436 



ON PATHOGNOMY. 



Hence the attractive affections are far more easy to be expressed by the 

 painter than by the poet, and fall immediately within the range of classical 

 sculpture, M^hich limits itself to the calm and the dignified, and has rarely 

 been known to wander into the regions of intensity, distortion, or violence. 



The poet, incapable of catching those transient lights and shades, that 

 unutterable play of feature into feature, by which the passions of this class 

 are chiefly distinguished from each other, is compelled to have recourse to 

 collateral imagery, complex personification, or allegorical accompaniments. 

 To this remark it will be difficult to find an exception in any writer. Let us 

 take Collins as an example, who is one of the best and boldest of our lyric 

 bards. His description of Hope, in his celebrated Ode to the Passions, is 

 exquisitely fine, but, after all, somewhat indefinite ; the whole of its figure 

 being that of a beautiful nymph, with fair eyes, an enchanting smile, and 

 wavy golden hair, accompanied with a lyre or some other instrument, for we 

 are not told what, which she strikes to a song of future or prospective pleasure, 

 amid the echo of surrounding and responsive rocks, and woods, and valleys. 



But tlipu, O Hope, with eyes so fair, 



What was thy deliglited measure 1 



Still it wiiisper'd promised pleasure, 

 And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail. 

 Still would her touch the strain prolong. 



And from the rocks, the woods, the vale, 

 Shecall'd on Eclio still through all the song. 



And where her sweetest theme she chose, 



A soft responsive voice was heard at every close, 

 And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair. 



The portrait is graceful, elegant, and animated ; but I may venture to say, 

 that the only real expression of the character of Hopes is derived, not from 

 the features of her person, but from the subject of her song, the whisper of 

 promised pleasure, the hail of distant scenes. I say not this, however, a» a 

 proof of the imperfection of the artists, but of the art itself. 



Let us try another description from the same captiva*.lng production. The 

 mellow horn having just been sounded and laid down by melancholy, thft 

 poet proceeds as follows : — 



But O how alter'd was its sprightlier tone 

 When CHEERFULNESS, a nymi»h of heaUW^iot hue, 

 Her bow across her shoulders slung, 

 Her buskins geinm'd with morning dew, 

 Blew an inspiring air, that dale and thichef. rung, 

 The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known. 

 The oak-crown'd sisters and their chasle-eyed queen, 

 Satyrs and sylvan boys were seen 

 Peeping from forth their alleyi green ; 

 Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear, 

 And Sport leap'd up, and seized his beechen spear. 



The remark I have just made will apply to the whole of this admirable grouj ., 

 than which a finer or more correct and accordant was never offered to the 

 world. The passion of cheerfulness gives, indeed, a specific expression and 

 character to the countenance that sufficiently identifies it to the beholder, and is 

 sufficiently capable of being seized and fixed by the painter ; but it is not calcu- 

 lated for poetry, and the only feature Mr. Collins has copied into his descrip- 

 tion is that of a healthy hue. But he has admirably atoned for this poverty of 

 his art by the picturesque scenery and associates with which he has surrounded 

 her, and in which the province of poetry has an inexhaustible mine of wealth: 

 and as much exceeds that of painting as painting exceeds poetry in the deli- 

 neation of specific features and attitudes. Cheerfulness, though not distin- 

 guishable by the features of her person, is sufficiently made known to us by 

 the company she keeps, by her attire, her manner, and her accoutrements. 



One of the finest pictures and sweetest groupings of this allegorical kind 

 to be met with in our own language, is contained in the following verses of 

 Dr. Darwin's Ode to May in his Botanic Garden. They are worthy ol 

 Anacreon or Pindar. 



