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intellect! his gigantic power! To use an author quoted by himself,
Tai trouvé souvent que la plupart des sectes ont raison dans une bonne
'
partie de ce qu'elles avancent, mais non pas en ce qu'elles nient,' and
to employ his own language, he has imprisoned his own conceptions by
the barrier he has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to
think that such a mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the
Nyctanthes, waste its perfume upon the night alone. In reading that
man's poetry, I tremble like one who stands upon a volcano, conscious
from the very darkness bursting from the crater, of the fire and the
light that are weltering below.
"What is poetry?--Poetry! that Proteus-like idea, with as many
appellations as the nine-titled Corcyra! 'Give me,' I demanded of
a scholar some time ago, 'give me a definition of poetry.'
'
Trèsvolontiers;' and he proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr.
Johnson, and overwhelmed me with a definition. Shade of the immortal
Shakespeare! I imagine to myself the scowl of your spiritual eye upon
the profanity of that scurrilous Ursa Major. Think of poetry, dear B-,
think of poetry, and then think of Dr. Samuel Johnson! Think of all that
is airy and fairy-like, and then of all that is hideous and unwieldy;
think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and then-and then think of the
'Tempest'--the 'Midsummer-Night's Dream'--Prospero Oberon--and Titania!
"A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for
its immediate object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having, for
its object, an indefinite instead of a definite pleasure, being
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