MECHANICS' INSTITUTE READINGS.

North Otago Times, 3 August 1865, Page 3

MECHANICS' INSTITUTE READINGS.

The second of the series of lectures and readings in aid of the Mechanics' Institute, was delivered on Friday evening last by James Ashcrof b, Esq. He chose for his subject— Selections from the Modern Poets. There was a larger audience present than at the opening reading. Mr Ashcroft prefaced his reading with a few choice remarks on the subject of poetry, which appeared to be highly appreciated by those pi esent. He said it was not his iuten lion to attempt anything like a lecture on poetry, nor did he expect in the few selections he had made to present any adequate representation of the wonderful vaiietiesof form and beauty of which poetical compositions were capable, because even although he confined himself chiefly to the consideration of thb works of living poets, it would take a longer space of time and require an abler treatment of the subject than he could give, successfully to perform such a task. He remarked also that his audience would be at a disadvantage, something similar to that of an individual who views beautiful scenery from a railway carriage in rapid motion, as it was impossible to notice, in a short space of time, all the beauties, or even to apprehend the most striking features in the compositions which he would b3 able to bring before them. Poetical arb } ielded its best effects only to study and close attention, and as it has often been remarked, that it is not always those pictures, or those scenes, or those individuals, which please at first sight that are the most truly beautiful, so it is true of poetry that some of the finest and noblest compositions of poetical art only yield their beauties Up to the close observer and student"; or to use another mode of expression, inasmuch as eloquence had been said to reside in the audience rather than in the speaker, and it requires a man's ear should be in tune, in order to his being charmed with the most exquisite music ; it could scarcely be expected that the higher forms of art should produce on a casual observer their fullest effects. He confessed that it was a task which passed his ability to give even a satisfactoiy definition of poetiy. It was far easier to say what it was not— than what it was -inasmuch as the human mind knows no defined limits, and as the imagination carries him beyondthe present, and hegraspsatthe infinite, woids are at best feeble modes of expression, and he ever strives for new forms of speech in which to express his noblest aspirations ; and though the words may fail after all fully to express the though* s, they suggest ideas, and like the fall of a pebble in the water, the ciicles mound widen and widen as they recede from the centre, (applause ) It was therefore not so much what a poem expressed as what it suggested that gave it its value, and simplicity was no bar to the highest effects ; indeed it often enhanced them. Poetry did not conbist merely or chiefly in a statement of facts —in the recoi d of that which was mathematically true, or in establishing by strict rules of logic any proposition, after the style of the multiplication table or Coke-upon-Lyttelton done into verse, but in associating with actual fact or with possible fact, ideas such as can onlv be supplied by the imagination, which eild and beautify the more unseemly framework of human life with forms that are as the sweet flowers to a rugged landscape. As the imagination bodies forth The forms of things uuknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothings A local habitation and a name.— (Applause). Mr Ashcroft then proceeded at some further length to speak of the usefulness and importance of poetry in such, a materialistic age as the one we live in, and then beDran his selec'ions by reading Tennyson's simple but beautiful description of '" The Poet. " The other extracts from Tennyson's works were one from "Locksley Hall," and "Dora;" then came Maud Muller by Wliitcinr, an American Poet. As poetry of a different class, Mrs Biowning's forcible and pathetic " Cry of the Children " ; and Thorn's " Mitherless Bairn " were given. Extracts were also rend from the well-known woiks of Byron, Sir W. Scott, Professor Ay town (BonGualtier), Thos. Hood, Campbell, &c, &c, all of which were designed to illustiate the different classes of Poetry. The Reading was well received, and those present frequently testified their approbation by their applause. Mr W. L. Lees kindly presided at the harmonium at intervals. At the conclusion, Mr Ashcroft intimated that it was the intention, on the part of the Committee of the Institute, to form a Debating Society, and hoped such a deserving scheme should receive good support.