“I received your little volume yesterday.* You may rest assured that you ascribed the condemnation in the Monthly Magazine to the true cause.
“There are abundant evidences of power in it;’
* This volume of poems was entitled “Night.” |
| Ætat. 45. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 335 |
“You will say that this opinion proceeds from the erroneous system which I have pursued in my own Writings, and which has prevented my poems from obtaining the same popularity as those of Lord Byron and Walter Scott. But look at those poets whose rank is established beyond all controversy. Look at the Homeric poems; at Virgil, Dante, Ariosto, Milton. Do not ask yourself what are the causes of the failure or success of your contemporaries; their failure or success is not determined yet,—a generation, an age, a century will not suffice to determine it. But see what it is by which those poets have rendered themselves immortal: who, after the lapse of centuries, are living and acting upon us still.
| 336 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 45. |
“I should not speak to you thus plainly of your fault,—the sin by which the angels fell,—if it were not for the great powers which are thus injured by misdirection. And it is for the sake of bearing testimony to those powers, and thereby endeavouring to lessen the effect which a rascally criticism may have produced upon your feelings, that I am now writing. That criticism may give you pain, because it may affect the minds of persons not very capable of forming an opinion for themselves, who may either be glad to be encouraged in despising your production, or grieved at seeing it condemned. But in any other point of view it is unworthy of a moment’s thought.
“You may do great things if you will cease to attempt so much; if you will learn to proportion your figures to your canvas. Cease to overlay your foregrounds with florid ornaments, and be persuaded that in a poem as well as in a picture there must both lights and shades; that the general effect can never be good unless the subordinate parts are kept down, and that the brilliancy of one part is brought out and heightened by the repose of the other. One word more.
“With your powers of thought and language, you need not
seek to produce effect by monstrous incidents or exaggerated characters. These
drams have been administered so often that they are beginning to lose their
effect. And it is to truth and nature that we must come at last. Trust to them,
and they will bear you through. You are now
| Ætat. 45. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 337 |
“But you must reverence your elders more, and be less eager for immediate applause.
“You will judge of the sincerity of my praise by the frankness of my censure.
“Farewell! And believe me,
