DARWIN.-CRABBE. That made them, an intruder on their joys, While we retrace, with memory's pointing wand The dangers we have 'scaped, the broken snare, O evenings worthy of the gods!_exclaim'd 199 ERASMUS DARWIN (1732-1802), a physician at Litchfield, gained a high but temporary reputation, by the publication of a poem entitled The Botanic Garden. which was given to the world in detached portions between the years 1781 and 1792. It consisted of an allegorical exposition of the Linnæan system of plants. The ingenuity and novelty of many of its personifications, and its brilliant and figurative language, caused this work at first to be looked on as the foundation of a new era in poetry; but its unvarying polish, and want of human interest, rapidly reduced its reputation. In 1793 Darwin published a poem ectitled Zoonomia, in which a fanciful view was taken of the laws of organic life. Some other works, in which similar attempts were made to give the charms of poetry and allegory to scientific subjects, appeared immediately before and after his death. He is now condemned to neglect, and per haps with justice; but his daring metaphor, and originality of manner, were certainly of some avail in reawakening the spirit of genuine poetry. Among others who, in the early part of the period under notice, departed from the style of the former age, was GEORGE CRABBE (1754-1832). He was in early life a surgeon and apothecary at the sea-port of Aldborough in Suffolk, but afterwards took clerical orders, and spent the greater part of his life in performing the duties of a country rector. This individual seems to have been originally less gifted with those powers of imagination which form a chief ingredient in poetry, than with the talent of making accurate and minute observations of the realities of life. It early occurred to him, that if the characters of rustic society were painted in their actual lineaments, without the elevation and embellishment which the poetry of all ages had given to them, the result would be something strikingly novel, and not destitute of a moral use. The Village, a poem in two books, published in 1782, was formed upon this plan; and its correct, though sometimes unseemly descriptions, made a strong impression upon the public mind. It was followed in 1785, by a short poem entitled The Newspaper, after which for many years Mr. Crabbe devoted himself to his clerical duties, and to theological study. In 1807, he re-appeared before the literary world with The Parish Register, a longer composition than either of the preceding, but devoted to the same unflattering views of rural life. The Borough (1810), Tales in Verse (1812), and Tales of the Hall (1819), were poetical works of considerable magnitude, published by Mr. Crabbe during his lifetime; and a third series of Tales appeared after his death. The literary character of Crabbe is that of a stern, but accurate delineator of human nature, in its less pleasing aspects and less happy circumstances: he loved to follow out the history of vice and misery in all their obscure windings, and to appal and melt his readers by the most startling pictures of woe. Care must be taken to keep in mind that his writings do not present a just view of human nature and human life on the whole; for a mistake of this kind might lead such of his readers as possess little knowledge of the world into a great mistake. With all his severity, he has much tenderness; and it must excite our surprise that this quality is more apparent in his later than in his earlier poems. His works are also distinguished throughout by very high moral aims. The next great ornament of our poetical literature was ROBERT BUrns (1759-1796), a native of Ayrshire, in Scotland, and reared to the laborious profession of a farmer. With the advantage of a plain education, and access to a few books, the mind of this highly-gifted individual received a degree of cultivation, much superior to what is attainable in the same grade of society in other countries; and, at an early age, he began to write in his vernacular language, verses respecting rural events and characters. Models, as far as he required any, he found in the poetry of Ramsay and Ferguson, and in that great body of national song, comic and sentimental, which the Scottish people have composed for themselves in the course of ages. A volume which he published in his native district in 1786, attracted the admiration of the learned and polished society of Edinburgh, and his reputation soon spread to England, and to all other countries where his diction was intelligible. The vigorous thought, the felicitous expression, the pathos, the passion, which characterise the poetry of Burns, have since established him as one of the British classics, or standard authors. During the latter years of his life, he employed his poetical talent chiefly in the composition of a series of songs, which, though they have the general fault of treating love with too little regard for its higher and more delicate emotions, are allowed to rank among the best compositions in that department of poetry. His latter years, as must be generally known, were clouded with poverty and its attendant distress, aggravated by passions, which, equally with his genius, formed a part of the extraordinary character assigned to him by nature. After his death, his works, including poems, songs, and letters, were published in an elegant collection by Dr. James Currie, of Liverpool, who added a biographical memoir, remarkable for judgment and good taste. In the same year with the first publication of Burns, an Ode to Superstition and other Poems, proceeded from the pen of SAMUEL ROGERS, a banker in London, who, by his subsequent writings, has attained an eminent place in literature. The Pleasures of Memory, by which he is best known, appeared in 1792; in polish and harmony it equals the best productions of the preceding period, while it contains pictures of sufficient freshness, and remarks and sentiments of sufficient animation, to place it amongst the best productions of the modern race of versifiers. The Voyage of Columbus (1812), Jacqueline, a Tale (1814), Human Life (1819), and Italy, a Poem (1822), are the other works of Mr. Rogers, who, unlike most of his contemporaries, seems to have been more studious of the quality than of the quantity of his productions. The power of touching the finer feelings, and of describing visible and mental objects with truth and effect, a happy choice of expression, and a melodious flow of verse, are the principal characteristics of this author. One of the most striking distinctions of the poets of the present, as contrasted with those of the past age, consists in the greater variety of their styles, both of thought and language: Cowper, Darwin, Crabbe, Burns, and Rogers, are all very different from each other, and he whom we are now to notice is not less peculiar. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, who was born at Cockermouth in 1770, and received an excellent education, retired at an early period of life to a cottage amidst the lakes of Cumberland, in order to cultivate his poetical talents. Two small volumes, published in 1793, containing poems entitled The Evening Walk, and Descriptive Sketches, were the first fruits of his genius; they remind the reader of the poetry of Goldsmith, though with a vein of feeling which is not to be found in that author. It was not until 1798, when Mr. Wordsworth published a volume entitled Lyrical Ballads, that he first displayed examples of that peculiar theory of poetry by which he has so much distinguished himself. Two volumes of Poems in 1807, The Excursion (1814), The White Doe of Rylstone (1815), and Sonnets (1820), are the chief productions of this writer which remain to be noticed; while it is known that many other works have been retained in manuscript, in consequence of a conviction on the part of the author, that the tastes and feelings of the readers of the present day are not capable of appreciating his poetry. The principal object which Mr. Wordsworth proposed to himself in his early poems, was to choose incidents and situations from ordinary life, and to relate or describe them in the language commonly used by men; at the same time, investing them with a certain colouring of the imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to the mind in an unusual way; and it was his aim further, and above all, to make these incidents WORDSWORTH. COLERIDGE. 203 and situations interesting, by tracing in them the primary laws of our nature. Thirty years have now shown, with sufficient clearness, that, as far as this theory was to be exemplified by verses in which ordinary events and thoughts are expressed in ordinary language, it was not qualified to give pleasure to any reader; such writings being in effect little better or more attractive than the common talk of the streets or fields. But though some of Mr. Wordsworth's compositions exhibit these features more exclusively than others, the greater number, especially of those which he wrote in later life, while generally referring to unimportant actions and situations, are so charged with the profound poetical feeling of the author, contain so much meditative thought, and are so enriched with the hues of a wonderful imagination, that, with minds of a certain order, there is no modern poet who stands higher, or bids so fairly for immortality. His Excursion, which is only part of a larger and unpublished work entitled The Recluse, is one of the noblest philosophical poems in our language; containing views at once comprehensive and simple, of man, nature, and society, and combining the finest sensibilities with the richest fancy. Nor can any poems more deeply touching be found, than 'The Fountain,' 'Ruth,' 'We are Seven,' 'The Complaint of the Indian,' and others of his minor pieces. He indeed possesses, in an eminent degree, the grand qualification of a poet, as described by himself a promptness greater than what is possessed by ordinary men, to think and feel without immediate excitement, and a greater power of expressing such thoughts and feelings as are produced in him in that manner.' And, with regard to his much controverted doctrine, the propriety of using common language, instead of the ornamental diction usually adopted for verse, it may be said that he is himself an involuntary breaker of his own rule; for there is no poet who oftener gives a charm to his writings by the use of some extraordinary, and yet appropriate phraseology. SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1773-1834), a native of Ottery St. Mary, in Devonshire, and educated in Christ's Hospital, London, and Jesus College, Cambridge, was one of those who formed what was called |
