E260715A. Essay on Mind.
The Literary Gazette, 15 July 1826, p. 436.
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 1.
This poem is represented to be the production of a young lady, and if this be true, which we have no reason to doubt, it certainly displays a much more extraordinary degree of philosophical, we might say, metaphysical acumen, than could be expected either from the youth or sex of the writer. Her very preface quotes Tacitus, and alludes to Thales; and then delivers her own opinion upon ethical poetry in these words:—
“I am, nevertheless, aware how often it has been asserted that poetry is not a proper vehicle for abstract ideas. How far the assertion may be correct, is with me a matter of doubt. We do not deem the imaginative incompatible with the philosophic, for the name of Bacon is on our lips; then why should we expel the argumentative from the limits of the poetic? If indeed we consider Poetry as Plato considered her, when he banished her from his republic; or as Newton, when he termed her ‘a kind of ingenious nonsense;’ or as Locke, when he pronounced that ‘gaming and poetry went usually together;’ or as Boileau, when he boasted of being acquainted with two arts equally useful to mankind— ‘writing verses, and playing at skittles,’—we shall find no difficulty in assenting to this opinion. But while we behold in poetry the inspiritings to political feeling, the ‘monumentum are perennius’ of buried nations, we are loth to believe her unequal to the higher walks of intellect. When we behold the works of the great though erring Lucretius, the sublime Dante, the reasoning Pope; when we hear Quintillian acknowledge the submission due from philosophers to poets, and Gibbon declare Homer to be ‘the lawgiver, the theologian, the historian, and the philosopher of the ancients,’ we are unable to believe it. Poetry is the enthusiasm of the understanding, and, as Milton finely expresses it, there is ‘a high reason in her fancies.’”
Against this eloquent and somewhat too learned appeal we shall urge no objection, but content ourselves with offering a specimen of the fair author’s execution, in proof of the correctness of the doctrine she maintains, backed by so many high authorities.
Go, light a rushlight, ere the day is done,
And call its glimm’ring brighter than the sun!
Go, while the stars in midnight glory beam,
Prefer their cold reflection in the stream!
But be not that dull slave who only looks
On Reason “through the spectacles of books!”
Rather by Truth determine what is true,—
And reasoning works, through Reason’s medium, view;
For authors can’t monopolise her light:
’Tis your’s to read, as well as their’s to write.
To judge is yours!—then why submissive call,
“The master said so?”—’tis no rule at all!
Shall passive sufferance e’en to mind belong,
When right divine in man is human wrong?
Shall a high name a low idea enhance,
When all may fail, as some succeed—by chance?
Shall fix’d chimeras unfix’d reason shock?
And if Locke err, must thousands err with Locke?
Men! claim your charter, spurn th’ unjust controul,
And shake the bondage from the free-born soul!
Go walk the porticoes! and teach your youth
All names are bubbles, but the name of Truth!
If fools, by chance, attend to Wisdom’s rules,
’Tis no dishonour to be right with fools.
If human faults to Plato’s page belong,
Not e’en with Plato willingly go wrong.
But though the judging page declare it well
To love truth better than the lips which tell;
Yet ’twere an error, with injustice class’d,
T’ adore the former, and neglect the last.
As a composition, the most prominent fault in this performance is the frequent rhyme to mean words—nominatives, prepositions, &c. which fill the sentences well, but assuredly should never terminate lines in poetry. In other respects we see much to admire in the Essay on Mind, which often reminds us of Akenside, and not to the disadvantage of the writer. In the minor pieces there is (as in the whole volume) more of thought and a love of the muse, than of skilful versification. There is, therefore, much to be hoped, for where the material exists in such abundance, the art of builder may soon be acquired. All that we ask of the fair author is to address herself more to nature, and undress herself from the deep blue in which she is now attired.
Reviewed:
An Essay on Mind, with Other Poems (EBB), London: James Duncan, 1826.
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