A SCHOOL OF POETS


in detail. First the new poets were all said to betray the
anti-social notions of Rousseau, his distempered sensibility,
his discontent with the existing constitution of society, his
paradoxical morality, and his perpetual hankering after
some unattainable state of voluptuous virtue and perfection.
At another point the principles of the new poets were said to
be Calvinistic in origin. Their simplicity and energy were
attributed to the influence of Kotzebue and Schiller, the
homeliness and harshness of their verse and language to
Cowper, their "innocence" to Ambrose Phillips, their
quaintness to Quarles and Donne. Jeffrey had no doubt
that from these models a complete art of poetry might be
collected, by which "the very gentlest" of his readers might
qualify themselves to compose a poem as correctly versified
as Thalaba and to deal out sentiment and description "with
all the sweetness of Lambe [sic], and all the magnificence
of Coleridge." Then quoting from Wordsworth's preface
the sentence about adapting to the uses of poetry " the
ordinary language of conversation in the lower and middle
classes of society," the critic declared the "most distin-
guishing symbol" of the whole group to be "an affectation
of great simplicity and familiarity of language" leading,
especially in subordinate parts of their work, to "low and
inelegant expressions," to the "bona fide rejection of art
altogether," and to a "bold use of . . . rude and negligent
expressions." This style was to be condemned because "it
is absurd to suppose that the author should make use of
the language of the vulgar to express the sentiments of the
refined." The different classes of society had different
characters and sentiments as well as different idioms, and
"the poor and vulgar may interest us, in poetry, by their
situation; but never . . . by any sentiments that are
peculiar to their condition, and still less by any language
that is characteristic of it." By these strictures, Jeffrey
confessed, he meant "no particular allusion to Mr. Southey."


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