Page:William Jerdan.pdf/6

Rh they are the effusions of passionate inspiration, lighted from such unlike sources, and not uncommon events, and that they must be attributed to the spirit which clothed them according to its own unreal dreams, and not to the apparent cause.

Whilst I state an interesting fact absolutely necessary for the true understanding of a destiny and vein of poetry, which at once attracted extraordinary attention, and will for ever stir responsive chords in human hearts, I would fain disarm criticism of its possible power to misinterpret what I have stated into personal application. Shakespeare, even in his Faery Land, drew exquisitely from the deepest fountains of Nature, and exhibited her illusions in the reflected enchantments of Oberon; but that She is far more potent than he. In the "Midsummer Night's Dream"—and what is a whole life but such a vision?—Helena says—

"Things base and vile, holding no quantitie, Love can transpose to forme and dignitie;" and the infatuation of Titania with a mere vulgar mortal, and with the head of an ass to boot, is thus readily accounted for.

The medium through which the Poet looks is not the atmosphere of reason, or of our accustomed day and night. Reason is overpowered by imagination; the visible objects of the clear day are electrically lighted with halos of splendour; and the obscure objects of night are distorted into shapes of amazement and terror. The super-Natural reigns, and exercises a dominion which could account for a hundred times greater marvels than I have candidly attempted to explain; and I have only once more to beg for a candid construction. With this philosophy of cause and effect, it is no vain folly in me to show how I became invested with such credulous perfections. Cherishing the