FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  
any ample records of themselves; of many not even a letter or fragment of memorials is preserved. None of Cowley's letters, a mode of composition in which he is said to have eminently excelled, have come down to us. Of Prior, Tickell, Thomson, Young, Dyer, Akenside, the Wartons, there are few of any importance known to be in existence. Those of Hayley, which Dr. J. Johnson has brought forward, are not of the interest which might have been expected. Mrs. Carter's are excellent, and many of Beattie's amusing and amiable: it had been well for Miss Seward if most of hers had been consigned to the flames. Those of Charlotte Smith it has not been thought prudent to give to the public. The greater part of those of Lord Byron, which Moore has hitherto put forth, had better have been spared: they are written in false taste, and are under a factitious character: in general, the prose style of poets is admirable;--it was not Lord Byron's excellence. We have no specimens of the prose of Collins: it is grievous that he did not execute his project of The History of the Revival of Literature, or of the Lives for the Biographia Britannica, which he undertook. Poets of research are, of all authors, best qualified to write biography with sagacity and eloquence; they see into the human heart, and detect its most secret movements; and if there be a class of literature more amusing and more instructive than another, it is well written biography. We have a few poets who have not possessed erudition; for genius will overcome all deficiencies of art and labour, such as Shakespeare, Chatterton, Burns, and Bloomfield: but it cannot be questioned that erudition is a mighty aid. Milton could never have been what he was without profound and laborious erudition. Another necessary knowledge is the knowledge of the human heart, which no industry and learning will give. It is an intuitive gift, which mainly depends on an acute and correct imagination, and a sympathetic sensibility of the human passions. Among the innumerable rich endowments of Shakespeare this was the first; it was the predominant brilliance of his knowledge which gave him correctness of description, sentiment, and observation, and clearness, force, and eloquence of language. Collins had only reached the age of twenty-six when his Odes were published: what inconceivable power would the maturity of age have given him? It is lamentable that he had no familiar friend and companion from
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   37   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61  
62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
knowledge
 

erudition

 

amusing

 

written

 
biography
 
eloquence
 

Shakespeare

 
Collins
 

Chatterton

 

maturity


labour

 

Milton

 
inconceivable
 

published

 
mighty
 
Bloomfield
 

questioned

 

deficiencies

 
friend
 

movements


literature

 

secret

 

detect

 
companion
 

familiar

 
lamentable
 

genius

 

overcome

 

possessed

 

instructive


sensibility

 

passions

 
observation
 

clearness

 

correct

 

imagination

 
sympathetic
 
innumerable
 

sentiment

 

correctness


brilliance

 

predominant

 

endowments

 

language

 
laborious
 

Another

 
twenty
 

profound

 
description
 

industry