Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Leigh Hunt's Relations with Byron, Shelley and Keats
John Stuart Mill · en
"The late Dr. Darwin, whose notion of poetical music, in common with
that of Goldsmith and others, was of the school of Pope, though his
taste was otherwise different, was perhaps the first, who by carrying
it to the extreme pitch of sameness, and ringing it affectedly in
one's ears, gave the public at large a suspicion that there was
something wrong in its nature. But of those who saw its deficiencies,
part had the ambition without the taste or attention requisite for
striking into a better path, and became eccentric in another extreme;
while others, who saw the folly of both, were content to keep the
beaten track and set a proper example to neither. By these appeals,
however, the public ear has been excited to expect something better;
and perhaps there was never a more favourable time than the present
for an attempt to bring back the real harmonies of the English
heroic, and to restore it to half the true principle of its music,
variety. I am not here joining the cry of those, who affect to
consider Pope as no poet at all. He is, I confess, in my judgment, at
a good distance from Dryden, and at an immeasurable one from such men
as Spenser and Milton; but if the author of the _Rape of the Lock_,
of _Eloisa to Abelard_, and of the _Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady_, is
no poet, then are fancy and feeling no properties belonging to
poetry. I am only considering his versification; and upon that point
I do not hesitate to say, that I regard him, not only as no master of
his art, but as a very indifferent practiser, and one whose
reputation will grow less and less, in proportion as the lovers of
poetry become intimate with his great predecessors, and with the
principles of musical beauty in general."[75]
The remarks on Pope close with the hope that the imitation of the best
work of Dryden, Milton and Spenser "might lead the poets of the present
age to that proper mixture of sweetness and strength--of modern finish and
ancient variety--from which Pope and his rhyming facilities have so long
withheld us."[76] Hunt closes with an appeal for the return to Italian
models, and says that Hayley, in his _Triumphs of Temper_ was "the
quickest of our late writers to point out the great superiority of the
Italian school over the French." He protests against the wide influence of
Boileau.[77]