Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844

"God for sole vision! Cowley, there,
Whose active fancy debonaire
Drew straws like amber – foul to fair.

"And Burns, with pungent passionings
Set in his eyes. Deep lyric springs
Are of the fire-mount's issuings.

"And poor, proud Byron – sad as grave
And salt as life! forlornly brave,
And quivering with the dart he drave.

"And visionary Coleridge, who
Did sweep his thoughts as angels do
Their wings, with cadence up the Blue."

"Homer" we are not sure about; we can only hope that there may be people whom the picture will please. "Shakspeare" is good. "Æschylus" (Miss Barrett's favourite, too,) is treated very scurvily and very ungrammatically. What on earth are we to make of the words "the women swooned to see so awful" &c.? It is well known that no pregnant woman could look Æschylus in the face when the fit of inspiration was on him, without having cause to regret her indiscretion. But though delicacy might have dictated that this fact should be only barely hinted at, surely grammar need not have miscarried in the statement. The syntax of the passage will puzzle future commentators as much as some of his own corrupt choruses. "Euripides" promises well; but the expression, "Right in the classes," throws our intellect completely on its beam-ends; and as we cannot right it again, in order to take a second glance at the poet of Medea, we must pass on to the next. "Sophocles" will be acceptable to scholars. "Hesiod" is excellent. "Cared most for gods and bulls" is worth any money. "Pindar" and "Sappho" are but so so. The picture of "Theocritus" is very beautiful. There is nothing particularly felicitous in the sketch of "Aristophanes." How much more graphic is what Milton, in one of his prose works, says with respect to the "holy Chrysostom's" study of the same. Chrysostom, it seems, was a great student of Aristophanes. Some people might have been, and no doubt were, scandalized to think that so pious a father of the church should have made a bosom companion of so profane and virulent a wit: but says Milton, the holy father was quite right in poring over Aristophanes, for "he had the art to cleanse a scurrilous vehemence into the style of a rousing sermon." Put that into verse and it would ring well. We thank Miss Barrett for the graphic touch of Virgil's "brown bees," which certainly are better than his gods. "Lucretius" is very finely painted. "Ossian" looms large through the mist, but walk up to him, and the pyramid is but a cairn. "Spenser" and "Ariosto," with their locks blended in one, compose a very sweet picture. "Dante" we will not answer for. "Goethe" is a perfect enigma. What does the word "fell" mean? δεινος, we suppose – that is, "not to be trifled with." But surely it sounds very strange, although it may be true enough, to say that this "fellness" is occasioned by "inner entity." But perhaps the line has some deeper meaning, which we are unable to fathom. We have seen a better picture than that of Goethe in the hour of inspiration, when his forehead was like a precipice dim with drifting sleet. "Schiller" is well drawn; evidently from Thorwaldsen's gigantic statue of the poet. Miss Barrett paints "Milton" in his blindness as seeing all things in God. But Mallebranche had already taught that God is the "sole vision" of all of us; and therefore, if that theory be correct, she has failed to assign to the poet of the Fall any distinctive attribute which distinguishes him from other men. "Cowley" is well characterized. "Burns" ought to have been better. "Byron" pleases us. "Coleridge" has very considerable merit.

As a contrast to the preceding sketches of the true poets, (many of which, however, we have omitted, and we may also remark, in parenthesis, that none of our living poets are meddled with,) we now pass before the eyes of the reader a panorama of pretenders. We shall make no remarks on the expression of their features, leaving Miss Barrett to brand them as they deserve with her just scorn and indignation —

"One dull'd his eyeballs as they ached,
With Homer's forehead – though he lack'd
An inch of any! And one rack'd

"His lower lip with restless tooth —
As Pindar's rushing words forsooth
Were pent behind it. One, his smooth

"Pink cheeks, did rumple passionate,
Like Æschylus – and tried to prate
On trolling tongue, of fate and fate!

"One set her eyes like Sappho's – or
Any light woman's! one forbore
Like Dante, or any man as poor

"In mirth, to let a smile undo
His hard shut lips. And one, that drew
Sour humours from his mother, blew

"His sunken cheeks out to the size
Of most unnatural jollities,
Because Anacreon looked jest-wise.

"So with the rest. – It was a sight
For great world-laughter, as it might
For great world-wrath, with equal right.

"Out came a speaker from that crowd,
To speak for all – in sleek and proud
Exordial periods, while he bow'd

"His knee before the angel. – 'Thus,
O angel! who hast call'd for us,
We bring thee service emulous, —

"'Fit service from sufficient soul —
Hand-service, to receive world's dole —
Lip-service, in world's ear to roll

"'Adjusted concords – soft enow
To hear the winecups passing through,
And not too grave to spoil the show.

"'Thou, certes, when thou askest more,
O sapient angel! leanest o'er
The window-sill of metaphor.

"'To give our hearts up! fie! – That rage
Barbaric, antedates the age!
It is not done on any stage.

"'Because your scald or gleeman went
With seven or nine-string'd instrument
Upon his back – must ours be bent?

"'We are not pilgrims, by your leave,
No, nor yet martyrs! if we grieve,
It is to rhyme to … summer eve.

"'And if we labour, it shall be
As suiteth best with our degree,
In after-dinner reverie.'

"More yet that speaker would have said —
Poising between his smiles fair-fed,
Each separate phrase till finished:

"But all the foreheads of those born
And dead true poets flash'd with scorn
Betwixt the bay leaves round them worn —

"Ay, jetted such brave fire, that they,
The new-come, shrank and paled away,
Like leaden ashes when the day

"Strikes on the hearth! A spirit-blast,
A presence known by power, at last
Took them up mutely – they had pass'd!"