Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850.», sayfa 10

"None: I am still a private."

"And I a sous-lieutenant, just because I have been where powder was flashing! You can ride well, of course?"

"I defy the wildest Limousin to shake me in my saddle."

"And as a swordsman, what are you?"

"Gros Jean calls me his best pupil."

"Ah, true! you have Gros Jean here; the best 'sabreur' in France! And here you are – a horseman, and one of Gros Jean's 'eléves' – rotting away life in Nancy! Have you any friends in the service?"

"Not one."

"Not one! Nor relations, nor connections?"

"None. I am Irish by descent. My family are only French by one generation."

"Irish? Ah! that's lucky too," said he. "Our colonel is an Irishman. His name is Mahon. You're certain of getting your leave now. I'll present you to him to-morrow. We are to halt two days here, and before that is over, I hope you'll have made your last caracole in the riding-school of Nancy."

"But remember," cried I, "that although Irish by family, I have never been there. I know nothing of either the people or the language; and do not present me to the general as his countryman."

"I'll call you by your name, as a soldier of the 9th Hussars; and leave you to make out your claim as countrymen, if you please, together."

This course was now agreed upon, and after some further talking, my friend, refusing all my offers of a bed, coolly wrapped his cloak about him, and, with his head on the table, fell fast asleep, long before I had ceased thinking over his stories and his adventures in camp and battle-field.

CHAPTER VIII

"TRONCHON."

My duties in the riding-school were always over before mid-day, and as noon was the hour appointed by the young lieutenant to present me to his colonel, I was ready by that time, and anxiously awaiting his arrival. I had done my best to smarten up my uniform, and make all my accoutrements bright and glistening. My scabbard was polished like silver, the steel front on my shako shone like a mirror, and the tinsel lace of my jacket had undergone a process of scrubbing and cleaning that threatened its very existence. My smooth chin and beardless upper lip, however, gave me a degree of distress, that all other deficiencies failed to inflict: I can dare to say, that no mediæval gentleman's bald spot ever cost him one half the misery, as did my lack of mustache occasion me. "A hussar without beard, as well without spurs or sabretasche;" a tambour major without his staff, a cavalry charger without a tail, couldn't be more ridiculous: and there was that old sergeant of the riding-school, "Tronchon," with a beard that might have made a mattress! How the goods of this world are unequally distributed! thought I; still why might he not spare me a little – a very little would suffice – just enough to give the "air hussar" to my countenance. He's an excellent creature; the kindest old fellow in the world. I'm certain he'd not refuse me; to be sure the beard is a red one, and pretty much like bell-wire in consistence; no matter, better that than this girlish smooth chin I now wear.

Tronchon was spelling out the Moniteur's account of the Italian campaign as I entered his room, and found it excessively difficult to get back from the Alps and Apennines to the humble request I preferred.

"Poor fellows," muttered he, "four battles in seven days, without stores of any kind, or rations – almost without bread; and here comest thou, whining because thou hasn't a beard."

"If I were not a hussar – "

"Bah!" said he, interrupting, "what of that? Where should'st thou have had thy baptism of blood, boy? Art a child, nothing more."

"I shared my quarters last night with one, not older, Tronchon, and he was an officer, and had seen many a battle-field."

"I know that, too," said the veteran, with an expression of impatience, "that General Bonaparte will give every boy his epaulets, before an old and tried soldier."

"It was not Bonaparte. It was – "

"I care not who promoted the lad; the system is just the same with them all. It is no longer, 'Where have you served? what have you seen?' but, 'Can you read glibly? can you write faster than speak? have you learned to take towns upon paper, and attack a breast-work with a rule and a pair of compasses!' This is what they called 'la génie,' 'la génie!' ha! ha! ha!" cried he, laughing heartily; "that's the name old women used to give the devil when I was a boy."

It was with the greatest difficulty I could get him back from these disagreeable reminiscences to the object of my visit, and, even then, I could hardly persuade him that I was serious in asking the loan of a beard. The prayer of my petition being once understood, he discussed the project gravely enough; but to my surprise he was far more struck by the absurd figure he should cut with his diminished mane, than I with my mock mustache.

"There's not a child in Nancy won't laugh at me – they'll cry, 'There goes old Tronchon – he's like Klaber's charger, which the German cut the tail off to make a shako plume!'"

I assured him that he might as well pretend to miss one tree in the forest of "Fontainebleu" – that after furnishing a squadron like myself, his would be still the first beard in the Republic; and at last he yielded, and gave in.

Never did a little damsel of the nursery array her doll with more delighted looks, and gaze upon her handiwork with more self-satisfaction, than did old Tronchon survey me, as, with the aid of a little gum, he decorated my lip with a stiff line of his iron red beard.

"Diantre!" cried he, in ecstasy, "if thou ben't something like a man, after all. Who would have thought it would have made such a change? Thou might pass for one that saw real smoke and real fire, any day, lad. Ay! thou hast another look in thine eye, and another way to carry thy head, now! Trust me, thou'lt look a different fellow on the left of the squadron."

I began to think so, too, as I looked at myself in the small triangle of a looking-glass, which decorated Tronchon's wall, under a picture of Kellerman, his first captain. I fancied that the improvement was most decided. I thought that, bating a little over-ferocity, a something verging upon the cruel, I was about as perfect a type of the hussar as need be. My jacket seemed to fit tighter – my pelisse hung more jauntily – my shako sat more saucily on one side of my head – my sabre banged more proudly against my boot – my very spurs jangled with a pleasanter music – and all because a little hair bristled over my lip, and curled in two spiral flourishes across my cheek! I longed to see the effect of my changed appearance, as I walked down the "Place Carrière," or sauntered into the café where my comrades used to assemble. What will Mademoiselle Josephine say, thought I, as I ask for my "petit vèrre," caressing my mustache thus! Not a doubt of it, what a fan is to a woman, a beard is to a soldier! a something to fill up the pauses in conversation, by blandly smoothing with the finger, or fiercely curling at the point!

"And so thou art going to ask for thy grade, Maurice?" broke in Tronchon, after a long silence.

"Not at all. I am about to petition for employment upon active service. I don't seek promotion till I have deserved it."

"Better still, lad. I was eight years myself in the ranks before they gave me the stripe on my arm. Parbleu! the Germans had given me some three or four with the sabre before that time."

"Do you think they'll refuse me, Tronchon?"

"Not if thou go the right way about it, lad. Thou mustn't fancy it's like asking leave from the captain to spend the evening in a guinguette, or to go to the play with thy sweetheart. No, no, boy. It must be done 'en regle.' Thou'lt have to wait on the general at his quarters at four o'clock, when he 'receives,' as they call it. Thou'lt be there, mayhap, an hour, ay, two, or three belike, and after all, perhaps, won't see him that day at all! I was a week trying to catch Kellerman, and, at last, he only spoke to me going down stairs with his staff.

"'Eh, Tronchon, another bullet in thy old carcass; want a furlough to get strong again, eh?'

"'No, colonel; all sound this time. I want to be a sergeant – I'm twelve years and four months corporal.'

"'Slow work, too,' said he, laughing, 'ain't it, Charles?' and he pinched one of his young officers by the cheek. 'Let old Tronehon have his grade; and I say, my good fellow,' said he to me, 'don't come plaguing me any more about promotion, till I'm General of Division. You hear that?'

"Well, he's got his step since; but I never teased him after."

"And why so, Tronchon?" said I.

"I'll tell thee, lad," whispered he, in a low, confidential tone, as if imparting a secret well worth the hearing. "They can find fellows every day fit for lieutenants and chefs d'escadron. Parbleu! they meet with them in every café, in every 'billiard' you enter; but a sergeant, Maurice, one that drills his men on parade – can dress them like a wall – see that every kit is well packed, and every cartouch well filled – who knows every soul in his company as he knows the buckles of his own sword-belt – that's what one should not chance upon, in haste. It's easy enough to manœuvre the men, Maurice; but to make them, boy, to fashion the fellows so that they be like the pieces of a great machine, that's the real labor – that's soldiering, indeed."

"And you say I must write a petition, Tronchon?" said I, more anxious to bring him back to my own affairs, than listen to these speculations of his. "How shall I do it?"

"Sit down there, lad, and I'll tell thee. I've done the thing some scores of times, and know the words as well as I once knew my 'Pater.' Parbleu, I often wish I could remember that now, just to keep me from gloomy thoughts when I sit alone of an evening."

It was not a little to his astonishment, but still more to his delight, that I told the poor fellow I could help to refresh his memory, knowing, as I did, every word of the litanies by heart; and, accordingly, it was agreed on that I should impart religious instruction, in exchange for the secular knowledge he was conferring upon me.

"As for the petition," said Tronchon, seating himself opposite to me at the table, "it is soon done; for, mark me, lad, these things must always be short; if thou be long-winded, they put thee away, and tell some of the clerks to look after thee – and there's an end of it. Be brief, therefore, and next – be legible – write in a good, large round hand; just as, if thou wert speaking, thou wouldst talk with a fine, clear, distinct voice. Well, then, begin thus, 'Republic of France, one and indivisible!' Make a flourish round that, lad, as if it came freely from the pen. When a man writes 'France!' he should do it as he whirls his sabre round his head in a charge! Ay, just so."

"I'm ready, Tronchon, go on."

"'Mon General!' Nay, nay – General mustn't be as large as France – yes, that's better. 'The undersigned, whose certificates of service and conduct are herewith inclosed.'" "Stay, stop a moment, Tronchon; don't forget that I have got neither one or t'other." "No matter; I'll make thee out both. Where was I? Ay, 'herewith inclosed; and whose wounds, as the accompanying report will show – '"

"Wounds! I never received one."

"No matter, I'll – eh – what? Feu d'enfer! how stupid I am! What have I been thinking of? Why, boy, it was a sick-furlough I was about to ask for; the only kind of petition I have ever had to write in a life long."

"And I am asking for active service."

"Ha! That came without asking for in my case."

"Then, what's to be done, Tronchon? clearly, this won't do!"

He nodded sententiously an assent, and, after a moment's rumination, said,

"It strikes me, lad, there can be no need of begging for that which usually comes unlooked for; but if thou don't choose to wait for thy billet for t'other world, but must go and seek it, the best way will be to up and tell the general as much."

"That was exactly my intention."

"If he asks thee 'Canst ride?' just say, 'Old Tronchon taught me;' he'll be one of the young hands, indeed, if he don't know that name! And mind, lad, have no whims or caprices about whatever service he names thee for, even were't the infantry itself! It's a hard word, that! I know it well! but a man must make up his mind for any thing and every thing. Wear any coat, go any where, face any enemy thou'rt ordered, and have none of those new-fangled notions about this general, or that army. Be a good soldier, and a good comrade. Share thy kit and thy purse to the last sous, for it will not only be generous in thee, but that so long as thou hoardest not, thou'lt never be over eager for pillage. Mind these things, and with a stout heart and a sharp sabre, Maurice, 'tu ira loin.' Yes, I tell thee again, lad, 'tu ira loin'."

I give these three words as he said them, for they have rung in my ears throughout all my life long. In moments of gratified ambition, in the glorious triumph of success, they have sounded to me like the confirmed predictions of one who foresaw my elevation, in less prosperous hours. When fortune has looked dark and louring, they have been my comforter and support, telling me not to be downcast or depressed, that the season of sadness would soon pass away, and the road to fame and honor again open before me.

"You really think so, Tronchon? You think that I shall be something yet?'

"'Tu ira loin,' I say," repeated he emphatically, and with the air of an oracle who would not suffer further interrogation. I therefore shook his hand cordially, and set out to pay my visit to the general.

(To be continued.)

[From the London Eclectic Review.]

HAVE GREAT POETS BECOME IMPOSSIBLE? ¹⁸

"Poetry is declining – poetry is being extinguished – poetry is extinct. To talk of poetry now is eccentricity – to write it is absurdity – to publish it is moonstruck madness." So the changes are rung. Now, it is impossible to deny that what is called poetry has become a drug, a bore, and nuisance, and that the name "Poet," as commonly applied, is at present about the shabbiest in the literary calendar. But we are far from believing that poetry is extinct. We entertain, on the contrary, sanguine hopes of its near and glorious resurrection. Soon do we hope to hear those tones of high melody, which are now like the echoes of forgotten thunder:

"From land to land re-echoed solemnly,

Till silence become music."

We expect, about the very time, when the presumption against the revivication of poetry shall have attained the appearance of absolute certainty, to witness a Tenth Avatar of Genius – and to witness its effect, too, upon the sapient personages who had been predicting that it was forever departed.

But this, it seems, is "not a poetical age." For our parts, we know not what age has not been poetical – in what age have not existed all the elements of poetry, been developed all its passions, and been heard many of its tones. "Were the dark ages poetical?" it will be asked. Yes, for then, as now, there was pathos – there was passion – there were hatred, revenge, love, grief, despair, religion. Wherever there is the fear of death and of judgment, there is, and must be poetry – and when was that feeling more intensely developed than during that dim period? The victims of a spell are objects of poetical interest. Here was a strong spell, embracing a world. Was no arm during the dark ages bared aloft in defense of outraged innocence? Or was no head then covered with the snows of a hundred winters, through one midnight despair? Was the voice of prayer then stifled throughout Europe's hundred lands? Was the mighty heart of man – the throbbing of which is just poetry, then utterly silent? But it was not expressed! We maintain, on the contrary, that it was – expressed at the time, in part by monks, and scalds, and orators, and expressed afterward in the glad energy of the spring which human nature made from its trance, into new life and motion. The elements of poetry had been accumulating in secret. The renovation of letters merely opened a passage for what had been struggling for vent. What is Dante's work but a beautiful incarnation of the spirit of the Middle Ages? His passion is that of a sublimated Inquisitor. His "Inferno" is such a dream as might have been dreamed by a poet monk, whose body had been macerated by austerities, and whose spirit had been darkened by long broodings on the fate of the victims of perdition. It is the poetical part of the passion of those ages of darkness finding a full voice – an eternal echo. And it was not in vain that so deep had been the slumber, when such had been its visions. There is a grandeur about any passion when carried to excess. Superstition, therefore, became the inspiration of one of the greatest productions of the universe. Dante was needed precisely when he appeared. The precise quantity of poetical material to answer the ends of a great original poet was accumulated; and the mighty Florentine, when he rose, became the mouth-piece and oracle of his age and of its cognate ages past – the exact index of all that redeemed, animated, excited, or adorned them.

The crusades, too, were another proof that the slumber in which Europe had been buried was not absolutely and altogether that of stupor or death. They occurred after the noon of that period we usually denominate dark. But they were the realization of a dream which had often passed through the monkish heart – the embodiment, of a wish which had often brought tears into the eyes of genuine enthusiasts. There was, surely, as much sublimity in the first conception as in the execution. What indeed were the crusades, but the means of bringing to light, feelings, desires, passions, a lofty disinterested heroism, which the very depth of the former darkness had tended to foster and fire?

If the dark ages had thus their poetical tendencies, climbing toward a full poetic expression, surely no age need or can be destitute of theirs – need or can be called unpoetical. But the misfortune is, that men will not look at the essential poetry which is lying around them, and under their feet. They suppose their age to be unpoetical, merely because they grapple not with its great excitements, nor will venture to sail upon its "mighty stream of tendency." They overlook the volcano in the next mountain – while admiring or deploring those which have been extinct for centuries, or which are a thousand miles away. They are afraid that if they catch the spirit of their age in verse, they will give it a temporary stamp; and therefore they either abstain from writing, and take to abusing the age on which they have unluckily fallen, or else come to the same resolution after an unsuccessful attempt to revive faded stimulants. Dante embodied, for instance, his countrymen's rude conception of future punishment – and he did well. But our modern religious poets have never ventured to meddle with those moral aspects of the subject which have now so generally supplanted the material. They talk instead, with Pollok, of the "rocks of dark damnation," or outrage common sense by such barbarous mis-creations as he has sculptured on the gate of hell, and think they have written an "Inferno," or that, if they have failed, it is because their age is not poetical.

Indeed, the least poetry is sometimes written in the most poetical ages. Men, when acting poetry, have little time either to write or to read it. There was less poetry written in the age of Charles I., than in that which preceded it, and more poetry enacted. But the majority of men only listen to the reverberations of emotion in song. They sympathize not with poetry, but with poets. And, therefore, when a cluster of poets die, or are buried before they be dead, they chant dirges over the death of poetry – as if it ever did or ever could die! as if its roots, which are just the roots of the human soul, were perishable – as if, especially when a strong current of excitement was flowing, it were not plain, that there was a poetry which should, in due time, develop its own masters to record and prolong it forever. Surely, as long as the grass is green and the sky is blue, as long as man's heart is warm and woman's face is fair, poetry, like seed-time and harvest, like summer and winter shall not cease.

There was little poetry, some people think, about England's civil war, because the leader of one party was a red-nosed fanatic. They, for their part, cannot extract poetry from a red nose; but they are in raptures with Milton. Fools! but for that civil war, its high and solemn excitement, the deeds and daring of that red-nosed fanatic, would the "Paradise Lost" ever have been written, or written as it has been? That stupendous edifice of genius seems cemented by the blood of Naseby and of Marston Moor.

Such persons, too, see little that is poetical in the American struggle – no mighty romance in tumbling a few chests of tea into the Atlantic. Washington they think insipid; and because America has produced hitherto no great poet, its whole history they regard as a gigantic commonplace – thus ignoring the innumerable deeds of derring-do which distinguished that immortal contest – blinding their eyes to the "lines of empire" in the "infant face of that cradled Hercules," and the tremendous sprawlings of his nascent strength – and seeking to degrade those forests into whose depths a path for the sunbeams must be hewn, and where, lightning appears to enter trembling, and to withdraw in haste; forests which must one day drop down a poet, whose genius shall be worthy of their age, their vastitude, the beauty which they inclose, and the load of grandeur below which they bend.

Nor, to the vulgar eye, does there seem much poetry in the French Revolution, though it was the mightiest tide of human passion which ever boiled and raved: a great deal, doubtless, in Burke's "Reflections" – but none in the cry of a liberated people, which was heard in heaven – none in the fall of the Bastile – none in Danton's giant figure, nor in Charlotte Corday's homicide – nor in Madame Roland's scaffold speeches, immortal though they be as the stars of heaven – nor in the wild song of the six hundred Marseillese, marching northward "to die." The age of the French Revolution was proved to be a grand and spirit-stirring age by its after results – by bringing forth its genuine poet-children – its Byrons and Shelleys – but needed not this late demonstration of its power and tendencies.

Surely our age, too, abounds in the elements of poetical excitement, awaiting; only fit utterance. The harvest is rich and ripe – and nothing now is wanting but laborers to put in the sickle.

Special objections might indeed, and have been taken, to the poetical character of our time, which we may briefly dispose of before enumerating the qualities which a new and great poet, aspiring to be the Poet of the Age, must possess, and inquiring how far Mr. S. Yendys exhibits those qualities in this very remarkable first effort, "The Roman."

"It is a mechanical age," say some. To use Shakspeare's words, "he is a mechanical salt-butter rogue who says so." Men use more machines than formerly, but are not one whit more machines themselves. Was James Watt an automaton? Has the press become less an object of wonder or terror since it was worked by steam? How sublime was the stoppage of a mail as the index of rebellion. Luther's Bible was printed by a machine. The organ is a machine – and not the roar of a lion in a midnight forest is more sublime, or a fitter reply from earth to the thunder. The railway carriages of this mechanical age are the conductors of the fire of intellect and passion – and its steamboats may be loaded with thunderbolts, as well as with bullocks or yarn. The great American ship is but a machine; and yet how poetical it becomes, as it walks the waters of the summer sea, or wrestles, like a demon of kindred power, with the angry billows. Mechanism, indeed, may be called the short-hand of poetry, concentrating its force and facilitating its operations.

But this is an "age too late." So doubted Milton, while the shadow of Shakspeare had scarce left the earth, and while he himself was writing the greatest epic the world ever saw. And so any one may say, provided he does not mutilate or restrain his genius in consequence. We have reason to bless Providence that Milton did not act upon his hasty peradventure. But some will attempt to prove its truth, by saying that the field of poetry is limited – that the first cultivators will probably exhaust it, and that, in fact, a decline in poetry has been observed – the first poets being uniformly the best. But we deny that the field of poetry is limited. That is nature and the deep heart of man; or, more correctly, the field of poetry is human nature, and the external universe, multiplied indefinitely by the imagination. This, surely, is a wide enough territory. Where shall poetry, if sent forth like Noah's dove, fail to find a resting-place? Each new fact in the history of man and nature is a fact for it– suited to its purposes, and awaiting its consecration.

"The great writers have exhausted it." True, they have exhausted, speaking generally, the topics they have handled. Few will think of attempting the "Fall of Man" after Milton – and Dryden and Galt, alone, have dared, to their own disgrace, to burst within Shakspeare's magic circle. But the great poets have not verily occupied the entire field of poetry – have not counted all the beatings of the human heart – have not lighted on all those places whence poetry, like water from the smitten rock, rushes at the touch of genius – have not exhausted all the "riches fineless" which garnish the universe – nay, they have multiplied them infinitely, and shed on them a deeper radiance. The more poetry there is, the more there must be. A good criticism on a great poem becomes a poem itself. It is the essence of poetry to increase and multiply – to create an echo and shadow of its own power, even as the voice of the cataract summons the spirits of the wilderness to return it in thunder. As truly say that storms can exhaust the sky, as that poems can exhaust the blue dome of poesy. We doubt, too, the dictum that the earliest poets are uniformly the best. Who knows not that many prefer Eschylus to Homer; and many, Virgil to Lucretius; and many, Milton to Shakspeare; and that a nation sets Goethe above all men, save Shakspeare; and has not the toast been actually given, "To the two greatest of poets – Shakspeare and Byron?" To settle the endless questions connected with such a topic by any dogmatical assertion of the superiority of early poets, is obviously impossible.

But "the age will not now read poetry." True, it will not read whatever bears the name it will not read nursery themes; nor tenth-rate imitations of tenth-rate imitations of Byron, Scott, or Wordsworth; nor the effusions either of mystical cant, or of respectable commonplace; nor yet very willingly the study-sweepings of reputed men, who deem, in their complacency, that the world is gaping for the rinsings of their intellect. But it will read genuine poetry, if it be accommodated to the wants of the age, and if it be fairly brought before it. "Vain to cast pearls before swine!" Cast down the pearls before you call the men of the age swine. In truth, seldom had a true and new poet a fairer field, or the prospect of a wider favor, than at this very time. The age remembers that many of those poets it now delights to honor, were at first received with obloquy or neglect. It is not so likely to renew the disgraceful sin, since it recollects the disgraceful repentance. It is becoming wide awake, and is ready to recognize every symptom of original power. The reviews and literary journals are still, indeed, comparatively an unfair medium; but, by their multitude and their contradictions, have neutralized each other's power, and rendered the public less willing and less apt to be bullied or blackguarded out of its senses. Were Hazlitt alive now, and called, by any miserable scribbler in the "Athenæum" or "Spectator," a dunce, he could laugh in his face; instead of retiring as he did, perhaps hunger-bitten, to bleed out his heart's blood in secret. Were Shelley now called in "Blackwood" a madman, and Keats a mannikin, they would be as much disturbed by it as the moon at the baying of a Lapland wolf. The good old art, in short, of writing an author up or down, is dying hard, but dying fast; and the public is beginning to follow the strange new fashion of discarding its timid, or truculent, or too-much-seasoned tasters, and judging for itself. We have often imaged to ourselves the rapture with which a poet, of proper proportions and due culture, if writing in his age's spirit, would be received in an age when the works of Coleridge, and Wordsworth, and Keats, are so widely read and thoroughly appreciated. He would find it "all ear."

Great things, however, must be done by the man who cherishes this high ambition. He must not only be at once a genius and an artist, but his art and his genius must be proportioned, with chemical exactness, to each other. He must not only be a poet, but have a distinct mission and message, savoring of the prophetic – he must say as well as sing. He must use his poetic powers as wonders attesting the purpose for which he speaks – not as mere bravados of ostentatious power. He must, while feeling the beauty, the charm, and the meaning of mysticism, stand above it, on a clear and sun-lighted peak, and incline rather to the classical and masculine, than to the abstract and transcendental. His genius should be less epic and didactic, than lyrical and popular. He should be not so much the Homer as the Tyrtæus of this strange time. He should have sung over to himself the deep controversies of his age, and sought to reduce them into an unique and intelligible harmony. Into scales of doubt, equally balanced, he should be ready to throw his lyre, as a makeweight. Not a partisan either of the old or the new, he should seek to set in song the numerous points in which they agree, and strive to produce a glorious synthesis between them. He should stand (as on a broad platform) on the identity and eternity of all that is good and true – on the fact that "faiths never die, but are only translated" – on the fact that beauty physical and beauty moral are in heart the same; and that Christianity, as rightly understood, is at once the root and the flower of all truth – and, standing on this, should sing his fearless strains to the world. He should have a high idea of his art – counting it a lower inspiration, a sacred trust, a minor grace – a plant from a seed originally dropped out of the paradise of God! He should find in it a work, and not a recreation – an affair of life, not of moments of leisure. And while appealing, by his earnestness, his faith, his holiness, his genius, to the imagination, the heart, and the conscience of man, he should possess, or attain to, the mechanical ingenuity that can satisfy man's constructive understanding, the elegance that can please his sensuous taste, the fluency that can blend ease with instruction, and the music that can touch through the ear the inner springs of his being. Heart and genius, art and nature, sympathy with man and God, love of the beautiful apparition of the universe, and of that divine halo of Christianity which surrounds its head, must be united in our poet. He should conjoin Byron's energy – better controlled; Shelley's earnestness – better instructed; Keats's sensibility – guarded and armed; Wordsworth's Christianized love of Nature; and Coleridge's Christianized view of philosophy – to his own fancy, language, melody, and purpose; a lofty ideal of man the spirit, to a deep sympathy with man the worm, toiling, eating, drinking, struggling, falling, rising, and progressing, amidst his actual environments; and become the Magnus Apollo of our present age.