-- Joel Barlow, in his preface to the strangest epic composition ever issued from the press, "the Columbiad." It is true, both to the honour and the shame of poets, that in following the impulse, we might say the instinct, of their genius, when it has been possible to serve their country or their own interest, they have often availed themselves of the opportunity; but it is yet more obvious that poets write in the first place (if we may so express it), for the very love of the thing; and in the second, from the love of fame. Will any man on this side of the Atlantic believe that Virgil's "real object" in composing the Eneid, was "to increase the veneration of the people to a master?" Nay, would any man in his senses on either side of the Atlantic doubt that his "real object" was to immortalise his own name? and that, in choosing his theme, he suited it to the times and government under which he lived, because he judged that he should thus more immediately and effectually promote his own glory? Conscious of his powers, would Virgil have hazarded the reversion of renown that awaited him with posterity, for the favour of Augustus? No, not for the throne of Augustus. They know little of the character of poets of this class who thus judge of them. Had Virgil planned his Æneid as "a subject," he would never have executed it as a poet, for it is the spirit in which the offspring of imagination is conceived that becomes the life of it when produced into being. The dogma of Warburton is equally gratuitous, that "the Iliad" being a moral, "the Æneid” a political, and the "Paradise Lost" a religious poem, all improvement of the Epopée is at an end, since every subject fit for heroic verse may be considered in a moral, a political, or a religious point of view! If the three epics here named have indeed the three characteristics attributed to them, which may be doubted, — these are mere contingencies, or accidents of the stories respectively, and were very subordinate considerations with the poets themselves. Practical inferences might indeed be deduced from the most extravagant of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, but it was for the sake of the marvellous fable, not for the meagre moral, that one or another subject was chosen, and for the adorning of which that poet wearied, yet never exhausted, the resources of a fancy fertile beyond comparison in certain mechanical combinations of ideal imagery, as diverse and grotesque as the transmutations of bodies which they shadow forth. Allegorical Poetry. Yet, sometimes interwoven with the epic narrative and sometimes employed alone in the parabolic form, there has ever been a favourite species of poetry, in which the moral was avowedly the foundation, and the fable the superstructure. Most of the mythological traditions of Greece and Rome were, in their origin, of this kind; but such is the caprice of public taste, or perhaps the perversity of human nature, that the further these compositions departed from their original character, the more pleasing and popular they became. At length the poetical features alone were regarded, and the lessons inculcated were wilfully made as undecipherable as those which are at once preserved and hidden under the hieroglyphics of Egypt. The tales of chivalry and romance of the Italian poets were professedly of the same cast; but, in spite of the false pretences of the writers themselves (having the fear of the Inquisition before their eyes), the grave labours of their commentators to spiritualise the profligate pages of Ariosto, and wring out orthodox divinity from the purer fictions of Tasso, have succeeded no better than the ingenious experiments of the philosopher, who attempted to draw sunbeams from cucumbers. The noblest allegorical poem in our own language, - indeed, the noblest allegorical poem in the world,— is Spenser's "Faerie Queene;" at the same time, it is probable, that if it had not been allegorical at all, it would have been a far more felicitous and attractive work of imagination. In all allegories of length we grow dull as the story advances, and feel very little anxiety about the conclusion, except for its own sake, as the conclusion. Beautiful and diversified as the most perfect of these "unsubstantial pageants" may be, few readers, when they lay one down, are sorry that it is finished; and most minds, in recalling the pleasure of its perusal, dwell upon those scenes that nearest resemble reality, and ruminate on the rest as half-recollected images of a wild and exhausting dream, from which they are not sorry at being awakened to ordinary sights and sounds, however entranced they may have been while the illusion lasted. This is the inevitable effect of allegories, they never -- leave the impression of truth behind. In noble fictions, where truth, though not told in the letter, is maintained in the spirit, it is far otherwise. We rise from the narrative of the death of Hector, and the visit of Priam by night to the tent of Achilles, as from reading historical facts; our feelings are precisely the same as they would have been, were those circumstances authentic. In Milton's wonderful poem, though our judgment is never deceived into a belief of their having actually taken place, the conversations between Adam and Eve, and their interview with Raphael, the affable archangel, have all the warmth of life within, and all the daylight of reality about them. In avowed allegory we can rarely forget that the personages never did, and never could exist; nor that both personages and scenes represent something else, and not themselves. When we give over reading, all curiosity and interest cease; we can have no personal interest in such phantoms, and we suffer no regret when they are vanished; they came like shadows, and so they departed. If ever allegorical characters excite either sympathy or affection, it is when we lose the idea that they they are such; consequently, when the allegory itself is suspended with regard to them. Again, in allegory, the mind naturally expects wonders in continual succession, and is greatly disappointed if they do not occur so frequently as to destroy their own effect,-defeat the very purpose for which wonders are wrought. Where all is marvellous, nothing is so. Besides, with unbounded licence to do any thing or every thing, there is no sphere of invention so limited as this, to the most creative genius; the sources of mere fiction are soon exhausted, those of fact never. Hence there is a wearisome sameness and repulsive formality (like court etiquette) in most productions of this class. Who is not sick of queens and goddesses, in their palaces and temples, with their trains of attendants, their nymphs, and their worshippers, in almost every dream of the Spectator and Tatler, and the endless imitations of them since? Who does not turn with absolute contempt from the rings, and gems, and philtres, and caves, and genii of Eastern Tales (falsely so called), as from the trinkets of a toyshop, and the trumpery of a rareeshow? There is no long allegory in our literature at all comparable to Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress;" and one principal reason why this is the most delightful thing of the kind in the world, is, that, though "written under the similitude of a dream," there is very little of pure allegory in it, and few abstract qualities or passions are personified. From the very constitution of the latter, the reader almost certainly foresees what such typical beings will say, suffer, or do, according to the circumstances in which they are placed. The issue of every trial, of every contest, is known as soon as the action is commenced. The characters themselves are all necessarily imperfect, and, according to the law of their nature, must be in everlasting motion, or everlastingly at rest; always rejoicing, or always weeping; infallibly good, or incorrigibly bad. In short, the arms and legs of men, the wings and tails of animals—nay, the five senses |