ART. II.-CHARLES WESLEY AND HIS POETRY.

1. Life of Charles Wesley: comprising a Review of his Poetry, Sketches of the Rise and Progress of Methodism, with Notices of Contemporary Events and Characters. By Rev. THOMAS JACKSON. With a Portrait. 8vo., pp. 797. New-York: Lane & Scott. 1848.

2. Methodist Hymnology: comprehending Notices of the Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley. Showing the Origin of their Hymns in the Methodist Episcopal, Methodist Episcopal South, and Wesleyan Collections; also, of such other Hymns as are not Wesleyan, in the Methodist Episcopal Hymn-Book, and some Account of the Authors; with Critical and Historical Observations. By DAVID CREAMER. 12mo., pp. 470. NewYork: Published for the Author. 1848.

NOTHING proves the completeness of the movement called Methodism more than the varied talents of its leaders. The legislative sagacity of John Wesley found an able auxiliary in the poetic genius of his brother Charles. Divergent from them, yet owning a common impulse, Whitefield brought to the mighty labour the aid of his stirring oratory. Coke scoured the seas, and from England, as an island centre, carried this earnest Christianity to the Western and Eastern ends of the earth. And like a spirit that dwelt apart, as if rising to a purer than mortal sphere, Fletcher shed around him the consecration of his matchless holiness. The Legislator, the Poet, the Orator, the Missionary, the Saint, toiled together to spread this religion of faith and love. From such harmonious co-working of varied powers, the movement derived breadth, as well as energy.

We should do injustice to the memory of these noble men, did we not remember that, however each was gifted in his peculiar sphere, they all excelled in that indispensable part of their calling-preaching. Neither the administrative power of John Wesley, nor the poetic fervour of Charles, interfered with the toil of the Evangelist. Nor were their associates less eminent in this respect. They all lived to preach; at morning dawn they rose up to preach, and the task of every day was many sermons. And such preaching, too! the drowsy hum of the parish priest, drawling out what he never felt, was not for them; they were not afraid of that word which the regular clergy dreaded-enthusiasm.* To this charge they were

* Goldsmith, no enemy of the Established Church, surely, thus speaks of its ministers in 1759:-"A great part of their ignorance" (the common people's) "may be chiefly ascribed to their teachers, who, with the most gentleman-like serenity, deliver their cool discourses, and address the reason of men, who never reasoned in their lives. They are told of cause and effect, of beings self-existent, and the universal scale of beings. They are informed of the excellence of the Fangorian con

always ready to answer, in the language of Paul, "Whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us." Hence, their appeals were quick, pungent, sending the truth home to every man's conscience.

It would be gratifying to dwell upon the combined activity of these our fathers, and, tracing out that spirit of unity in which they laboured, to describe the part which each contributed to the great whole. They deserve to be viewed not only apart, but together. A perfect history of Methodism must group the chief actors, and show them in the light which they throw upon each other. At present, we have the simpler task of noticing Charles Wesley's poetry.

Charles Wesley was a poet, in all that makes the poet's soul. He was one of a family of whom nearly all were remarkably endowed with "the faculty divine;" his father, his brothers Samuel and John, as well as himself, have written hymns which men will "not willingly let die;" and his sister Mrs. Wright's "Lines to her Dying Child," have an irresistible tenderness and beauty. There is no reason to believe that Charles excelled the rest in the quality of his poetic gift, but he improved it by a more assiduous culture. In him, however, the stream of song seems to have been more copious; his mind was more entirely pervaded with the inspiring feeling; not full occasionally, but always. His were the thoughts "that voluntary move harmonious numbers;" and it was natural for him to chronicle in sweet harmonies the epochs of his life. His hymns are his biography, and need but connecting notes to form a complete history of his inward and outward being. The events of a busy life, his conversion, his preaching, his journeys and voyages, his persecutions, his family cares, his own and his brother's success in their life-long work, his love for living and departed friends, are all commemorated in his lofty verse.

In order to a full appreciation of his productions, we must first know the man; a man's work is the image of his spirit. Charles Wesley's character was eminently religious. His whole life was spent in seeking after God; he was ever reaching "forth unto those things which are before." He wrote to record his progress, and to encourage his brethren to the same earnest aims. Many of his hymns are poetic prayers. He did not look "through nature up to nature's God;" for with nature he had little to do: he could

troversy, and the absurdity of an intermediate state. The spruce preacher reads his lucubration without lifting his nose from the text, and never ventures to earn the shame of an enthusiast."-Bee, No. vii.

not be long delayed by the outward vesture, beautiful and varied though it be. The God he sought was the God revealed in Christ. The kingdom of heaven was the world to him. This was the nature he loved; here he ever dwelt; these visions of beauty, these groves immortal, these generous fruits, he could never cease to praise; and to dwell near them, if possible, "quite on the verge of heaven," was the only life with which he could be content.

Charles Wesley was thus emphatically the poet of religion. His eye glanced not "from heaven to earth," but " from earth to heaven." His topics are such as come home to the Christian heart; the power of faith, the joy in believing, the love of Christ, the communion with God, the hope of the resurrection, are themes which he most loves to celebrate. The general truths of religion are more or less included in all poetry; for poetry leads us evermore to the infinite and invisible. Never was there true bard whose thoughts did not "wander through eternity." But Charles Wesley believed the special verities of the Gospel. After the pain of an ascetic life, he had found that justification was by faith; his experience proved to him that they who are justified "have peace with God;" and that peace at last was his. Then commenced the career of preaching, which (save by his associates) is unparalleled in modern history. He had been led to that heart-religion, which is the best religion. His words were uttered with unction and power; there was no resisting the fervour with which the poet-preacher proclaimed the tidings of redemption. Equally wonderful was the effect of his experience on his poetry. From this time it became rapt, soaring, impassioned. Before, in his ascetic exhaustion and weariness of life. he had sung,

"Fain would I leave this earth below,

Of pain and sin, the dark abode;
Where shadowy joy, or solid wo,
Allures or tears me from my God;
Doubtful and insecure of bliss,
Since death alone confirms me his."

"Absent from thee, my exiled soul

Deep in a fleshy dungeon groans;

Around me clouds of darkness roll,

And labouring silence speaks my moans:

Come quickly, Lord! thy face display,

And look my darkness into day."

Hymnology, p. 96.

Now, commemorating the epoch when he had found the truth, he

holds quite another strain :

""Twas then my soul beheld from far

The glimm'ring of an orient star,

That pierced and cheer'd my nature's night:
Sweetly it dawn'd, and promised day,
Sorrow and sin it chased away,

And open'd into glorious light.

"With other eyes I now could see
The Father reconciled to me,
Jesus, the Just, had satisfied;
Jesus had made my suff'rings his,

Jesus was now my righteousness,

Jesus for me had lived and died."-P. 108.

From this stand-point must his poetry be judged; with the worldly mind he has nothing in common. They only who have deep religious feeling can understand what he says; for it is everywhere true, that we receive but what we give." We can hold no converse with a poet, unless we readily sympathize with the subject which forms the staple of his song; but then, if he be truly inspired, he will give us back our own with thousand-fold beauty and power. He who has not sighed for an escape from the power of sin, may be assured that much that Charles Wesley has written is not for him. On the artistic execution, however, the coldest critics may decide; and the flexible verse of Charles Wesley will not suffer if submitted to the severest tests. The facile movement everywhere shows a conscious power over the difficulties of the art. We do not say that he never wrote badly; his brother John speaks of some of his verses as "mean;"* and the very facility with which he wrote was often fatal to his success. But what of this? The strongest pinion will sometimes weary; even Milton has written hard, crabbed lines. Wesley's verse is not all perfect; but there is in it a sweetness, a grace, an energy, which will always rank him among the most skilful "builders of the lofty rhyme."

We are not ambitious of venturing a disquisition on the question, "What constitutes true poetry?" We would not step off of terra firma; and this is debatable ground-rather, enchanted land, skirted here and there with golden mists. The atmosphere is sweet and soft, but hazy withal; we cannot see as well as is our wont, for the gay illusions blind us. Perhaps, however, we may be able to descry some of the boundaries and outlines from afar.

"Not that poem," says Coleridge, "which we have read, but that to which we return with the greatest pleasure, possesses the genuine power, and claims the name of essential poetry." The Poem may be defined; for it is known by its object, (the voluntary prolongation

*Jackson's Life of C. Wesley, p. 771.

of emotion for the sake of pleasure,) or by its means, (metre, rhythm, suitable diction, and imagery harmonizing with the prevailing feeling;) but whether it contains poetry can only be learned by experience. Is it not thus that the Iliad and the Paradise Lost have been found to contain "essential poetry?" Doubtless the blind Mæonides found countrymen, in his own day, to admire his noble strains; and England's blind republican, who calmly measured his strength with the immortal Greek, obtained, in his poverty and suffering, "fit audience, though few." Not in their day, however, were their rank and fame decided; but as each rising age has felt the potency of their magic verse, it has confirmed the judgment of the past. Every century increases their suffrages and assures their eternity.

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In the same manner the many poets in all lands, who, though less aspiring in their aims, shine with a beauty of their own, receive their approval from the voice of general experience. One star differeth from another star in glory;" but even the faintest beams with a divine light. The bright lamps of heaven burn undimmed from age to age; it is the meteor that sparkles and disappears.

If "poetry is the blossom and fragrance of all human thoughts, passions, language," its grace and sweetness must be perennial. Those poems, whose beauties, after the fashion of the day is past, appear stale and withered, have no sap of life; or, to use Coleridge's thought first quoted, unless men can recur to a poem again and again, with unabated fondness, the outward form may be there, but no poetry. For in this way only can assurance be given that the poet has opened some fount of pure, elemental feeling.

"Poems," says Wordsworth, "cannot read themselves." The hymn, as a lyric poem, demands, for its full effect, the help of music. All poetry is allied to music; but in the lyric they are wedded together. What in poems of other species is an undertone of song, rises, in this, to a clear, distinct melody; and by this union of the two the pleasure is doubled;

"For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense."

The hymn, then, must be judged by its relation to music. Here is no occasion for "preamble sweet;" the feelings of the poet, already awakened, break forth at once. In his language there can be nothing tame; for the pulse of song is quick and active: the passion, though just, is full and well sustained. The images are tersely expressed, never pursued at length; for the inspiring emotion admits of no departure from itself.

The Christian hymn, being composed for congregational use,