MONTGOMERY'S "PELICAN ISLAND" 



bodies to grotesque dimensions ' ; and so on, with much 

 else of a similar character. See also the page beyond : 



From graves innumerable, punctures fine 

 In the close coral, capillary swarms 

 Of reptiles, horrent as Medusa's snakes, 

 Covered the bald-pate reef. 



And in fact nearly every idea in the twenty lines preced- 

 ing and following is false, although mixed with some 

 pretty sentiments. 



" Montgomery must have studied nature with little at- 

 tention not to have learned the first lesson, that beauty 

 marks every object, be it even the weed, shell, or polyp 

 of the deep ocean to which the eye may not penetrate. 

 It is the most marvellous feature of created objects, that 

 external beauty of form and coloring should have been 

 made consistent by the Author of Nature with all the 

 various ends to be accomplished. After living, I may 

 say, among the coral groves for two or three summers, 

 and deriving a high enjoyment from the scenes they pre- 

 sented, I have felt half provoked that the portrait of the 

 zoophyte should have been drawn in so hideous a style 

 by a prominent poet like Montgomery; and that his 

 verses should not only be quoted as ' charming ' by the 

 young ladies, but should be received as good enough 

 truth for the student of science. It was natural, there- 

 fore, that I should have expressed myself with some 

 strength in the brief allusion to the Pelican Island. On 

 pages 47 and beyond, and pages 69, etc., of the work 

 on Coral Islands, and also at more length in my Report on 

 Zoophytes, you will find some of the facts that come into 

 competition with the poet's conceptions. Facts are 

 God's conceptions, or expressions of His will and infinite 

 perfections. The poet may throw them into new com- 

 binations evoke new beauties and sublimity thereby 

 but when false to the principles at the basis of facts, he de- 

 grades himself and his subject. This sentiment will not 

 be esteemed a heresy of dry science by the true poet. I 

 would not be understood as passing a general condemna- 

 tion on the poetry of Montgomery ; there is so much to 

 be admired, that his errors are the more injurious if left 

 uncorrected." 



213 



