By Arthur
Hugh Clough. Oxford: Macpherson. London: Chapman and Hall.--1848_
The critic who should undertake to speak of all the poetry which
issues from the press of these present days, what is so called by
courtesy as well as that which may claim the title as of right, would
impose on himself a task demanding no little labor, and entailing no
little disgust and weariness. Nor is the trouble well repaid. More
profit will not accrue to him who studies, if the word can be used,
fifty of a certain class of versifiers, than to him who glances over
one: and, while a successful effort to warn such that poetry is not
their proper sphere, and that they must seek elsewhere for a vocation
to work out, might embolden a philanthropist to assume the position
of scare-crow, and drive away the unclean birds from the flowers and
the green leaves; on the other hand, the small results which appear
to have hitherto attended such endeavors are calculated rather to
induce those who have yet made, to relinquish them than to lead
others to follow in the same track. It is truly a disheartening task.
To the critic himself no good, though some amusement occasionally,
can be expected: to the criticised, good but rarely, for he is seldom
convinced, and annoyance and rancour almost of course; and, even in
those few cases where the voice crying "in the wilderness" produces
its effect, the one thistle that abandons the attempt at bearing figs
sees its neighbors still believing in their success, and soon has its
own place filled up.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119