30 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



feelings of some of the parties concerned. On this principle, many- 

 feelings which are undoubtedly natural, are improper subjects of 

 poetry, and many situations, no less natural, incapable of being de- 

 scribed so as to produce the grand effect of poetical composition. 

 This, sir, I would apprehend, is reasonable, and founded on the con- 

 stitution of the human mind. There are a thousand occurrences 

 happening every day, which do not in the least interest an uncon- 

 cerned spectator, though they no doubt occasion various emotions 

 in the breast of those to whom they immediately relate. To de- 

 scribe these in poetry would be improper. Now, sir, I think that 

 in several cases you have fallen into this error. You have described 

 feelings with which I cannot sympathize, and situations in which I 

 take no interest. I know that I can relish your beauties, and that 

 makes me think that I can also perceive your faults. But in this 

 matter I have not trusted wholly to my own judgment, but heard 

 the sentiments of men whose feelings I admired, and whose under- 

 standing I respected. In a few cases, then, I think that even you 

 have failed to excite interest. In the poem entitled ' The Idiot Boy,' 

 your intention, as you inform us in your preface, was to trace the 

 maternal passion through its more subtle windings. This design is 

 no doubt accompanied with much difficulty, but, if properly execu- 

 ted, cannot fail of interesting the heart. But, sir, in my opinion, 

 the manner in which you have executed this plan has frustrated the 

 end you intended to produce by it; the affection of Betty Foy has 

 nothing in it to excite interest. It exhibits merely the effects of 

 that instinctive feeling inherent in the constitution of every animal. 

 The excessive fondness of the mother disgusts us, and prevents us 

 from sympathizing with her. We are unable to enter into her 

 feelings ; we cannot conceive ourselves actuated by the same feel- 

 ings, and consequently take little or no interest in her situation. 

 The object of her affection is indeed her son, and in that relation 

 much consists, but then he is represented as totally destitute of 

 any attachment towards her ; the state of his mind is represented 

 as perfectly deplorable, and, in short, to me it appears almost 

 unnatural that a person in a state of complete idiotism should 

 excite the warmest feelings of attachment in the breast even of his 

 mother. This much I know, that among all the people ever I 

 knew to have read this poem, I never met one who did not rise 

 rather displeased from the perusal of it, and the only cause I could 



