

NORTH

Protection! It sometimes happily wins its protection from virtues that love and admiration rouse and arm in other breasts, in its favour – a reverent love – a pitying admiration.

TALBOYS

He quotes Horace as on his side of the question.

NORTH

A Poet whose name is amongst the most cited from antiquity, Virgil's illustrious lyrical brother, has rehearsed (not indeed to the lyre, but in the style which he offers for little better than versified prose) modestly and apologetically, the Praises of the Poet – his personal worth, and serviceable function amongst his fellow-men. Singular that in a few words of this passage, and indeed just those which gently allege the personal virtue of the poor bard, the Professor should have helped himself to a weapon for dealing upon that head his unkindest cut of all.

SEWARD

That flowing Epistle of Horace's to Augustus – which he gives good reason in excellent verse for keeping short, and turns out, notwithstanding, rather unreasonably long – if we look for its method, it rambles – if for the spirit, it is a delicate intercommunion between the least of the Courtiers, the Poet, and his imperial Patron, the Lord of Rome and of Rome's World.

TALBOYS

A facile, roving, and sketchy – partly historical and partly critical disquisition on Poetry chiefly Roman, presenting, with occasion the virtues and faults of the species – Poet.

BULLER

Let's hear it. In my day Horace was not much read at Oxford —

NORTH

By you – and other First Class Physical Men. Seward, spout it.

SEWARD

I will recite the passage.

"Hic error tamen, et levis hæc insania, quantas
Virtutes habeat, sic collige: vatis avarus
Non temere est animus; versus amat, hoc studet unum;
Detrimenta, fugas servorum, incendia ridet;
Non fraudem socio, puerove incogitat ullam
Pupillo; vivit siliquis et pane secundo.
Militiæ quamquam piger et malus, utilis urbi:
Si das hoc, parvis quoque rebus magna juvari.
Os tenerum pueri balbumque poeta figurat;
Torquet ab obscœnis jam nunc sermonibus aurem,
Mox etiam pectus præceptis format amicis,
Asperitatis et invidiae, corrector et iræ;
Recte facta refert; orientia tempora notis
Instruit exemplis, inopem solatur et ægrum.
Castis cum pueris ignara puella mariti
Disceret unde preces, vatem ni Musa dedisset?
Poscit opem chorus, et præsentia numina sentit;
Cælestes implorat aquas, docta prece blandus;
Avertit morbos, metuenda pericula pellit;
Impetrat et pacem, et locupletem frugibus annum.
Carmine Dî Superi placantur, carmine Manes."

BULLER

Oh! that passage. Why, I have had it by heart for half a hundred. We quote from it at Quarter Sessions.

TALBOYS