WHAT IS POETICAL DESCRIPTION? in draperies. Some are architects, ge- "Delicate shadow of an auburn curl, THE ancient sentence of Simonides, "that a picture is a silent poem, and a poem, a speaking picture," though it contains a seminary of truths, has been accessory to much delusion. Antitheses and epigrams are seldom true to the letter. Like metaphors and similes, they must not be made responsible for their consequences. They are signal rockets, which do their appointed office if they blaze and expire. It was only the lying spirits that could be hermetically sealed up in phials of crystal. Thus, in the present instance, it is true that painting, whereever it rises above mere mechanism, when it selects and combines according to a principle of grandeur or of beauty-or makes unmoving, insensate lines and colours, expressive of motion, action, passion, thought, or when in the representation of the simplest inanimate objects, it conveys to the soul of the beholder, the feeling, the unction of the artist's own, is essentially poetic. As far as the combinations of form and colour are concerned, painting, without words, does all that words could do, and a great deal more. But the poetry of language is not necessarily pictorial nor picturesque. Many of the finest passages suggest no distinct images to the inward eye, and scarce supply a hint to the painter. The man who affirmed that the sole use of poetry was to furnish subjects for pictures, spoke as wisely and professionally as Brindsley did, when he declared that God Almighty made rivers to supply canals with water. Yet a race of poets have existed, re-appearing from time to time in the decay or syncope of natural genius, who seem to have taken the pathetic bard of Cos at his word, and have neglected the peculiar functions of their own high art, to strain with elaborate idleness after the unattainable perfections of another. These word-painters have, by an old Italian writer, been quaintly called amatorial poets seemingly under the false and calumnious impression that love regards the outside only-that fancy" is begotten in the eyes." Few of these cockneys aspire to history-tain, that the highest poetry has no the florists are innumerable-many attempt portrait, but they excel chiefly Or, if the eye is ever to be relieved from duty, the nose is called in to supply its place—and we have "The fragrant breath of sylphs, unseen that lie In the low, lurking violet's pale blue eye, Of her true love, the darkling nightingale, Thus, the pretty creatures go it too 1 But, to be serious, it never can be the scope, the province, the final cause, and summum bonum of poetry, to do that indifferently which her mute sister does so much better, and more quietly. Judging from the soundest principles of philosophic criticism, exemplified in the works of the greatest and truest poetry, we main analogy whatever with painting-that imagery is not poetic in proportion as it flashes vividly on the fancy, but as it lays hold of the higher affections, or becomes the exponent of action or thought. It may be objected, that we have alluded to an obscure and frivolous swarm of poetasters, whose imbecilities could form no just exception to any theory or definition. But, in fact, if to paint with words, to make language picturesque, were the poet's characteristic occupation, the triflers we speak of must be the greatest and best of poets. But in the strictness of speech, words cannot paint, neither singly nor in combination. They appeal to the imagination solely through the memory; or if they have any direct influence on the fancy or the feelings, it is, and can be, only by their sound, and the tone and time of their utterance. Not singly; for surely the word horse is not a picture of a horse; and though it recall the form of that animal to any one who had seen him, it would afford not a hint of his lineaments to one who had not. Not in combination; because the combination of words necessarily implies what painting as necessarily excludes a progression or succession of time. description, therefore, however accurate, can be literally graphic, for an accurate description is successive enumeration of the co-existent parts of a given whole. The parts, therefore, appear before the imagination disjointedly; and, instead of the full, coinstaneous intuition, in which painting vies with nature, you have a tedious toil of memory to re-articulate the severed members, some or other of which are almost sure to be lost by the way. No Is it not possible, then, for the poet to flash a perfect image on the mind? Undoubtedly, and more; he can present the totality of many contemporaneous images, but not by the minute pencilling of the pictorialists,-not by mimicking the mastery of the limner, but by a magic all his own,-a power mighty as that by which the true artist makes a single moment to express a whole action-a single glance to constitute a character and symbolize a life. It is probable, indeed, that of fifty hearers every one will connect a different set of images with the same words; but if the words be instinct with true poesy, they will evoke in each a vivid, delightful, and harmonious intuition, in unison with the purpose, passion, moral of the strain. How is this to be effected? In various ways. Sometimes by a single word a single epithet-often by a metaphor-a well-selected circumstance occasionally by the very sound and movement of the measure. Sometimes a recounting of particulars, each seemingly insignificant, or mutually implied, but all, as it were, belonging to the same set, affect the imagination in a surprising manner. Crabbe is a great master in this kind, and so is Scherherazade. It is not that in reading them we go on casting up the items, and constructing a circle out of the segments. Any arc of the rainbow gives as full an idea of the rainbow as the whole; but the detail of splendour in one, of squalidness in the other, has the effect of refraction. The topaz enhances the glitter of the diamond. The one broken chair makes the three-legged table doubly desolate. But our meaning would be much elucidated by examples. Let us, then, examine how the mighty masters of the lyre have managed the matter. And first of the ancients. Of the Greek writers, from Homer to Theocritus, it may be observed in general, that their descriptions of natural scenery are for the most part vague, and rather impart the feeling of the scene than its visible aspect. If ever the distinctive marks of a locality are specified, it is to please the sense of beauty, as to authenticate the narrative. Places are often merely designated by their staple production -as corn, wine, olives, cattle, or pigeons. Some commentators insist strongly on the graphic power of these epithets. When, say they, Phthia is characterised as cloddy,(pak) — -or of a deep clay soil, do not all the stirring associations of vernal labour rush upon the soul? We see the long furrow, the slow team with stubborn necks depressed-the whistling ploughboy with the flashing goad-and the strong rustic with his sinewy arms incumbent on the shaft -the earth blackens as he urges on his profitable course-the ploughshares glitter on the distant slopeswhile the sower, girt with apron white, scatters the hopeful seed; "the harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene;" and "crows innumerous rise reluctant from their stolen feasts-the morning sunbeams silvering their sable wings. Or suppose the compound adjective to be πολύμηλος, the Homeric prænomen for a sheep-grazing country. What a pastoral in that little word! Dyer's fleece compressed into four syllables. The woolly bleaters whiten all the plain. But sheep in flat countries, Leicestershire, for instance, become the most uninteresting creatures in the world. Instead, therefore, of whitening the plain, let them crop the fragrant mountain-turf, which is perfectly picturesque. Thus might each particular epithet be dilated, and Homer proved the first of landscape painters. But we cannot believe that in these adjuncts Homer meant quite so much as some have fancied, or that he meant to address the eye at all-the epithets are compliments to the wealth and industry of the several districts. There is no verb or noun that may not, if you please, suggest a perfect picture. But for once that Homer or Hesiod designate a "natural object" by any visual circumstance, in twenty cases they allude to its civil use, or its religious association. Even so is the Holy Land described in Scripture as the land flowing with milk and honey. In descriptions of men and of animals the ancient writers are sometimes diffuse; and in those of artificial objects, as chariots, goblets, spears, helmets, &c., occasionally rather tedious. But in Homer, above all poets, the descriptions are truly poetical, and as it were musical, because they are, as much as possible, progressive. Nothing sits still to have its portrait taken. His heroes do not stand, like lay figures, in attitude, till he has sketched them off. The battle does not pause in an interesting situation, till the poet Cicerone has pointed out its sublime effects to some gaping admirer. His lions, bulls, and bears, are not copied from stuffed skins. But all is in action -every thing is doing-nothing reflected upon as done. It will be found, that in the choice of characteristic circumstances, he generally selects those which imply motion rather than rest; thus εινοσίφυλλον, trembling all with leaves-xopulaíos, clad in bickering mail, the word aloos is not to be rendered variegated or party-coloured, but expresses that vibratory inter change of hues which takes place when any polished substance moves quickly in a strong light; thus, the neck of the peacock is aloλos, his tail is ποίκιλος· πολυπίδακος "ιδης—Ida of many springs. So, too, he seldom tells us how a goddess or a warrior looks when dressed, but often introduces you to the toilet and shows them dressing. This, whether the effect of art or chance, prevents the action from standing still, and indicates the rapidity -the indefatigable fire of Homer's mind. The Iliad contains only one protracted piece of mere description-the far-famed shield. Had the shield been the work of any thing less than a god, or of Homer, we should have thought it rather too long. But it affords a curious instance of that irresistible propensity to keep moving, which made the first of martial poets the best. Forgetting or disdaining the limits of the sculptor's prerogative, and not over observant of the unity of time, he puts the chased figures into action, and makes them not seem to do, but go on doing the business they are supposed to represent. Instead, therefore, of describing Vulcan's workmanship, he, in fact, suggests subjects for the lame artificer to work upon, and that without any consideration of what, on earth at least, pictorial skill can, or cannot, express in metal. It was once the fashion for poets to give directions to painters, and very unreasonable orders they sometimes gave. Thus Walter: "Paint an east wind, and let it blow away The excuse of Holland for her navy's stay. " Of Blackmore, by his directions to Vanderbank, a tapestry weaver, probably shamed the rhymers out of their presumption in taking upon them to give directions to gentlemen whose occupation they did not understand. late, as in the sere days of the Roman empire, the poets rather take their cue from the painters; their descriptions are descriptions of pictures, not of reality. Pindar has been called a great master of the picturesque, and there is some ground for the designation. Perhaps, however, statuesque would be the fitter term, for his images are fixed, single, stately, admirable in contour and proportion, grand and distinct in outline, and placed to the ut most advantage, but little modified by each other, and destitute of the finer shades of the pencil. Nothing, how ever, can be more beautiful than the living apparition of Jason with his single sandal, his mantle of the leopard's hide, his manly beauty and right courteous bearing, contrasted with the shrinking terror of the guilty usurper, who beholds the fulfilment of the oracle, when the one-sandaled youth should appear. Pindar is, however, much less a poet than Homer, for he is a far greater egotist. This probably arises from his having no proper interest in his subjects. Being the appointed laureate of the prize-fighters, he was obliged to make odes in celebration of their victories; but, though gifted with much fancy, he was not one of the fancy, and evidently never attended the games he had to commemorate. That the exploits of the Athleté were not deemed too low for poetry, every ancient epic bears abundant testimony; the chances of the race, the struggles of the wrestlers, the resounding blows of the pugilists, might have been described with perfect propriety in the songs that hailed their success. Yet Pindar scarcely ever alludes to these things; he moralizes, and reflects, and talks of the gods, and the ancestral heroes of oracles, and sad and solemn judgments, of kingly virtues, and of himself. Wherever an opportunity occurs of enforcing a maxim, or telling a story, he siezes it with avidity, like a man who, being necessitated to entertain a dull company, wishes to stave off a disagreeable topic which must be mentioned after all. Having no impulse to hurry onward, he tarries wherever the prospect is pleasing-if a grand image present itself, he displays it in all its dimensions, pauses to look at it, and dilates on its sublimity. But the ancient fame of the Theban should not be measured by his surviving remnants. The great toe of Hercules was a far fairer sample of the entire statue than those boxing and horseracing ditties can be of the solemn, devout, intense genius of Pindar. Had his sacred hymns been extant, we might have known something of the religion of Greece. As it is, we are only acquainted with her mythology. The gods of Homer could only be the authors of selfish hopes or selfish fears. Pindar conceived that the immortal guardians of nations must command a conscientious awe and duty. He would have been a good Protestant if he had had it in his option. Alas! that the ungenial job-work to which, as he plainly enough here insinuates, his poverty but not his will consented, should be the sole abiding witness to his name! Blessed be the inventor of moveable types, whether he were John Faust or Louis Coster! May the black fingers of the printer's devil shine like the glorified hand of St Oswald! It is now impossible that Spenser should be only remembered by his Pastorals; that the Comedy of Errors should be the solitary relic of Shakspeare, or that Joan of Arc, and Thalaba, and Roderick, should perish, and Southey descend to posterity as the successor of Ensden, Cibber, and Pie. Could we believe that the Anacreontic verses were genuine products o the age of the Pisistratidæ, they would furnish a curious specimen of anticipation of style, and the earliest instance of what may be called descriptive analysis. He dissects his mistress, and seems to fall in love with each divisible part, as if she had been a polypus, and a new life began even in cutting. She could have ravished him "with one of her eyes." Yet a tender playfulness, a sportive melancholy, like a soft diffusive light, that blends the multitude of fanciful shapes in unity. Anacreon has had many imitators, most of whom have only imitated what is amiss in him. But in that which constitutes his prevailing charm he has no copartner but Horace. This charm is not in the descriptive powers of either, though Horace had as fine a perception of the humaner beauties of nature, and made as exquisite cabinet pictures as any poet that ever lived. But that wherein the Teian and the Roman lyrist are alike excellent, is the gentle sadness that tempers and purifies their voluptuousness. Mortality is ever on their thoughts-and though they use it but as an argument to gather the rose-buds ere they wither, it never goads them to the impious fierceness of reckless sensuality. In their mirth they mingle sighs not curses; their songs of love and wine blend not unmeetly with the far-off passing bell. The praise of priority we are disposed to award to Horace; for, independent of those philological considerations which have induced the 1839.] What is Poetical Description? soundest scholars of modern times to refer the extant Anacreon to a comparatively recent period, the melody, the marked, palpable, accentual rythm, the minute, gem-like imagery, the polite and artificial gallantry, above all, the modern cast of the mythology, savour not of a generation before Eschylus. Venus, and Cupid, and Bacchus, in our Anacreon, are mere personifications, playthings of fond fancy, pretty pictures drawn upon the air. In Sappho and Euripides, Aphrodite is a terrible demon, that works mightily in wrath and mysterious wilfulness-a being whose personal agony was the faith of young and old. Now, though mankind have sometimes burlesqued the supernatural powers in which devoutly they believed-as the Athenians murdered Socrates for deny. ing the same gods which they permitted Aristophanes to exhibit as buffoons and parasites-yet it will hardly be found that they trifle with them till the established creed is grown dim. Very good Catholics made game of the devil, but we never hear of their making a pet of him, or pitying him. In dramatic compositions, according to modern acceptation, pure descripTo introtion is scarcely admissible. duce a character, telling you the colour of his own hair, the height of his own stature, or the interpretation of his own physiognomy, were a palpable absurdity. Besides, in the full current of dramatic business, people cannot be supposed to be leisurely describing either themselves, or their neighbours, All the or the objects around them. necessary descriptions of an epic poem, in the drama, belong to the spectacle -the getting up of which is not the province of the poet, but of the scenepainter, costumier, and property-man. But the truth is, no drama was ever entirely made up of dramatic poetry; and in the Greek tragedy, over and above the large intermixture of lyrics which was essential to its constitution, the law of unity, the limited number of actors, the standing order against overt homicide, and, more than all, the close relationship between the player and the rhapsodist, the lineal descent of Eschylus from Homer, authorized and recommended a strong infusion of the epic. On the Greek stage but little could be done; much, therefore, was to be related. The attention was not so much rivetted to the present scene, as suspended in a vacuum between an obscure and threatening past, and a future that was to the past as the substance to its precursive shadow. A Greek tragedy may be compared to a battle-piece, painted by a skilful artist, who throws the strife and multitudinous rout into the obscurity of the back-ground, and, in the point of sight, disposes a few conspicuous figures-a wounded chieftain, a band of aged captains counselling, a herald big with tidings of the fight "A weeping widow seated on the ground, That stays her sobs to listen to the tale, And looks as if she long'd the tale were ended, That she might ease her swelling heart again." The first division, or prologos, comprises a statement of the case—an explanation of what has gone beforeand how things stand at present; and all that is necessary to "incense the pit into the plot." We know not any dramatist, not even Shakspeare, who had the privilege of commencing at the beginning of his story, who has always avoided the impropriety of making his dramatis person relate a number of things, of which nobody but the audience could well be ignorant. Sophocles manages the matter with great skill, and contrives to interweave the explanations with the action-to unfold the previous occurrences in the course of the play-or to elicit the needful information piecemeal, by apt and apparently undesigning questions. Euripides, on the other hand, troubles himself little about the concern-he generally begins with a long speech, which, like the prologue of the attendant spirit in Comus, may be taken either for a soliloquy or an address to the audience-similar to the Parabasis of the Greek comedy, when the chorus In one spoke to the theatre in the name and in behalf of the author. instance at least (the Hecuba), the explanatory personage is a ghost-an expedient imitated by Ben Jonson in his Catiline, where the prolocutor is the ghost of Sylla-and by that most tenebrose of all poets, Futhe Greville, Lord Brooke, one of whose tragic mysteries opens with "Enter a Ghost, one of the old kings of Ormus." The method of Euripides is inartificial, and did not escape censure and ridicule from his caustic contempo |