Poetry as practised by the latest masters, is the art of expressing what
is too foolish, too profane, or too indecent to be expressed in any
other way. And thus, just as a consummate cook will prepare a most
delicate repast out of the most poor materials, so will the modern poet
concoct us a most popular poem from the weakest emotions, and the most
tiresome platitudes. The only difference is, that the cook would prefer
good materials if he could get them, whilst the modern poet will take
the bad from choice. As far, however, as the nature of materials goes,
those which the two artists work with are the same--_viz._, animals,
vegetables, and spirits. It was the practice of Shakespeare and other
earlier masters to make use of all these together, mixing them in
various proportions. But the moderns have found that it is better and
far easier to employ each separately. Thus Mr. Swinburne uses very
little else but animal matter in the composition of his dishes, which it
must be confessed are somewhat unwholesome in consequence: whilst the
late Mr. Wordsworth, on the contrary, confined himself almost
exclusively to the confection of primrose pudding, and flint soup,
flavoured with the lesser-celandine; and only now and then a beggar-boy
boiled down in it to give it a colour. The robins and drowned lambs
which he was wont to use, when an additional piquancy was needed, were
employed so sparingly that they did not destroy in the least the general
vegetable tone of his productions; and these form in consequence an
unimpeachable lenten diet. It is difficult to know what to say of Mr.
Tennyson, as the milk and water of which his books are composed chiefly,
make it almost impossible to discover what was the original nature of
the materials he has boiled down in it. Mr. Shelley, too, is perhaps
somewhat embarrassing to classify; as, though spirits are what he
affected most, he made use of a large amount of vegetable matter also.
We shall be probably not far wrong in describing his material as a kind
of methylated spirits; or pure psychic alcohol, strongly tinctured with
the barks of trees, and rendered below proof by a quantity of sea-water.
In this division of the poets, however, into animalists, spiritualists,
and vegetarians, we must not be discouraged by any such difficulties as
these; but must bear in mind that in whatever manner we may neatly
classify anything, the exceptions and special cases will always far
outnumber those to which our rule applies.
But in fact, at present, mere theory may be set entirely aside: for
although in the case of action, the making and adhering to a theory may
be the surest guide to inconsistency and absurdity, in poetry these
results can be obtained without such aid.
The following recipes, compiled from a careful analysis of the best
authors, will be found, we trust, efficient guides for the composition
of genuine poems. But the tyro must bear always in mind that there is no
royal road to anything, and that not even the most explicit directions
will make a poet all at once of even the most fatuous, the most
sentimental, or the most profane.