MODERN BRITISH POETS.
“Poets—dwell on earth,
To clothe whate’er the soul admires and loves,
With language and with numbers.”
Nine muses were enough for one Greece, and nine poets are enough for one country, even in the nineteenth century. And these nine are “a sacred nine,” who, if not quite equal to Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, are fairly initiated masters of the wand and spell; and whose least moving incantation should have silenced that blasphemer, who dared to say, in the pages of Blackwood, that “all men, women, and children, are poets, saving only—those who write verses.”
First—There is Campbell—a poet; simply a poet—no philosopher. His forte is strong conception, a style free and bold; occasionally a passage is ill-finished, but the lights and shades are so happily distributed, the touch so masterly and vigorous, with such tact at knowing where to stop, that we must look for the faults in order to see them. There is little, if any, originality of thought; no profound meaning; no esoteric charm, which you cannot make your own on a first reading; yet we have all probably read Campbell many times. It is his manner which we admire; and in him we enjoy what most minds enjoy most, not new thoughts, new feelings, but recognition of
“What oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed.”
Thus, in Campbell’s best productions we are satisfied, not stimulated. “The Mariners of England” is just what it should
