XXII.

POETRY FOR THE PEOPLE.

THE predominant fact in the history of the nineteenth century thus far-and there is slight probability of the fact becoming a fiction-is unquestionably the importance and elevation of the mass-the People, by distinction—the tiersetat of France, the Commons of England. This fact is no less encouraging than novel. Before the era of the French Revolution, and our own antecedent to it, the People, as such, were considered with indifference, if not contempt. They had been regarded much in the same light as the Helots of Sparta, or the servile castes of Russia and Poland. Their rights were never mooted, for they had never been declared; they were supposed to exist only through the sufferance of the superior nobility and the will of the sovereign, and their lot was to toil, to suffer, and to pay taxes. This comprised their history, which might have been written in a very concise epitome. But modern science and modern philosophy-and, let us add, the silent influence of the true republican spirit of the Gospel-gave rise to a new state of things. Respect for the claims of human nature in the abstract, and of the individual in the concrete, begat sympathy for the former and reverence for the latter. Man, as such, was admitted by his brother as a brother,

and his name and title allowed to rank higher (as our admirable Channing wrote) than King or President. Humanity, in her naked magnificence, asserted her inherent privileges, which were as openly acknowledged. Rank, riches, and royal power, lost their hold on the popular imagination, and Europe saw, at that late date, the sovereign of an ancient house treated as an usurper and punished more ignominiously than even a usurper merited. Force of character, moral energy, intellectual resources-these became wealth in that trying hour, and the weak, the bigoted and wavering, naturally fell the necessary victims of the conqueror. Yet as evil generally precedes good, so out of this chaos of tumult and crime, emerged a benefit, the bow of promise, as from an atmosphere of storms and physical convulsion. This benefit we have already mentioned, and it is this peculiar feature in the character of the age, the present position and claims of the people, that has given birth to a new and striking application of poetry to life, which may be expressed in the phrase, Poetry for the People.

In its most comprehensive sense, we might call all poetry political; for all truly inspired verse is the outpouring of the Spirit of Freedom, and the Spirit of Humanity. A similar love of freedom animates both the Poet and the Patriot, and the latter acts out, what the other in song exhorts all men to act. Music, declamation, and all the refinements, both of art and learning, flourish in the most servile communities, and under the reign of despots; only true poetry and vigorous eloquence, (worth all the rest,) decay and wilt away, uncongenial plants in such a soil. All the master-bards, and the vast majority of lesser lights, (so they burn with original lustre,) of necessity are eulogists of

freedom in the abstract, as of the Law of Right, the Law of Truth, and the reverence of the Beautiful; for, without these, what were poetry but a mere heap of fables and false devices. But that generous code of criticism which followed the trained system of the French classicality, has taught us the infinite worth of Poetry, as a mine of the highest truth and the deepest wisdom, apart from its beneficial moral tendency, and quite separate from its claims upon us as the sweetest of charmers, "most musical," though by no means "most melancholy." Of all writers, the Poets are the most moral, the most metaphysical, and we may add, the most political.

As philosophers, (for the Poet is the right popular philosopher,) they cannot avoid the propagation of free principles and liberal ideas; if only on the shallow grounds of diplomatic expediency; and this applies with greater force in a free country and an enlightened epoch. As humanitarians, (since the Poet by his vocation is a philanthropist,) the Poets feel as no other class of men can feel; for the whole circle of human necessities, from the lowest animal desires, up to the most elevated spiritual impulses, is included in their sympathies; and, those, too, of the most delicate and intelligent description. The Poet is the brother of his fellow-men and " Creation's heir," with the same fortunes and a similar destiny.

The genuine Poet, then, is a patriot; sometimes, he is a bigot, a satirist, a partizan. Personal gratitude has inclined many a man of political genius to embrace a particular side; the prospect of future fame, or a desire to secure present patronage, has been the motive with many for enlisting under the banners and swearing by the shibboleth of party. The Muse is, sometimes, seen in a political livery;

though Freedom has been, not inappropriately, styled "the Mountain Nymph." Yet there have been, and still are, authors who unite the poet and the partizan of admirable genius in the former capacity, and of unquestioned integrity in the last. These have been the noblest defenders of true independence, "Lords of the lion heart and eagle eye," as Smollett, a writer of this rare stamp, styles them.

Poetry always conveys the truest and most striking features in the countenance of the time. The most accurate painter of men cannot fail so to portray their master passions, reacting upon contemporary opinions and current modes of thought and action, but that he must needs also depict the contemporary influences by which these, too, are moulded; and these influences combine what we popularly describe as the Spirit of the Age. The patriarchal period, the splendid hierarchies of the ancient and modern world, chivalry, classic heroism, popular mythology, national traditions, legendary superstitions, the maxims even of the court and the mart, all point to peculiar tendencies in the times wherein they flourished. The present epoch of literature and popular sentiment must have its mouth-piece also, and this it finds in Poetry for the People.

At this phrase, let not your fine scholar nor your fastidious gentleman smile; the people have their political theories and representations; they have their magazines, encyclopedias, lectures and science; they have their theologians and newspapers, and the active brain of the wise legislator. Universal in its native region, Poetry is restricted within the boundaries of no caste or condition of society, but ranges at will through every department of life, and every grade of rank, till (as at present) it finds its sweet home in the breast of the simple-hearted though humble, and the true

For

lovers of the divine art, among the popular body. them, too, the modern historian ransacks the archives of the past to ascertain the starting-point of modern liberty. For them, he turns over the fascinating pages of cowled friars, or the lively chronicles of the courtly historiographer, illuminated no less by the pictures of genius than the colors of the artist, to be enabled to put his finger on precedents of priceless value and concessions of royal bounty, or to paint a Saxon freedman, a Norman knight, a German count, a Romish cardinal, a French king, a Spanish emperor; to note the democracy of the Romish Church, the republican character of commercial cities, the origin of parliaments and congresses, and to infer, from historical deductions, the dawnings of an intellectual and religious revolution long prior to the appearance of Luther.

The writer of prose fiction, (the most popular form of contemporary literature,) addresses himself to the people. Let him address scholars, like Lamb or Landor, and he is read by few else, even if he possesses a degree of mental power that bursts beyond any confined limits of conventionalism or taste. Let him, however, write of the past with reverential retrospection, or of the future with gladness and joyful hope; let him present a faithful mirror of the present time, in his pages, and he is read by all. The substance of his work may happen to be grounded on history or real life, on land or sea, in the walks of busy, or the picturesque variety of common life; impressed with this spirit, it must. be popular, for it is, in effect, a history of the people.

Still further to exemplify this universal prevalent popular tendency in all our literature, at the present day, take the most abstract and (as vulgarly conceived) the least entertaining department of it, speculative philosophy, ethical