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mently and ardently in figurative and metaphorical language. Now we know that by such natural tendency of the mind, all languages are full of figures and metaphors, expressive of analogies between qualities or states of mind and mere appearances of external nature. Accordingly, when language has been so formed, the mind under the influence of emotion has no longer these analogies to seek or find -but has them ready prepared for it in language. But we know that language itself is full of those causes of association or suggestion, which the mind obeys. Accordingly when the mind, under the influence of emotion, begins to clothe its emotion in words, its first analogical expressions do of themselves continue to suggest others, and thus to feed the emotion, whatever it may be, and to lead the mind on in a continued strain of what may be called poetical language. The first tendency of the mind under emotion is to transfuse itself into whatever it beholds or conceives, and when it does so not only in thought but in expression, then the very language which it employs for that purpose, having been originally formed by minds similarly situated or affected, begins to act as a new power upon its associations-and carries it on, even perhaps after the strength of the original emotion has ceased, into the wide field of analogy. If, agreeably to those views, the mind under emotion were to remain hushed and silent, and to confine itself to the one single emotion or passion that possessed it, then one of two effects would follow: either the passion would die away altogether, or it would become a sort of blind, brooding disease, in which all the other emotions and faculties of the soul were lost and swallowed up. For either the emotion would languish and die, being denied that food which, in other cases, the mind supplies to it from its excursive thoughts, or it would grow to such excess from being agitated entirely, and at all times, by a few deep, black, and gloomy thoughts, repelling from them every suggested thought which did not closely and grimly coalesce with it, that the mind would be kept in a condition approaching to that of insanity. Now this happens in nature. When, for example, grief is so intense as to prostrate the heart-as

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when a widow mother loses her only child-that grief, silent, and almost thoughtless, eats away like a cancer into her heart, and she dies-as many have died-of grief. Or quite an opposite effect may follow. After a while this silent, quiet, and deep grief sinks into resignation-religion tells her that it is impious-and accordingly all those trains of thought, which otherwise the mind would have suggested, being stopt, arrested, or at least modified, the heart is restored to itself. if an intermediate state of mind exists-one neither perfectly calmed by resignation, nor yet utterly abandoned to despair, then the passion of grief finds food for itself in every thing submitted to the eyes of the mourner; and mournful resemblances and analogies are found in all living things to the dead; a coffin, a procession, and a funeral are alike seen in the embers on the hearth and in the clouds of heaven.

But

It should be added, that the mind, when under the strong power of passion of various kinds, is also under the power of high Imagination. In such excited and elevated moods, it is impossible to set any bounds to the analogies which it will discern between its own feelings and all created nature. It then feels itself, as it were, the ruling spiritual essence of this scene of existence; and sees in the sky, the earth, and the ocean-its clouds, storms, mountains, and waves, only the reflection of its own power and greatness. Indeed, it is the theory of Mr Alison, that all beauty and sublimity in external nature are but the reflections of mental qualities, and that the pleasures of the imagination consist of those emotions which arise in us during our association of mental qualities with lifeless things. This theory, so beautifully illustrated by Mr Alison, is certainly, in a great measure, true; and therefore almost every word we use and every feeling which we express is a proof of the discernment by the mind, in a state of imagination, of analogies subsisting between the objects of the external world and the attributes of our moral and intellectual being.

We said that Mr Alison's theory is in a great measure true. The principle is true-but we suspect that there is something fallacious in its applica.

man.

tion. There is a popular opinion, or rather an unconsidered impression, that lights and sounds are beautiful and sublime in themselves, but this disappears before examination. A sound is or is not sublime, as it is, or is not apprehended to be thunder. That is association. But thunder itself would not be sublime, if there were no more than the intellectual knowledge of its physical cause-if there were not ideas of power, wrath, death, included in it. The union of these ideas with thunder is association. Those ideas by association, carry their own ideas with them. All fixed conjunction, therefore, of ideas with ideas, and of feelings with ideas, is the work of association-nor is it possible to dispute it. But when the advocates of this theory assert that trains of thought, or distinct personal recollections, are absolutely necessary to make up the emotion, then they assert what appears to us to be contradicted by the experience of every The impression is collective and immediate. We know that all our acquired perceptions are at first gained by long processes of association that the eye does not of itself see form or figure. When, therefore, we see a rose to be a rose, it may as well be said that we do so by a process of association, as that we see it to be beautiful by a process of association. In both cases-the perception of the rose, and the emotion of its beauty is equally instantaneousand independent of any process of association-though we know that both our perception of it, and our emotion could only have been formed originally by such a process. therefore, we cannot be said, by our instructed senses to perform any mental operation when we see an object to be round-so neither can we be said to perform any, when we feel an ob. ject to be beautiful. Voluntary associations may, doubtless, be added to our unreasoned and unwilled perception of beauty, as of a rose, or a human countenance—and these trains of thought, of which Mr Alison so finely speaks, will add to the emotion. But the emotion arises independently of them.

As,

We admire the beauty of a rose just as thoughtlessly as we see it to have a slender stalk, circular flower, and serrated leaves. While, there fore, we admit the truth of the prin

ciple of Mr Alison's theory, we seek to limit the application of it.

It is farther remarked by Dr Brown, in his Lecture on Resemblance, as a law of association, that, "though in a state of emotion, images are readily suggested, according to that principle of shadowy resemblance, it must be remembered as a rule which is to guide us in the use of figures, that in this case the mind seizes the analogy with almost unconscious comparison and pours it forth in its vigorous expression with the rapidity of inspiration. It does not dwell on the analogy beyond the moment-but is hurried on to new analogies, which its seizes and deserts in like manner." Now this observation is too general. In the first transport of any passion-at its acmé

during its unsubsiding turbulence— when the mind is scarcely in possession of itself, and obeys rather than commands, is led rather than leads—it does grasp and quit analogies thus suddenly; but though passion, blind and headlong at first, speaks in broken, disjointed, and prerupt discourse, starting from one image to anotheryet, when the mind has begun to understand and to enjoy its passion, it is then exceedingly apt to indulge in the steady, and, perhaps, triumphant contemplation of some one analogy which seems suited to it, to sustain and exalt it. The mind, then, acts under the combined power of passion and imagination-and, contemplating its own workings with a proud delight, will not dismiss hastily any image round which it can collect its feeling, and thereby give it a more permanent and vivid existence. A passion sometimes calms itself by this very means. The mind partakes of the dignity of the image which it contemplates-and thus the transport of emotion is subdued into what can now be called only an elevated and excited state of the imagination. This being the case, we ought to be cautious how we condemn any delineation of passion, on the grounds of its seeming to dwell too long, or with too much self-possession on one comparison, or image, or metaphor, or simile, -for, in many cases, the mind does consciously, and with pleasure, dwell on images which, in its first burst of passion, it grasped unconsciously, or with pain-and from which it then

flew off in restlessness and agitation. In Shakspeare this occurs constantly —and no greater metaphysician than Shakspeare everexhibited by examples the laws of passion and of thought.

We are resolved next summer to visit Iona again-and for the first time St Kilda. Collins was a Scotsmanso was Home.

"Unbounded is thy range; with varied skill

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Thy Muse may, like those feathery tribes which spring
From their rude rocks, extend her skirting wing
Round the moist marge of each cold Hebrid isle,
To that hoar pile which still its ruins shows:
In whose small vaults a Pigmy-folk is found,

Whose bones the delver with his spade upthrows,
And culls them, wondering, from the hallow'd ground!
Or thither, where beneath the show'ry west

The mighty kings of three fair realms are laid:
Once foes, perhaps, together now they rest,

No slaves revere them, and no wars invade :

Yet frequent now, at midnight solemn hour,

The rifted mounds their yawning cells unfold,
And forth the monarchs stalk with sovereign power,
In pageant robes, and wreath'd with sheeny gold,
And on their twilight tombs aerial council hold.

"But, oh, o'er all, forget not Kilda's race,

On whose bleak rocks, which brave the wasting tides,
Fair Nature's daughter, Virtue, yet abides.
Go! just, as they, their blameless manners trace!
Then to my ear transmit some gentle song,
Of those whose lives are yet sincere and plain,
Their bounded walks the rugged cliffs along,
And all their prospect but the wintery main.

With sparing temperance at the needful time
They drain the scented spring; or, hunger-prest,
Along th' Atlantic rock, undreading, climb,
And of its eggs despoil the solan's nest,

Thus blest in primal innocence they live,
Sufficed and happy with that frugal fare

Which tasteful toil and hourly danger give.
Hard is their shallow soil, and bleak and bare;
Nor ever vernal bee was heard to murmur there!

In strains, beautiful as thine own, wert thou lamented, O Bard of Pity, of Fancy, and of Grief! many years after all thy troubles had found rest, by the youthful Wordsworth.

REMEMBRANCE OF COLLINS.
COMPOSED UPON THE THAMES, NEAR
RICHMOND.

"Glide gently, thus for ever glide,
O Thames! that other bards may see
As lovely visions by thy side,
As now, fair river, come to me.
O glide, fair stream, for ever so,
Thy quiet soul on all bestowing,
Till all our minds for ever flow
As thy deep waters now are flowing.

"Vain thought! yet be as now thou art,
That in thy waters may be seen
The image of a poet's heart,
How bright, how solemn, how serene!
Such as did once the poet bless,
Who, murmuring here a later ditty,
Could find no refuge from distress
But in the milder grief of pity.

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Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCLXXX. FEBRUARY, 1839.

VOL. XLV.

NEW EDITION OF BEN JONSON.

BEN JONSON by Barry Cornwall! This is really too much. The most masculine of intellects edited by the most effeminate-one of the greatest of England's poets patronized by one of her smallest poetasters.

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE by Thomas Campbell.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER by Robert Southey.

These are felt to be fitting conjunctions of names and natures, and we rejoice to hail the advent of auspicious times, when the most illustrious of the living perform pious service to the most illustrious of the dead; when star is seen joining star, never to set, in the Great Constellation, Genius, from age to age in widening splendour that wanes not glorifying the Hea

vens.

But mercy on us! BEN JONSON, by Barry Cornwall? an eagle heralded by a wren ; or is it absolutely a tom-tit? What a MEMOIR!

ex

"The life of Ben Jonson,"-quoth he,-" has been repeatedly written; sometimes carelessly, and not unfrequently in a hostile spirit." Always carelessly, and always in a hostile spirit, till Gifford took it in hand, and then it had justice done it—not " treme justice," as this "feckless body" says-for these are words without meaning-but the character of the man and the genius of the poet were brought forward in the broad daylight of truth.

"Hereafter, the Memoirs of Mr Gifford must constitute the foundation for all arguments touching the poet's moral characVOL. XLV. NO. CCLXXX,

ter.

In regard to his literary pretensions (a question depending on opinion, rather than facts), something must be deducted, we think, from the amount of Jonson's merits, as summed up by Mr Gifford. The critic's indignation at the many calumnies propagated, during so many years, against his favourite author, led to his rendering him (so to speak) extreme justice.

"Mr Gifford's work commences with a motto, extracted from the eulogy of Cleve

land. And this, although not strictly a sample of the biography itself, announces to the reader the spirit in which it is written. Ben Jonson lived at the same time' with almost all our eminent dramatists who preceded the Commonwealth (including Shakspeare himself); and yet we find him characterised, in the eulogy above referred to, as

The Muses' fairest light in no dark time; The wonder of a learned age; the line

wit;

Which none can pass; the most proportioned
To Nature, the best judge of what was fit;
The deepest, plainest, HIGHEST, clearest pen,

&c.

phrases which, however sincerely bestowed, are, to say the least, injudicious in themselves; and, moreover, do not seem well

adapted to herald a critical narrative, in which strict testimony and the rigour of the game' are very fiercely insisted upon, at the hands of every opponent.

"We think that Mr Gifford has esti

mated Jonson too highly. But we shall venture an opinion on the old poet, before we conclude the present memoir; and, in speaking of his qualities as a writer, we may perhaps advert to those points in his moral character which his last biographer has so In the mean time anxiously defended. (and lest want of space or other circumstance should prevent this), we acknow

K

ledge, with pleasure, that Mr Gifford has successfully vindicated him from many charges of baseness and ingratitude, and has presented his hero to the public in a new and pleasing light. It is a pity that all this was not accomplished with less acerbity towards other critics, and accompanied with more moderate pretension on behalf of the

poet himself.'

True "that hereafter the memoirs of Mr Gifford must constitute the foundation for all arguments touching the poet's moral character." More than that they furnish all the arguments necessary for its vindication, and to those arguments Barry Cornwall could not add one efficient word. Yet he ought to have shown how Gif. ford scattered, in his ire, all the accumulated calumnies of ages, like chaff before the wind. "We may perhaps advert to those points in his moral character which his last biographer has anxiously defended. In the mean time (and lest want of space or other circumstances should prevent this)," &c. &c. Who ever heard before of a biographer prefacing his memoirs of a great man, with an avowal of the uncertainty of his finding room to advert to any disputed points in his moral character!

-

Mr Barry Cornwall is pleased to object to the motto of Mr Gifford's book which " announces to the reader the spirit in which it is written." He wisely says, the motto "is not strictly a sample of the biography itself;" and then pretending to quote it, leaves out the lines which Gifford printed in capitals, to show that they were, in his opinion, the most characteristic of the poet's powers.

"The voice most echoed by consenting
man,

THE SOUL WHICH ANSWERED BEST TO ALL
WELL SAID

BY OTHERS, AND WHICH MOST REQUITAL

MADE."

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ford's injudicious, excessive and undue eulogium, " it is small disparagement to Jonson to say that he stands second only to so wonderful a man (Shakhe must be held, in the drama, to ocspeare), and we think, on the whole, should always be assigned to origicupy the second place. The palm nality, and among the contemporaries original." This is no slight praise ! ! of Shakspeare, Jonson was the most considering that amongst these were Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher, Marston, Decker, Middleton, Massinger, Tourneur, Ford, and others. Yet he says, "We think Mr Gifford has estimated Jonson too highly." Has that critic placed him, then, on the same level with Shakspeare? Nohe has said over and over again, that he stands far below Shakspeare—and scarified all the malignant fools who falsely accused Ben of enviously aiming at rivalry with the Unreachable.

"We shall now enter upon our brief Memoir, premising that we are quite aware of the difficulties attending a task of this nature, and begging the reader to understand, that all the merit which we claim for ourselves, is the having spoken with sincerity on been the lot of many men to differ." a subject, upon which it has already No man should undertake a difficult task, without a well-founded assurance enough to "speak with sincerity;" that he can accomplish it. It is not he must speak with knowledge and power. Why should he be insincere? And what avails sincerity, if you show yourself to be a sumph? But there are no difficulties of any moment attending the "task of writing now a brief memoir of the Life and Writings of Ben Jonson. The materials,

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and far more than the materials, are in Gifford. Is the subject, on which "it has been the lot of many men to differ," the character of the man? Of that he declares, "with pleasure," that Gifford's vindication has been complete. Is it the genius of the poet? Upon that " it has not been the lot of many men to differ"-they have been unanimous in declaring it of the highest order. But Mr Cornwall has no rightful claim to the merit of sincerity-that virtue cannot exist along with prejudice and ignorance-and he has shewn himself very ignorant-and very prejudiced-equally regarding Ben Jonson's writings and his life.

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